The Magician's Secret

  Just then the hat levitated a few inches off the table, hovering in midair for about a minute before settling down again.

  Screams and whistles, as well as scattered applause, could be heard from the audience, and the curtain closed once again.

  “Whoa! Did you guys see that?” George exclaimed. “I wonder if the hat was connected by wires.”

  “We sometimes like to give our audience a little preshow teaser.” A tall and very physically fit man appeared, seemingly from nowhere. He was about my dad’s age, had long, dark, curly hair, and was wearing sunglasses that were so dark I couldn’t see his eyes. He held out his hand. “I’m Drake Lonestar.”

  “I’m Nancy,” I said, and quickly introduced Bess and George too.

  “It’s no fair snooping around before the show,” he said with a chuckle. “This trick demands an audience that’s willing to believe in the illusion.”

  “Oh—um, I—,” I stuttered. “We weren’t snooping. . . .”

  Bess coughed.

  “We’re just surveying the scene,” George said as she elbowed me in the ribs and chuckled.

  I quickly changed the subject. “I’ve seen your magic on TV. Very impressive. Of course, I can’t help but wonder how you make things disappear.”

  “You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” Drake Lonestar said. “Be patient. Are you willing to believe, even for a moment, that what I am about to do is real?”

  “I . . .” I stalled. If I had to admit the truth, then the answer was no. I liked understanding what really happened behind the curtain. Was I willing to let go of the detective in me, just for an hour?

  “I’ll try to sit back and enjoy the show,” I finally answered.

  “That’s all I can ask,” Lonestar said. And with a wave of his hand, he produced three roses out of thin air. He gave one to Bess, one to George, and one to me.

  “Hugo will take you back to your seats.”

  Hugo turned out to be the beefy guard who’d winked at me earlier. He surprised me when he put a hand on my back. I jumped, and Lonestar laughed.

  “Hugo LaBlanca has been on my staff for twenty years. If I disappeared right now, I’d trust him to take over the show.” Lonestar snapped his fingers, and I half expected him to actually disappear, but he didn’t.

  For his part, while Lonestar was joking around, Hugo showed no response. He touched my elbow, which made me jump again, and a moment later escorted us away, with no room for any further snooping . . . or surveying.

  We hadn’t gotten far when Drake Lonestar called out to me, “Nancy Drew.”

  I turned.

  Wait a minute. Drake Lonestar had just called me by my last name, but I was positive I hadn’t told him anything other than “Nancy” when we’d first met.

  “Don’t forget.” He took off his sunglasses and stared at me with the greenest cat eyes I had ever seen. “Magic is a mystery that doesn’t need solving.”

  His words echoed in my ears as Hugo led us back into the audience.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Onstage

  I SAT DOWN IN SEAT B and twisted the rose stem. The blossom was closed, the petals waiting to open and reveal the fragrance inside.

  “Did you hear what he said?” I asked my friends. “Mystery? Somehow he knows who I am.”

  George rolled her eyes and muttered, “I wouldn’t take anything that guy says seriously, Nancy. He was so arrogant. Instead let’s try to figure out how the trick is done.”

  “I liked him,” Bess cut in. She ran the rose across her cheek. “He’s charming.”

  “Blech.” George rolled her eyes. “You’d think any guy who gave you flowers was charming.”

  “Maybe,” Bess admitted. “But tell me, George—how did he know there were three of us? He would have needed to have the roses with him when he first approached.”

  “He saw us outside the curtain,” George said, shrugging. “Not so tricky.”

  Bess was clearly willing to let the magic slide over and impress her. George, not so much.

  On this I was more like George, but I’d promised Lonestar I’d try to be more like Bess. Letting my mind go blank was harder than I had ever imagined, and I had to chase away any thoughts that the rose was in his sleeve or that he’d had an accomplice or that he’d distracted us with Hugo. I was fighting against my own busy brain.

  I was grateful when the show’s music started again and the curtains parted.

  With a puff of smoke and a flash of lights, Drake Lonestar appeared, seemingly from nowhere, up on the stage.

  He waved a hand and a screen appeared behind him. On the screen was a short video. I couldn’t help myself. I flipped my head around to look for a projector. I didn’t see one, but that didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t privy to the latest, most advanced technology; that was George’s domain.

  Poof.

  A flash of smoke and Lonestar levitated above the stage, floating high over the screen.

  “Wires,” George whispered to me, though I didn’t see any. He hovered while the screen lit up with his name and logo.

  The video was entertaining. It showed clips from Lonestar’s other tricks around the globe. He’d made more buildings disappear than just the ones I’d told Ned about. There was a bank in Zurich, a hotel in South Africa, and even a large tower in Hong Kong. The video did also, in fact, show him throwing a dart at a US map and picking River Heights. And it showed a three-dimensional model of our courthouse building.

  When the screen disappeared with a flash of light, Lonestar was no longer airborne. Now he stood on the stage flanked by two stunning models in miniskirts and the Lonestar T-shirts we’d seen earlier.

  Bess leaned past George and whispered, “I have that same skirt at home. It’s the newest from Gritty Grand, the Australian designer. She’s a rising superstar.”

  George pointed at a camera and crew that were now standing at the back of the audience. “Can’t hurt to have your clothes on display at a popular show,” she said. “Great exposure.”

  I nodded, feeling slightly disappointed that I hadn’t noticed the recording crew. Of course the show was being taped, just like all of Drake’s other illusions. We could probably revisit the whole performance on the Internet later this week.

  “My friends!” Drake Lonestar raised his hands, and as he did, the back of the stage slowly disappeared into the ground so that the courthouse behind it was clearly visible to the audience. The historic building had been built about two hundred years earlier, with wide cement stairs ascending to carved oak doors. Beautiful stained-glass windows dotted the front, and ferocious stone gargoyles guarded the entry. A tower at the top overlooked the grassy stage area.

  All the civic work of River Heights took place inside that building, from criminal trials to council meetings to government document processing. A branch of the police department and some jail holding cells were there too. During the week the place was busy, but on weekends it was closed to the public.

  Unless you convince a clerk to call a judge and let you in, I thought, remembering Ned and my father.

  I shook my head and focused on the show. Drake Lonestar’s assistants raised a large circular object that looked like a Hula-Hoop. The perspective of the hoop made us all focus on the courthouse, which from my angle fit neatly inside its round-edged boundaries. I reasoned that he’d worked out the seating so that the courthouse was framed inside the circle from every chair.

  “In a moment,” Drake announced in a big, booming voice, “the building you see in front of you will cease to exist.” The audience applauded. He paused. “For the skeptics among you, I offer this.”

  With a finger snap, a barrel appeared on the stage in front of him. It was one of those thin wire mesh tumblers that lottery numbers or bingo letters are picked from. Inside were slips of paper.

  He took the side handle and rotated the barrel.

  “One lucky member of the audience will join me onstage.” He laughed. “The best view in the house.”

/>   Drake spun the barrel a few more times, then pulled out a slip of paper. With another finger snap, the tumbler disappeared into smoke. He looked at the number. Then he looked at me.

  “The lucky person for today’s show is . . .” There was no drumroll. Only silence. “Row five. Seat B.”

  “Hey! That’s your seat, Nancy.” Bess put her arm around me and gave me a big hug. “Congratulations!”

  I didn’t move. There was something funny going on. Out of everyone in the audience, he’d picked my seat. My number. Was it magic? Fate? Or something else?

  Then I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be in that particular seat. It was one of the tickets my dad had given me. And I had only sat there because George wanted me to be near Ned. I’d been the one to determine that if he showed up, he’d take the aisle.

  “It has to be a coincidence,” I told myself as Hugo arrived to usher me up the steps to the stage.

  The magician held out his hand to escort me to a folding chair that he’d placed to the side. Sitting there, I’d have a clear view of the courthouse. I noticed there were small silver pieces of tape that marked where the chair was placed. This stunt had obviously been planned in advance.

  I tried to tell myself that there was no way it was planned for me. I was being paranoid. He didn’t know I was coming to the show or which seats I had.

  But then again, there was the fact that he knew my name and hinted at my mystery-solving background. Something strange was going on, but what?

  “Meet Nancy Drew!” he announced, pulling the chair back and settling me into it as if we were at a fine restaurant.

  I sat down, not sure what else I could do.

  Drake moved to the center of the stage, where his assistants rejoined him. They held up the Hula-Hoop. From my view, the courthouse filled every inch of the circle.

  “The courthouse is closed today,” Lonestar said. “We checked that the doors are locked. We even invited all courthouse employees to attend the performance.” He asked anyone who worked at the courthouse to stand. “Our greatest civil service workers,” he boomed. “The importance of justice can never be understated.”

  While Drake told a story about how he had been a troubled kid whose life was changed by magic, I let my eyes turn away to peek out at George and Bess. To my surprise, Ned had arrived.

  He was sitting in the seat I’d saved for him. Row 5, seat A. Seeing Ned made me more determined than ever to enjoy the show. Like the rest of the audience, I stared through the hoop at the courthouse building.

  “An illusion demands that the audience participate fully,” Lonestar said as he did a little sleight of hand. It was similar to when he’d made the roses appear, but this time a bright-red silk square fluttered from his palm.

  He raised the silk. The material fully covered the hoop, blocking the audience’s view of the building beyond.

  And that was it. We couldn’t see the courthouse.

  Without another word, he lowered the scarf.

  The courthouse was gone.

  The crowd went wild.

  Drake looked at me and smiled. “Nancy?” he asked. “Do you see the courthouse?”

  I shook my head.

  “The audience can’t hear you . . . ,” he prodded.

  “No,” I said loudly. “It’s gone.”

  Drake instructed the assistants to drop the hoop. Even without the frame of perspective, the building was—as far as my eyes could tell—gone.

  The buzz of the helicopters that we’d heard when we first arrived grew louder.

  “Oh no!” Drake exclaimed as the copters got close enough that we could feel the breeze from their whirling blades. “They’ll hit the building!” He was joking, of course, and laughed as two helicopters flew through the space where the building had stood. If the courthouse had been there, they’d have crashed into it.

  I closed my eyes, blinked hard, and reopened them. There was a broad open area where the courthouse used to stand.

  The helicopters circled around and soared through the spot again before Lonestar raised the hoop, instructing the audience to look inside as he held up the scarf.

  A moment later, he dropped both the cloth and the hoop.

  The courthouse was back.

  The audience roared with applause. Everyone, including me, stood for an ovation. I flicked my eyes to the crowd and saw Bess and Ned cheering. George was standing at her seat, but she had her hands on her hips. I could see by the scrunched-up look on her face that she was trying desperately to figure out what she’d seen and how it worked.

  Drake Lonestar took his bow and, with a puff of smoke, disappeared from the stage. Then he reappeared, laughing. “I forgot something important,” he joked, taking the arms of his two assistants. “I can’t leave these ladies behind!” An instant later the three of them were gone.

  I was left standing alone on the stage. I looked for Hugo to come and walk me back to my seat, but he was over to the side, talking to the chief of the River Heights police force.

  The show was over. There’d be no more illusion or fanfare. I even had to walk myself off the stage to meet my friends and Ned.

  “I’m headed back to your dad’s office,” Ned said, kissing my cheek before taking off. “This was fun. But are you sure you can you handle all this?” He looked around, gesturing to the crowd that had gathered around us. There were quite a few people clamoring for my attention, shouting questions about Lonestar and the trick.

  “We’ve got her covered,” George said.

  I answered whatever questions I could, but the truth was, I’d seen the same as anyone in the audience. There was no great secret I could reveal.

  About half an hour later, Bess, George, and I managed to get our phones from the check-in desk and were headed to our cars.

  “Whew,” Bess sighed. “Want to go to the mall? There are some shoes that I want both your opinions on.”

  “I’m free,” I said.

  “Not like I have anything better to do,” George said. “Though I wish I did.” She exhaled heavily. Shopping wasn’t her thing.

  I had just opened the car door when two officers rushed toward us.

  “Not so fast,” one of them said, putting up a hand. “We have a few questions for you, Ms. Drew.”

  “You were seen talking to Drake Lonestar before the show,” the other officer said.

  “Yes.” I shrugged. “I was walking around and he approached me.” My sleuthing senses tingled. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re our key witness,” the first officer said. “An important box of evidence was being held in a basement storage locker of the courthouse.”

  “When the courthouse disappeared, so did the box,” the other officer continued. “It’s gone.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Gone Missing

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON MY FATHER’S wish was finally granted. He was inside the courthouse.

  But then again, so were most of the River Heights police force, prosecutor Ted Walton, Hugo, Lonestar’s two assistants, the judge’s clerk, George, Bess, Ned, and me. We all stood together, crammed inside the small storage locker where the Smallwood case evidence was stored.

  Ted Walton held a clipboard and was flipping through the attached pages. “Where was the courthouse security guard?” he asked a tall, thin police officer whose name tag read COLLINS.

  “There was no guard on duty, since the building is officially closed today,” Officer Collins replied. “It’s highly unusual that anything is stolen from the storage lockers.” He punctuated that by adding, “It’s never happened before.”

  The stunned clerk said, “All employees were outside watching the show the entire time.” She sighed. “Wait until Judge Nguyen hears what happened,” she moaned. “I don’t want to be the one to tell her.”

  “She knows,” my dad said. “I called her.” He put a hand on the clerk’s shoulder. “She understands that it’s not your fault the box disappeared.”

  A young police office
r said, “When River Heights agreed to host Drake Lonestar’s show, the mayor made sure that no court employees would come in that weekend. Not even janitorial staff. He also agreed to turn off all surveillance cameras for an hour to protect the integrity of the trick. There didn’t seem to be a risk of anything like this. Plus, it was great publicity for River Heights.” Her shoulders slumped.

  Mr. Walton was a burly man with a hot temper. “Well, the mayor was wrong,” he shouted with a red, sweaty face. “Because we do have a problem!” His voice echoed off the cement walls. “A big problem.”

  The locker was about the size of a small bathroom. The boxes of evidence from the Smallwood case were marked and set against the back walls. There were only three of them.

  “The obvious conclusion is that Drake Lonestar removed the mystery box from the courthouse locker during the show,” Mr. Walton continued in a calmer tone. “Find the magician, find the box. And I am certain you will discover that inside the box are the gems, which Mr. Smallwood stole.” He added, “In fact, I’ll bet money on it that Smallwood and Lonestar are in this together.”

  “Now wait a minute.” My dad faced Mr. Walton. “You have no proof of any of that. You can’t go around stating your opinions as if they were facts. That’s not how justice works. Mr. Smallwood is innocent until proven guilty. So far we have no evidence that links him to the box, the gems, or to Drake Lonestar.”

  Mr. Walton was shorter than my dad but didn’t seem to be intimidated. He rushed forward until the two men were toe-to-toe and bellowed, “Your client is a thief! No doubt about it.”

  “Prove it in court!” Dad countered.

  They began to argue.

  Hugo stepped between them.

  An impressive thing about Hugo was the quiet way he asserted himself. He didn’t have to say much—or in this situation anything at all—to show that he was in control. Both my dad and Mr. Walton retreated immediately, and the argument ended.

  I turned to Ned. We hadn’t had time to talk about what was going on, and I was suddenly curious as to how he’d gotten into the magic show at all. I still had his ticket in my purse, and security at the magic show had been as tight as a vault.