Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

on the cheek, and finally Kevin, possibly the least inspiring team leader that ever existed, gave Ken a hearty handshake, followed up with a salute.

“Spare me,” Sue muttered. “Kazan can’t even say goodbye without looking like a douchebag.”

As one, the Gold Team waved at Ken while he walked past them on his way across the ballroom, and Ricardo did his best to not allow his expression to convey his relief that, in this round anyway, it wasn’t a member of his own team heading out that door. And that farewell wasn’t something he’d had to say himself.

“Okay, kids,” Iain barked, jolting Ricardo out of his sobering turn of mood. “Form a group in front of the fireplace so you can all hear the next thing Monty tells you loud and clear.”

The taller magicians fell toward the back, Ricardo and the Professor drawing together like magnets in the center. At least it hadn’t been John to leave—as hard as it was to say goodbye to Ken, who’d wanted to win so badly it was palpable, Ricardo consoled himself with the fact that John was still there.

Though he wanted to slip his hand into John’s so badly it physically ached to keep himself from doing it.

Once a stylist smoothed out a wayward tuft of Monty’s hair and then got herself out of the range of the cameras, Iain gave the go-ahead, and Monty turned his dazzling smile toward the magicians, and began.

“Your next challenge involves another traditional cabinet trick: the Zig-Zag Lady. Though since we’re more of an equal opportunity type of show, for your stunt, it’ll be known as the Zig-Zag Cabinet. The way this trick is traditionally performed, the magician places his assistant inside a three-sectioned box. Cutouts in the front of the cabinet reveal the assistant’s face, fingers and toes. After a wide blade is slipped horizontally between each of the segments, the center section is slid to the side, creating the illusion that the assistant has just been sliced in three.”

Faye, who was standing directly in front of Ricardo, said, “Yes,” under her breath. No doubt, given the number of years she’d put in as an assistant, she’d done the Zig-Zag Lady countless times. And no doubt she was good at it. The crux of the trick involved the assistant turning only her body sideways and sucking in her middle, and then some clever painting and foreshortening to make the blades look as if they sank into the box much farther than they actually did, and the cabinet segments to look more drastically misaligned than they actually were.

But Kevin Kazan answered her with a leery, “Huh,” as if he didn’t think it was going to be that simple. And though it galled him to admit it to himself, Ricardo suspected Kazan was right. There would be a twist. There always was.

“But here’s the twist,” Monty said brightly, as Ricardo steeled himself against sighing, groaning, or rolling his eyes. “Not only will you be responsible for performing the illusion….”

“Hold the pause,” Iain said, as the cameras circled the magicians intently to capture their budding unease. Ricardo held his breath and steeled his expression into one of polite interest, though he noticed that Muriel and her surprised eyebrows were drawing more than their fair share of attention from the handhelds. Once all the contestants could be represented as sufficiently awed by the “cleverness” of the program, Iain said, “Okay, lights.”

He signaled to the gaffer, who fired up a bank of lighting, and suddenly a tarp-covered bulge was the central focus of the set. Ricardo hadn’t even noticed it until the lights hit the canvas. Had he made the mistake of assuming it was just leftover cleanup from the ceiling incident—or had he been too busy ogling John to care about it one way or the other until it was pointed out to him?

Either way, it was sloppy. And Ricardo, who’d spent most of his life in a state of keenly focused awareness, was disturbed he’d failed to notice a detail that prominent—too prominent to technically be called a “detail.”

Iain called out, “Do the reveal.”

A couple of grips picked up the edge of the canvas. One camera was trained on the pile. The others continued swarming the magicians. The grips heaved off the canvas, revealing a stack of plywood and lumber.

Maybe it really was something to do with the ceiling repair, and Iain had just gotten his tarp-covered piles mixed up. But then Fabian made a low chuckle in his throat, and Ricardo decided that although he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, it wasn’t all just some sort of crazy mistake.

Iain said, “Take it from the last line,” and Monty repeated, “Not only will you be responsible for performing the illusion….”

Muriel let out an involuntary snort. Ricardo glanced at her to see what she’d just kenned to that he hadn’t quite figured out, and found her new eyebrows had quirked up impossibly high. “Oh,” she said, “that’s rich.”

“…but first, you’ll need to build your own apparatus.”

Build?

Ricardo swallowed. His magic construction skills went as far as large-appliance boxes and duct tape. And he was the only man on his team. He cut his eyes to the Red Team. Fabian was sizing up the pile like he had a tape measure in his head, and Kazan was literally rubbing his palms together in eager glee.

Someone did take Ricardo’s hand then, but it wasn’t Professor Topaz. It was Sue. She squeezed his fingertips and smiled up into his eyes, and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.”

Chapter 18

CONSTRUCTION PLANS

Dinner, served family-style that night at a long dining room table (rather than the catered buffet they shared with the crew the prior evenings) was a profoundly awkward affair. John felt so much tension emanating from Fabian, it was a wonder his tepid carrot soup didn’t burst into a rolling boil. Kevin Kazan chewed his steak so hard his jaw creaked. The two of them wanted to inhale their food and