“So if his shtick is magic, why is he dressed in a pirate costume?”
“Oh, hon, that’s not a pirate costume.” Kellyjean sank into one of the chairs near us and peeled off her shoes. She was wearing her jeweled sandals, and once again they were rubbing her feet the wrong way. “He’s dressed as Professor Eurynomos, the hero of his books. Haven’t y’all read them? My kids can’t get enough of ’em, even though I don’t approve of any books that glorify—”
“Shhh!” One of the children sitting closest to us put his fingers to his lips and shushed Kellyjean.
Frannie, her eyebrows raised, looked mockly offended. “Well! I guess we’ve been told off. I certainly hope this doesn’t take long, though. There’s a Knicks game tonight, and I don’t want to miss the tip-off.”
Grinning, I caught Will’s eye. He grinned back. I felt a jolt of white-hot desire shoot through me, and quickly looked away.
Oh, this was not good. This was not good at all.
“Tonight,” Garrett was going on, up on the stage, “I’m going to introduce all of you to the mystical art of dematerialization—or, as some of you may be more familiar with, teleportation. But in order for me to do so, I’m going to need a volunteer to assist me.”
The hand of each child in the audience shot up. “Me!” every single one of them cried. “Me, me! Oh, please, pick me!”
“Hmmm.” Garrett looked out at the dozen or so children practically convulsing in front of him in their eagerness to be chosen. “I think not. I need someone very special to assist me. Someone highly skilled in the psychic sciences. Someone who believes. And while all of you children seem delightful, that someone is …” Garrett began scanning the audience on the deck, his index finger extended so he could point out the person he sought.
“Oh, no,” Kellyjean muttered as that finger swung in our direction. “I’m not havin’ anything to do with this. Dark magic is wrong, and he knows good and well I would never—”
“You,” Garrett cried, his roving finger pointing directly at me.
The Moment by Will Price
“And now, by the power invested in me,” said the preacher, “I declare you man and wife. Johnny, you may kiss your bride.”
Never in my life had I heard sweeter words. And never in my life had I seen a sweeter sight than the face of my new wife, Melanie, as she turned to me, eyes radiant and shining, ruby lips parted in a smile and ready for our first kiss as a married couple.
At least until a voice rang out from the back of the church:
“She’ll be no bride of yours, Johnny!”
I turned just in time to see her husband, alive and well, burst through the chapel doors, a gold-plated pistol in his hand.
When the shot rang out, I knew there was only one thing I could do—only one way I could make things right. I threw myself in front of the bullet he meant for Melanie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Me?” I looked around, certain Garrett was pointing at someone else.
But no. The finger he’d jabbed in my direction was now crooked as he motioned for me to approach the stage.
“Yes, you.” Garrett grinned—a grin that made my blood run cold, despite the warm ocean breeze—because there was no denying it: I was the person he was talking to. “Come on, Jo, don’t be shy. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big round of applause to Ms. Jo Wright, author of the internationally bestselling Kitty Katz, Kitten Sitter series. She’s graciously agreed to be my assistant this evening.”
“What?” I glanced around, panic swelling inside me. “No, I didn’t.” I found myself looking desperately up at Will. “I didn’t!” Don’t ask me why it was so important to me that Will knew I had never agreed to be Garrett’s magician’s assistant. At that moment, it seemed vital. “I don’t even believe in magic,” I blathered. “Why would I agree to help with his trick?”
“Don’t believe in magic?” Of course Garrett had overheard me. Now he feigned outrage as he repeated my words to the crowd, who’d begun to murmur among themselves. “Well, we can’t have that, now, can we? Kids, what do you say we make a believer out of Ms. Wright?”
“Hocum-pocum,” the kids cried. This was apparently something from the books Garrett wrote. “Harry-scary!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Kellyjean said, rolling her eyes. “That isn’t even an authentic incantation.”
Oh, God. This was a nightmare.
It wasn’t because I was shy, of course, or even that I didn’t believe in magic that I didn’t want to get up onstage.
It was because I didn’t want to have anything to do with Garrett, or the stupid trick he was performing to promote his brand.
But I could think of no gracious way to get out of the situation, especially when all of the little kids in front of the stage—and some not-so-little kids, too, like Jasmine and Cassidy—were yelling, “Come on, Ms. Wright! Do it!”
“Yes, do it, Ms. Wright,” Garrett said, egging them on. “Don’t be a party pooper!”
Ugh, those words. Those two little words. How could he possibly have known how much those two little words would get to me? Especially since they’d been flung at me so often, first in high school and then later, through college and even after, when friends (but not my real friends, because they had known me better) had nagged me to come out with them to have fun.
But I couldn’t, because I’d been too busy working my many side hustles in order to make ends meet, and then later, when I’d needed to meet my deadlines. If that made me a party pooper, so be it.
“Fine,” I grumbled, and started for the stage … until Will stopped me by laying a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he said. He looked worried, like a host whose dinner party roast chicken was going up in flames. “You really don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at his attempt at chivalry. “But I can handle it.”
Then I began making my way toward the stage to the sound of cheers and applause from the audience.
“Ah, there she is, ladies and gentlemen,” Garrett said as he offered me a hand to help me up the single step to the stage. “Isn’t she lovely? I think she’ll make a perfect assistant.”
I leaned close to Garrett’s face as if I was going to kiss his cheek, but instead, I grabbed a handful of his cape and, pulling hard on it, whispered into his ear, “If you do anything weird, I’m going to take this cape of yours and wrap it around your neck and pull until you’re dead. Understand?”
“Ah-ha!” Garrett let out a high-pitched giggle and jerked away from me, startled. “Let’s not waste any more time, shall we? The spirit world is crying out for release! And I have just the tools they need.”
From deep within a pocket of his pirate pants—or professor pants, I guess—Garrett withdrew a pair of handcuffs. The stage lights winked dramatically on the bright silver metal, causing the kids in the audience to gasp.
I, however, was not as impressed.