“It slammed my senses straight into overdrive.” Fallon’s jaw tightened. “Never felt anything like it in my life. I went into what I thought was an enlightened state. Suddenly I could see all the mysteries of the cosmos. I was sure I could comprehend them if only I looked a little deeper.”
“What happened?”
“I was in a state of altered reality, completely disoriented. It was as if I was moving through a dream. I went out onto the balcony of Jenny’s condo, convinced that I would be able to see the heart of the universe. While I was in that condition, Tucker entered the apartment. He tried to force me over the railing. Actually, he tried to talk me into going over under my own willpower.”
“What?”
“I was hallucinating,” Fallon said. “Out of my head. He tried to convince me that there was a crystal bridge that connected the balcony of Jenny’s condo with the roof of the building across the street.”
“I think I saw that movie.”
“So did I. According to Tucker, all I had to do was step out onto the bridge. When that didn’t work, he resorted to force. There was a struggle. In the end, I . . . killed him. He went off the balcony, instead of me.”
“Dear heaven. How on earth did you manage to save yourself when you were in such a disoriented state?”
“This is going to sound weird,” Fallon said. “Even though the magic lantern affected my talent, I think it was my talent that somehow saved me.”
“Nah, it was your willpower and self-control that saved you, not your talent.”
He looked at her. “You think so?”
“Sure. You’ve got more self-control than any talent I’ve ever met. When push came to shove, it was that ability that saved you, not your talent.” She paused. “Then again, the two are sort of linked, I suppose. The fact that you can handle such a powerful talent means that you’ve got a lot of built-in control. Chicken-and-egg thing, I guess. If you didn’t have a lot of control, you’d have gone crazy by now.”
“Thanks for that visual,” Fallon said.
“Just trying to clarify here.”
“You have a way of doing that.”
“Doing what?” she asked.
“Clarifying.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“The bottom line is that I survived and Tucker died.”
“You did what you had to do,” Isabella assured him.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was out of my head,” Fallon said. “Who knows how I might have handled the situation if I’d been in a normal state of mind? Jenny started screaming and crying. She was hysterical with grief and rage.”
“Why was she so upset? Because of the hallucinogenic light of the lantern? Surely when she came back to her senses, she understood that you had been forced to fight for your life.”
“Tucker Austin was her brother.”
Isabella sighed. “I see. Well, that certainly explains her distraught reaction.”
“Tucker was her older brother. She idolized him. Hell, he was the golden boy of the Austin family. Jenny and her parents have never believed that Tucker was running the club or selling the magic-lantern light. They have what you might call another theory of the crime.”
Understanding hit her hard.
“They think you were the one running the Arcane Club and dealing the magic-lantern light.”
“Their version of events is that after J&J fired up the investigation, I decided to cut my losses, shut down the club and set Tucker up to take the fall. Literally, in this case.”
“To cover your tracks?”
“Yes,” Fallon said evenly. “They also believe that my family protected me.”
“Of course they can’t prove that because there is no proof, so they comfort themselves with their own version of history. It’s actually a pretty solid conspiracy theory, because within Arcane the Joneses wield a lot of power. It would be easy to believe they would circle the wagons around one of their own.”
Fallon’s eyes were bleak. He said nothing.
“That’s one of the hallmarks of conspiracy theories, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “As someone once said, they are the losers’ version of history.”
“Never thought about it like that.”
“Probably because you weren’t raised in a family of dedicated conspiracy freaks.” She glanced down at the ring. “So every year on the anniversary of Tucker’s death someone sends you a nasty little memento mori. Who is it? Jenny?”
“Probably, although I suppose it could be Tucker’s mother or father.”
“You’ve never tracked down the sender?”
“Didn’t seem to be much point. I got the message.”
“Will the Austin family be at the Sedona conference?”