Pimpernel

by Sheralyn Pratt

  She pressed two fingers to her neck. “Is it really that fast?”

  “It is,” he said calmly. “And if tonight’s going to work out the way we want it to, then we need to get you back down into normal ranges more than we need you to keep running those numbers.” He pointed over to her desk. “You have all the numbers both in that notebook and on your phone. Even if you forget every single one of them, you’ll still be okay tonight.”

  “I know,” she said, taking a deep breath in through her nose before letting it out of her mouth. “I just don’t want to mess up.”

  “And I want you in prime condition when you walk into that room,” Jack said, giving in to the urge to reach out and touch the curve of her jaw. “But every muscle in you is tense, all the way down to your lockjaw.”

  She froze, definitely not soothed by his touch, but not jerking away either. “Yeah. It’s pretty much a constant condition.”

  He sat down on the bed next to her. “Claire?”

  He hated that she braced herself. “Yes.”

  “You’re very close to having another panic attack, and that wouldn’t be good for any of us. Would it be okay with you if I did some things to help calm your heart and mind down?”

  The look she gave him was laced with suspicion. “How do you know what a pending panic attack looks like?”

  To be honest, or not to be honest? That was the question.

  After looking in Claire’s eyes and seeing how vulnerable she was, there was only one choice. “Because I was raised in an environment where panic attacks were not altogether rare.”

  Her eyes narrowed as if she was curious in spite of herself. “Where was that? An ER?”

  “In the world of magic,” he confessed before watching her doubt turn to curiosity. If nothing else, she wasn’t thinking about those numbers anymore, so that was a win.

  “Magic?” she repeated as if the word was somehow foreign to her.

  He nodded, showing her his hands. “I understand pressure points that can help eliminate anxiety. It’s one of the perks of being raised by parents who train you to escape knots while submerged in tanks of water.”

  Claire’s eyebrows shot up in horror. “That’s horrible! Your parents did that to you?”

  He smiled. “Only because I begged them.”

  He had her full attention now, and as a magician, he knew exactly what to do with it: distract her.

  “The truth is that what passes for magic on a stage is mostly just the application of intense discipline and practice,” he explained, making his trusty silver dollar appear before her eyes.

  She blinked in surprise. “How did you—”

  “The trick for the magician is to make difficult things appear simple and simple things appear difficult,” he said over her as he tossed the coin for her to catch. When she caught it and looked back up at him, Jack showed her that the coin was back in his hand while her hands were empty. “My goal is to keep you focused on one point while I do all the work somewhere else.” He disappeared the coin so that his hands were empty again. “Most magician skills require intense training to learn to relax, even when everything in your mind and body is screaming for you not to. It doesn’t come naturally. When I was learning water tricks and escapes, my mom used to apply light pressure to points that would help send soothing signals to my brain as I pressed my face into water for longer and longer periods of time.”

  Okay, he shouldn’t have said that. It might be a fond memory for him, but Claire looked stricken, a pulse of panic appear in her delicate throat.

  “Your mother?” she rasped. “Did that?”

  “She never would have let anything bad happen to me,” he reassured her. “She kept me safe and taught me well.” Since my father wouldn’t, he thought bitterly.

  Claire’s frown showed clear doubt of that fact. Time to backtrack.

  “The question is, do you want me to help fight off some of that tension before you go into that room tonight?” he said, trying to sound as aloof and clinical possible. “I may not know exactly what you’re going through, but I am familiar with anxiety responses. Magic, done right, looks easy, but it is dangerous and requires intense concentration. No panicking allowed. Sometimes even sweating isn’t allowed.”

  Claire watched him for several beats, her eyes blinking as she processed his offer. “A massage?” she said. “You’re offering a massage right now—in the middle of all this?”

  “Not a massage like you’re probably thinking,” he said quickly. “Just simple acupressure points. Neck, head, and shoulders. Light touch only, and nothing weird.” Although now that he was saying it out loud, it kind of sounded weird. “It’s all stuff my mom did to me while teaching me to cope with stressful environments. Soothing, not sensual. I promise.”

  Okay, now that the words were out of his mouth, they sounded weird. They hadn’t sounded that way in his head.

  Jack didn’t know the name for the odd look Claire was giving him as she considered his offer from the center of the bed. Then a smile crept onto her lips. “So we’re going from two people who lied to each other full-time, to two reluctant partners in crime, to massage buddies? That’s quite a progression.”

  “It’s an offer,” he said as evenly as possible, noting that his distraction tactics were already working. She was calmer. He could see it in her face. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of how uncomfortable the conversation was. She was right. His offer was odd, and he had to be careful as he toed the line between distracting and alienating.

  When Claire didn’t respond, he stood from the bed, putting distance between them. “I made this weird, didn’t I?”

  “By walking into my room uninvited and offering me to show you massage techniques your mother taught you?” Claire said. “No. That’s totally normal.”

  She still had her sense of humor. That was good. He took another step toward the door. “I’ll leave now, and come back when it’s time to go. Relax as much as you can in the meantime.”

  Claire’s eyes studied him. “Or…you could show me these pressure points that helped you not to panic when your parents locked you in tanks of water.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe they did that.”

  Jack shrugged. “Some kids learn how to ride a horse or kick a ball. I learned to shock and amaze. And, in my parents’ defense, I was a teenager at the time so tying me up from time-to-time was probably cathartic.”

  Claire actually looked amused as she got up off of the bed and moved over to her study chair. “You should tell me about them while you perform the miracle of showing me what relaxing feels like.”

  He should have known that bringing up his childhood was a bad move. He shouldn’t tell her any more. It wasn’t safe. Yet seeing those brown eyes of hers look up at him with such honest curiosity had him wanting to channel a tell-all biography.

  “Okay,” he said, moving behind her and turning the chair to face her wall mirror so she could watch what he was doing. Anything that would make her feel more in control was a good thing. His mom had taught him that as well. “Is there anywhere you’d like me to start?”

  She met his eyes in the mirror. “With the massage or the story about your parents?”

  “Either,” he said.

  She smiled. “I’ll let you decide what needs to be done with your hands. But where to start with the story? I guess…how old were you when your parents started training you to be a magician?”

  He pressed a hand to her tiny neck, getting a feel of the vice-level of internal tension gripping her there. “I started training as soon as I had the motor skills—maybe two or three,” he said, lightly pressing his thumb and finger against either side of her neck and holding them there. “The first thing you learn is manual dexterity. Card tricks. Coin tricks. Things like that. You learn the trick until you can do it with your eyes closed. Then you learn the misdirection techniques needed to pull off the tricks under the most watchful eyes. That’s how it starts. Other skills come later.”


  “Like escaping knots?” she asked, allowing her head to drop forward.

  He nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her eyes were closed. Good. “Yes. Escaping knots comes later—real knots, at least. You learn the trick knots early on, but part of the show often requires allowing audience members to tie the knots.” His mind recalled those moments of his parents’ shows vividly. “Sailors…scout leaders…they’re not going to do you the favor of tying a trick knot, so you can’t rely on beginner tricks in the professional world—especially when the ropes hit the water and start bloating.”

  Claire’s eyes blinked open and eyed him in the mirror. “So how did you escape?”

  He sent her a smile. “Sorry. Magician’s secret.”

  She shook her head. “I always thought those volunteers were pawns.”

  “That’s a weak magician’s trick,” he said. “True magic needs no cooperation. I might be biased, but I think magic is one of the truest disciplines. It trains the body, mind, and soul and demands perfect execution every time. Pretty much everything else I can think allows room for error or sloppy technique, but not magic. You get it right every time, or everyone sees the trick behind the magic and calls you a fraud. Keeping people blind, even if they know what you’re about to do, is part of the thrill.”

  Claire had nothing to say to that—at least not out loud—but she looked thoughtful as she considered his words. Thoughtful, but not tense. That was a good thing, so Jack kept his focus on working through her pressure points.

  “Did your parents force you to be a magician?” she asked after a while.

  “No. It was clearly their passion, but they didn’t force it on us.”

  “Us?” Claire echoed. “You had siblings?”

  Jack mentally berated himself for oversharing. Here he was going on about how magic had made him so disciplined, and he lets a detail like that slip? Well, too late to backtrack now.

  “One,” he said. “An older brother. He got the looks in the family, whereas I got the ‘What did the milkman look like?’ jokes. I don’t look like either of my parents.”

  “And who does your brother look like?” she asked.

  “My dad,” he said flatly, thinking about how girls had always thrown themselves at his brother. There were six years between them in age, and it still hadn’t changed the fact that girls in Jack’s grade had only ever been nice to him in an effort to visit his house and be close to his “dreamy” brother, Nate. Then came the day his brother had bought a Camaro and restored it. From that day on, Jack had officially become the invisible brother.

  Nate was the bad boy with the cool car and the dark looks that made women want to be a little wild before they tried to save him. But Nate had never wanted to be saved. He’d always been the one who wanted to do the saving.

  “So is your brother a magician, too?” Claire asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.

  Jack laughed. “It’s not his thing. I think he officially wrote off magic when he was eight. He’s always wanted to be a detective—to catch frauds, not be one…his words.”

  Claire was relaxing under his hands, the iron muscles of her neck actually giving a little under his touch. The quick progress felt like a small victory.

  “My parents were bummed, but supportive of his choice,” Jack said, keeping his voice smooth.

  “So did you feel like you had to take up magic?” Claire asked, her eyes peeking open to watch him. “Because your brother rejected it?”

  “No,” he said. “You’d have to meet my parents to understand. If our family legacy of magic ended with them, they’d be okay with it. And I have cousins. Lots and lots of cousins. One of us always keeps the tradition going. It’s a very distinct lifestyle. You can’t successfully force it on someone—not in the long term.”

  “Hmmm,” Claire mumbled, and he could tell she was thinking. As long as she kept relaxing, he didn’t care. He kept going, following the sequence he’d experienced more than once in his lifetime. It had always worked for him, and he was glad it seemed to be doing the same for Claire.

  “I can’t even imagine the world you grew up in,” she said after what felt like several minutes. “Experiences like training to hold my breath for long periods of time probably would have made me more of an obsessive basket case than I already am.”

  “Probably not,” he said lightly. “Ultimately, all that training was quite empowering.”

  She seemed to consider that. “My upbringing should have been empowering. I had every advantage a kid can get. Wealth. Opportunity. Exposure.”

  Jack didn’t like how she tensed as she spoke, as if forcibly blocking words that wanted to be said and undoing what little progress he’d made on her tension in the process.

  She wasn’t saying something. She wasn’t saying a lot.

  Jack moved up to start working on her scalp. Lying was more difficult when your head was being massaged.

  “But kids need more than wealth, opportunity, and exposure,” he said gently. “Were your parents around while you were growing up?”

  “They provided for me,” she said, both avoiding and answering the question at the same time. “Everything I asked for was given to me, and I’ve always had the best doctors and therapists.”

  Jack nodded in acknowledgment even as he bit back questions he wanted to ask.

  “Sometimes my dad would take me on business trips with him,” she added. “Whenever he went to a city known for its beauty and architecture, he brought me. He’s always been really into beautiful buildings—especially those that have withstood the test of time.” She smiled as she recalled the memory. “He used to talk me through the techniques that created the most stunning landmarks around the world, whether they were used in cathedrals, palaces, fortresses, or a common barn. My dad didn’t care what the final building was called, only how perfectly it was made.”

  In the mirror, Jack watched the smile fade from her lips.

  “That happened less and less after he learned that he wasn’t really my biological father,” she confessed. “After that, he wasn’t all that interested in me anymore.”

  The admission surprised Jack enough that he almost forgot what he was doing. He already knew Everett wasn’t Claire’s father from Margot’s research, but he hadn’t known that Claire had known, or that she would trust him enough to tell him. “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Eleven.”

  No hesitation. No quick math. No guessing. She knew when her father had cut her out of his life, probably down to the day. Jack wondered if that’s when her relationship with the best therapists money could buy had started.

  “He said it was a relief, in the end,” she continued. “My brothers were in their late twenties at the time, and they were much more fun to hang out with than a little girl, so my dad stuck to investing time into his actual kids and left me to my mom.”

  Wow. Talk about depressing. Claire might think being locked in trunks was child abuse, but he’d take his childhood over hers any day. His parents had been madly in love, even if they had liked to fight as much as they liked to make up. Their house had rarely been quiet, but not a day had passed when Jack hadn’t felt seen or loved. From what he was hearing, Claire had pretty much experienced the opposite.

  “That sounds like pretty rough news to get when you’re eleven years old.”

  She shrugged. “Some kids get far less than that. In the big scheme of things, I still lucked out compared to other children.”

  “Maybe,” he said, falling into silence while his hands worked. It had been a long time since Jack had felt the urge to hug someone, but his arms itched to hold Claire now. His heart felt bruised for her, each beat like a little rabbit punch in his chest. She just seemed so alone in the world. Horrible parents and selfish brothers had created a belief that she was fundamentally unlovable, which had kept her from reaching out and creating friendships with people around her.

  How could someone so goodhearted be so alone in the
world?

  The heat building in Jack’s chest felt dangerous, as did the growing impulse to walk around to the other side of the chair, pull her up, hold her, and tell her everything was going to be okay. That would not be good…for either of them. Yet if he didn’t walk out the door, that was exactly what he’d end up doing.

  “I think you’re good,” he said, glancing at his watch while finishing up. “We have fifteen minutes before we have to go. Tie up any loose ends and meet me in the living room.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice sounding groggy.

  Then Jack walked out the door without looking back.

  Chapter 30

  It was Go time.

  Claire had made it past all the security checkpoints and down the elevator. When she pressed her thumb to the lock of the secret office the private level of the hotel, the light flashed green and the door opened. Half of Claire expected the door to lockdown and sirens to blare the moment she stepped into the room, but it was business as usual with the dome camera on the ceiling capturing every move she made.

  Act normal, she coached herself. Do everything like you always do.

  The door slid shut and locked behind her. That was normal, but this time, it felt like a prison. If Mr. SUV figured out what she was doing before she finished, could he lock her in the room? Did he have that much remote administrative power? Hopefully, she wouldn’t find out.

  Sit down and start making the avatar, and don’t look up again for 60 seconds, she coached herself

  Two cameras in the room allowed the Mr. SUV to watch Claire during business meetings. The first was the dome camera at the top of the room, which gave him a full view of the room and everything in it. The second camera was attached to the computer itself, which allowed Mr. SUV to watch the meeting live.

  According to Margot, both cameras were about to become irrelevant. The computer in the room was unhackable, allowing authorized users, like Claire, to authorize transfers to and from accounts, but the cameras in the rooms were a different story. They were wired into the hotel’s grid, and therefore totally hackable.