Authors: Annette Blair
Werner gazed up and down my body, looking rather affronted.
“Well,” I said, “your pupils may be dilated, but your eyes can still twinkle.”
“You’re sure we didn’t sleep together?” he asked.
“You so did.” Eve, the Cheshire Cat, sat at the foot of the bed, her back against the footboard, ankles crossed, as if she were settling in for a juicy chat.
“We apparently slept in the same bed,” I said, mostly to myself, “but I have no memory of how we got there. Werner? Do you?”
He opened his hands, regarded his palms, and his eye twinkle returned. “I have tactile memories.”
I resented the traitorous thrill that skittered up my spine. Oh goodie. Not.
“Give that man a lottery ticket,” Eve said. “It’s his lucky day.”
I closed the crocheted throw tighter over my breasts as I paced, until I saw the crack in my cell phone, which bothered me, a lot.
Werner raised himself on an elbow. “Mad, Madeira, did I, I mean, did we . . . ?”
“He means,” Eve said, tongue in cheek. “Was it as good for you as it was for him?”
“Eve, you’re not helping at all,” I said, taking pity on Werner. “I wish I could remember.”
Broken cell phone case—stepped on, thrown, dropped?
“Let’s just forget whatever it was that happened,” Werner said, as if that could be the end of it.
Eve rose to the occasion. “Unless Mad got pregnant.”
Werner and I whipped our gazes her way like we were fine brass gears moving as one, hungry attack gears, and Eve was dinner.
“Not funny, Meyers,” I said, but that didn’t mean my heart wasn’t playing jump rope. Hippity hickety hop; How many months before I pop? Cinderella slept with a fella, made a mistake and kissed a snake; How many doctors did it take?
Ack, even an old jump-rope rhyme was working against me. “I just wish I could remember what happened,” I muttered.
Eve raised a brow. “Whose nightgown are you wearing?”
“I don’t even care,” Werner said. “I’m just so glad she’s wearing it.”
“Because it’s see-through?” Eve asked.
“Because she’s not naked,” Werner snapped.
I sighed. “It’s Dom’s peignoir set,” I said, giving Eve a wide-eyed stare so she’d “get a clue”
that I zoned. “It had my name on it, like the seafoam gown.” Hint, hint.
“Ohhhh,” Eve said, getting it, then grinning like a loon. “The plot thickens. You really don’t know what happened here last night. Intrigue can be so much fun.”
I sat on the edge of the bed to face the man who’d slept beside me, the thought making me think of Nick, which raised guilt like bile inside me. Mind games powered by panic, I thought.
“Lytton, tell us why you’re here in New York, then we’ll talk about why you’re in my bed.”
He rubbed his face, a nervous habit, with another wince and another ouch for his bloody bruised brow, and he sighed in resignation. “Nick’s house alarm went off right after dark, yesterday, and again at seven twenty, so I had a chance to talk to him on the phone a couple of times. He thinks somebody’s after that dress you designed, and they could just as easily be after you.”
“Scrap, I hope Dom’s gown is safe at his place.”
“I’ve got a detail watching the house,” Werner said, “but after Nick expressed his regret that he wasn’t here to keep an eye on you, I got to thinking that by coming here, I could maybe solve the attempted break-ins. If they are related to that dress, there is a good chance the intruder knew Dominique and will be at the funeral. And I can watch your back.”
My spine stiffened without conscious thought on my part. “Did Nick ask you to keep an eye on me?”
Eve snorted. “If he did, can I call him and tell him what a knock-up job, er, I mean a bangup job, Werner’s doing? Pretty please?”
Twenty-four
Vain trifles as they seem, clothes . . . change our view of the world, and the world’s view of us.
—VIRGINIA WOOLF
“The dry blood on both your foreheads might be a clue as to why you can’t remember much,” Eve pointed out. “And why was your cell phone on the floor? It’s cracked, you know.”
“It was on the floor?” I asked, a niggling memory trying to resurface.
“Yes, did something besides Werner frighten you last night?”
The phone call came to me in a rush. “Someone called and told me in an altered voice to go back to Connecticut or end up like my friend.”
Werner frowned. “Then what?”
“I dropped the phone, and turned so fast, I walked into the open closet door.” I touched my poor bruised forehead.
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Were you wearing the peignoir set at the time?”
I nodded, aware that I hadn’t been quite myself.
Werner looked at Eve like she was nuts. “I know clothes are important to you two, but I’m guessing there’s no proper attire for when your life is threatened.”
Eve giggled while Werner came around the bed and touched my temple, so gently, I saw my pain reflected in his gaze, and I found it necessary to pull away so as not to be pulled toward
. . . something.
The gash across his brow looked deeper than mine, as if he’d been hit at close range. I stroked it as gently as he’d touched mine.
He jumped like I burned him.
“Did someone conk us both on the head?” I wondered aloud. “I suppose an intruder could have tried to climb up to the window. The vines are thick enough to hold a man. Nick said they were scraped like they’d been climbed. He had the police check them out.”
“Why would anybody want to hurt you?” Werner asked.
I gave a half shrug because a whole shrug would have hurt my head. “Beats the spinning slubs out of me.”
Someone knocked on the hall door, and Werner scooted into the bathroom. I closed the door behind him.
Eve let in Kerri, Dom’s maid, bearing a pushcart topped with a silver coffee service, two cups, linen napkins, and a plate of croissants.
“Thank you, Kerri,” I said. “You’re a godsend.”
Kerri bobbed, an interrupted curtsey, since I’d asked her not to. “Did your man find your room all right?”
“My man?” I asked.
“I let him in late last night and when he mentioned working with you, I directed him to this room.”
“Yes, yes, he found me.”
Eve poured a cup of coffee and handed it to me. “All clear, Werner,” I called through the door, though I needn’t have bothered.
“I know,” he said coming out. “I heard.”
I gave him my cup of coffee.
His look of gratitude overshadowed the deed.
I swiped Eve’s coffee from her hand, took a sip, and handed it back.
“Hey,” she snapped, but something caught her eye and dissipated her affront. “Is that a Taser on the floor?”
Werner groaned and for the first time, he looked like the mad Wiener. “Madeira Cutler, you Tasered me!”
“You don’t know that for sure.” But I was beginning to remember things. I saw Dom’s drawer of evil weapons, open a crack, so I backed up to the bed and unobtrusively pushed the drawer shut with the back of my leg.
The damned thing squealed closed.
Werner set his cup on the dresser, took me by the arms, set me aside, and opened the drawer. “Your arsenal?”
“Dominique’s, dammit.”
Eve took a look and whistled. “She must really have been afraid. I think she knew her life was in danger.”
“It looks that way,” Werner said, eyeing me.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” I said. “I was in my dead friend’s bedroom and I’d just found . . . that!” I indicated the weapons. “You’d have nightmares, too, if you’d identified her body then got threatened with the same fate.” To my utter horror, I started to cry. I had never seen Werner look panicked before. He took me in his arms and rocked me while he patted my back. “I’m sorry, Mad. I didn’t know you’d identified the body. Couple that with the threat, the discovery of a torture drawer, and I can see why you’d have been spooked.”
Eve raised a brow as she watched us, but she said nothing.
“Did you get Tasered, too?” Werner asked me. “That might make you forget.”
So might zoning into reading a vintage outfit, I thought, but what did I get out of it?
Nothing. I had no recollection of the—Wait. Yes I did. I saw Dom switching my pricey cubic zirconias for cheap old rhinestones on the seafoam gown somebody was now trying to steal from Nick’s house.
Eve picked up the Taser.
“What I can’t figure out,” Werner said, taking it cautiously from Eve’s hand and setting it gently in Dom’s arsenal, “is why somebody doesn’t want you at your friend’s funeral.”
Before I could warn Eve with a look, she shrugged. “Simple,” she said. “Mad’s making somebody nervous with her investigation.”
Werner turned on me. “Madeira Cutler, are you sleuthing again?”
Twenty-five
As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!
—COCO CHANEL
“I’m a sleuth,” I admitted. “So arrest me.”
Werner sighed. “Cute. Did you get the phone call before or after you found Dom’s ghoulish stash?”
“I found the stash first, and it scared the bejeebers out of me.”
Werner squeezed my arm. “You were already skittish when your life was threatened then. No wonder you panicked.”
“So you forgive me for Tasering you? Because I remember now that I did.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
“Good, then see if you can forgive me for this.” I opened my purse, took out the note I got from Dom with the dress, and handed it to Werner. “Here. It was taped between the tissue around Dom’s dress the other morning.”
He scanned it, then tapped it against the palm of his hand for a long minute. “In a way, your friend practically asked you to sleuth. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t your jurisdiction?”
His nod held a grudging respect. “The caliber of your pretexts are improving. Good one.”
I smiled for the first time that day. “Thank you.”
“What does she mean by special talents?” he asked. “Are you supposed to design an answer?”
“Mad’s intuitive,” Eve said. “Dominique knew that.” I mentally thanked Eve for her great answer.
“So intuitive,” Werner said, “that you don’t know whether you cheated on Jaconetti last night or not?”
“That’s low,” I said, “even for you.”
“Yes,” Werner agreed. “It was low. I’m feeling the sting of you keeping that note from me. I apologize. If anything happened last night, it would have to have happened under the influence of our double concussive head traumas. I mean, we’d both be smarter than that in our right minds.”
“Right.” Why didn’t I like his tone? “What?” I snapped. “Am I not good enough for you?”
Eve’s laughter bubbled forth. “Mad, quit while you’re ahead and all that?”
“Right. Listen, Lytton. I did Taser you after, but first I saw the torture devices, heard steps above me, got a death threat, smacked my head, then somebody turns my doorknob and comes in. Of course my instinct was to zap. I’m just sorry it was you.”
“If it had been anybody else, I’d applaud your instincts.” He sounded resigned.
“Kind of makes my previous unintentional attacks pale in comparison, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Pale yes. A pale blue, because that’s the color this bruise is gonna be, blue like my old friend, the mace you carry.” He smiled at the reference to one of my past accidental attacks on him.
“Wait till Nick sees your matching bruises,” Eve said, “and hears about last night. Where is Nick, by the way?”
“Off on assignment chasing the Pierpont diamonds halfway across the world,” I said.
“Where’s Kyle?”
“Kyle’s calling for the limo. The wake starts in—” She looked at her watch. “Oops, half an hour.”
“Ack!” I jumped from the bed. I’d been so busy searching for clues in Dom’s room last night that I forgot to unpack. “I need to get my dress steamed.”
When I put my bag on the bed and opened it, however, I found Nick’s clothes, instead of my own. “I knew that getting matching luggage was a stupid idea.” We’d been at the mall and the sale was too good to pass up for either of us. Black Tumi Alpha luggage. Figures any time we did something that smacked of being a couple it backfired! I shook my head.
“Thank God I keep my makeup in my purse.”
“Nick’s gonna look hot in vintage Versace,” Eve muttered. “I’ll tell Kyle to hold the limo for an extra half hour,” she said. “They won’t start without him.”
Werner picked up both his garment and overnight bags. “I’m going to take a shower and get dressed.”
“Uh, can I have a minute in there first?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Why are you here, again, exactly?” I asked before going into the bathroom.
“Besides seeing if Nick’s attempted housebreaks are related, I’d say it’s to keep you out of trouble, and to keep people safe from your Taser-happy trigger finger. And Nick did hint that you might need someone.”
I slammed the bathroom door in Werner’s face. “I’ll beat you both later,” I yelled. When I came out, Werner disappeared into the bathroom for his shower. Dom’s everyday closet was still open from the night before. I looked at the outfits lined up there, shook my head, and opened her walk-in closet of vintage clothes, actually an adjoining bedroom that had been converted.
In the chill air of the climate-controlled room, I picked out the dress that had been Coco Chanel’s personal little black dress, the one she wore herself when she was photographed in 1936 by Man Ray. It was practically the crown jewel of Dom’s vintage collection, and since I was prepared to buy it—having first pick and all—I felt safe wearing it. I know I’d teased Dom about my wearing this dress and reading Coco, but it was the only dress I could be sure not to read Dom herself in, because she’d once told me it was too precious to wear. As for reading Coco, it wasn’t likely. Aunt Fiona, our very own Mystick Falls witch, had told me that my gift was a mandate from the universe. Simply put, clothes that spoke to me did so for a reason, usually in reference to an event that shot negative energy into the universe like fireworks begging metaphysical assistance. Enter the psychic daughter of a psychic witch—moi!
I’d be safe from my visions in this.
A simple round-necked, long-sleeved shirtwaist, this historically exciting little black dress had a four-inch neck slit that tied together at the center top with a bow. With its mid-calf hem, it was perfect for a funeral. I paired it with a jaunty Chanel hat from Coco’s very early days in France, its curled feather placed to cover the gash on my head. To go with them, I chose 1995 black suede Louboutin pumps trimmed in grosgrain ribbon, its heels designed after the curves of a woman’s body. I topped the outfit with Dom’s multistrand pearls.