No Escape

Keep breathing. Deal with this. Mom is counting on you. Lauren opened her eyes and looked back at the man.

“Did your sister know a magician named Gibson?”

The question came so far out of left field that Lauren couldn’t help being surprised. “No.”

The coroner looked puzzled. “Your sister didn’t know Gibson. But I can tell by your expression that you do.”

“I don’t know him. I know of him. Everybody who loves magic knows who Gibson is. I’ve seen him perform.” Lauren didn’t like the way she suddenly felt guilty. That came from the coroner, not her. She grew more uncomfortable with the questioning, but she told herself she’d never dealt with something like this before and that her answers would help catch whoever had hurt Megan.

“What do you know about Gibson?”

That question was easier to answer. Lauren knew about Gibson. She answered automatically, pulling up the information effortlessly, and was grateful for the change of subject. “The man’s a master illusionist. He’s up there with David Copperfield. Criss Angel. Doug Henning. Siegfried & Roy.”

Frowning, the man shook his head. “I’ve heard of Criss Angel.”

Lauren could tell from the coroner’s reaction that he didn’t care much for the magician.

“And I thought Siegfried and Roy were lion tamers.”

“Magic is a part of their show.” Lauren studied him. “I don’t suppose you care for magic shows or magicians.”

“Magicians are just another type of con artist.”

Under other circumstances, Lauren knew she would have argued the point and maybe even gotten angry. Magic and illusion were an art, and shows depended on audiences wanting to be fooled just as much as on magicians and illusionists. For now, though, she just let it go.

“Why would your sister have been interested in Gibson?”

“I don’t know that she was.”

The coroner reached under the lab coat and took out a photograph. He held it so Lauren could see it.

In the photograph, Megan sat at a table in an elegant club. She held a wineglass in one hand and looked as carefree as ever. The lights sparkled in her blue eyes, and Lauren knew her sister was having a great time. She didn’t look frightened or under duress. Her smile was carefree.

The man sitting beside Megan was instantly recognizable. Gibson—that was the only name anyone knew him by—was a virtuoso of illusion. He’d had shows in Vegas and in Europe that were always sold out.

Dark and broody, a wild flip of hair hanging down into his face, Gibson looked mysterious and otherworldly. His persona, if it was a persona, never slipped. In the few interviews he’d done, he’d maintained his distance and hadn’t revealed much about himself. No one knew where he came from. He’d just appeared on the magic scene almost as if by arcane means. If it was a shtick, it worked for him.

The black suit was Italian, neatly pressed, and fit him well. In the darkness of the club, he almost seemed to be disappearing into the shadows, as if the darkness around him was drawing him in under its protective wing. His was a hatchet face fleshed out by hard planes and deep-set eyes. A thin beard edged his jaw and pooled in a goatee around his thin-lipped mouth. The pale complexion made him look stark, as if he never saw the light of day.

Lauren had followed his career and had gotten to see him when he’d played at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago. Megan had bought the tickets and planned their whole night—including a blind date with an accountant for Lauren that was nice but didn’t really have any spark.

“Is that Gibson?” The coroner jostled the photograph and broke the hypnotic intensity.

“Yes.”

“Ever met him?”

“No.”

“Your sister obviously knew him.” He put the picture back inside his jacket.

Lauren didn’t know what to say to that. She thought for a moment. “That picture wasn’t on her Facebook page.” She had looked at Megan’s Facebook information and updates several times since she’d gotten the news about her sister. Until the night of her death, there had been constant updates and Tweets. “When was it taken?”

“The night she went missing.”

Pain racked Lauren. “Megan was reported missing?”

The man nodded. “You didn’t know that?”

“No.” Lauren focused on her control. She needed to listen. She needed to learn. Her mom would want to know everything. “The first contact we had was Inspector Myton’s phone call to tell us—to tell us Megan was gone.”

“Your sister was reported missing.”

“By whom?”

“A friend she’d made over the last couple days.”

“What friend?”

The coroner hesitated, then answered. “A man she was supposed to have breakfast with the next morning. The guy called the police because he didn’t feel like your sister was someone who would just stand someone up.”

“Megan wouldn’t. If she didn’t want to go somewhere, she didn’t go. If something came up, she called. That’s just how she was.”

“Then we have to assume she went with whoever did this to her.”

Lauren looked down at her sister and shook her head. “No. Megan would never go with anyone that would do something like this.”

“Then she didn’t know what the guy she was with was capable of.”

“How do you know it was a guy?”

The coroner held up his hands. “Her killer had big hands.”

An image of someone’s hands around Megan’s neck squeezing the life out of her nearly brought Lauren to her knees. She thought she was going to be sick. The room spun around her.

A strong hand took her by the elbow and lent her strength. “Easy. Just keep breathing.”

Lauren did. She forced her legs to hold her up and concentrated on the door on the other side of the room till the room stopped spinning. “Did you find out where this man was when Megan went missing?”

“He was with friends. Iron-clad alibi.”

Iron-clad alibi? What coroner talked like that? Obviously he had been watching too many cop shows. “If the police knew Megan was missing, why didn’t they do something?”

“Adults come down to Jamaica to go missing all the time. There were no signs of foul play in her room. The police checked. She just didn’t come back to her room that night.”

Because she was dead.

“Normally three days have to pass before an adult is presumed missing.” The coroner’s voice was flat, but she knew he was trying to help her understand what had happened. “Since there was no evidence that she was abducted, the police kept on the lookout for her.” He hesitated. “Things happen down in the islands. The police know that, too. Because they were looking, they knew who she was when they found her. Otherwise she could have been here in the morgue for days before anyone knew who she was.”