Page 64 of East

Nearly every hand rises, including a lovely young lady wearing a light-green gown. She’s quite pretty, with sandy-blond hair down to her shoulders and a splash of freckles on both cheeks. A great figure, though I’m surprisingly not very attracted to her. Maybe because I’m too focused on the task at hand.

“The lovely lady in green,” I call out.

She smiles as she stands and walks to the stage.

Normally I ask the volunteers for their names, but Rouge specifically forbade me from doing this, so I simply guide her to the tent. “Sit in here, my dear.” I lean into her ear. “Just follow the light when it comes on.”

She nods with another smile.

I give a nod to my stage manager to start the turntable. The audience gasps as the house falls down on the tent, crushing it flat.

And for the first time, I’m nervous too. Because I don’t know what I’m going to find when the door to the house opens.

But Rouge told me to proceed as I normally do, so I will.

“Ladies and gentlemen, be not alarmed! For some things”—I flourish my cape with each word—“are not…as they…seem!”

The door to the house opens, and I’m expecting it to be empty.

But it isn’t.

Instead of the lady in green, Rouge Montrose stands there, her arms outstretched and a dazzling sparkler in her teeth.

I’m shocked. She was just sitting in the audience, right next to the woman in green.

And now she’s on the stage.

A magician is never supposed to reveal his secrets.

But what does he do when even he doesn’t know how the trick is done?

Rouge takes a bow, and the crowd goes wild.

23

THEA

Aus is driving me home.

He was my ride to the gala, but our plan was to split off once he left for the Jade Sanctum, and then I would take an Uber home. That’s no longer the case.

He closed the Jade Sanctum tonight, and I’m grateful for it.

Because I don’t want to be alone.

Aus is an interesting guy. Not the white-knight type at all, at least not at first glance.

Yet here he is, coming to my rescue—putting his own business in financial jeopardy—after I’ve been through the wringer.

If I weren’t so damned shaken from my interrogation, I’d be turned on.

I place a hand on his thigh as he drives. “Thank you,” I say for the thousandth time.

“No need to thank me, hon. I’m just doing what any decent guy would do.”

“There are plenty of decent guys who would bow out when the cops showed up, and I honestly wouldn’t blame them for it.”

He shrugs. “You can’t have met too many truly decent guys, then.”