The Wizard Read online

  The Wizard

  Karen Ranney

  Karen Ranney LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Karen Ranney

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About the Author

  Also by Karen Ranney

  1

  Breanna would’ve loved the crowd.

  She would have circulated among all the well-dressed men and women congregating behind him at the gravesite. Most of those attending the church ceremony had come to the cemetery, which surprised him. He’d been at the head of the cortege, in the limousine provided by the funeral home, and had been unaware of the number of cars following him.

  Breanna would’ve flitted among the mourners, her hand touching the arm of one, touching the hand of the next. Her smile, a wide and lovely smile that had so effortlessly charmed him from the beginning, would have shown up briefly, but not so often as to seem out of place or disrespectful to the deceased.

  Perhaps she would have told an anecdote about the dearly departed, something to occasion a quick laugh. No one laughed at this gathering. There were no smiles or lighthearted moments between friends who didn’t see each other often enough. There was only a deep and dampening silence as they waited for the minister to begin.

  Derek and his father sat in a row of chairs arranged before the white casket. The empty chairs were for Breanna’s family.

  “Big turnout,” his father said, leaning close to Derek. “Breanna would have been pleased.”

  Would she? Or would she rather have been alive?

  Even now it was difficult to accept the fact that she was dead. Dead. He used the word deliberately. She hadn’t passed. She hadn’t gone on to God. She hadn’t visited the angels. She hadn’t entered into rest. She had died, the victim of a freak car accident.

  Breanna’s car had been T-boned at a three way stop, the impact so forceful that it had pushed her car into a wall. The police decided, due to the type of damage on the driver’s side, that the vehicle that hit her must’ve been larger than a sedan, something along the lines of an SUV or a van. A witness standing on a corner a block away had stated that a white van had sped through the intersection a few minutes later.

  But for bad timing she would have been with him today. His wife. His best friend. His love.

  “Is your boss here?” his father asked. “And people from the newspaper?”

  “Yes. Some.”

  “And Susan? Did you ever get in touch with her?”

  He shook his head, wishing the minister would start the graveside service and get it over with. Afterward, Derek would stand, put a rose on his wife’s casket, and walk away.

  “What’s up with that?”

  Derek shook his head again. His sister-in-law had always been slightly strange. The fact that he couldn’t reach her after Breanna’s death hadn’t been all that disturbing. He’d done everything he could think of, short of driving to Austin and physically carrying her here. He’d left a half dozen voicemails, text messages, and emails. She hadn’t returned his calls or responded.

  “Have you contacted the hospitals?”

  He glanced at his father. “What, you think lightning strikes twice in the same family?”

  Paul shrugged. “It could happen. I just think it’s odd that you haven’t heard from her.”

  He didn’t care about Susan at the moment. He had enough emotional energy to get through this ceremony and the party his father had planned before he burned out.

  It was a beautiful day for a funeral. The Texas sky was a deep piercing blue without a cloud in the sky. Cottonwood and mesquite trees pushed against the barbed wire fence on the edge of the cemetery. He’d picked this spot because of the trees and because it was on a hill. He’d ordered the bronze plaque to be installed at the head of Breanna’s grave with the words: Breanna McPherson, the dates of her birth and death and one word: Beloved.

  A week had passed since she died. Seven days during which he did things that needed to be done, like arranging for this funeral, and then fell onto the couch in his study only to stare at the ceiling until dawn. He’d probably averaged about two hours sleep a night. The couch hadn’t been designed to sleep on, but he’d been unable and unwilling to get into the king-size bed he and Breanna had shared for two years.

  His father reached over and patted him on the knee, another gesture that was out of character. He forced a smile to his face, hoping that it would be enough to alleviate his father’s worries.

  Paul McPherson was not given to demonstrations of affection. His attitude — one that Derek had heard espoused for most of his life — was that if he came home every day, turned over his paycheck, and didn’t beat anyone he was showing his love to his family. He was tall, broad shouldered and barrel chested, sporting more weight on his frame than was good for him. His hair, once a bright copper, had faded over the years like a dull penny.

  For the past two days his father had been as close to Derek as a conjoined twin. Normally, Paul was more than happy to live his life, content with his woodworking equipment, earphones, talk radio, and new girlfriend.

  Finally, the minister moved into position at the head of the casket. A dozen metal surrounded him, all filled with lavish flower arrangements. Curiously, Derek couldn’t smell any of the flowers, even all the yellow roses that were Breanna’s favorite.

  A minute later the soft breeze carried the scent of one of the mourner’s perfumes. It smelled like Breanna’s scent, something her father had commissioned from one of the world’s great perfumers for her eighteenth birthday.

  His mind was playing tricks on him again, just as they had this morning when he’d been sitting in the back of the limo. He’d seen a woman looking like Breanna standing on the corner of 281 and Bitters. A woman dressed in what looked like Breanna’s favorite red suit — the same suit she’d been buried in — had been standing there, looking directly at him. They’d been going too fast for him to make out her features, but the hair had been similar, long, brown with an auburn tint.

  After his mother died he’d thought Paul might be next, but his father was hale and hearty. Breanna had been in her early thirties, not her seventies.

  The service was done. All he had to do was make it through the throng of people and find the funeral home’s limo. That’s all. That, and endure the gathering that Paul had set up at his house. He hadn’t learned about it until yesterday afternoon.

  “It’s customary, son. Funeral meats, if you will. People expect it.”

  He hadn’t had the energy to argue with his father and now he wished he had. The last thing he wanted was a house filled with mourne
rs, each and every one of them wanting to tell him how sorry they were that such an obscene thing had happened.

  How many times was he going to have to say, “Yes, it was a tragedy. Thank you. Yes, she was a wonderful person. Thank you for coming.”

  His father fell behind to greet a friend or two, leaving him to cut through the crowd and make his way to the limo. This, too, was something he’d wanted to curtail, preferring to drive his own car to the church and to the cemetery.

  “It’s part of the package,” his father had said. “You’re paying for it; you might as well use it. Besides, people will think it’s odd if you don’t.”

  Evidently, what other people thought mattered a great deal to his father. Derek didn’t give a flying fuck what anybody thought.

  Next steps, that’s all he had to think about. What did he do next?

  Once home he asked the catering manager if there was anything she needed. No, everything was taken care of, sir, thank you. The maid service had come yesterday so everything was picked up, neat, tidy, and sanitized.

  He would endure the three hours or however long it would take until everyone had eaten enough and had enough wine or whiskey to assuage their guilt for being alive. They could leave with a clear conscience and an inner sigh of relief that they weren’t in his shoes.

  Now his only job was to put one foot in front of the other and try to endure each day as it came. When it was time he’d return to work, to the political beat in Austin. As he’d done for the past ten years he’d would stay overnight in Austin occasionally, but now he wouldn’t worry about Breanna. Or miss her. Now he could miss her wherever he was.

  He was adrift in a way he hadn’t felt for at least three years, ever since meeting Breanna. It had been love at first smile, at least on his part. He could still feel the silky texture of her curly auburn hair on his fingers. She left it long but how she wore it depended on her mood that morning. More often then not she put a scrunchy around it and had it in a modified ponytail.

  “I can’t stand when I have to keep pushing my hair out of my face,” she told him once. “I’d like to spray it and have it stay where I want it to stay.”

  She was a research scientist at Texas Scientific Laboratories. He’d done a piece on them three years ago. She hadn’t liked it. He understood why. He thought her lab was depending on animal testing when it didn’t need it. It was never a good look for a private company with lots of federal contracts to be guilty of animal abuse, or even a whiff of it.

  However, he’d always be grateful for writing the article because it was how he met Breanna in the first place. She’d called him up after his piece had appeared in Texas Monthly, filled with indignation about what he’d written. She’d insisted on discussing his conclusions with him at length. They’d met over coffee during which she’d been vehement and articulate with her counterpoints. Two hours later he realized two things: he hadn’t enjoyed talking with anyone like that in a very long time and he wanted to see her again.

  “You have to have dinner with me,” he said.

  “I have to?”

  “Yes. It’s mandatory if you want me to reassess my conclusions.”

  “I thought we just spent hours discussing your conclusions.”

  “I am, however,” he said, “willing to go into my research notes.”

  She’d smiled, then, that beautiful warm wide smile that was replicated in her eyes. Her cheeks had turned pale rose and he’d fallen in love. It wasn’t just her physical appearance, which was a definite ten or maybe higher. She was smart, funny, determined, and driven. She loved her job at Texas Scientific Laboratories, and her five-year plan which hadn’t factored in falling in love or getting married.

  “I don’t want to become the president of the company,” she said one night when they were in bed. “I just want to be able to make an impact.”

  He smiled against her hair. They always had the most interesting conversations after sex. And the sex…was wild, torrid, unlike any experience he ever had.

  And would never have again.

  He felt gutted, as if someone had reached inside and pulled out his heart, his intestines, and every other vital organ. He was walking and talking, nodding and trying to smile, but he wasn’t there. His soul was wandering around in the ether, looking for Breanna. Not seeking closure — which had always struck him as an idiotic comment — but something else. Maybe a meaning to this horror. Why had this happened?

  He knew plenty of people who were despicable human beings, people who hadn’t educated themselves for years like Breanna had. People who weren’t dedicated to the pursuit of science. People who didn’t donate free time to the Animal Defense Society, who hadn’t funded an organization for stray dogs in Mexico. He knew people who were walking around right now who’d cheated and defrauded, were adulterers, thieves, politicians with the worst sort of vices. Why hadn’t one of them died instead of Breanna?

  It was a question without an answer.

  2

  The drapes on the west side of their bedroom were still open. Derek hadn’t closed them after Breanna died. No one had been in this room since he'd entered her walk-in closet to pick the outfit she would be buried in, a choice he had honestly never considered that he might have to make.

  He had chosen the bright red suit she liked so much. She called it her power suit and had always worn it for an important work function.

  It was almost dark, the horizon fading into night. Because of their location atop a small hill, the house was shrouded in darkness. Unless, of course, he turned on the landscape lights. Then the house that the oil tycoon had built was lit up like Disneyland.

  He hadn't felt comfortable in this house in the first few months of their marriage. It was too large, too overwhelming, and it reeked too much of the billions that Lionel Adams had accumulated. There was no gadget or device lacking, from the elevator, to the theater room down the hall, to the air-conditioned garages for Lionel's favorite cars. If money could buy happiness then it had achieved nirvana in this house.

  Gradually, he’d gotten used to the luxury around him, but luckily he had never expected it. His childhood had been solidly middle-class. Paul had worked for the city four years after being in the military. When he retired, he’d started his own company. Angie had stayed home with him for the first five years of his life and hadn’t started working at a law office until he'd gone to first grade.

  If he and Breanna had had children he doubted they would have done the same. They could have afforded to hire a nurse and then a nanny. The idea of Breanna going back to work after having their child had always depressed him, but it wasn't something he could readily communicate with her. He was a 21st-century man and couldn’t expect his wife to act as if she lived in the 50s.

  That conflict had never arisen, however, and wouldn’t now.

  The party, or funeral meats as his father called it, was as bad as Derek had anticipated it to be. Over the last two decades he’d been a reporter and the practice of hiding his personal thoughts came in handy for the next four and a half hours. He parroted half a dozen phrases, all polite, each designed for the occasion, and each one of them unbearable.

  His father had ordered four kinds of wine and hard liquor as well. He’d evidently challenged the caterer to produce their entire catalogue of food. From the comments he heard from the mourners, everything was delicious. God forbid the three hundred people wandering in and out of the house all afternoon and evening go hungry.

  When he finally said goodbye to the last of the them, he closed the door and stood there for a minute, his hand flat against the wood.

  “I think I should stay here tonight,” his father said. “Just to keep you company.”

  He didn’t turn. “That’s not necessary, Dad. I’m fine.”

  “Well, that’s a lie. You’re not fine.”

  “Okay,” he said, turning to face his father. “Maybe I’m not fine, but it’s not necessary for you to stay.”

  “Then how about
for my sake? Maybe I don’t want to go back to my house right now. Maybe I don’t want to be alone.”

  He forced a smile to his face. “Then stay.”

  His father had his own room on the second floor. If he didn’t like that one there were plenty of other ones to choose from. The house had been built to his father-in-law’s specifications sixty years ago when Lionel Adams had struck it rich in the oil fields. Lionel had named the house the Crow’s Nest when it was finished. Derek still couldn’t figure out why. Maybe his father-in-law had had a secret yen to be a ship’s captain. The three-story structure didn’t look anything like a crow’s nest, either. It was made of brick treated to look black, and sat hunched on the top of a small hill like a horror movie set. Derek thought it was a waste of a couple million dollars.

  The house was filled with paintings and artifacts — bits of brass, pewter, silver — depicting various historical landmarks throughout the world from Stonehenge to the Acropolis to the Coliseum. Evidently, Lionel wanted the world to think that he was cosmopolitan. From what Breanna said, Lionel preferred to stay within Texas.

  Breanna had done a lot that her father hadn’t. She’d traveled the world, attended college, then graduate school, then received a PhD. She’d learned Farsi only because it had interested her. She was an animal lover, a volunteer for various charities and also had more money than God.

  Derek hadn’t known about Breanna’s fortune on that first date or even the second. It wasn’t until they had been dating for a month that she told him she was Lionel Adam’s only child and the recipient of an inheritance worth nearly a billion dollars.