Mistress of Magic

by Heather Graham

  “Love is. Love is always the most important thing.”

  Chapter 11

  In the days that followed, the tension seemed to subside a little bit.

  Nothing happened. Reggie’s house was left alone, and there were no wild occurrences at the park.

  Reggie settled into a startling domesticity.

  She was still busy, with days that lasted well over twelve hours.

  But she was in love, and the feeling was wonderful. It gave her energy where she might have had none left.

  Wes seemed to have a wonderful instinct about her. He disappeared on his own during the day, but he never let her go home alone. Once, he and Max both appeared beside her as dinosaurs, playing with the children for the opening of the park. They were waiting for her outside the Dino Gals changing room, ready to take her to brunch in the park. And one night when he brought her home she was certain that a warm bath and a glass of wine would ease her tension and give her a new life for the evening. But after the warm bath he massaged her shoulders and she fell sound asleep and when he carried her up to bed, she was dead weight rather than a temptress. But in the morning she awoke to find him nibbling her ear, and she was instantly, searingly as awake and alive as anyone could possibly want her to be. And laying against his chest for the few idle moments that they had remaining, she talked about the accident, how Caleb had been hit, how he didn’t die right away, how he had gone into a coma, and how she had sat by his bedside every day for months until they had told her that his brain was dead and that they should take him off the machines. She had never talked about it. To anyone. Max had been with her most of the time, and she hadn’t needed to talk to him. But she had never forgotten any of it, nor Caleb. Nor how it had felt to know that she was holding his hand in life for the last time, or to believe in her heart until the very end that what was irreversible could be reversed.

  Wes didn’t say much. Nothing could make something like what had happened to Caleb be all right—it never would. You just learned to live around it, Wes told her. And you didn’t try to forget, because you couldn’t forget. You just remembered everything that had been before. She did need to let the pictures of the end fade, and remember the days when they had laughed together, remember the Caleb who had been young and confident, who had loved her.

  Later on that night she’d learned why he could speak so knowledgeably about forgetting the past. His ten-year marriage to Shelley had ended painfully, with the two of them fighting the cancer that had seized her.

  “She must have been really wonderful,” Reggie told him. “Max was a little bit in love with her.”

  Wes smiled. “Yeah, everyone was. She was beautiful, to the very end. The chemotherapy had stolen her hair, but nothing could touch her face, or her smile.”

  Reggie lay against him with nothing more to say. They were not divided by any of their memories. The memories were good. And Reggie told him that she was grateful for him, no matter what happened in the future, because she hadn’t been able to go out with—

  “Become intimate with?” he interrupted with humor.

  Anyone since Caleb. She had put her nose in the air; Wes had pulled her close. People handled things in different ways. She had closed herself into a shell. Wes had looked for anything to ease the pain.

  A week passed. Wes was still careful. He didn’t want her to be alone. Usually, Max was with her, or Wes was with her, and sometimes she and Diana just stuck together like glue. Time was going by quickly enough, so it seemed, but nothing had been cleared up. Daphne remained missing. Wiler didn’t say so, but when he passed by the house late one night to check with her, Reggie was certain that he was convinced Daphne was dead.

  Her body hadn’t appeared as yet.

  “Well, if she is dead,” Reggie told Wiler, “my brother didn’t do it. Someone else did. The someone running around trying to scare me to death in the costume shop.”

  “What if that someone was your brother?” Wiler said softly.

  “He was with Wes!” she exclaimed.

  Wes was looking at her. He didn’t say anything until Wiler left, but then she pushed him, certain that he was hiding something from her. Eventually he admitted that he and Max hadn’t been together, not until they had run into one another at the costume shop.

  “So you weren’t together. What does that mean?” she asked. But she knew what it meant.

  “It doesn’t mean anything, and that’s why I didn’t tell Wiler.”

  Wiler would think it meant something.

  He would think it meant Max might have been dressing up and trying to scare her.

  If it could have been Max …

  Then it could have been Wes, just as well.

  She shivered. Wiler would surely think that the people pretending to protect her were the very ones who were threatening her.

  No. Wes had been with her the night someone had been in the house.

  But Wes was convinced that there had to be more than one person involved in this. He was spending day after day at the police department, tediously going through records and using his military contacts to expedite some of his searches. Or so he was telling her.

  Max was innocent; Wes was innocent.

  Almost a week to the day after she had been frightened by the curious robotronic figure turned live, Reggie was at the saloon show. She had stopped to talk to a number of the guests after the show, then Bob had stopped her, asking how Max was hanging in and promising his loyalty again. By the time she went in to change, Alise had gone home for the night. And when she had hung up her red dress and black fishnet stockings, it was well past seven. She came through the main theater and started out through the audience doors.

  To her surprise, she found them locked. They were never locked until the cleanup crew came through, but they wouldn’t be here until eight—until the guests would most certainly be gone.

  “What in the world …?” she murmured.

  Then it settled over her. The awful feeling of being alone. And of being watched.

  And of waiting for something to happen to her. Something evil.

  She heard a series of loud clicking sounds.

  It was the stage lights, all of them being turned off.

  The overhead lights, made to look like gasoliers from the 1800s, began fading.

  The light that remained was gray and misty. Fear raced along Reggie’s spine. It seized her and froze her. She fought for sanity. She told herself that it was just someone trying to scare her. Someone trying to ruin the park. She would not be afraid.

  But she was.

  And almost in darkness.

  Then she heard the laughter. Uncanny, chilling. It came bursting from the darkness and swept around her. An eerie light appeared before her, coming between the tables where the performers walked to play with their audience.

  Someone was playing with her.

  In the center of the light was the figure. Black-clad with a mop of yellow hair, faceless, coming toward her. Slowly, then more swiftly, seeming to move without feet.

  A scream welled in her throat. Panic seized her. She started to turn toward the door, ready to pound on it and to scream in hysterical terror.

  Then somehow, from somewhere, she fought the terror deep inside her.

  It was her chance. She didn’t believe in specters, and she didn’t believe in ghosts. And if anybody knew the truth behind magic and illusion, it should be her. Fantasy was her business.

  She had made it her life. She was mistress of all this fantasy herself, and she wasn’t going to be duped by tricks of light and darkness.

  She turned, shoulders squared, chin firm. “Whoever the hell you are stand still and stop this lunacy! You will not hurt me, and you will not hurt Max, and so help me, I will see that you are locked away from society—and from any trick playing—for a long time!”

  The figure wavered. It stood still.

  Reggie took a good look at it and started walking forward. “Turn the lights on. Maybe we can discuss
this—”

  There would be no discussions.

  The figure wasn’t alone. Reggie hadn’t begun to think that the figure might have an accomplice. She had been determined not to panic.

  She heard the noise behind her too late. Even as she started to turn, something cracked down on her head.

  Then the magic of illusion came to her in truth. Stars, thousands of them, seemed to appear on a black curtain before her.

  Then the stars faded. In silence, she crumpled to the ground.

  “Reggie, Reggie! For the love of God, speak to me!”

  She opened her eyes slowly. For a moment they widened with panic; fear was the first sensation she remembered.

  Then she realized that she was lying on the floor in the dino-saloon and that her head was balanced tenderly on Wes’s lap. Sharp gold eyes were staring anxiously into hers. His fingers were carefully testing the back of her skull.

  She winced when he found the spot where she had been hit.

  “Hurt?”

  She nodded. Her eyes began to focus better. Max was hunkered down behind Wes.

  “And I didn’t hit myself in the head!” she assured her brother.

  He winced, then offered Wes a half smile. “Well, at least she isn’t hurt too badly. She’s as nasty as ever.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  Wes helped her sit up. “We’ve got an ambulance on the way,” he told her.

  “An ambulance? I—”

  “Reggie, we walked in here and saw you on the floor. My heart came to a complete stop,” Wes said firmly. “You’re going to the hospital. They’re going to take a look at your skull. And Wiler wants to talk to you.”

  “What happened?” Max asked.

  Reggie shook her head. God, did it hurt! For a moment she couldn’t remember anything but the fear. Then she remembered that it was her bravado that had gotten her into trouble. “The robotronic person was back. The blond-haired one.”

  “And the robotronic person hit you in the head?” Wes said.

  She shook her head very slowly. The motion hurt. “No. The robotronic wasn’t alone. I started yelling something—telling the person that I was going to have him or her arrested. But someone was in back of me.”

  “And you didn’t see who?”

  “Not a thing.”

  She heard footsteps then. Wiler was in the lead, two of his men were behind him, and two paramedics, a young woman and a young man, were behind them.

  “Miss Delaney, you do seem to have all sorts of things happening to you,” Wiler began angrily.

  As if she had wanted someone to conk her on the head!

  “It’s nice to see you, too, Wiler,” she said sweetly. Wes lowered his eyes, grinning, but then he stood and addressed Wiler.

  “You want to back off a little? She’s been hurt. She needs head X rays.”

  “But my head is fine!” she protested.

  “No, it isn’t. It hurts like a son of a bitch,” Wes assured her.

  “I can’t go to a hospital—”

  “They’ll just keep you overnight. For observation,” Wes assured.

  “Hey, I’m not waiting for tomorrow to talk to her,” Wiler said.

  Reggie was trying to rise. The paramedics were beside her, each taking an arm. “Miss Delaney,” the young woman said, “you should take it easy. Really.”

  “Reggie, damn it, go with them!” Max commanded.

  “I can’t take it easy—”

  “I can play dinosaur,” Wes assured her. “And you can be out by the saloon show tomorrow afternoon. That is, if you behave decently tonight.”

  The paramedics had her lying on the stretcher, which they had set on wheels. Wiler was arguing with Max, who was arguing angrily back.

  “Wiler, damn it, give him a break, will you?” Wes suddenly exploded. “His sister has just been hurt, his ex-wife is still missing, his place is under some kind of absurd vandalism, and you won’t let him breathe! Why isn’t someone looking around here, trying to find out what has happened?”

  “Oh, I see, Colonel, the military would be handling it better, right?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  “Well, maybe I’m not looking around because there isn’t going to be anything to find!” Wiler said. “And the fingerprints I’m going to get will be from hundreds and hundreds of Mr. and Mrs. Americas!”

  “There’s surely something—”

  “Well, then, you find it, Colonel Army Intelligence!” Wiler said. “This is a loony bin.” He turned, staring from Reggie on the stretcher to Max standing above her. “This is some kind of an inside job, and until one of you wants to get straight with me, there just isn’t going to be a damn thing to do! Let’s hope it happens while you’re still living and breathing, Miss Delaney!”

  Furious, he stalked off. Max tensed, as if he would go after him, but Wes caught him by the arm. “It’s not worth it, Max. It’s not worth it.”

  “Boy, he’s mad, isn’t he?” the young male paramedic murmured, looking after Wiler. “For my money, the cop hasn’t got any right to act that way, Mr. Delaney.”

  “We did come on a medical emergency,” the young woman reminded everyone.

  “But it isn’t an emergency,” Reggie protested. “Two aspirin and a cup of tea—”

  “Let’s get Reggie in for a checkup, huh?” Wes said. “Max, he’s right. We’re not going to find anything here. Not now. Reggie is more important.”

  Reggie kept protesting, but it was all to no avail. She was taken to an ambulance; Max and Wes hung back. She closed her eyes in the ambulance, but the young woman wouldn’t let her fall asleep.

  “Bad day for you, too, is it?” Reggie asked her.

  The paramedic laughed. “Not at all! Your brother offered both Jim—our driver up there—and me yearlong passes for entry to the park. It’s great! I love the place.”

  Reggie closed her eyes. “So do I,” she said softly.

  The young woman squeezed her hand. “Things will straighten out,” she promised Reggie.

  Reggie hoped so.

  But for the moment, they were going to get worse. When she reached the hospital, she found a nurse insisting she put on one of the ridiculous gowns that opened in the back and let a draft chill her to the bone. Barefoot and shivering, she went through a number of X rays. Then she found herself assigned a pleasant young doctor, and then a bed. She did manage to get a private room because Max had been downstairs making the arrangements. Max was with her when the doctor came in to tell her that she had a mild concussion and that they would watch her for the night. Reggie insisted that she didn’t want to stay.

  “You have to,” Max said.

  “I don’t!”

  “You do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “And I’m saying—”

  “She’s staying,” came a voice from the doorway. Wes was there. He exchanged glances with Max and came into the room.

  The young doctor leaned back, a grin curling his lip, his arms crossed over his chest. “I can’t talk sense to her, and her brother can’t talk sense to her. Have you got an idea, sir?”

  Wes smiled pleasantly. “Yes. She’s staying. Because I’ll sit on her if it’s necessary to get her to do so.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” the doctor said. He flicked a light into Reggie’s eyes, first one then the other, and promised cheerfully that he’d see to it that she got ice cream after dinner. He left, and Max and Wes both burst out with compressed laughter. Reggie would have thrown her pillow at one of them, if she could have decided who she wanted to throw it at more.

  “Fine! Laugh!” she told the two of them. But Wes had already sobered. He took a seat by her on the bed, lacing her fingers with his. “Reggie, can you tell us anything more?”

  She thought about it for a minute. Then she shook her head. “The person is in costume with a mask and wig. What can I tell you?”

  “And what sense does it make to keep plaguing Reggie?�
�� Max asked unhappily.

  A nurse’s aide walked in with a dinner tray for Reggie. “I’m not hungry—” she began.

  “Yes, you are. You do want to leave in the morning, right?” Wes said.

  She gritted her teeth. “This is incredible!” she told him.

  “Yep. I’m arrogant, bossy and a lot more,” he assured her. Then he leaned down to kiss her forehead and added softly, “But remember, I’m ungodly sexy, too.” He straightened and looked at her brother. “Max, want to get a bite while Reggie eats?”

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  They didn’t want to eat. They wanted to talk, she thought. And they were going to talk about her. “Hey, you two—” she protested.

  But Max gave her a thumbs-up sign and they both disappeared into the hallway.

  Half an hour later they were back. Max gave her a kiss good-night. Wes curled into the big comfortable chair by her bed.

  “I’m consigned to this miserable place, not you!” she told him.

  He was silent for a minute. “Is this where Caleb died?” he asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Hospitals do good things for people, too, you know,” he told her.

  “The hospital tried very hard to do good things for Caleb,” Reggie said lightly. “It’s just the look of the walls, and the bed, and the scent of the place …”

  The hospital smelled clean, but it didn’t have an overly antiseptic smell to it, Wes thought.

  Still, he understood. Reggie hated to come here.

  She had to come. It was important to her health.

  Still …

  What would her health matter if they couldn’t understand what was going on? It was true that Daphne had disappeared.

  Now all the attacks were against Reggie.

  He thought—maybe—that he knew what was going on. Just maybe. But he had to prove it.

  And to prove it, he almost needed the attacks on Reggie to continue. His heart leaped and catapulted. He didn’t know if he could stand that. Seeing her tonight, so white and ashen and silent on the floor, he had felt as if the insides of his body had been ripped out.

  Not Reggie, not this beautiful woman with her spirit and her laughter …