Free Wicked Nights by Diana Bocco

Chapter 1
     
    Laurie Cole had had some strange assignments as an NYC police consultant, but this one surely beat all the rest.
     
    Unless Emily was playing a practical joke on her, which seemed like the most logical answer at the moment.
     
    “Alex Volman, the magician?” Laurie asked again, just to make she’d heard right.
     
    “Illusionist.”
     
    “And you think he’s responsible for the disappearance of these women?”
     
    “We think he’s involved somehow.”
     
    Laurie put her chestnut brown hair up in a ponytail and relaxed back into the sofa, crossing her legs. When she told her boss she would agree to one more case before taking some time off, she wasn’t expecting such a high-profile one. She hadn’t been on vacation for over two years, and she was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to be able to take one again.
     
    Still, she understood Emily’s urgency. The mysterious disappearance of three young women in less than a month had been all over the news. Front-page fodder for gossip, fear and speculation. The police had claimed they had no suspects, which made the current accusation all the more interesting.
     
    “Why isn’t this in the papers?”
     
    “ Volman’s a celebrity. We really don’t want to accuse him unless we have something on him.”
     
    Laurie sighed. She remembered seeing pictures of Volman in gossip magazines and newspapers. Tall, dark, smoky handsome. Charming smile. And now a suspected killer. Why did she get stuck with all the complicated cases?
     
    “So that’s why you’re sending me instead of the police?”
     
    “Well, you’re technically a consultant, not part of the force, so it makes things less official.”
     
    Emily handed her a huge stack of files, and Laurie couldn’t help but groan.
     
    “And I am sorry about doing this right before your birthday,” Emily added.
     
    It was going to be a long week.
     
    ** **
     
    The guy was rich. She knew that, but seeing it in person was something else.
     
    Alex Volman had made a name for himself as the Houdini of the new century. His stage performances were all about endurance, jaw-dropping danger and breaking world records. He was famous for stunts that defied explanation. He didn’t just make people levitate off a table — he held them up in the air ten feet above the ground. No trick lighting, no loud distractions that could be hiding wires or harnesses. There were the usual shiny objects on stage, but the show was definitively about him and his incredible acts. While critics were quick to say it was all a cheap eye trick, the truth was that nobody had been able to duplicate the results, and so he was still the king of illusions.
     
    As she pulled into the driveway of his Hamptons estate, it was obvious that being the king of illusions was a very profitable endeavor indeed.
     
    The sprawling gated mansion sat on a large acreage of land right on the ocean. At least half of the windows had spacious balconies with dramatic southwestern views of the water, and almost the entire front of the house was covered in antique stained-glass windows. Laurie was sure she could hear horses somewhere on the property.
     
    The inside of the home was even more impressive, with refined artwork on the walls and sumptuous dark wood paneling in the entry hall. She wasn’t an art expert, but she could tell the two-foot bronze sculpture sitting next to the fireplace was probably worth a fortune.
     
    As she stepped into the study to wait for Volman, she couldn’t help but wonder who had decorated the place. If it had been him, he certainly had an eye for design.The dark wood floors were partially covered with a Kilim rug, and a matching love seat and sleeper sofa sat near a massive stone fireplace in a corner of the room. Above the fireplace was a hefty candlestick that looked like solid silver.
     
    “Detective Cole, I presume?”
     
    Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of the voice behind her. She turned around