Page 30 of Murder By Misdirection

He moved to a doorway between the two rooms of the suite he had rented and held up the cloth, which filled the entire doorframe.

“Now count out loud to three!” Max said from behind the cloth.

The excited children yelled out, “ONE, TWO, THREE!”

There was a puff of smoke and the cloth fell to the ground, empty. At first, the children were stunned. Then one of the parents carefully rose and went through the doorway.

“He’s not here!” she called from the other room.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and the children all looked surprised. Pro carefully went to the door and opened it.

A cart was pushed in by someone in a chef’s outfit. He wore a large floppy chef’s hat that hid his face. On the cart was an elaborate multi-tiered birthday cake, with sparklers burning atop it.

The children squealed, Pro among them.

The lights in the room suddenly went out, so the only light was the sparklers.

“This looks delicious,” the chef’s voice croaked. “But not as delicious as YOU!”

With that, the chef pushed his hat back to reveal a scary clown face. The features were twisted in wicked delight, and the face seemed to project an evil malice.

The sparklers all went out and the room was plunged into darkness, as the children and several of the adults screamed in terror. One little girl wet herself.

And just as suddenly the lights came up. The chef was still there, but he wore Max’s face. The scary clown mask was gone along with the large floppy hat. Max took a bow as the children sniffled and cried.

“How dare you!” one angry parent yelled as Max took off the chef’s costume.

As it turned out, her friends were still hysterical and all of them left, and no one had the cake except Max and Pro. Max looked at his daughter and shrugged. “Sorry, pumpkin, I thought it was a good trick.”

At school the next week, her friends avoided her and wouldn’t speak about the party. The one girl who had the “accident” never spoke to her again, and Elisha had to deal with angry calls from parents for days.

And, of course, Max flew back to Vegas and didn’t have to deal with the upset and turmoil he’d left in his wake.

Pro shook herself to get past the memory and resentment to focus on her mother.

“Mom, do me a favor,” Pro sighed. “Try to call Max, tell him to surrender. They are putting out an APB on him.”

“I will, dear,” Elisha told her daughter. “I’m sorry this has been so upsetting for you.”

“It will be more upsetting for all of us if Max gets himself shot.”

9. Between Two Minds

Pro sat at her desk and went through the list of Albert Floss’s emails a second time. Although the actual email wasn’t there, it noted the sender, recipient, and the subject line. She used different colored highlighters to track repeated email conversations.

She looked over at her partner who sat at his nearby desk going over a copy of the same list.

“So,” Pro said, which made Chu raise his head, “Floss wasn’t the person who made the plans, is that our current theory?”

“That was the one Max put forth before his vanishing act,” Chu responded sardonically. “I don’t know if that is true or whether he was just saying it as a distraction.”

“We have no reason to doubt he was sincere, do we?”

“Pro, your father has been pulling our chain since we discovered him in Floss’s shop. Did your mother know where he is?”

“No, she said she hadn’t heard from him. I checked the Waldorf-Astoria—”

“Right, that’s where he said he was staying. Not bad digs.”

---