Close Up Magic Read online

  “Is that his secret?” She gave him a dubious look.

  “One of ‘em.” He pulled out a chair at the bottom of the stage. “He’s got a few. But then you know that, don’t you?” When she frowned, he saluted jauntily. “Be seein’ you.”

  She shrugged and seated herself, trying to shake off the lingering effects of Andre’s presence. The whole thing was starting to annoy her. Admittedly, the seat was better than the one she’d paid for, but she remembered the icy look he’d given her too well to want to be this close to him again so soon. And what was he up to, putting her in the front row? Was it the old adage about keeping your enemies closer than your friends? She doubted it was just that she knew the truth about his brother. She’d actually threatened his carefully guarded family’s quiet existence, so she must be dealt with. She lifted her chin defiantly. Bring it on, Andre Hawke.

  To the rest of the world—or at least those who knew about Andre Hawke—his father John Hawkins had been a loving father, supportive of his son, hard-working and devoted to his job in the paper mill, and he’d died in a horrible accident on the job. Andre had fostered this myth carefully. The truth was that his father wasn’t dead and he’d never worked at a paper mill. He’d left his family when Andre and his twin brother were six years old. Rumor was he lived off the grid somewhere in Montana. He hadn’t emerged to claim his successful son as his own, and as far as Stacey knew, Andre had never sought him out. Maybe he preferred the fictional father to the real thing.

  But that wasn’t going to work this time. Tony Hawkins wasn’t the hard-working saint Andre would like everyone to believe, and his downfall had happened much more publicly than that of his father. She hoped Andre really had listened to her, because she’d meant what she’d said. He wouldn’t be able to rewrite history again, but if he’d let her, she could make sure it wouldn’t ruin him.

  Unlike other magicians—in fact, most live performers—Andre didn’t make a spectacular entrance onto the stage. He simply walked out, bowed, and performed a magic trick. It was never the same trick. That was what made him so amazing. His repertoire far exceeded those of illusionists with twice his experience. He must constantly be developing new tricks, working them in with favorites and rearranging the show’s order so every one seemed new. Stacey shifted uncomfortably in her front row seat, aware that she shouldn’t be so admiring of the man whose story could revive her faltering career. She tried to renew the irritation she’d felt a few minutes before, more comfortable with that than her growing sympathy with the man.

  When the music started, she glanced expectantly at the stage. Tonight he didn’t appear immediately, striding onto the stage with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Instead, she heard a murmur from the audience and turned to find him standing at her elbow. He gave her a jaunty grin, grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “What the hell are you doing?” The gasp was wrenched from her lips. Oh my God. Of course he’d given her a good seat. He intended to make her part of the act. Shit. She tried to hold back, but he gave her hand a pull.

  “Look at this, ladies and gentlemen, she’s shy. Give her a little encouragement.” He flashed his gleaming smile at the audience and they broke into applause. Leaning toward her as if he were bowing, he murmured in her ear, “You’ll have to work for that seat.”

  “Am I even going to get a chance to sit in it?” She shot back. He gave her a blandly innocent look and bounded up the stairs to the stage, pulling her along in his wake.

  The spotlight centered on them and she blinked in the brightness. His pupils contracted, but otherwise he seemed undisturbed. Used to the spotlight. He faced her. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “No.” She glared at him. “There’s always a trick.”

  “Ah. A nonbeliever.” His grin grew wider, and she heard a murmur of amusement and anticipation from the crowd. If anyone could make a believer out of her, it would be Andre Hawke. He was playing them with all the skill of a born entertainer, and she couldn’t suppress her admiration. God, he was absolutely magnificent and if playing along with a magic trick could get her the interview, she better be game. She tilted her chin and his eyes narrowed. With a practiced flourish, he drew a blindfold from his pocket. “So, you’re going to play?”

  The words surprised her until she realized they were directed only at her and not at the audience. He must have a way of turning his mic off when he didn’t want them to hear. She shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Whatever.” In spite of her response, however, the blindfold did disturb her a little. She didn’t like not knowing what was happening to her. She lived her life by maintaining control at all times. Relinquishing it, even for a moment, was not something she wanted to do.

  With laughing encouragement from the audience, he led her to a chair that looked like it might have come from a schoolroom somewhere and instructed her to check it out for any abnormalities. She did so, even lifting the chair and looking underneath it. Then he told her to sit and she felt him move behind her, tying the blindfold with practiced movements. Just as he finished, he leaned down and said softly in her ear, “Do you trust me?”

  “Should I?” She folded her arms over her chest and crossed her legs, trying to look like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  The laughter of the audience let her in on the fact that this exchange had been with a live mic. He really was full of tricks. She pictured him moving away from her, pretending to be offended. When the laughter died down, he began talking about studying the beliefs of Tibetan monks and practicing their philosophies to broaden his mind. Her own mind wandered. She couldn’t concentrate on his words, but she enjoyed the sound of his voice. Then he stopped talking, and she felt a light breeze soothing her hot cheeks. She thought of the look in his eyes before he tied the blindfold on her, and the words he’d whispered in her ear.

  Do you trust me?

  Hands touched her shoulders, tingling as if sending a light jolt of electricity through her. She jumped and he laughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” He whipped the blindfold from her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.” She blinked. “Is it over? What did you do?”

  “Actually, I didn’t do anything. You did.” He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face a monitor. She stared, unable to comprehend at first that the instant replay of the chair hovering near the curtains at the top of the stage was actually the one she’d just been sitting in, and that the figure seated imperturbably in it was her. He moved behind her, placing both hands on her shoulders as if to brace her, his words oddly intimate even as they echoed across the huge room. “You flew.”

  “Oh my God.” She felt sick. She looked at the ceiling, a good thirty feet above her head. She looked at the little chair she’d been seated on. No safety buckles, no harnesses. Her knees buckled and she might have fallen had he not caught her.

  She heard a gasp from the audience as he led her off the stage and handed her over to a pretty girl with a clipboard and headset. She heard him murmur instructions, but she couldn’t focus. The girl nodded and half carried her backstage. Andre returned to the stage, assuring the audience she was fine and recovering from her shock. The ensuing applause seemed to indicate that Stacey’s reaction to the trick had done nothing but affirm their belief in him.

  Stacey recovered herself as the girl in the headphones tried to lead her down a hall. She shook off the girl’s grasp. “Where are we going?”

  “Mr. Hawke wants you to wait for him in his dressing room.”

  “Right. I’m not doing that.” She turned and started back toward the stage. “In fact, I think I’m going to kill Mr. Hawke now.”

  “You can’t go back out there.” The girl moved to block her path, unperturbed by Stacey’s death threat. “I’m sorry, but you have to wait here.”

  “You can’t do that.” Stacey glared. “I bought a ticket.”

  “And sat in the seat Mr. Hawke provided.” The girl might be young, but she wasn’t stupid. “He always pulls a volunteer from that seat, and it’s always with prior consent.”

  “Well, there was no fucking ‘prior consent’ tonight, I promise.” Stacey glared. “He never told me I was going to be flying through the air. Or in a trance. I could have been killed.”

  “He’d never let that happen.”

  Stacey frowned, looking at the girl. She obviously believed what she was saying. In fact, Stacey figured the girl would sit on any chair Andre asked her to. And go into any number of trances at whatever inopportune time Andre chose. She shook her head. “Dear God, how does he do it?”

  The girl sensed she was no longer going to cause trouble and said, “Look, if you really feel well enough, you can watch the rest of the show from backstage. I’ll show you. It’s even better than your seat was.”

  “Excellent.” She folded her arms. “Are you sure he’d want you to do that? He did tell you I’m a journalist, didn’t he?”

  “He said you were a reporter. I don’t think he’s particularly concerned.” The girl shrugged and held out her hand. “I’m Mattie. He wants me to take care of you. Can I get you something to drink?”

  A good strong Scotch. She shook her head. “No. I mean, just water.”

  Mattie turned and issued an order to a stagehand, who hurried to follow instructions. Stacey wondered who exactly the girl was. She certainly seemed to have more authority than the stagehand/groupie Stacey had first assumed her to be. Within a few moments, Mattie had installed her in a chair in the wings of the stage, a bottle of artesian water in her hand. From her new seat, Stacey had a very good view of Andre as he performed a couple of amazing card tricks, plucked a rose out of a woman’s hair, and turned a paper airplane into a white dove. If he was misdirecting the audience,
he must surely be a master because even from her angle, she couldn’t catch the trick.

  Would they let me move, though? She glanced at Mattie talking to a stagehand. She saw Bobby, the kid from earlier, watching from the other side of the stage. What if she got up and started over there? Just as she considered this, Mattie placed a hand on her shoulder. “I have to ask you to keep your seat for the next few minutes. He’s ready for his finale and if you move you could endanger someone.”

  Stacey relaxed in her seat, wondering what exactly was wrong with her, anyway. She was a tough kid from a rough upbringing. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t let anyone boss her around, and if she got thrown out while in the quest for a story, she wouldn’t care.

  But I’m not here to find out how he does it. I’m here to find out what was done to him. That’s my story, and if I get thrown out now, it’ll ruin everything.

  She was prevaricating, and she knew it. She didn’t want to know how the magic was done. If she did, she’d never be able to believe, never be able to experience that sense of wonder that, to be honest, Andre had first woken in her. She smiled a little, remembering that show. It had been a rare treat for her and Bella back during her senior year in college. She’d won the tickets on a radio show and gone, never expecting the show to work its way past her cynical exterior and touch something else, some carefully guarded desire to believe. She shook off the memory. She couldn’t afford to believe in magic when she’d been given so many reasons not to during her life.

  The finale was a spectacular illusion in which Andre performed an escape worthy of Houdini himself while hanging upside down over a tank of water while a flame slowly burned through the rope. A curtain was drawn around Andre, and a circle of witnesses surrounded the area. Stacey watched the rope jerk with his movements, so completely caught up in the moment that when the rope gave way and she heard a splash, she half-started out of her chair. She heard a chuckle and glanced to her side as he walked out of the backstage area, completely dry, and grinned at her. “You worried?”

  “Of course not.” She pretended not to be startled by his appearance. She’d been watching the entire time. He had definitely begun the illusion suspended from the rope. The audience members he’d pulled onstage still stood in a circle with their hands joined. The logistics of the trick boggled her mind. Holy cow. She shrugged. “I knew there was a trick.”

  “You have serious trust issues.” With these parting words, he loped onstage, startling one female volunteer with a kiss on the cheek and taking his well-deserved bow.

  He finished his bow, then shook hands with each volunteer as they were escorted off the stage. He paused to speak quietly with both Bobby and Mattie before returning to her side. “You still mad?”

  “Mad?” She snorted. “Why would I be mad? Oh, you mean the little putting me in a trance and sending me floating in the rafters thing? Ha!” She glared at him. “You keep pulling shit like that and you’ll have lawsuits on your hands, buddy.”

  “Umm.” He compressed his lips, then held his hand out to her. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “A walk?” She blinked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not at all. I always go for walks after a show. Come, we won’t go far.”

  She checked his forward momentum with an angry sneer. “I really don’t have any desire to go anywhere with you. Have you forgotten you nearly killed me? Without my consent?”

  He looked amused. “Are you mad because I forgot to ask your consent to kill you? Would you have given it?”

  “Ha. Ha.” She put all her contempt into the two syllables. “That’s not what I meant. Do you do that all the time?”

  “Actually, that was a first.” He tilted an eyebrow. “But then, you have a reputation for doing your research, so you’d know that, wouldn’t you?” He started down the hall, still talking so she had no choice but to follow him if she wanted to hear what he was saying, which, in spite of her fury, she did. “I’d planned to use the trick for the first time tonight, but I didn’t actually plan to open with it. You were a little easier to put into a trance than I’d anticipated.” His voice indicated this wasn’t a compliment, and another source of heat began to burn in her, this time from humiliation. Was that what he wanted?

  But he was still talking. “I needed to get you under control, and that seemed like a good way. I figured you’d have a strong reaction to it, although I have to admit, I didn’t anticipate fainting. Fear of heights?”

  She gritted her teeth. “You didn’t have to do any such thing. I was on my way to my spot in the back row when that kid waylaid me and put me in the front row seat you selected. And besides, I’m not here to discover your secrets. I’m not that kind of reporter.”

  His lips curled. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea what kind of reporter you are, Ms. Matthewson. You’re here to question me about Tony. You want that story. The one where I bemoan the fact that my brother and closest friend betrayed me.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “Are you saying your brother betrayed you?”

  He broke off. Had she rattled him? But then he shook his head, speaking in a regretful tone. “And if it weren’t for the fact that this is so far beneath you, you’d’ve been out on your pretty little ass right after the show.”

  “Beneath me?” She blinked. It almost sounded like a compliment. At least it was far enough from his former line of humiliating repartee to both intrigue her and throw her off.

  “Beneath you.” He whirled, taking both her hands in an abrupt motion. They were on the casino floor, standing close to the windows. People at the nearby craps tables shot them curious glances. Had she followed him this far, blind to her surroundings? “I did some research. Not much, but enough to know who you are and what your capabilities are. You write crap, Ms. Matthewson.”

  She winced. “Call me Stacey, and who the hell are you to make that judgment?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I call you, you still write crap. And as your next intended victim, I think I’m pretty well qualified to make any judgments I want. You prey on people’s worst moments, immortalize the shadows and sell it to the highest bidder.” He paused, his lips compressing as if he didn’t want to say anymore, but then he added, albeit reluctantly. “And yet…you write well.”

  “I write well?” She shook her head, aware he was still holding her hands. The warmth of his grasp combined with an unexpected gratitude for the compliment, and she felt a little too warm and also as if he were playing with her emotions so skillfully she was almost enjoying it. “Are you saying I write good shit?”

  “Not really.” He dropped her hands and gestured around them. “Life is chance, Stacey. Have you never noticed that? I wonder what chance has brought you into my path. Was it Lady Luck?” As he spoke, a woman at a slot machine near them gave a cry of delight as bells and whistles began to sound. Andre grinned. “We better move on. Management tends to blame me when things like that happen.” He grasped her forearm and started toward the exit.

  “Wait!” She pulled back, trying to check their forward progress. “Where are we going?”

  “To talk.”

  “Where?” She shook her head. She felt exhausted from the yo-yoing of her emotions. “I don’t…”

  “There’s a coffee shop in the shopping center across the street. It’ll be quieter than here.” He cocked an eyebrow at her again. “Of course, we could go to my suite, but then natural assumptions would be made…”

  She blushed, wondering if he meant natural assumptions by him or someone else. Mattie or Bobby, maybe? “Oh. Okay.”

  He bought two coffees and brought them back to the table where she’d dropped. She looked drained, exhausted from traveling, probably, but he had a guilty feeling he was partly responsible. He quashed the guilt. He didn’t want to feel concerned about her. She’d threatened his family, after all. But he couldn’t help it. There was more to this woman than her beautiful, tough exterior showed. He’d seen it in the articles Mattie brought him before the show. Especially in the later ones, he’d sensed sympathy for the subjects. She could definitely prove useful to him.