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Light streamed into Tempest’s bedroom through a slit in her curtains. For the blissful few moments between sleep and consciousness, she didn’t remember the events of the previous night. Then the image of the dead body of Lucas Cruz popped into her mind. In those first few horrid moments, she’d been so sure he was dead. Had she overreacted because she was scared it was Sanjay?

She kicked off the mess of blankets and opened the curtains, blinking at the bright light of the midsummer morning. As she was shaking out a tangle in her hair, her phone dinged with a text message.

Plenty of breakfast at the tree house.

A message from her grandfather. It was simultaneously delightful and horrifying to be temporarily living in her childhood home as an adult. Her grandparents hadn’t lived with them when she was growing up, but she’d spent many summers with them in their Edinburgh flat and as a teenager had lived with them in Scotland for a couple of years after her aunt died.

These days, it was she and her dad in the main house and her grandparents in the in-law unit in the backyard. Their main deck had a perfect view of one of Tempest’s bedroom windows. Three people who loved her unconditionally and fed her the best food she’d ever eaten… versus privacy and adulting.

Instead of choosing between those options, she was building her own home in a private corner of the property. It would allow her to be close to her family, but not within their line of sight. She was using an existing partially built stone tower that her mom had begun building, so it would also let her feel close to her mom even though she’d lost her. She knew she was lucky to have a small plot of family land to build on. It was ridiculously expensive to buy a house these days, and she knew how fortunate she was.

The stone tower was the only true folly on this land that Tempest’s parents, Darius and Emma, had christened Fiddler’s Folly. Follies were ornamental structures without a formal purpose, and her mom’s favorite instrument had been the fiddle, so the couple had liked the whimsical name. It perfectly represented the hodgepodge of buildings filled with secret doors and hidden rooms that they were experimenting with for their fledgling business. Fiddler’s Folly now consisted of the main house where Tempest and her dad lived, the tree house in-law unit where her grandparents lived, a barn that served as the workshop for Secret Staircase Construction, and the partially built stone tower Tempest hoped to one day turn into a small home for herself.

Be there in 10 , Tempest texted her grandfather.

On her way across the steep path to her grandparents’ tree house, she stopped by the stone tower to check on Abra. The stately, six-year-old lop-eared rabbit was fifteen pounds of fluffy therapy. Abra was far from sweet, but he was the smartest rabbit she’d ever met, and he was an excellent judge of a person’s character. He was very particular about who he’d let hold him—a feeling Tempest shared—but he loved cuddling with Tempest. Abra was house-trained but most of the time preferred the domain of his labyrinthine hutch in the shelter of the partially completed stone tower in a steep corner of the yard.

“Want some company?” Tempest asked him as she scooped him up from his hutch. He nuzzled her cheek, so she took that as a yes. She carried him to the tree house.

When the tree house had first been built by Tempest’s carpenter dad, it was a simple structure for a child to climb up a tree and have a secret spot high in the branches of her backyard. But as Tempest’s parents experimented with various architectural creations, the initial tree house became a proper two-story in-law unit built in between two oak trees. Its decks surrounded the massive oaks, making it feel like a proper tree house.

Tempest reached the top step of the staircase that delivered people into the heart of the home: its kitchen.

Ash looked up from the stove, where he was stirring a pot of fragrant jaggery coffee. “Have you eaten?”

Ashok Raj, known to both Tempest and most of Hidden Creek’s residents as Grandpa Ash, wore a fedora on his bald head and a look of concern on his face.

He didn’t share the same Scottish accent of his wife of fifty years. He’d moved to Scotland from India as a teenager, ostensibly for medical school but in truth running away from a family tragedy, and to Tempest, his accent sounded approximately 90 percent South Indian, 9 percent Scottish, and 1 percent Californian.

“Grandpa. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. When you saw my curtains opening, that was me having just woken up.”

He clicked his tongue. “Your father left for work an hour ago.”

The hours of a general contractor, carpenter, and owner of a home renovation business were early ones. Especially when all those roles were filled by the same man. Tempest’s previous career had her heading to bed around two a.m. and getting up around ten. Life at Secret Staircase Construction had been an adjustment.

“Gray House is my main project right now,” said Tempest as she set Abra down on the deck next to the kitchen. “We’re focused on getting it set up for the library games.”

“That ‘Escape from the Haunted Library’ room you had us test was pure brilliant.” Ash poured her a mug of the sweet, steaming coffee. “How did the mystery play rehearsal go last night?”

“Don’t ask.”

He frowned and picked up a plate of food, then led the way outside to the dining table on the deck. “The cast didn’t learn their lines?”

It was nothing short of a miracle that Ash hadn’t heard rumors about what had happened. He knew everyone in Hidden Creek. He was the epitome of the friendly grandfather whom everyone loved and shared their secrets with. After a first career as a stage magician alongside his famous family, he’d been a medical doctor for forty years before retiring. Imagine a doctor with the bedside manner of a country doc you’d see in a Hallmark family movie, and that was Ash. He still received Christmas cards from dozens of former patients. He’d practiced medicine in Scotland, but since moving to Hidden Creek six years ago, he’d made friends so quickly it was almost magical. He rode his bike everywhere and would stop and chat with people from all walks of life. Regardless of whether you were nine or ninety, Ashok Raj would know your life story within five minutes of meeting you, and he’d be feeding you something delicious within ten.

“Something like that…” She didn’t want to worry him. Besides, how could she explain what happened, since she didn’t even understand it herself? “There was a problem with one of the actors who bailed on the rehearsal. Now we don’t know where he is.”

“Hmm. Surprising. Actors aren’t nearly as volatile as people would have you believe. It’s the singers you need to watch out for.”

“Noted.”

They sat down at the deck dining table, and Ash set the plate in front of Tempest. “Normally, I wouldn’t give you only a sweet option for breakfast, but I want to make sure the bramble cobbler is perfect.”

“I tried it a few days ago. It’s already perfect. My only critique is that you need to call it blackberry cobbler , since nobody outside of Scotland thinks of blackberries as brambles.”

“ Bramble is a much better name for them. You know how much I regretted letting them grow in our small yard in Edinburgh, since your gran loved eating them fresh from the vine.”

“Where’s Gran, anyway? She downstairs in her art studio?”

Ash shook his head. “Painting at the section of the creek that’s aboveground. Your play inspired her to paint a kelpie rising out of the water.”

Tempest took a bite of the bramble cobbler and closed her eyes in ecstasy. She chewed slowly to savor the sweet and tangy flavors.

“Good?” Ash asked.

“How did you get this even more delicious?”

“Magic.” Ash grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Let me bring you a second helping.”

Tempest followed him into the kitchen. The fragrant scent of the spices melded with the sweetness of the cobbler.

“Something smells different today.” She lifted the small glass bowl where he was gathering spices. “Trying a new recipe?”

Ash chuckled. “The spices are the same. Your senses are fooled because the bottle of cider vinegar is open. Once everything comes together, you’ll recognize the flavor.”

“Until then,” Tempest murmured, “it seems like nothing fits together.”

“Exactly.” Ash lifted the bowl of spices to his nose and gave a contented nod.

“Grandpa, you’re a genius.” Tempest hadn’t slowed down enough to think about what she’d truly experienced last night. How all the disparate pieces fit together. Because their senses had been fooled every step of the way.

They’d heard a gun firing, but it was only the faint crack of a fake plastic cap gun, not a real gunshot.

They hadn’t smelled the accompanying scent of gunpowder that would have been there if a gun had been fired.

They’d seen what they guessed was a gunshot hole in Lucas’s sweater, but in truth it was simply a hole, and the liquid they could see on the black fabric wasn’t flowing and could have been any color.

And finally, they’d all left the living room, so they couldn’t see the spot where Lucas lay on floor. Even though it was an open floor plan, the spot was blocked by the love seat. They didn’t see where he’d gone, but they didn’t hear the front door squeaking as it had every other time it had opened.

In other words: they’d been fooled. But why ?

Tempest’s phone pinged.

“No time for a second helping,” she said. And, unfortunately, no time to think about the mystery of what had happened to Lucas Cruz.