Hot Trick (A Detective Shelley Caldwell Novel) Read Free

Cole!”
    The crowd thundered its approval.
    And despite myself, I found my attention arrowing away from my search and straight for that stage. Another movable platform rose, bringing to the audience’s attention a tall figure, whose narrow black pants and open ruffled black shirt displayed a body that would make any red-blooded female salivate.
    Long, wavy dark hair in constant movement as if it were being blown by an invisible fan framed an angular face. His cheekbones were wide, his forehead broad, his chin square and kissed with a slight cleft. All good, but only serving as a setting for deep-set dark eyes that nearly jumped out of his tanned face.
    On one side of him, Silke held up a set of handcuffs, while Oriel whirled leg irons over her head. Sebastian turned his back to the audience, at which time the women shackled him. The moment the cuffs and irons snapped shut, they began to throb with a sinuous glow, which then moved around his wrists and ankles as if the constraints were alive.
    The thought spooked me. I’d never quite seen an act like this one before.
    Oriel opened the trunk, releasing a burst of light and smoke, a mini-explosion that trailed off, leaving the area with an eerie coating like magic dust.
    Both women helped Sebastian into the trunk. Once he was inside, Oriel closed the lid and locked it. Then she and Silke lifted chains that surrounded the trunk, and Oriel padlocked those together as well. She did everything with an extra flourish, as though she, rather than her employer, was the star of the show.
    The trunk gleamed, a moving morass of red and gold that stood out against the night sky. Undoubtedly, Sebastian already had the handcuffs off. He would probably be rid of the leg irons before the trunk hit the water. All he had to do was somehow open the trunk and free the padlock from the inside…
    Silke attached a chain hanging from the crane to the trunk, while Oriel climbed into the cab.
    Voices rose in the audience as the crane lifted the still-glowing trunk and swung it over the river. Gradually, it was lowered, and just before it hit the water, the glow snapped off.
    A giant neon clock onstage ticked away the seconds as the trunk remained submerged.
    The murmuring around me grew excited.
    So why was I filled with dread as I watched one minute pass…then another…and no Sebastian?
    The audience began to chant his name.
    Three minutes.
    Shades of Casey Brogan… My stomach began to knot.
    Four.
    “Bring him up,” I yelled, knowing I wouldn’t be heard.
    Surely Sebastian couldn’t hold his breath that long. This was it, then, the death the so-called banshee had seen. What to do? Even if I dived into the river, I wouldn’t be able to open the padlock and save him.
    Finally, Sebastian’s team seemed concerned. They ran around onstage, shouting for Oriel to do something. A murmur spread along the anxious crowd, their voices combining into a headache-loud buzz.
    Oriel operated the crane to slowly pull the trunk from the river and lever it back onto the platform.
    Five minutes.
    I waited with dread as she dramatically removed the padlock and chain and unlocked the trunk. Her scream made the hair on my arms stand on end.
    Two security guys rushed forward and tilted the trunk so all could see…
    Empty.
    I took a long, slow breath.
    Somehow, Sebastian had escaped the locked trunk. But where was he?
    Lights shone on the river and the men in the boat below looked for him. Or for his body.
    A shiver shot through me.
    Instinct and something darker—an insistent pulsing at the back of my neck—turned me away from the mayhem to see a perfectly dry Sebastian making his way through the crowd to the stage. He stared at me, and unable to help myself, I was mesmerized.
    Blood coursed through me at an accelerated pace. Its rush filled my ears. My vision telescoped and for a moment in time, I saw no one but Sebastian. Those nearly black eyes—ringed with a smudgy gray-violet—had the power to evoke