The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “Hey there, son. Mind you, we don’t take to scamps around here. You just move it along, eh?”

  “I’m looking for . . .” She pulled her elbow from his grasp. “Some help.”

  “And we cannot help you here. That’s certain.”

  “No, I . . .” It made sense to give up the explanation that she wasn’t a shoe-shine boy. He didn’t look inclined to listen anyway. “You see, I received a business card from a gentleman just now after I shined his shoes. But the card has no address. He stepped out of this theater not long ago, so I thought you might know where I can find him.”

  She held the card up in front of the man, gripping it firm with two hands.

  “You. A kid? You received this from Harry Houdini?”

  She nodded, hoping she looked confident enough to believe it herself. “Yes.”

  “Harry Houdini, the famous escape artist? You want me to believe he actually spoke to someone the likes of you?”

  “Just now on the street.” She pointed toward the shaded alleyway where she’d shined his shoes. “Over there.”

  Laughter rumbled up from his chest until he snorted and coughed.

  Jenny settled back, stiffening her spine while she waited for the lump to compose himself.

  “Listen, son. You can have your little cons, but you street chaps aren’t swift enough to pull one over on me.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, then straightened his tie and vest. He waved her off with a flick of the wrist, then turned his gaze somewhere above her head. “If that man had walked into this theater, I would know. His name means something. And yours, if you even have one, does not. So be off with you. I have work to do.”

  There was nothing to do but turn away.

  The summer sun bore down hotter somehow as Jenny melted through the crowd outside the Criterion, not caring for any more patrons that day. She had a card in her hand. One that was foiled in gold and with a strong name in block letters. A name that people knew. And respected. One that meant the man behind the stage curtain had once reinvented himself too. He could have left his own past behind, if he’d wanted, and become someone new up on stage.

  She shuffled along the sidewalk in her fancy shoes, wondering if it was all real. If Houdini had actually meant what he’d said. In six short years, she could be anyone she wanted. She could think up a new name, just like he’d said.

  A new name for a life she’d imagine.

  “I’ll start again,” she whispered, feeling the sting of tears prick at her eyes. “And I’ll make my life whatever I want it to be.”

  A cathedral-blue sky behind the shadows of buildings painted the streets of Piccadilly in Wren’s subconscious.

  But it faded and soon she was tucked back in the memory of her childhood home. Before she’d gone to live with her uncle in London. Before her world had changed and she’d become the new itinerant version of herself on that street corner. Dwindling off in the distance, like a whisper on the wind, someone was calling her name. Her real name. Patting her cheek to awaken her.

  Jenny . . .

  She hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in ages. Warmth radiated in the embrace of fingertips to skin. She pressed her palm against the hand, gripping tight, not wanting to leave. Not wanting to wake up in the world of Wren Lockhart.

  Wake up, Jenny. You can wake up now . . .

  Her eyelids fluttered, still heavy. She fought the pull to fall back into sleep’s remembrance and blinked awake.

  A fire sizzled through its orange and yellow dance, flickering light around a parlor decorated in soft shades of buttercup and white. The fall of night still occupied corners the firelight couldn’t reach, even from an oversized hearth across the room. She could see little through the windows’ ivory gauze curtains flanking the sides, save for the presence of a few curious lights that twinkled in the far-off depths of the ink sky.

  “You’re awake. And you have some color back. That’s good.” Elliot cut into her thoughts, stepping into view at the foot of the settee.

  Wren cleared her throat softly, trying to summon her wits enough to speak. “What time is it?”

  He checked his watch. “Nearly three.”

  Remembering her injury, Wren drew her hand up to her shoulder. The tuxedo jacket was gone, replaced by the torn fabric of her silk shirt and layers of bandages tightly wound around her upper arm. A sling had been fashioned over her neck, gently hugging her arm to her chest.

  “The bullet went through muscle, but you’re going to be fine. Had to toss your jacket, though. Sorry about that. I know it was tailored. But I won’t tell you what it looked like.”

  “So it was a bullet after all.” She ran her fingertips over the rows of bandages around her shoulder.

  He nodded. “You’ll be sore for a while but should have full use of your arm again soon. Provided you rest, of course.”

  “Rest? I have months of shows left on the books. The timing on all this couldn’t be worse.”

  She closed her eyes on a sigh, silently adding: And an auto mechanic to find . . . and gun-wielding strangers to avoid, thinking of the car outside with fresh holes cut in the back.

  “I think you’re without an option on that now. But it’ll keep, for tonight at least.” Elliot knelt, offering a cup with steam that curled up from the confines of delicate yellow-and-white porcelain. “Here. I didn’t know how you like it.”

  Wren eased up to a sitting position, her shoulder crying out in protest. Her head swam. She steadied her good hand at her temple until the wave of sickness passed.

  “Take it slow.” Elliot leaned in, offering her an arm.

  When she swung her stocking feet over the settee to the hardwood floor, he handed her the cup, and after pausing and seeming to judge if she was able to stay upright on her own, he edged back into the wingback chair across from her.

  She eased the rim of the cup to her lips, breathing in the spicy scent. “Tea . . .” Wren smiled, uncaring that she was predictable in this one thing.

  It was a touch bitter without her favorite firewood honey to soften it, but the liquid was hot and she closed her eyes, letting it warm her from the inside out.

  “I thought you might not like coffee. I couldn’t find any Darjeeling, but it’s some English something or other I found in the pantry. I figured it would do.”

  “Thank you.” It felt right to open her eyes again. To connect with him as she said it. Finding his features void of anything close to “I told you so” somehow made it easier. “I mean it. Thank you, Agent Matthews.”

  He seemed to understand that she meant it for far more than the tea.

  “You’re welcome. And it’s Elliot from now on. No more of this agent stuff. We’ve just been through the wringer. And as I spent the better part of an hour cleaning blood from the front seat of your car, I suppose we could do without formalities.”

  His focus had been so sharp in the frenzied moments before they’d reached the carriage house, but now Elliot seemed without worry. He’d leaned back, legs crossed out in front of him, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and rolled at the cuffs. Content to stare into the fire-dance and sip from his mug as if they hadn’t a bumper full of bullet holes, nor any other care in the world.

  “So, where are we?” Wren suddenly felt uncomfortable with how content he seemed in her presence.

  He turned his attention from the fire back to her. “In Winthrop. At my aunt’s summer cottage.”

  The uninterrupted expanse of darkness beckoned her gaze out beyond the windows. It just registered that what she’d thought was the sound of rough wind before had actually been the toiling of the sea.

  “I suspected we were outside the city.”

  “That would be the North Shore.” He tilted his head toward the windows. “It was all I could think of at the time, getting us someplace that had no connection to Wren Lockhart. And heading back to the party or trying to take you home to Beacon Hill would have been expected.”

  Wren’s thoughts connected like falli
ng dominoes and she looked up, the possibility of what might have been suddenly overtaking her.

  “If you hadn’t gotten in that car with me outside the hotel . . . What would have happened if I’d driven away alone?”

  “But you didn’t drive away alone.”

  “I would have. Surely I would.” Fear rocked her. Wren sat up tall, sliding to the edge of the settee, ready to stand.

  Charlotte.

  “And what about my home? Irina? I have to find out if everyone’s safe.”

  Elliot’s brow creased with a tiny tilt of his chin in her direction. But he remained silent, raising a hand to settle her. “Wren—it’s alright. I telephoned, told Irina what happened and that I’d keep you outside the city for tonight. I’ve already sent a car with two men to watch over your house, so everything’s been looked after. We’ll have to discuss the security at your estate later, but for the moment, you don’t need to worry.”

  Wren swallowed hard. She was grateful, of course, even if she couldn’t tell him the entire reason why.

  “Did you sleep?” she asked. Quickly. Without thinking of anything but trying to change the subject from the flurry of unrestrained fears that pricked her heart.

  “Why? Do I look tired?” Elliot tipped the corners of his mouth into a faint smile and ran a hand over his brow to tousle his hair. “That’s what the coffee was supposed to help with. But the answer is no. Couldn’t take the chance that someone had followed us. Not with you knocked out like you were.”

  “I haven’t—” She looked around, only then considering she may be an unwanted guest in someone’s home. “Caused a problem, have I? For anyone here, I mean.”

  He responded with an aloof tip of the brow. “I seem to remember you bristling when I asked you that same question. But since you’re asking”—he held up his left hand, bare ring finger exposed—“there’s no one to impose upon. My aunt passed last year and left me this house. I have an apartment in the city so I rarely come back. It’s really kept up by the grounds keeper and his wife now. They live nearby and insisted on staying on tonight though, for propriety’s sake, even though I tried to explain that no one even knows we’re here.”

  Praise be for the lack of light in the room or he’d have seen that she’d actually blushed through his entire explanation.

  “And a doctor, I’d assume?”

  “Yes. No matter what some might think of the FBI, we’re not all experts at bullet wounds. I called my father’s old physician. He’s a kind man who won’t ask questions. And Mr. and Mrs. Framley have cared for the house for years. They loved my aunt, so they’ll be loyal to her nephew. The point is, we’re here and you’re safe. That’s what matters. We’ll work through the rest of the details tomorrow.”

  All too suddenly, returning assassins and their bullets no longer seemed the imminent threat.

  If Wren stayed in a fire-bathed parlor—in the growing comfort of this man’s presence—there was real danger that informality could gain a foothold between them. Her mind signaled caution as she studied him.

  Elliot watched the fire dance. He was stoic—content to sit alongside her, sipping coffee, without the necessity of words. That ease jarred her. The more time she spent with this man, the more her privacy was slowly being chipped away.

  First, her home. Her library, which was rarely used and certainly not a place to receive nosy FBI agents. After that, her stage—the one place that had always been hers alone. And now, the safety and protection of those she loved. The graze of the bullet cut much further than her skin; it threatened every convention she’d built around her carefully protected world.

  Elliot sighed and leaned forward. “Wren, I know you’re thinking something through. I can see it on your face. I’m just wondering if it’s the same thing I am.”

  “And what is that?”

  “If the bullets were meant for me or, I’m praying not, if they were for you—or Jennifer Charles.”

  As muscles go, Wren’s took on a life of their own, tensing in reaction.

  “Now, before you run out of here, I remember that you warned me. I know you don’t want to hear that name. But I think you may have to. Someone intentionally drew Jennifer Charles into the story surrounding Victor Peale’s death. It seems credible that Amberley could be involved somewhere, especially if she’s trying to even some score with you. And now after all this tonight, my gut is telling me that’s too much overlap to be mere coincidence. You won’t want to broach the subject of your past but, Wren . . . This is serious. You may not have a choice at this point.”

  “That name is . . .” Wren paused. “I . . .”

  “Yes?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I thank you for your help, Agent Matthews, but I must be going,” she blurted out, clinking the teacup in its saucer on a telephone table nearby.

  “But you’ve just been shot.” He got to his feet and placed his mug on the mantel, watching with wide eyes as she swept past him to retrieve her boots from the corner by the hearth.

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble for your family.”

  “There’s no family here to be concerned over. I already told you—it’s just me.”

  “Then I’ve caused enough trouble for you.”

  “Forgive me for pointing it out, but you can barely stand at the moment. While I don’t want to make a mountain out of a nick in the arm, it did require a couple of stitches. And you did lose consciousness for a time. I’d say that makes a couple of compelling reasons for you to stay put.”

  “Well, I’m awake now.”

  “But it’s the middle of the night. And whoever was after us is still out there. Those weren’t rubber bullets they were firing, you know. You can’t drive, so how are you planning to get home without killing yourself in the process? Keen on walking back to Boston, are you?” Elliot stared back at her, a sense of confusion marring his brow.

  It felt easier to turn away, not to delve into the depths of her unease with all manner of closeness. So she did, diverting her eyes to fumble through the impossible task of trying to tug her boots on with one hand.

  “I’ll manage. I always do,” she stated flatly, the leather awkward in her weak grasp. It took all the gumption she could summon not to wince with the pain that stabbed at the left side of her body when she slid each boot up her leg. She slammed her eyes shut for a second, absorbing the pain.

  “So that’s it? No explanation. You’re just walking out.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense to the FBI, but I live a certain kind of life. If someone wants a fight, I aim to give it to them. I’m no rabbit. And I don’t bend. Not for anyone. I stand my ground.”

  “We don’t know what ground you stand on right now—that’s the problem. I can’t protect you if you go.”

  That was it. The quiet side of Elliot’s manner had been pushed too far and he was reasoning near the top of his voice.

  “And I’m not asking for the federal government’s protection. I appreciate your help, Agent Matthews. I do. But I just can’t stay. And I can’t explain why except to say that people depend on me and I won’t let them down.”

  Elliot stepped up to her, stopping only inches away. He didn’t touch her—just lowered his body to look straight into her eyes.

  “It’s Elliot,” he added, his voice at a coarse whisper. “I won’t answer to anything else from here on out.”

  “You won’t have to worry about a here on out. I can’t continue with the investigation, not if it means giving up my privacy. The government will have to build its case without me.”

  “You’re right about that.” Regret laced his tone. “Because the next time those guys come after you, they’ll finish the job. Hired guns rarely miss on the first try. Never on the second.”

  “How do you know they were hired guns?”

  “Because they let you live, Wren. It wouldn’t have happened if they’d had a personal vendetta. But it doesn’t mean they won’t try again.”

  She tried to evade the fina
lity of his words, scanning the parlor for her things.

  Her jacket had been discarded. Her coat was folded on the end of the settee. She swept it over her arm and turned away, searching for her walking stick. She spotted it in the corner, gleaming black and silver-tipped, shining in the firelight.

  She’d snap it up on her way out.

  “You’ll be wanting these, too, if you’re bent on leaving,” Elliot said from behind.

  Understanding flooded her and she froze. Glanced down to the uncuffed wrist of her remaining shirt-sleeve.

  Empty.

  She spun on her heel to find Elliot standing, arm extended, two gold cuff links glittering out from his palm.

  “It’s how you unlocked the handcuffs, isn’t it? The metal hook affixed to these, along with the bell, concealed inside your sleeve.” He searched her face. “Though I still haven’t worked out how you prevented it from ringing until you made your grand reveal on Amberley’s stage.”

  He reached for her hand and opened her palm, then gentle hands closed her fist around the gold trinkets.

  “I took them off first thing, hiding them from the physician. I figured you were entitled to at least one secret, even if you were about to bleed to death before our eyes.”

  No one had confronted her about working out her illusions. Not since the day Harry Houdini himself had picked out her thimblerig on a Piccadilly street corner. Yet here he was, a man who knew so little about her, finding a way to pry open one of the locked doors to her life.

  “Don’t worry.” He eased back from her. “I hadn’t planned on telling anyone how you did it. Something about the entertainers’ code, right?”

  “You’re an entertainer now?”

  He shook his head, gazing at her with eyes so open and honest that she felt a brush of vulnerability wash clean over her. And guilt, knowing that he’d thought of her. Helped her. Risked his own life, too, when bullets were raining down on their car. And here she was, keeping a death grip on her privacy.