The Magician's Daughter

by Judith Janeway

  I screamed louder.

  “Stop screaming.” He kicked me again. I felt something in my side give.

  I rolled into a ball and kept on screaming. The next two kicks landed on my back. Shock waves of pain radiated over me like an electric current. Someone had to have heard me. They’d at least call the police, even if they wouldn’t confront Dwayne themselves.

  “Just shut the fuck up.”

  I gasped for more air, let loose another screech and tried to roll out of the way of his feet. It didn’t work. The next kick landed on the side of my head. Lights out.

  ***

  A woman’s voice woke me. “No, oh no.”

  Elizabeth?

  “Oh my God.” Anguished tones.

  Not Elizabeth, then. Anguish had never been in her emotional vocabulary. “It’s okay,” I tried to say, but it no sound came out. My throat hurt from all the screaming. “I’m all right,” I said in a hoarse whisper, opening my eyes to prove it. There wasn’t anybody leaning over me. Must’ve dreamt it. I inhaled an acrid odor. Seemed familiar for a second—then I couldn’t smell it anymore. Must’ve dreamt that, too. I closed my eyes. Maybe I could go back to sleep and dream that my head didn’t hurt.

  The beep-beep sound of cell phone dialing had my eyes open again immediately. I slowly turned my head. A woman with short dark brown hair wearing gray tailored pants and jacket knelt next to a man lying sprawled on the floor. Not Dwayne. This guy wore a suit. I couldn’t see his face because she blocked my view. The woman spoke into her phone in a low voice. I couldn’t make out the words, just that they were clipped and urgent. I tried to sit up. Big mistake. I groaned.

  The woman turned her head. “Wait a minute,” she said into the phone. She covered the mouthpiece. “Don’t move. Let’s check you out first.”

  She averted her head and spoke rapidly into the phone again. She didn’t say good-bye or wait for the other person to say anything, just hung up, slipped the phone into her pants’ pocket, and moved to my side all in one fluid movement. I tried to see beyond her to the man on the floor, but she stayed right in my line of vision.

  “I’m okay.” I slowly moved first my arms then my legs. “Just a cracked rib, I think. And my head hurts.” I fingered a lump on the side of my head. “Who’s he?”

  “Can you identify the man who attacked you?”

  “It wasn’t him. He was wearing a blue mechanic’s outfit, not a suit. His name is Dwayne.”

  “Dwayne who?”

  “Dwayne, short on brains, long on muscle. Dwayne, who kicked me when I was down. That’s all I know.”

  “Do you think you can stand up?”

  “Sure, just give me a minute. Why don’t you see if you can help the guy over there?”

  She gave me a steady look. “I can’t. He’s dead. Let’s go next door to my apartment.”

  “Dead?” I struggled to a sitting position, even though my side screamed at me to stop. “Are you sure? Maybe he’s just unconscious.”

  “He’s dead. He was shot.”

  I stared at her. Dwayne had had a gun? Why shoot that guy and not me? “Where’s Dwayne now?”

  “Good question. He’s gone. I checked the other rooms. Let’s get you out of here.” She moved to a crouch, facing me. “Put your arms around my neck and hang on.”

  I did as she said. She looped her arms under my armpits and stood up bringing both of us to a standing position. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but then she’d done most of the work. The room tilted a bit, then righted itself.

  “Which side hurts?”

  “The left.”

  She shifted to my right. “Just keep your arm around my neck. You can put your weight on me.”

  I risked turning my head to look at the still form sprawled on the floor with his head turned away from me, profile outlined by a pool of blood. I stared at it, and then at the spray of blood that speckled the carpet and furniture beyond. So much blood. More even than the time the coyotes had broken into Aunt June’s chicken coop. But that was just chicken blood. This was a person. And that acrid smell. I’d recognized it. The same smell of Aunt June’s shotgun when she’d fired uselessly at the coyotes running away. The room did its tilting act again. I must’ve suddenly leaned more weight on the woman, because she bent her knees and braced herself to take my weight.

  “It’s just a short way. Think you can do it?” Something in her crisp matter-of-fact tone told me she wasn’t really asking. She aimed to get me out of there.

  I wanted to leave, to get away from the crumpled body, the awful blood. But it didn’t seem right somehow. I didn’t even know who he was. One of Elizabeth’s friends? Or had he heard my screams and come to help? “Shouldn’t someone stay with him?”

  “This is a crime scene. The only help we can give Eric now is to preserve the evidence needed to jail his killer.”

  “Eric? You know him?” I dropped my arm from her shoulder and pulled away. I was just a little dizzy. I could stand on my own.

  “Yes, I knew him. Come on now. I’ll explain when we get to my apartment.” She didn’t make any effort to take my arm or compel me to go with her—no physical effort, anyway. But her determination that we should leave the apartment was a force in itself.

  “I need my things.” I gestured to the contents of my duffel that were now dumped in a pile on the floor. When had that happened?

  She shook her head. “Have to leave them until the evidence recovery team’s been here.” She moved toward the door and gestured me to follow, which I did by the time-proven method of putting one foot in front of the other. After a couple of steps the dizziness disappeared. I passed through the open door of the apartment, its lock smashed. It had been kicked in.

  The hallway was surprisingly empty. Where was everybody? You’d think with all the screaming I’d done, not to mention the gunshot I’d been too unconscious to hear, there’d be at least a couple of people. Maybe they were cowering behind bolted doors.

  In a matter of moments, the woman guided me through the doorway of her apartment. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Elizabeth’s apartment had been decorated with tasteful furniture and neutral colors, in keeping, I was sure, with her current scam. Elizabeth’s taste always matched who she was pretending to be at the time. This woman’s apartment was a bower of chintz. The small love seat and the two upholstered chairs across from it each wore a different pattern. The pillows stacked on all the furniture sported different flowery material, although everything blended in shades of pink and lavender—even the curtains. Why would a woman who wore no makeup and dressed in tailored gray flannel decorate her apartment like this?

  “Have a seat.” She gestured to a tiny sofa that had so many pillows piled on it, it wasn’t clear where anyone would find room to sit down. “I’ll make us some tea, unless you’d prefer coffee?”

  “Tea’s fine.” I sank down gingerly on the sofa and gazed around the room. Every wall held glass-fronted cabinets with the largest display of ceramic figurines I’d ever seen. All of them pale elongated figures glazed in pastel shades. I recognized them. One of Elizabeth’s many husbands, “Uncle” Artie if I remembered right, had had figurines like these on display in his living room. His dead wife had collected them. Like the flowered décor, they just didn’t match their owner. “You have an amazing collection of Hummel figurines. Have you been collecting Hummels for a long time?”

  She put her head around the corner of the kitchen door. She had her cell phone to her ear again. “What did you say?”

  “All these Hummels.” I gestured toward the figurines. “Must’ve taken a long time to collect them.”

  “Yes. Quite a long time,” she said. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I waited until she retreated to the kitchen, and I heard her clinking some dishes. I stood up, my knees shaking. T
he figurines were Lladrós, and she was a liar, in on a con with Elizabeth. Or worse, in with destructive Dwayne. I had to get out of there fast. I headed for the door.

  She must’ve heard me even though she was still murmuring into her cell phone, because she came out of the kitchen. “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs to wait for the police. So I can let them in when they get here.”

  She moved quickly and intercepted me before I could get halfway across the room, pocketing her phone as she moved. “That’s not a good idea.”

  Even without a broken rib, I wasn’t a physical match for her. I’d have to talk my way out of this one. “I think it is, and I’m going.”

  “I can’t let you do that.” She approached me, and I backed away until I bumped against the little sofa. “Let’s sit down, and I’ll explain.”

  “I think I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself. Look, I’m supposed to keep a lid on this until my boss gets here, but I’m going to have to trust you’ll keep what I tell you to yourself.” She paused for a moment, as if debating whether to continue. “I’m with the FBI.”

  I just managed to keep my face straight. I’d known more about running cons when I was five years old than this woman would know in her lifetime. Her line was classic, her delivery flawed. My only hope at this point was to play along. “Do you have some identification?”

  She reached into an inner pocket of her jacket, pulled out a leather folder and flipped it open. I gazed at her likeness and the official seal. I’d never seen a real FBI agent’s identification, so I didn’t know how good it was, but it would convince anyone who didn’t know better. “You’re Eugenia Philips?”

  “Call me Phil,” she said with a lopsided grin. “Please.”

  I revised my opinion. That “call me Phil” along with the grin was good. If I didn’t know better, I’d fall for it, and the story that she’d spin, too. “Okay, Phil, what’s the confidential reason you can’t let me go downstairs to meet the police?”

  She gave me a sideways look, as if she suddenly had doubts about revealing the big secret. Maybe I should’ve acted more impressed by the FBI agent bit. “First, tell me who you are, and why you were in Beth Hull’s apartment.”

  I could say let’s wait until the police come, and I’d tell them both at once, but it was pretty clear at this point that she hadn’t called the police. I needed to convince her that I wasn’t a threat just long enough to get out of there. “I’m Valentine Hill, Elizabeth’s daughter.”

  “I know her pretty well, and she never mentioned a daughter.”

  “Must’ve slipped her mind.”

  “You go by Hill?”

  “It’s Elizabeth’s real name, but you know that, right?”

  “You call her Elizabeth?”

  “Except when I call her Mommy Dearest.”

  That gave her pause. “Do you have any identification?”

  I lowered my gaze. My search for my identity had brought me into this mess in the first place, but there was no need to spill my guts to this imposter. I had what passed for my official identification in my back pocket, but it would be wiser not to give Phil, or whoever she was, any more information than absolutely necessary. “You told me I had to leave all my stuff next door for the crime scene guys.” I shifted my feet. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  “You look a lot like her.”

  “Looks are all we have in common.”

  She hesitated, giving a good show of making up her mind to tell me what she’d planned on telling me all along. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  It took an act of will not to roll my eyes. “My lips are sealed.”

  She narrowed her eyes at my flip answer, but she knew, and I knew, that she had to go through with the script. “Beth—or Elizabeth, as you call her—is working with us. Through her, we’re going to get evidence to convict a major bad guy. Someone we’ve been watching for years, but have never been able to get anything on. Nothing that would stand up in court, anyway.”

  Elizabeth was helping the FBI. Yeah, right. I would’ve laughed out loud, except it hurt to laugh. “This ‘bad guy’ is what, a mobster?”

  “No, that’s part of the problem. He’s a highly respected member of the community. No one would ever believe what he’s really into.”

  Now I got it. Elizabeth, with Phil’s help, was running a blackmail scam on a wealthy mark. It wasn’t too clear how she was playing it, but with Elizabeth, the more twists and turns, the better. But what did I care how she planned to work the con? I just needed a way to get past Phil. Now that Phil had revealed the “secret” to me, she had a good excuse not to let me go, even if I took a blood oath never to tell. What could I possibly say that would convince her?

  The sound of the downstairs door buzzer stopped me. Maybe the neighbors had called the police? Phil crossed to the intercom. “Philips here.”

  A man’s voice said something succinct. I couldn’t make out what, though. Phil pressed the downstairs door release button and turned back to me.

  “Is it the police?”

  “Not yet. Our people have to take care of some things first.”

  “What things?”

  “Crime scene. Loose ends. And we need our liaison in place.”

  She couldn’t have been more vague. Why answer in the first place? It was all a fairy tale, anyway. I could only hope that she hadn’t guessed that I knew it was a fairy tale—one without a happily-ever-after for me.

  “Would it be all right with you if I stretched out on your bed while you tie up those loose ends? I’m feeling pretty bad.”

  She blinked a few times, as if bringing me into focus. “Sure. Of course. You got pretty banged up, didn’t you? Go ahead and lie down. We’ll need to interview you before you talk to the police. But, I’ll make sure that you’re seen by a paramedic as soon as possible.”

  “I’m sure I’ll feel fine if I can just lie down for a few minutes.” I turned and headed slowly toward what I knew to be the bedroom, because Phil’s apartment was a mirror image of Elizabeth’s. Just as I entered the bedroom, I heard a knock on the front door. I pushed the door almost shut, stood behind it and strained to hear what they said. Phil greeted them with “Hey guys” so there had to be more than one. I heard a man’s deep voice saying something about “containing the situation.” That was one way to speak of the dead man lying next door. Deep Voice must’ve asked something about me, because Phil told him I was lying down.

  The door closed. No more voices, but I heard someone moving around. I tiptoed over to the bed. First, I’d make it look like I was lying down. I stuffed pillows artistically under the bedspread—an old trick, but with any luck it would work. I crept over to the window and peeled back the curtains to get a view of the fire escape. A great way out, if only I could get to it. But the windows in here, unlike the ones in Elizabeth’s bedroom, had new locks on them. Keyed locks. Phil, or more likely whoever really lived in this apartment, wasn’t taking any chances with thieves making off with her Lladrós. Bad luck for thieves. Worse luck for me.

  I turned and leaned against the wall. If I didn’t have a broken rib, I’d have risked trying to outrun Phil, or one of her posse of goons. Had Elizabeth recruited this team herself? When I’d lived with her, she’d sometimes work with one other person—usually me. Twice she’d had others in on the con, but not often.

  The window was locked, the front door guarded. I’d run out of options.

  “Just stay in the doorway, Phil. We’ll wait for the ERT Unit.” Deep Voice again.

  At the sudden sound of voices, I ducked behind the bed. I crouched there, heart thumping, until I realized that the voices weren’t coming from the living room. Weirdly enough, they were coming from the walk-in closet.

  I eyed the closet, its door halfway open, and shuddered. I’d spent a life-defining forty-eight hours locked in a closet w
hen I was a child and hadn’t had much tolerance for closed-in spaces ever since. I dragged reluctant feet over to the closet and opened the door wide.

  “What the hell’s keeping them?” That was Phil, and with the door open not only could I hear the voices better, I could also see right through the back of the closet to another closet—Elizabeth’s. They’d cut an opening the size of a small doorway through the wall between the two apartments. So this was Elizabeth’s real escape route, with the window open to the fire escape to mislead. The fire escape might’ve been just for show for Elizabeth, but it was a real way out for me, if I could only make myself walk into the closet and out the other side.

  It took me a good thirty seconds to work up the nerve. I held my breath like someone jumping into the deep end of a pool, walked into the closet, and ducked through the low doorway. The light from behind me shone dimly, so it wasn’t completely dark. I’d never have made it if it was, but I had to get out of the closet soon, no question about that. Just being in there made my heart jump around in my chest and my hands sweat. The voices weren’t coming from the bedroom. I pushed the door fractionally open to check. No one said anything. I pushed it open a little more, just enough for me to slip out. I had to cross the room to reach the window. If someone in the front room looked this way, I’d be toast. Go now! My feet stayed glued to the ground.

  “What’s that stuff?” Deep Voice again.

  “Belongs to the girl.”

  Who was she calling a “girl?” I was a grown woman. I was…I straightened. I was the Great Valentina. Magician extraordinaire. Capable of amazing feats. I could make myself invisible. I could disappear into thin air.

  I scanned what I could see of the bedroom. Since, in fact, I hadn’t managed to make anything as large as a person disappear into thin air yet, I’d better go for the alternative—duck and run. I dropped to my knees and crawled out of the closet. The bed would hide me from anyone not actually in the bedroom. From the bed it was a quick angle to the upholstered chair. I crouched behind the chair and looked at the window. It was open much wider than it had been when Dwayne had dragged me in here. Dwayne himself must have used it to get away. At least I could be sure that the fire escape worked. I listened for voices. Nothing. I counted to three and made my move. One step to the window, one leg over the sill, other leg following immediately and ducked down below the window sill onto the metal bars of the fire escape. No one yelled out. They hadn’t seen me. Maybe I was better at the invisibility thing than I’d thought.