Disappearing Nightly (10 page)

Dixie frowned. “So the victims are still here, but we can’t see them?”

“Exactly!” Barclay said. “
Or,
maybe they aren’t still here. Maybe that same force can propel them through great distance, so they reappear somewhere else.”

“Like on
Star Trek?
”

“Yes!”

“I just love
Star Trek,
” Dixie said.

“You do?” said Barclay. “Me, too!”

“Really? What’s your favorite
Star Trek
show?” Dixie asked, eyes shining.

“I like the classic series best,” he said promptly. “Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy.”

“Me, too!”

“You’re kidding!”

Dixie said, “I thought I was, like, the only one. I thought
everyone
else was more into the newer series.”

“I had the biggest crush on Lieutenant Uhura,” Barclay said.

“I was in love with Mr. Chekov.”

They smiled and their eyes met in warm understanding.

Satsy destroyed the moment by saying, “Back up a step. If our victims have reappeared elsewhere, then why haven’t any of them phoned home?”

“Hmm,” Dixie said. “That’s a good point. Dolly would’ve phoned.”

“Samson, too.”

“Maybe they’re somewhere without phones?” Barclay guessed.

“Some of them have been gone for days now,” Satsy said. “Where could they be, that they’re that far from a phone?”

Barclay slowly looked heavenward.

“Outer space?” Satsy cried in despair.

Dixie gasped. “But that means they’re all…”

“Uh, okay, bad theory,” Barclay said quickly. “Maybe they’ve been propelled through time, instead of space.”

“Well, that would explain why they haven’t gotten in touch,” Satsy admitted.

“Time,”
I said, glancing at the clock. Although these had felt like some of the longest hours of my life, it was now later than I’d realized. “I’m going to have to leave for a while,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

“We’re thinking about Chinese,” Barclay said.

I blinked. “You think Chinese people are causing the disappearances?”

“No, we were thinking of ordering Chinese food,” he said. “Should we get enough for you, too?”

“Oh! Yes, thanks.” I told him to include Duke and Max, too, who’d be back soon. Then I picked up my heavy daypack, particularly glad after that phone call with Duke that I’d planned ahead before leaving my apartment today. I took the pack into the bathroom at the back of the shop and assumed my disguise: boots with three-inch heels; a blond wig; heavy makeup that exaggerated the fullness of my mouth; very dark sunglasses; and a high-collared raincoat in a leopard-skin print that belted tightly at the waist.

When I came out, Satsy asked, “Why are you in drag?”

“I’m not in drag,” I said, “I’m incognito.”

“Wow!” Dixie’s eyes widened. “Are you, like, famous?”

“I have to go to check on Herlihy’s crystal cage, and I can’t risk being seen by anyone else who might be checking on it. Such as my producer.” I spun around once, then struck a pose. “If you walked past me in the street, would you recognize me?”

“No,” Dixie said, sounding like she hoped this was the right answer.

“No way,” Satsy said. “I
never
would have figured you for an animal-print person.”

“Barclay?” I asked.

“No, you look sexy!”

Trying to view this deflating comment in a positive light—I was evidently as unrecognizable as I wanted to be—I told them I’d be back in about an hour. Then I went outside, cut over to Hudson and hailed a cab. No way was I
walking
to Magic Magnus’s shop in three-inch heels.

If Magnus was giving priority to repairing the crystal cage, as Matilda had told me, then he could put me in an impossible position if he worked fast enough. So I was hoping to convince him not to tell Matilda the cage was repaired until I gave him the heads-up. He’d get paid for his work, either way; but I’d only be able to keep my job in the show if the cage wasn’t ready to go back onstage until
I
was.

On my previous visit to the shop, Magic Magnus had given me the impression that he liked me. And I thought it unlikely that anyone but Joe liked Matilda. So there was a reasonable chance I could get Magnus to cooperate. Especially if, as Barclay thought, I looked sexy in my disguise.

More anxious than ever to avoid Matilda now that she was undoubtedly in a vindictive mood, I got out of the cab half a block away and approached Magnus’s shop with stealth. I paused casually in front of the window to make sure there was no one I recognized in the shop, and—

I gasped and shrank away from the window.

Good God! Lopez. Inside the magic store.

The very last person I expected to bump into! What was
he
doing here?

Realizing that I wasn’t doing a good job of looking casual, I stepped closer to the window and pretended to browse as I spied on the detective. He was talking to Magnus, and neither of them noticed me. Lopez was taking notes. Magnus was nodding and gesturing.

So Lopez was still investigating the case! I reached for my cell phone, planning to notify Max. He might be back at the bookstore by now.

Then I hesitated. What I would tell him? All I knew right now was that, contrary to what we’d thought last night, the police were interested in this matter. All I would accomplish by giving Max this news would be to make him anxious. He’d already said he didn’t want them involved, and now I agreed with him; it would only complicate an already perplexing situation. Whatever was going to stop the disappearances, it wasn’t going to be a pair of handcuffs, that much seemed certain.

All right, simply alarming Max was pointless. I needed more information.
Why
was Lopez back on the case—or still on the case? The last time we met, I thought he had dismissed it altogether unless further evidence came to light.

“Further evidence…” I murmured.

Is that why he was here now? Did he know something new? Something we didn’t?

I had to find out.

Counting on my costume and a little acting to protect my identity, I entered the store. Both men looked at me. Magnus’s eyes lingered with interest. Lopez dismissed me with a glance and returned to questioning Magnus.

“I’ll be with you in a few minutes, miss,” Magnus said to me.

“Take your time,” I said in a Queens accent.

I browsed while listening to their conversation. Within moments, I realized that Matilda had reported the destruction of the crystal cage to Lopez. I wanted to slap myself on the forehead. Of course! She couldn’t let vandalism like that go unreported, and it made sense that she’d call the cop who’d given her his card after interviewing her about Golly’s disappearance just a few days ago. Lopez was following up on her complaint.

Damn.

Destroying the cage last night had been necessary; I didn’t question the decision in hindsight. But in doing it, we’d inadvertently wound up drawing Lopez’s attention to the prop. His presence in Magnus’s shop now and the detailed nature of the questions he was asking made me uneasy. I could tell we had stirred some instinct in him. Even if he still believed Golly had simply walked off when no one was looking, two incidents involving the crystal cage, just a few days apart, bothered him. He smelled something now. He didn’t know what it was, but he was following his nose to see where it led.

I wondered how to get him off the scent. Should I even try? The truth of this case was something beyond his earthbound cop’s imagination. Maybe he’d just chase his tail a bit, then give up. So maybe doing nothing was the best way for me to ensure he never got any closer to connecting the vandalism to me and the three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old wizard who’d used his magical powers to disable the locks of the theater and melted the crystal cage with pyromancy.

In response to Lopez’s questions, Magnus was talking about a marginally similar repair job he’d done two years ago. When Lopez asked for the customer’s name and address, Magnus said it was in the office and gestured to the red curtain behind him, adding, “But it would take me a while to find it.”

“It’s important,” Lopez said.

Magnus shrugged. “Okay, but I need to help this customer first.”

“I’ll wait,” said Lopez.

Since I couldn’t talk to Magnus about stalling Matilda with Lopez standing right there, I said, “Oh, I just
love
these clothes!” I gestured to the vulgar costumes on the clothing racks. “Would it be okay if I tried on a few things?”

Magnus smiled, oozing sultry delight. “It would be my pleasure to indulge you.”

It apparently didn’t occur to him to wonder why I was wearing my sunglasses indoors. But I suspected Lopez was starting to wonder. He wasn’
t ogling me, the way Magnus was, but he was paying attention to me now, and something bothered him. Maybe it was my sunglasses, or maybe it was unconscious recognition of something familiar. He’d seen me in costume twice before now, so there might be things about me ringing a bell even in this disguise.

I turned my back and started choosing outfits. “Where’s the dressing room?” I asked, keeping my accent firmly in place.

“Back there.” Magnus pointed. “Take your time, love. I’ll be only too happy to give you my
full
attention as soon as my business with this gentleman is finished.”

“Thanks.” I gave
my
full attention to a lime-green lace-and-sequined confection, hoping they’d both ignore me now.

“Detective?” Magnus said.

“Hmm?” I sensed from Lopez’s distracted reply that he was still looking at me.

“Right this way, Detective.”

“Oh, right.”

I heard footsteps moving away from me, and then the rustle of the red curtain that hung in the doorway to Magnus’s office. I looked over my shoulder and saw, with relief, that I was alone. I wondered if I should just leave now, before Lopez came back out of that room and got another look at me.

Then I thought of the crystal cage. It was probably upstairs, right where I’d seen it last time. I
could go have a look, see if Magnus had done any work on it yet. See exactly how damaged it was. I’d been so shocked last night after watching Max destroy it with his strange power, my memory of its condition was rather vague. And I could hover up there, out of sight, until I was sure Lopez had gone. I checked my watch. It was closing time for Magnus, so no one else (no one named Matilda, for example) was likely to come into the shop and disturb my conversation with the red-haired magic maven once Lopez left.

I put a slinky, hot-pink gown back on the rack and, moving on tiptoe, crossed the shop and went upstairs in search of the crystal cage.

At the top of the stairs, I took off my sunglasses so I could see, took off my raincoat so I wouldn’t be hot, and removed my boots so Magnus and Lopez wouldn’t hear my footsteps over their heads. The second floor of the building was just as chaotic as I remembered, a maze of jumbled cartons, boxes, crates and equipment. It was dark, due to covered windows, and very dusty, due to Magnus’s lack of a cleaning service. The crystal cage was not where I had expected to find it. Nor did it seem to be anywhere on the second floor, which took me some time to search in silence.

This was turning into more of a quest than I had anticipated, and I was getting exasperated. But since I hadn’t heard Lopez leave the shop, I couldn’t go back downstairs. So I ascended to the third
floor, figuring I might as well use my time productively instead of just squatting at the top of the stairs and cursing Lopez. I found a yank cord, turned on the light over the stairwell and stealthily climbed the stairs to the third floor in my stocking feet. At the top of the stairs, there was a big rack of sequin-and-lace-and-Lycra outfits in colors so bright they made me blink.

I rounded the rack—and walked straight into a small Asian woman with a huge snake wrapped around her. I squealed and jumped. She screamed and flinched.

“Urk!”

“Argh!”

The snake moved its head, and I realized it was real. I started screaming in earnest. I’m scared of snakes.

“Yaaaagh!”

I stumbled backward into the rack of clothing. It fell over with a deafening
smash-bang-clatter-clang!
I fell on top of it. Two more people started screaming—which was when I noticed there were two more people here. I was lying on my back atop the fallen garments, my arms and legs flailing. The snake-wrapped lady leaned over and extended a hand to help me, but the sight of the snake’s face approaching mine only made me scream louder. Then the other two people were tugging at her arms, trying to haul her away from me. After a moment’s hesitation, she went with them.

Magnus was shouting somewhere below, then I heard footsteps thundering up the stairs behind me. A moment later, two stunned men were looking down on my prone, flailing body with identical expressions of astonishment.

Magnus stood there holding a spear (a
spear?
I thought), gaping at me in stupefaction. His red-bearded jaw worked a few times, but no words came out. Then he looked around quickly, as if searching for the other people. But he still said nothing.

Lopez sighed, holstered his gun and squatted down beside me to remove my blonde wig. “Hello, Esther.” He looked me over for a moment. “I assume there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this?”

I’
ve studied improvisation, which teaches you to think on your feet. So I was ready for Lopez’s interrogation by the time he seated me in a straight-backed chair downstairs in Magnus’s office and asked how I happened to wind up sneaking around the magic warehouse in disguise.

“I was looking for the crystal cage.” Spy novels had taught me to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“Why didn’t you just ask Magic Magnus where it is?”

“Yeah!” Magnus piped up, sitting at his desk.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Before now,” said Lopez.

“In my truck,” Magnus said. “I picked it up from the theater today. Planned to unload it tonight or tomorrow.”

“I thought you were giving it priority!” I said in vexation.

“I am.”

“By leaving it in the truck all day?”

“I’m a busy man.”

“Not too busy to flirt with customers!” I shot back.

“I—You—Well, I…Oh, never mind.” He made an exasperated gesture and gave Lopez a look that indicated how unreasonable I was being.

Wearing his cop face, Lopez was watching us lose our tempers with each other, clearly waiting to see if any interesting comments would slip out in the heat of the moment.

I met Magnus’s eyes and wondered why there was a big snake on the third floor. As if reading my mind, he suddenly flushed.

Evidently recognizing that we were done snapping at each other, Lopez said to me, “I see you’ve made a remarkable recovery.”

“Recovery…” I suddenly realized that Matilda had talked about me. That should have occurred to me before now. “Yes, I became ill during the performance last night.”

“All better now?”

“No,” I said. “I’m feeling quite weak. May I go?”

“Not yet.”

“I may vomit,” I threatened.

“We’ll get a bucket,” Lopez said.

“I think I should go home.” I stood up.

“Sit down.” His voice was clipped and hard.

“But—”

“Sit.”

I sat.

He propped himself on Magnus’s desk, folded his arms over his chest and stared at me. I stared back. It would never do to tell him so, of course, but the stern, don’t-mess-with-me attitude was kind of sexy on him.

“What happened last night?” he asked.

Still sticking close to the truth, I said, “My whole worldview changed.”

He frowned. “Go on.”

I said, “Look, I
told
you I thought something was wrong. I
told
you I was anxious about getting into the cage without knowing what happened to Golly.”

Magnus muttered, “Women are always saying ‘I told you so.’”

“So you ran out on a performance?” Lopez asked, looking like he might be willing to believe me.

“I can’t answer that in front of
him.
” I pointed at Magnus. “He knows Matilda.”

Lopez glanced at Magnus. Magnus blinked and said to me, “I won’t tell Matilda what you say now if you don’t tell her the crystal cage has been sitting in my truck all day.”

Lopez looked back at me, a faint sparkle entering his long-lashed blue eyes. “Deal?”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“Well?”

I explained that Joe had been such a wreck during rehearsal, as had I, that I wound up preparing to go onstage last night, in Golly’s place, without having done a complete run-through of the show. And without having practiced the vanishing act since her disappearance. I just couldn’t do it, I told Lopez. I was too scared of what might happen in the crystal cage. “I wasn’t entirely faking, I did feel ready to toss my cookies.
Again.
And, well…” I shrugged. “I freaked out and, yes, ran out on the performance. Which,” I added defensively, “is the only time in my life I’ve ever done that.
Ever.
I even went on as Little Red Riding Hood in the third grade when I had stomach flu and kept throwing up backstage.”

Lopez startled me by asking, “Who was the doctor?”

“The doctor?”

“You know,” he prodded. “The doctor who made a house call to your dressing room last night? The one who told your producer you were too ill to go on? That your condition was highly contagious?”

“It is?” Magnus blurted.

We both looked at him.

“Never mind,” Magnus said.

“Well, Esther?”

“Just a performer,” I said.

“Where’d he come from?”

“The street,” I said. “He was a street act. I offered him twenty bucks to help me.”

“His name?”

I wondered if Matilda had told Lopez the name. I wondered if she had reported or would report Max’s visit to her today, now that she and Lopez were on such chatty terms. Could I risk pretending I didn’t know Max’s name, or would Lopez just catch me in the lie?

I said, “I told him to call himself Dr. Zadok.”

“Why?”

“Just came into my head.” I couldn’t tell if Lopez believed me.

He switched the subject on me again. “How’d the crystal cage get destroyed?”

“Is it really destroyed?” I asked, feigning dismay rather well. “Matilda wasn’t exaggerating?”

Lopez unfolded his arms and lowered his hands to his sides, bracing them against the desk. He had nice hands. Nice wrists, too, smooth and golden-skinned. Not hairy like some guys.

“Why were you looking for the cage here?” He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching when he added, “In disguise.”

“Matilda called me this morning making all sorts of threats and accusations. I don’t know what happened to the crystal cage, but I know she’s blaming me for it.”

Lopez seemed to be trying to keep a straight face as he said, “And the obvious solution to the problem was to behave as suspiciously as possible?”

“I wanted to find out what happened to the cage. I couldn’t call Matilda back and ask her, sh
e was so vicious to me. I had to see Magnus. But I couldn’t risk bumping into Matilda if she happened to come here this afternoon to nag Magnus.”

“Which would be just like her,” Magnus said wearily.

“So I had to make sure Matilda wouldn’t recognize me.”

“I didn’t recognize you,” Magnus admitted.

“But you did?” I asked Lopez curiously.

He smiled a little. “No. The high heels, the makeup, the wig, the sunglasses, the voice, the accent, the posture…It was all good. Very good.”

I beamed. “Thanks!”

“But I wondered why you were still wearing sunglasses while you were looking at clothes.”

“Ah.” I’d thought so.

His gaze lingered on my face. “And even skilful makeup and a wig can’t hide those cheekbones.”

Our eyes locked, and I suddenly felt warm.

“I didn’t know it was you, but I’d have figured it out if I’d had another couple of minutes. Something clicked.”

“That’s why I turned my back.”

“Of course.” He lowered his gaze. “But even from the back…”

“Yes?”

“Well, there’s something about you in tight clothes that sticks in my mind,” he admitted. “So you still looked familiar. I just didn’t know why.”

“Tight?” I said indignantly.

“That raincoat’s tight, Esther.” He glanced up and added, his eyes glinting, “In a good way.”

“Well…I guess it is a bit tight,” I said, flustered. “I get stuff like this at church sales and thrift stores to wear as rehearsal costumes. It’s a lot easier to start getting into a role if you dress for it.”

“That makes sense.”

“Anyhow, yeah, I guess that coat is a little small for me.” I was babbling. “But it only cost me seven dollars, and—”

“It looks good on you.”

I blinked. “Really?”

“
Excuse
me,” said Magnus. “Are we done here?”

Lopez cleared his throat and resumed questioning me. “So you come into the shop, and Matilda’s not here. Why not take off the dark glasses and be straight with us?”

Thinking it best to avoid explaining that I was spying on him so I could report back to the Magnum Collegium’s local representative, I said, “Because it was obvious Matilda had reported the attack on the crystal cage to you.”

He pounced. “Attack? What makes you think it wasn’t an accident?”

“Because she’d reported it to a cop. And since I knew she was blaming me, I thought you were probably blaming me, too. Which,” I added sourly, “seems to be the case.”

“Finding you sneaking around here in disguise has contributed a lot to my blaming you,” he shot back.

“I was just trying to avoid exactly what we’re doing right now!”

“What
are
we doing right now?” Magnus asked plaintively.

“I was going to come downstairs and talk to Magnus as soon as you’d left,” I told Lopez. Looking at Magnus, I added, “I was going to ask you what had happened to the crystal cage and how long it would take to repair it.”

Lopez said, “So now you’re suddenly eager to do the act?”

“Not really,” I said. “But with Golly missing, whatever happens with the cage affects my career. So I am interested.”

“What made you start screaming?” Lopez asked, in yet another deliberately sudden change of topic.

“Up on the third floor?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Magnus suddenly shaking his head at me, behind Lopez’s back. I said, “It’s dark upstairs. There are shadows, weird magic props, creepy replicas. Something up there moved….”

Magnus shook his head a little more frantically.

Still looking at me, Lopez said, “What moved?”

“I didn’t know at first, so I screamed. I was startled. Then I realized it was a mouse. And I fell over at the same time. Then I screamed because I didn’t like being on the floor with a mouse running around.”

Both men looked like they weren’t sure whether I was telling the truth.

I added with a shudder, “I
hate
mice.”

That helped. They both seemed to relax a little.

I didn’t know why Magnus didn’t want me mentioning the three staff members I’d seen upstairs, but he evidently didn’t. Now he looked as if he hoped I hadn’t seen them and really was as scared of mice as I claimed. Or maybe he was worried about the snake? Was there some reason he couldn’t risk a cop hearing about it? I wondered if permits were needed to keep a reptile that big in the city. Maybe it wasn’t properly licensed or something?

So apparently I now knew a secret that Magnus wanted kept. That might come in handy, if I needed any leverage to convince him to stall Matilda about the crystal cage until Max and I had solved the problem of the mystical disappearances. But talking to Magnus about that was not something I could do with Lopez present. So I decided to try to get rid of the detective, who was running a hand over his ruffled black hair as if his head was starting to ache.

“Are we done now?” I asked him.

“For the time being,” he said.

“I can go?” I’d lurk outside, wait until he left, too, then double back here to confront Magnus.

“I’ll take you home,” Lopez said.

“What?” I blurted.

“Or wherever you’re headed next.”

I was headed to Zadok’s Rare and Used Books next. But not with Lopez as my escort.

“Not necessary, Detective,” I said firmly, rising to my feet.

“Oh, I insist.”

“But I—”

“Let’s go.”

He took my arm. We both paused and looked at each other. It was nice to be touched. By him. He blinked, then dropped my arm and stepped away. He thanked Magnus for his time, then held aside the red curtain and made a gesture for me to precede him.

“After you, Miss Diamond.”

Lopez had a nondescript car parked illegally near the magic shop. A handy official notice propped in the window warned other cops not to make the mistake of assuming that parking statutes applied to this vehicle the way they did to others.

He opened the passenger door for me, then got into the driver’s seat while I buckled up.

“Where to?” he asked. He kept his gaze forward and was frowning slightly.

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” I heard myself say.

He let out his breath and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. “Esther…”

We were silent for a moment, not looking at each other.

“We can’t have dinner together,” he said at last.

“I wasn’t asking—”

“Yes, you were.” He lifted his head and sat back.

In for a penny, in for a pound, so I said, “Okay, why can’t we have dinner together?”

“I can’t date someone who’s part of a current investigation.”

“It wouldn’t be a date.”

“Yes, it would,” he said, “and you know it would. You know it’s been on my mind ever since I saw you without glitter and green body paint all over everything but your teeth.”

“It has?” I asked, pleased.

He gave me an exasperated look. “No, I always make inappropriate comments when I’m interviewing women, Esther. It’s my ambition to get suspended for sexual harassment.”

“I think your comments to me are nice.” But only because
he
was the one making those comments. I liked Lopez saying things to me that, in fact, we both knew he shouldn’t be saying, given the nature of our acquaintance.

“Well, they’re meant to be nice.” He smiled as his gaze traveled over my face. “But the point is…” Our eyes locked and we found ourselves in a staring contest. “The point is…”

“Yes?”

“Huh?”

“The point is?” I prodded, unable to look away.

“Um…I think I’ve forgotten the point.”

“I think it was that we can’t go on a date?” I said.

“Oh! Yes!” He blinked. “Yes, that’s the point.”

“But I don’t see why—”

“Just how much are you not telling me about what’s going on?”

That caught me off guard. As it was meant to do. The cop’s tactic of changing the subject abruptly with a new question. “Uh…I don’t know what—”

“I should press you harder,” he said, looking down. “I should take you down to the station, get in your face, scare you.”

“We could still do that,” I said. “The night is young.”

He laughed. Then he sighed and shook his head. “The problem is, I can’t do that to you.”

“A cop who can’t pressure and scare people? Maybe you’re in the wrong line of—”

“I can’t do that to
you.
”

“Oh.” I got a little warm again.

“But I’m not an idiot, Esther.”