08 The Magician's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

himself ?”
    â€œIt was a risk,” Hugo admitted. “But Drake’s a magician, Nancy. He’d have found a way to get you to the show, and anywhere you’d have sat, he would have picked you.”
    I nodded.
    â€œDrake figured that it would be much more impressive to have a known detective onstage, watching the trick with eagle eyes.” He added, “He also made sure that the ticket desk let your boyfriend in when he showed up. Just another pair of eyes confirming the wonder created by Drake Lonestar.”
    My conversation with Hugo answered the question of how Ned got to his seat without a ticket. And it answered how my dad got tickets to the show. The problem was, there were so many questions still left unanswered.

CHAPTER SIX

A Midnight Chat
    â€œ HEY, GEORGE,” I HISSED. “YOU awake?”
    It was late at night, and I was standing outside my friend’s bedroom window after having given up on sleep. All the excitement of the day had made my head feel full, and I figured that if George could clear up a couple of important things, maybe I’d be able to rest.
    â€œGeorge!” I banged my knuckles on the glass pane.
    â€œGo away, Nancy!”
    That wasn’t George. It was Bess. I’d forgotten she was sleeping at her cousin’s house.
    I could see Bess roll over and put her pillow over her head.
    â€œGo back to sleep, Bess.” George sat up. “I’ll take care of the intruder.” She opened the window. “Come on in,” she said, moving aside and giving me space to crawl through the frame.
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    â€œI wasn’t sleeping anyway,” George admitted. She tipped her head toward her bed, and I could see a faint blue glow under the covers.
    â€œLate night Internet research?” I asked with a grin.
    â€œYou know it.” She glanced at Bess. “Had to be quiet, though . . . don’t want to disturb the princess .”
    â€œI heard that,” Bess grunted from the bed next to George’s. “The princess needs her beauty sleep. Now shhhhh .” She turned her back to us.
    I whispered to George, “This case is making me crazy. I don’t see a connection between Smallwood and Lonestar.” I sat on the edge of George’s bed. “I mean, we could guess that Lonestar hired Smallwood to steal the gems for Hugo to give to the nieces to giveto Gritty Grand, but that seems like a long and winding chain of relationships. There’s no evidence to prove any of that.”
    â€œI hear you,” George agreed. “We need some hard facts.” She turned her computer screen to face me.
    â€œAck, the light!” Bess whimpered from the other bed. “It’s coming into my head through the back of my skull.”
    â€œOh, good grief,” George moaned. She packed up the computer and led me into the bathroom. She sat on the closed toilet lid. I shut the door so we wouldn’t bug Bess anymore and sat on the edge of the bathtub.
    â€œI wasn’t searching for connections between the suspects,” George told me, typing on her laptop. “I was thinking more about the trick.” She showed me a site and scrolled down the page. “I was right about the helicopters. They are an old military model that’s been retired. Anyone can hire them for air shows . . . or magic shows.”
    â€œDo you think the helicopters have a connection to the missing box?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” George admitted. “But I am obsessed with figuring out how the trick worked. Right now I have two theories: One is that the audience was hypnotized, and the other is that somehow we were still watching a video even after Lonestar dropped the hoop. So we weren’t seeing the actual building, but a screen with doctored images of the empty space. The helicopters were there to throw us off.”
    â€œI guess both are possible.” A big part of me wanted