The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “No. Not an entertainer. Just working with one,” he whispered. “And I wish to earn her trust.”

  “Trust isn’t part of my life.”

  “So you’d rather take risks with both of our lives, when you know I’ll only pick up and follow you?” He unrolled his shirtsleeves and buttoned them at the wrist. “Well, let’s go then. Best bundle up. The temperature’s dropping out there, and you’re down a layer without your jacket.”

  Wind battered the windows, nudging the panes with pinpricks of ice. It was one of those rare moments when falling snow didn’t come gently. It battled its way to the ground, wreaking havoc like tiny nails tossed against the panes of glass.

  “It’s your choice whether you stay, Wren. I won’t force you, even if it is for your own welfare. But if you feel you absolutely must leave, then I’ll go with you.”

  The firelight danced across his face, illuminating a terse jaw and an immovable will.

  It surprised Wren that she rather liked the fact that someone would stand up to her. It added an assurance she hadn’t known—maybe not ever. Though the timing and the person standing in front of her made it more fear-inducing than comfortable.

  “Why would you go with me?”

  “It’s what I do, Wren. It’s my job, to protect people.”

  She swallowed, judging the risks he’d laid on the table as the fire popped and danced behind them.

  More nails. More pelted glass.

  The gale raked against the walls, stirring the cottage with aged groans from the wooden rafters overhead.

  “By the sound of it, a storm is coming.”

  “I think it’s already here.” He waited with his hands at his sides. “The question is, do you want to face it alone or with help?”

  She acquiesced with a nod, crossing again to ease down onto the settee. “I suppose it seems wise to stay for a bit, under the circumstances.”

  He gave a slight smile, only giving off a hint of satisfaction that he’d won the battle. She reached over and allowed the cuff links to roll from her palm to the tabletop nearby.

  They both watched them fall, the golden secrets left exposed between them. The simple inroads of trust now placed out in the open too.

  “You said we need to talk about the case?” Wren reached for her teacup and took another sip.

  “Yes, but not here. I need my files to go over the details with you. We’ll have to do that tomorrow or the next day—if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “Then what?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll get there when we get there. In the meantime, you sleep.”

  “And if I were to follow your orders—which I’m not—what do you propose to do?”

  “I’ll stay awake.”

  “You’re mad if you think I’m going to let you sit here and be the hero who watches over things alone. That’s not who I am. So I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed that I’m staying awake with you until sunup.” She returned his smile with a genuine one of her own. “Then I’m driving us home.”

  CHAPTER 10

  FEBRUARY 6, 1927

  85 MOUNT VERNON STREET

  BOSTON, MASS.

  “You cook?”

  It wasn’t the way he’d intended to greet Wren the following afternoon, but astonishment carried the thought straight from Elliot’s mouth before he could stop it.

  He’d stepped into the back entrance to her Beacon Hill estate house, not sure what he’d find. The last thing he expected to see was Wren, hair soft and loosely waved in a navy checked scarf and clad in a pinstriped apron over her linen shirt and trousers.

  Wren didn’t look up as he clicked the back door closed behind him, just continued dicing celery and new potatoes at the center butcher’s block.

  “Good afternoon. You’re early.” Wren gave her customarily aloof welcome. She wiped her hand on her apron and glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I didn’t expect you until four o’clock. It’s barely three.”

  “Yes, well. I’m always early. And something about making sure innocent civilians aren’t threatened with bullets whizzing by makes me want to err on the side of caution.”

  Elliot had been taken aback at the casual nature of her transformation. It amused him to see the infamous vaudeville star doing something as normal as cooking for herself. With her wealth and success, he’d not have believed it—even though she’d already claimed to have no service staff outside of her manager.

  “Irina gave you my instructions?” She cupped the vegetables in her good hand, crossed the kitchen to the stove, and dropped the lot in a copper soup pot with curls of steam rising from its top.

  “She sent them and a key over by messenger, yes. Park in the back. Come through the iron gate to the kitchen—which I almost didn’t find—with the brick fence and the cover of trees positioned right up against the house. But the mudroom door was unlocked, so here I am.”

  The last bit exasperated him to no end.

  Wren was intelligent. And private to a fault. Maybe too much for her own good. It just wasn’t like her to be nonchalant about locking her back door, especially when she’d been chased down and pierced by a bullet just hours before.

  “You know, considering what happened last night, it’s not exactly safe to leave your doors wide open.”

  “We needed clams so Irina stepped out to Long Wharf to fetch them. I heard your auto engine, and it would have been a waste to go back and lock the door twice.” Wren turned back around to the butcher’s block. “But then you locked it behind you just now, didn’t you?”

  She was certainly proving a quick study about others’ habits.

  “No Agent Finnegan today?” Wren looked past him into an empty mudroom.

  Elliot shook his head. “He has another assignment.”

  Did she think it would be that easy for him to fall victim to her change of subject? He frowned. “You know, there should be a car out there. I ordered one to stay put. Any idea why they’re absent?”

  Wren kept her gaze down as she continued chopping, slowly but surely, even though her injured arm didn’t provide much help.

  “Oh, you mean the two plain clothes officers who were idling their engine at my gate all through the morning?” She tried to shrug, then seemed to think better of it with her injury. “I sent them away.”

  “And how did you manage that—against my distinct orders, I might add? It’s common practice to have security after something like what happened last night. There is such a thing as witness protection, Wren.”

  “But I’m not your witness.”

  “Regardless, you are important to this case. Someone trailed you last night. That should be enough to allow some small measure of protecting to occur.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be too hard on your men for leaving. I did march out there brandishing the blade from inside my walking stick and told them they had five seconds to remove themselves from my property or else find out what kind of mood I was in.”

  “You pulled a knife on federal officers . . .” He nearly slapped a hand to his forehead. “You can’t do that.”

  “I know how that bothers your very precise sensibilities, Agent Matthews. But might I add that the iron gate and brick fence are more than six feet high and the kitchen door was left open for you. Any other time it’s locked tight. But I doubt if anyone who really wanted entrance into this house would find their path blocked by a gate or a glass-paned kitchen door. Seems to me they’d just come in whether I want them to or not.”

  She tipped her glance to a walking stick leaning in the corner of the kitchen. “It’s been within reach all along.”

  Wren seemed quite serious about her capability to defend herself, wounded shoulder and all. Elliot doubted it but sighed. It would do no good to battle with her when he wasn’t likely to win anyway. To get agreement for a security detail to watch over her, Elliot would have to find a way to make Wren think it was her idea—or else he’d just have to do it himself.

  The aroma of fre
sh bread and seasoned soup stock clung to the air, stirring Elliot’s senses. It reminded him that he was not only sleep deprived, but that he’d scarcely eaten since the night before. Hunger slammed him in the stomach.

  “What are you making?” He shifted the leather briefcase in his hand.

  “I was just going to bring the base to a simmer while we work.”

  “So you make clam chowder often?” He took a step forward, inspecting the crate of produce on the island. “But no tomatoes, I see.”

  Wren’s head popped up so fast, a lock of her fiery hair curled down over her brow. She blew out her breath to push it off her eye but didn’t move, appearing horrified at his suggested sin of marring a proper Boston clam chowder with vine-ripened tomatoes.

  “It’s seafood chowder. Even still . . . tomatoes?” The sudden reminder of the youth she’d spent in the UK heavily seasoned in her accent. “You are actually from Boston, yes? Or was that just a lie to wheedle your way into this kitchen?”

  Elliot had to laugh at her sure-fired quip, though he kept it subtle. “You’re from Boston, too, but not with that accent. I’d wager it’s difficult for people to guess you hold such strong convictions about chowder when you sound like you’ve escaped from an English moor somewhere.”

  She looked at home in the oversized space, with brick walls and high ceilings and white glass-front cabinets that showed off normal things like dishes and everyday serveware. The sight of her without stage lights, her golden eyes exposed and real, brought an unexpected ease he couldn’t help but welcome. Perhaps it would stay for the remainder of the time they had to work together. If she was no longer on edge in his presence, it could speak well of his chances to glean the information he needed to break Stapleton’s case.

  “I’m surprised to see you chopping, with the arm and all.”

  “My arm is fine,” she said, showing no evidence of pain. She simply kept her eyes fixed on the task in front of her. “It’s already much better.”

  “Liar.” Elliot shook his head. “If you’re in pain, you could just ask for help. It wouldn’t be admitting weakness if you did.”

  “Well, Agent Matthews, now that you’ve seen the worst of me, brandishing a blade and up to my elbows in celery and root vegetables, I assume we are in each other’s confidence and can expect to work well together.”

  “It’s Elliot, remember? And I’ll have to taste the chowder first before making my final decision.”

  “Fine then.” She gave a single nod to the open door leading out to the hall. “You can go through if you’d like. I thought we’d work in the downstairs library. I’ll just finish up here and join you in a few moments.”

  Elliot nodded, taking his hat and briefcase with his notes on the case and walking toward the door.

  “And in the unfortunate event that curiosity should entice you to get lost, you’ll find every doorknob is locked down the length of the hall,” she called out behind him as he passed through the doorway.

  The custom Wren Lockhart superiority was clearly back in her voice. Had he actually seen the real woman in her kitchen or only just imagined her?

  CHAPTER 11

  Elliot wasn’t in the downstairs library.

  By the time Wren had returned from seeing that all was in order upstairs, the embers in the fireplace crackled in an empty room. She marched out the door, fear sweeping through her insides.

  What if Elliot had found his way through the hidden door in the library? Or worse yet, had gone upstairs? If he’d found out who Charlotte was . . . that she lived here at the estate and Wren had evaded answers about that part of her life . . .

  She wasn’t ready to open that door of her world to anyone.

  The sound of curtain rings clinking halted Wren in her tracks. She poked her head out into the hall again, this time noticing a wide swath of sunlight that cut into the darkness at the far end. More clinking sounds echoed, followed by a sneeze.

  It’s where she found Elliot, standing smack-dab in the middle of her dining room with the French doors spread wide.

  He’d removed his jacket and rolled the cuffs up on his forearms. Folders and stacks of paper had been arranged in neat piles across the length of her cherry dining table, and Elliot, unaware of her entrance, was sneezing under the onslaught of dust that clouded the air like the back room of a bakery.

  “I said we’d work in the library. What in heaven’s name are you doing in my dining room?”

  “I’m about to get sick, that’s what.” Elliot bent over to brace hands on his knees through a cough, then stood and ran a hand through his hair. He moved on to the final pair of jacquard curtains and yanked them apart, allowing a crisp winter sunlight to flood in through the row of windows lining the back wall.

  Wren stepped into the center of the forgotten room, all four slate-blue walls bathed in the late-afternoon sun. He stood with arms crossed over his chest, surveying the difference he’d made by allowing the sun to wash over an extended table and formal dining chairs for twenty and the large empty fireplace behind them.

  Truth be told, he actually looked proud of himself for finding endless ways to nose into her private affairs.

  The thought to blast him for never following instructions crossed her mind. She could have managed it, even though she’d essentially done the same thing by pushing the security detail off her estate. The words were about to part her lips, until she stopped cold.

  Wren turned back to the French doors that had been spread wide, concern flashing back through her. “Just how did you get in here? The doors were all locked. I made certain of it.”

  He waved her off with a flip of his hand. “Oh, I used the key.”

  “You what?” she challenged, rendered nearly breathless.

  “The one Irina messaged over. I figured these old stately houses use keys for more than one lock and it couldn’t hurt to try. So I did, and it worked.”

  If Elliot could get into the dining hall, what stopped him from going in any other rooms he pleased?

  “I’ll take that back now.” She held her hand out for the key, then her attention duly shifted. “Wait—did you go anywhere else?”

  “Of course not. I wasn’t on a snooping mission. I was looking for a workspace and I found us one. I’ve been in here the whole time. Double doors.” He pointed to the doorway. “Looked like it would be the biggest space. And please don’t take offense, but I just can’t work in that phony library of yours.”

  “Phony library! I’ll have you know the artifacts on the walls have been collected from around the world. It contains herbs and plants from the Orient and the South Pacific and art of a quality so fine that it could be hanging in a European museum.”

  “Then maybe you should have left it there. Honestly, they’re stage props at best. I don’t know what you’ve got in those jars, but if I’d had any lunch, the smell would have made me lose it. And that big cat on the wall? I couldn’t hope to focus with those glass eyes staring at us.”

  “That still does not give you the right to go prying in places you have no business to.”

  He moved to the table and slid out a chair opposite his. “You’re right here.” He patted the chair back.

  Wren kept her feet planted, crossing her good arm over her injured one, enough that she hoped to show her displeasure. Honestly, for how pensive he’d always seemed in her presence, he’d turned the corner to more free-thinking ways in the ten minutes he’d invaded her home.

  “I know you don’t want to be coaxed into anything, Wren, so I’ll just get to work and let you come sit when you’re ready. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot to do.”

  He settled into his seat, took a pair of reading glasses from the tabletop, and slipped them on his nose, ignoring her after that. He set about scanning the contents of a file before him.

  She waited. Tapped her foot through the silence. “Elliot, do you honestly propose to fight me at every turn? In my own home?”

  “Good. You called me Elliot. That’s progre
ss.” He turned a page. “And need I remind you what happened the last time you demanded to do something on your own? We ended up with a bumper full of bullet holes and you passed out from blood loss.”

  “I hardly think last night is relevant at the moment. And despite what you may have planned, I don’t intend for my home to become operation central for the FBI’s attempt to ferret out Horace Stapleton’s crimes. I’ll help you look for the truth, but only on my terms. And my terms are that you refrain from pushing in where you’re not invited.”

  He looked up from a stack of papers, eyes over the rim of his glasses. “Very well, Wren. I can do that.”

  Finally. He’ll see it my way.

  “But I think you might want to reconsider that whole no-staff thing you’re employing around this mausoleum. Seriously—it’s a tomb.”

  “If it’s a tomb, I like it that way. This room has been shut up for a reason. No one’s been in here for years.”

  Elliot dropped the stack of papers on the tabletop, took off his glasses, and set them on top. “And why is that exactly?”

  Wren stiffened her spine.

  “You’re not going to tell me. Classic.” He sighed, then motioned her over. “Well, at least come in. Sit down, and rest your arm. Maybe consider listening to what we’ve managed to scrape together thus far. Because I’m about to be buried under it—no pun intended, of course. But if we’re going to collaborate on who it is that wants one or both of us dead, we might want to take this seriously and stop talking about the drapes.”

  Elliot seemed to take her boldness in stride, until he leaned back in his chair. Glasses folded in his palms and waited, studying her.

  She never favored close inspections.

  Wren drew in a breath and, in the interest of ousting him from her home as soon as possible, gave in. She walked over to the table and slid into the chair opposite him.

  If she expected cheek from him or a superior air that he’d managed to win the battle of wits, Wren received neither. Instead, Elliot smiled, welcoming her to their workstation without pretense.

  “What do we know about Victor Peale?” she asked.