debut at the Tangiers. A photo showed a blond woman in her twenties with a downturned mouth and choppy, shoulder-length layers. The headline read:
FORMER DEVEREAUX EMPLOYEE CLAIMS CREDIT FOR HIS ACT
The production manager on his show at the time, a woman by the name of Renée Turner, had contacted The-Magic-Ring.com to complain about Devereaux after he fired her. Turner told the writer she had been let go because she “knew too much” about Devereaux’s best-guarded secrets—including his flying illusion.
My heart rate raced as I scrolled deeper into the article.
Turner claimed it had been her ideas that had made the flying illusion possible, and that Devereaux could never have conceived or performed that part of his act if it weren’t for her. She also claimed that, when Devereaux landed his multimillion-dollar contract with the Tangiers, she asked for a raise but was denied. Then, when he renewed the contract, he denied her again.
“I lost it, I admit it,” Turner said in a phone interview last Thursday. “I said some things I shouldn’t have, things I didn’t mean. But Devereaux took them seriously and fired me on the spot. I’d worked for him for almost ten years, but he had me escorted out of the building like a criminal. After I cooled down, I tried to apologize, but he wouldn’t take my calls. Then he blacklisted me. I’ll never work in magic again.”
Turner went on, making more cryptic statements about what she knew and veiled threats about what she could do to Devereaux’s career if she told. The writer of the story—I couldn’t in good conscience call him a reporter—claimed that Turner’s comments hadn’t been corroborated because “no one from Devereaux’s organization could be reached for comment.”
I searched for other articles on the subject, anything that might verify Turner’s claims, but I found nothing. Literally nothing. It seemed impossible that a scandal involving the highest-paid solo performer in history wouldn’t yield more results—until I remembered that it had happened in 2002, years before Twitter or Facebook even existed. On top of that, the major magic publications—MAGIC, Genii, The Linking Ring—hadn’t been online back then. If the story had burned out quickly, it might not have made it to the mainstream media; after all, this was magic, not Major League Baseball. It was possible that the Turner/Devereaux story had been a big scandal in the magic world but had left almost no residue on the internet.
But none of that mattered. What did matter was that Turner seemed to believe what she’d said. And she might still hold a grudge. I looked over at Ripley. He was completely unconscious. Probably, I should’ve let him sleep. But my brain was on fire, lit by a rapid series of tiny explosions, neurons going off like superheated kernels in a pan of Jiffy Pop. Images flashed and ideas raced, inflating that foil spiral into a dome.
“Ripley,” I whispered. He didn’t stir. I put a hand on his arm and shook him. “Ripley!”
He sat bolt upright. “What is it? What happened?”
“I found something.”
CHAPTER 21
RIPLEY SIPPED LUKEWARM MOUNTAIN DEW, trying to wake up. I filled him in on Renée Turner and her beef with Devereaux.
“So, after sixteen years of banishment from the Wizarding World or whatever, you think she’s still in Vegas?”
“I don’t know.”
“And if she is, what makes you think she can help?”
“I don’t know,” I said, irritated. We finally had a lead, and now Ripley was giving me the third degree.
“All right,” he said, sensing my frustration. “Give me that.”
He took the laptop and started pecking away at it; apparently, his fingers were more awake than the rest of him.
Two minutes later he said, “Elias Dante Jr., you are the luckiest person I know.”
“Why? What is it?”
“She’s still here. And I’ve got her address.”
Dad’s alarm went off at six a.m., and before I could crawl into bed and pretend to be asleep, he was sitting up, rubbing the back of his neck.
“What an awful pillow,” he said, and then saw me at the desk. “You didn’t sleep.”
I considered lying, but I could tell by the look on his face that he wouldn’t buy it.
“No,” I admitted.
Dad looked grim. “Do you think you’re starting a cycle?”
“Might just be the meds kicking in. Hard to say.” It wasn’t hard to say; I was exhibiting every symptom in the books.
“You should sleep.”
“I don’t think I could if I tried.”
Dad sighed through his nose like he always did when he was exasperated. “Well, at least try to rest. Watch some free