Love Is Only an Illusion

“Oh, boy,” an agent sighed as he and a female agent entered Sutton’s interrogation room, “another mentalist.”

Sutton smiled politely. “You must have met Merritt. No worries, I won’t give you a psych session. Hi, I’m Sutton Reeves,” she said as she stuck her hand out for the agent to shake.

The agent gave her a puzzled look, glancing between her face and hand. The female agent, however, grabbed Sutton’s hand firmly. “Alma Dray,” she smiled. Gesturing with her head, she said, “Dylan Rhodes.”

“Your accent is beautiful,” Sutton complimented. “I always wanted to learn French.”

“Flattery won’t get you out of here, kid,” the lead agent reminded her, slamming down Sutton’s manila file. “How’d you do it?”

“I believe that would be magic,” Sutton smirked. “Haven’t you ever heard the old saying, “A magician never reveals his secrets”?”

“Haven’t you ever heard the old saying, “Comply and you’ll be set free”?” Agent Rhodes retorted.

“No, I haven’t actually,” Sutton said, looking up at him with an intrigued look. “Was that Confucius?”

The agent slammed his fist on the table. “I’ve never hit a girl without a reason…”

“Now’s your lucky day!” Sutton congratulated him, placing her feet up on the table and lacing her fingers behind her head, the chair tilting back slightly. “Get my good side,” she said, tilting her left cheek toward the agent.

Sitting down, Agent Rhodes ran his hands down his face. “Please tell me the last Horseman we have to interrogate isn’t as awful as you and the other mentalist.”

Sutton smirked. “You haven’t met Danny yet, have you?” The agent groaned. “I’ll take that as a no. He’s a little, shall I say, cocky.” She bit her lip, remembering how full of himself Danny was last night.

As Agent Rhodes got up to leave, Agent Dray asked, “What is Danny to you?”

Sutton froze. “Excuse me?”

Intrigued by the Interpol agent’s question, the FBI agent sat back down. “Danny,” the French woman repeated. “Your eyes sparkled when you mentioned his name, and you’re biting your lip.”

“I always bite my lip,” Sutton told her, mentally scolding herself for letting her barriers down around the agents.

“Do your eyes always sparkle when you talk about Danny?”

“Danny is just my colleague,” Sutton spat, the chair legs slamming back on the ground as she sat in a normal position.

“No, he isn’t,” Agent Rhodes sneered. “What is he? Is he the ringleader of this whole thing?”

Sutton snorted, irritated with his comment. “Danny and I both run this show. You can’t give him too much credit or it will go to his head.”

“Now, I am no mentalist, but it seems to me that Daniel is much more to you than you want anyone to believe,” Agent Dray confirmed, staring Sutton down.

Sutton scoffed as Agent Rhodes raised an eyebrow. “He isn’t. Danny and I butt heads. We are too much alike to be romantically involved.” The words tasted awful as they flowed past her lips.

“I don’t think so,” Agent Dray said, a smile playing at her lips. “Be careful, Miss Reeves.”

“Let’s go tackle Atlas,” Agent Rhodes huffed.

“Good luck,” Sutton muttered as the partners left the room, leaving her with her own terrified thoughts. In frustration, she slammed her fists on the table. She didn’t think she would need her walls up around those who didn’t know her but she was wrong. Sutton needed to check her emotions at the door before she saw the other Horsemen.

“Miss Reeves,” Agent Fuller announced ten minutes later, “you can follow me to the other Horsemen.”

~~

“J. Daniel Atlas,” Agent Rhodes said as he entered the room. Danny didn’t look up at the man as he played with his deck of cards. “How is it that a team of newly acquainted magicians robs a Paris bank for nearly 3.2 million Euros?”

“You tell me,” Danny smirked as he took a quick look at the agent. “I just run the show. I’m not part of the behind-the-scenes work.”

“So, if you had nothing to do with it,” Agent Dray stated, “then how did the playing card get into the vault?”

“Oh, yes. That would be, uh, what do the kids call it these days? Oh, yes, that’s right. Magic,” Danny cockily confirmed for her.

Danny’s head yanked back as Agent Rhodes pulled on his neck, the cuffs digging into his wrists slightly. “Just answer the question, okay, smartass.”

“Alright. Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the illusionist apologized. “You can keep that,” he told the Interpol agent as he slid her a cellphone. “Don’t share it with him. As far as I understand it, when the man from Paris put on the magical helmet-“

“Listen to me,” Agent Rhodes interrupted. “If you didn’t rob that bank, then you knew about it. Which makes you an accomplice. So if you wanna walk out of here today, I’d suggest you start-”

“Okay, now you listen to me,” Danny began, shutting the FBI agent up. “Unless you think there’s a D.A. in the state of Nevada who’d be willing to make sense of this to a jury, then we have a show to perform. And you, Agent Rhodes, have a drawing board to get back to.”

“You are literally begging to be arrested. You know that?”

“If it means you would actually do it, then, yeah. But, you won’t,” Danny reminded him. “Because if you did, it means that you and the FBI, and your friends at Interpol, actually believe, at an institutional level, in magic. The press would have a field day. And we’d be even more famous than we already are. And you guys would look like idiots even more than you already are.” Agent Dray chuckled at his comments. “Well, no, not you,” Danny told her, “but him. Right?”

Agent Rhodes cocked an eyebrow at his opponent. Before he could manage a comment, Danny continued. “You have, what we in the business like to call, “nothing up your sleeve.” He demonstrated his saying. “And you know it.”

“You wanna know who sat in that chair before you?” the agent questioned Danny. “Mob bosses, murderers, and thieves.” Danny faked a gasp as Agent Rhodes continued. “And you know who put them there? The guy who’s sitting in this chair. So I warn you, I can maintain my resolve much longer than you can maintain that phony arrogance. And the instant that you even show the slightest crack in that smug façade, I’ll be there. I will be all over you like-”

“Like white on rice?” Danny finished for him. “Sorry. That’s unfair. Let me warn you. I want you to follow because no matter what you think you might know, we will always be one step, three steps, seven steps ahead of you. And just when you think you’re catching up,” he knocked on the table for emphasis, “that’s when we’ll be right behind you. And at no time will you be anywhere other than exactly where I want you to be. So come close. Get all over me because the closer you think you are, the less you’ll actually see.”

“I’m gonna nail you!” Agent Rhodes exclaimed as he stood. Quickly, Danny cuffed his hands to the desk before the agent had time to react.

“Something wrong with that soda, Miss?” Danny asked the French agent, who shook it, puzzled by the rattling sound within. She poured the soda out to find a key hidden inside. “Oh, shit!” Danny remarked as he snatched the cellphone from the expanding puddle, switching the cellphone with a bugged one. “First rule of magic. Always be the smartest guy in the room,” he reminded them as he handed Agent Rhodes the bugged phone and slipped the original into his back pocket, smiling at the camera.

“What does she see in you?” Danny heard the male agent mutter under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Danny questioned, puzzled.

“Reeves, the younger one,” Agent Dray explained.

“I-I don’t know what you mean, Agent Rhodes,” the illusionist stuttered.

“Right there,” Agent Rhodes pointed as he released the handcuffs from his hands, “that’s your weakness. It’s her.”

Danny scoffed as he sat back down in his chair. “Sutton and I are too much alike to ever be involved.”

Agent Dray chuckled. “Funny. That’s what she told us as well, and you both get the same sparkle in your eyes when you talk about one another.”

“Okay, uh, this is ridiculous,” Danny declared. “If I wanted to have a psychological session about Sutton, I would have seen Merritt.”

Agent Rhodes chuckled. “”The heart wants what it wants.” Isn’t that what the kids say?”

Danny stared at the agents in disbelief as they made their way out the door. The French agent stopped beside him and whispered, “There will come a moment when you will be absolutely certain that she is the one for you. When that moment comes, don’t lose it, Daniel.”

“Dray, let’s go,” Agent Rhodes hollered, leaving a puzzled Danny.