Lexie was in fifth grade but middle school loomed. The thought of what was coming: hormones, boys, angst, and other things, created the seeds of panic.

  “We’re grandparents,” his dad reminded him. “But we’re here to support and help in any way needed. You mom spends time with Lexie a few times a month. If you need your mother to talk with her, you let us know.”

  Lucas knew that, he did, but what he wanted to ask was, should he be actively looking for a wife. He always thought he’d know when he met the right one. Recently, when he thought about his future, he saw Belle: her radiant smile and her bright green eyes. He heard her joyous laugh...but she was so young. At least by ten years. “What do you think—”

  His phone buzzed. “Hello, Lucas here.”

  He knew it was Belle. He heard her breathing into the phone. Wait. Maybe it was more like a pant or a gasp.

  “I’m at Forsythia’s…the breakfast…there’s a dead body.”

  As Belle suggested, he came in through the front door and went right upstairs. Belle and another woman stood in the hall.

  “This is Samantha, Xavier’s assistant.” Belle motioned to the door. “He’s in there.”

  Any of his thoughts about Lexie and his ability to provide everything she needed fell away. In its place came the focus, his senses on high alert. He nodded and opened the door. He hadn’t met Xavier the Astonishing, but Lexie had shown him videos and mentioned more than once about providing security at the big show.

  It was definitely him.

  He saw the open window. He saw the pills, the water. He saw the way the sheets were twisted and rumpled. Was there a struggle? He saw the silk sash on the floor. When he stepped close there were no strangulation marks or bruises on his neck.

  There would need to be an autopsy. In the next few hours, he’d want statements from all the guests. Start narrowing it down. While he observed the scene, looking at the small details, the things that might be missed or unnoticed as important, he heard Forsythia in the hall.

  “You can’t stop me from going in there…what…Detective Graystone?” Dead silence followed. She barged into the room. “Detective, what is going on here? Who called you?”

  Then, she saw Xavier. Whatever steam or panic or anger she felt, deflated, it sagged, it faded. She was left staring at the body. Lucas studied the expressions from dismay to panic to worry. She looked to him, desperate. “Should I call 911? Can he be resuscitated?”

  It was a naive, desperate question, one he didn’t need to answer as she stepped closer to the body.

  “You know,” Belle said, behind him. “We could send everyone home, say that Xavier is unwell. We have the guest list if you need to talk to anyone later.” She moved further into the room. “There’s only a couple options. Xavier had nightmares and took sleeping pills. He either had a rough night and took more without realizing how many he took—”

  Lucas held up his hand, imagining it playing out. Xavier, in the dark, fumbling with the pill bottle, spilling them, tossing back more pills than he should. But even that probably wouldn’t be enough to kill him.

  “Or,” Belle said, “someone climbed in through the window and strangled him. The effects of the struggle we see could have been a violent fight or it could be the result of nightmares.”

  “No strangulation marks on his neck,” he stated.

  “Oh dear God.” Forsythia waved her hand trying to cool off. “This is terrible.”

  Lucas narrowed in on her. “Terrible that someone died or terrible because there won’t be a show?”

  “Both,” she said in a blaring tone, unashamed that she thought about the big event and all her plans.

  “Well then, the pillow. Maybe they suffocated him,” Belle said.

  That was a theory but the autopsy would reveal how he died, whether too many pills or suffocation or something else. “Forsythia, send the guests home, but I’ll want a complete list of all of them. Names and contact information. I’ll need to talk to any employees he traveled with, today, right now.”

  “You can use the library,” Forsythia stated. She walked to the door. “I’ll send everyone home.”

  “Is there anyone else in attendance who held something against him? Has there been any open animosity or fighting from a guest since he arrived?”

  “No.” Forsythia left the room.

  He called his team, demanding the crime scene unit, noting the need for a body removal to go straight to the coroner for a full autopsy. He turned to Belle. “You discovered the body?”

  “Samantha and I did. Well, Samantha was up here. I followed. Xavier wasn’t answering our knocks, so I entered.”

  Samantha wasn’t saying much. She wasn’t crying. She didn’t even seem sad her boss had died. “Did you go into the room before Belle arrived?”

  “We’re not allowed to enter unless he answers. He didn’t answer.”

  “Who are the other staff?” he asked.

  “It’s just Shana and me.”

  The woman seemed so mild and shy that he couldn’t imagine her having the passion or the strength to subdue a man the size of Xavier. “I’d like to talk with Shana first.”

  The library was more like a man cave for Forsythia’s husband. Lucas thought his name was Glen, but it didn’t matter. All he needed was a private space to question suspects. His employees were definitely suspects.

  Shana sat in the chair, ramrod straight, with a defensive posture. She looked like she could kill someone. Her heavy makeup made her appear angry. The long black hair, the nose piercing gave her a wild look. But those were stereotypes. Appearance wasn’t everything when it came to murder. He’d seen that enough times. It wasn’t always the obvious suspect.

  “You work for Xavier?” he asked.

  She gave him a puzzled look, then said with a heavy accent, “Xavier, yes. Work for Xavier. Great magician.”

  To fully question her, Lucas would need a translator. Maybe at the local college? He wouldn’t give up. He’d try. “In what capacity did you work for Xavier?” She said nothing, blank face. “What did you do with Xavier?”

  “I work for him.” She made a sawing motion. “Beautiful assistant.”

  Ah, Lucas thought. He could see it. “Name?”

  “Shana.”

  He could see Shana, beautiful, assisting Xavier with tricks. He remembered seeing her in some of the videos. So that was the truth. But then she started talking in broken English as if she knew what this was about and what was supposed to happen.

  “I hear cry in the night. Xavier not sleep well. Nightmares. He take pills. I come…to his room. A man…stand by his bed…I hear a hiss like snake. I see hands”—she formed fists to show him—“the man very angry then he take a book. He went out window.”

  “A book? What book?”

  “Um, magic book…notes…tricks.”

  “So you heard Xavier cry out in the night and came to check on him. When you got here, you saw a man standing over the bed, hissing, with clenched hands. Then you saw him steal the book and climb out the window. Was Xavier dead?”

  “I do not know. Just know book important. Xavier sleeping.”

  “How long have you worked for Xavier?” When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “How did you meet Xavier?” and “What was your relationship with Xavier?” But she didn’t seem to understand, because she would say, Yes, Xavier. Work for Xavier. “What about Samantha? What do you know about her relationship with Xavier?”

  “Samantha father work with Xavier. Xavier cheat and trick her father. Samantha come work for Xavier.”

  So the last question Shana had no trouble answering. In fact, she seemed to be able to point out the possible guilt in others but not understand the questions concerning herself. Very convenient.

  “The angry man is Brett Banks. Octavian X. A magician. They fight,” Shana said.

  “You knew it was Brett in the dark?”

  “Brett hiss loud”—she made a hissing noise—“like this. He say words”—and she spoke in a low voice, in Russian, muttering—“I know him.”

  Interesting. Another suspect. Xavier might have been drugged more than he originally thought if none of that woke him.

  “Do not leave town.”

  She went to leave but stopped at the door. Her eyes were blazing, fierce, like there was a fire and it needed to burn. “If I kill Xavier, I use big snake. Poison snake.” Then she left.

  Now that gave him something to think about. If she were guilty, why would she describe to him how she would kill Xavier? Unless she was lying.

  Forsythia swept into the room. “Detective, can we please keep this hush hush? There is so much at stake. Our young men and women depend on the money raised from this event.”

  “Forsythia,” he sighed. “There’s been a murder.”

  She grew indignant. “How can I draw people to the murder mystery event without the main attraction? Tell me that. I promised a magic show.”

  “What if you had another magician?”

  “There aren’t that many magicians in and around Everly.”

  “Hmm.” If Shana’s story turned out to be true, about the man, then there might be a replacement.

  Chapter Six

  It finally hit Belle.

  Xavier was gone.

  She would never talk to or see him again, the brightness in his eyes, his smile, the tenderness when he talked to her, like they were connected, they were survivors. There was so much she wanted to talk to him about, and now, nothing. There would be no more talking.

  It hit her in waves, the overwhelming sadness, and she wanted to cry, to wail, to sob for this man she just met but barely knew, but Samantha stayed in the room with her. They should leave; Belle knew that much. The team would arrive soon. Lucas assumed they had left, but she wanted a moment to look at him, to say goodbye.

  “He has that effect on people,” Samantha said in her quiet, meek way.

  Except Belle knew she wasn’t always laid back or calm. She’d seen her the other day, talking in fierce tones. She’d seen the change from the woman she first saw at The Beanery, the shy, quiet one. Samantha was more than she first appeared, like she cared and worked as hard as Xavier did at her image, like she tried hard to be the quiet lamb, invisible, overlooked.

  “What do you mean?” Belle asked, still looking at him, at how the body could be there. It was Xavier, but at the same time, it wasn’t him. It never ceased to amaze her, and this wasn’t the first time, that the body was nothing without the person, without their soul and their spirit. Just skin and bones and flesh. Nothing more.

  “He makes people feel special.”

  “Did he make you feel that way?” Belle asked, truly curious, realizing she should ask Samantha questions. Xavier saw Belle in a way that most didn’t. He gave her that confidence with advice she’ll try but never forget; she wanted to give something back to him.

  “At times.” She fell silent, thinking, then said, “It comes and goes. He could also be cold, selfish, almost cruel. That is why…”

  Belle waited for Samantha to finish. “Why what?”

  “Why he had many devoted friends, so many followers, but also enemies.”

  There were many questions Belle wanted to ask right away, but instead, started at the beginning. “How long have you known him?”

  “Several years. My family had troubles and he took me in, offered me a way out, so I took it.”

  “What do you do for him?”

  She smiled, a small smile but one that held years of memories. “Just about everything. I scheduled. I did everything behind the scenes, from monitoring social media, to promotion, to shopping for his dietary needs when traveling, to making sure he remembered to take his sleeping pill at night.”

  Belle’s gaze wandered to the bottle and the pills and how so many of them were spread out on the nightstand.

  “He had trouble last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if he overdosed.”

  “How long has he had nightmares?”

  “Since he was a small boy.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to cause them?”

  There was a haunted look on Samantha’s face. “It was a fire. His childhood home went up in flames, burned to the ground.” She paused. “His parents were inside. Xavier was the only survivor.”

  Belle couldn’t imagine, and yet, she could. The loss of both parents stayed with you. It was like seeing blue cars everywhere after you buy a blue car, Belle kept meeting people who shared her experience of being orphaned. It wasn’t easy. But he might have escaped and watched it burn; he might have heard their cries as they perished. The stench, the smoke, the billowing black clouds choking the sky, the teetering, the splintering, the breaking and crashing, the collapse of the house. The stinging eyes, the tears, the haunting cries. The numbness that follows, for years. The stuff of nightmares.

  Her heart broke for that man who died.

  “What about Shana? How long has she been working for him?”

  “A couple years longer than me. Again, she wanted to leave town and Xavier provided an escape. She was beautiful, the perfect assistant for his act.” Samantha looked away from Xavier. “Do you want the truth?”

  Belle also finally turned away from the body. “Of course.”

  “You’ve known Xavier for days, hours. Something in you struck a chord with him. Like I said, he has that way about him, but that side you saw to him isn’t his only side. If you had traveled with him, worked for him, seen him at his highest and at his lowest, you would know that the kind Xavier is rare.” She took a breath, masking her face to neutral, to uncaring. “Before he was a magician, before his act took off, he was also a con artist. He tricked and deceived honest people out of their money.”

  No! Belle wanted to cry. She only wanted to know the good in Xavier, but she knew from his conversation that, with a man following him, not everything in his life was perfect. She didn’t want to admit others hated Xavier, that he had the potential to be cruel or unkind.

  “It’s always hard to hear the truth,” Samantha said. “I don’t know everything about Shana’s past or why she came to work for Xavier, but I see it in her eyes at times. Something strange. Hate, maybe?”

  “But what’s your story?” Belle asked, because finger-pointing goes both ways. “How did you feel about Xavier the Astonishing?”

  “Xavier the magician, or Xavier the man?”

  “Both.”

  “As a magician, a performer, he was driven, obsessed to always one-up his competitors. He wanted to be the one to reveal an amazing trick, unbelievable and incredible to the eyes. When they beat him to it, he would fall into despair until he withdrew for days, brainstorming new illusions, new ways to bring wonder to the world. In some ways, he was a genius and I respect that.”

  “What about the man?”

  “He was a man, like everyone else, a human, tempted like everyone else. He walked the line every day. He was kind and compassionate. He was uncaring and cruel. He was larger than life and charismatic. He was human with everyday struggles. The man you saw on stage was just that, a performance, a show.”

  “What was your relationship with him like?”

  “Complicated,” Samantha said, flat-toned, with a finality.

  Until now Belle hadn’t realized what Xavier’s death meant to either of the women. They lost their employer and their source of income. “What will you do now?” Belle asked, softly, gently.

  “I will have to go home.” There was not a trace of excitement, like that would be a good thing, or something she wanted.

  “I’m sorry.” Belle didn’t like saying those words to anyone. She heard them enough after Aunt Eliza’s death. The words were empty and meaningless. They filled space. Something to say when there was nothing else to say, no way to fill that gap. But here, she found she meant them, regardless. “Did you hear anything last night? Any noise or footsteps?”

  “A cry. But that was normal for Xavier. It came with the nightmares. I often checked on him, but I knew he took his sleeping pill. Then I heard nothing after that, so I went back to sleep. It was a big day today. I still had a lot to do before the show.”

  “What about the animals and equipment?”

  “That won’t be a problem. When word gets out that he died, there will be plenty of offers. Especially for Betty.”

  “Betty?” Belle asked.

  “The snake.”

  Belle left the house, lost in swirling thoughts, all competing with each other, all conflicting. There was sadness, but there was confusion. There was the drive to avenge his death, to find the killer, but there was the possibility that he deserved this death, that he brought it on himself.

  She didn’t like those thoughts.

  She wrestled with them, turning them over in her mind, trying to see through the illusion to the truth. Even if someone deserved death or pain or punishment, who was she or anyone else for that matter to be the one to take the life or give the punishment? Was there a clear-cut case where someone deserved to die? Wasn’t there always a different side to the story, a different and new perspective?

  The guests had left, the driveway empty, the roads clear of the line of cars. Shana and Samantha were still here. And Lucas and Bixby.

  She thought back on everything she knew, and recognized there were big, gaping holes in what happened last night. There was a cry in the night, then somehow, a murder.

  Forsythia’s home was large and imposing, but everything was polished, well maintained. She headed to the side of the house where she believed the open window to be. If someone managed to climb into the second-story window, she was curious about access or possible holes in the grass, or impressions from a ladder.

  When she arrived, she stared at the ground, at the grass, and along the side of the house, a channel, of gravel and stones. Maybe for drainage?