Skirting the Grave (12 page)

“Snakes!” I added, and Eve shuddered, because she hated snakes above all things. She especially detested their skin on a pair of shoes.

“I adore your look,” Isobel said, like Eve was Madonna or Victoria Beckham, or someone whose ring she should kiss.

“Eve, this is Isobel York, my new intern, and Isobel, this is Eve Meyers, my best friend in the world. She saved my life when we were six.”

“How’d a six-year-old do that?”

“Like an idiot, but that’s beside the point,” Eve said. “Mad, here, jumped off a big-ass whaleboat to retrieve the purse that matched her skirt. Dumb, hey? And Dumber, here, I jumped in after her to save her.”

I put an arm around Eve. “We’ve been best pals ever since.”

“How long ago was that?” Isobel asked.

“Nearly fifteen years ago,” Eve said with a straight face, but Ethel’s involuntary laugh gave us away. It was a rare day in hell that anybody could make Ethel laugh.

“We’re a little bit older than you, Isobel,” Eve said. “But we don’t like to admit it.”

“Hah!” Dolly said, joining us, Dante watching from his favorite chair. “I’m going on a hundred and four, and I’m proud of it.”

“Yeah, well, the scales tip after a while,” I said. “What else do we have in this bottomless trunk?”

“You, sit,” Eve told me. “I’ll help put the clothes on hangers. I saw Werner. He said you were sick as a dog this morning.”

“And you passed out at home.” Isobel gasped. “Are you pregnant?”

I knelt and braced myself on the edge of the trunk. “Yeah, another one of those miracle conceptions, this time with the daughter of a witch. Wouldn’t my mother be proud?”

The shop phone jarred us out of our amusement, its ring harsher than my cell phone, and Isobel raised a hand to stop me, as if answering was her job now. “Vintage Magic, Isobel York here. Can I—” She frowned, waited, paled, and hung up.

I knew that her picking up was a bad idea. “Did he speak with a scary voice from the tomb, like he wanted to chew you up and spit you out?”

“Yes to the voice, but his words were worse.” She rubbed her arms and then crossed them tight in front of her. “He said, ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’ ”

Twenty

I wore a lot of vintage clothing. I dressed like a reporter, with a little card in my hat. I had these fantasies of who I wanted to be, so I’d dress like an explorer, a cowboy. I dressed up like Elton John a lot too. That was another period.

—ILLEANA DOUGLAS

“We raised that girl better than this,” I told my dad, as we stood waiting for the six thirty train that night, trying to figure out where we went wrong.

Sure, I’d been late because my phone was being bugged by the police, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t look like Brandy had made this train, either.

“This is my third trip to pick her up, and I swear if my cell phone rings one more time while I’m standing on this platform—”

“There she is,” he said.

“Oh yeah, the one who looks like a refugee from a thrift store Dumpster.”

“Watch your tone, young lady,” my father said. “Try not to pick a fight on the first day.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Brandy was actually dressed better than Payton had been, and I thanked heaven Brandy came strutting up to us alive and safe and with a twinkle in her eyes. The twit, she’d dressed like that to yank my chain.

I chuckled, because suddenly her clothes didn’t matter. She and her smile did. Brandy threw herself into my father’s arms, and I saw the glint of moisture in his eyes. He was such a great dad. While Sherry and I favored his side of the family, except that I had Mom’s hair, if Brandy resembled anyone, even the slightest, it was Mom. In looks not demeanor, although she did have my mom’s famous pure, stubborn determination. Now, our brother, Alex, he was a true mix of both parents, almost dad’s clone in build and height, he was a man who fought, physically if necessary, for what he believed in, unlike a certain softspoken professor we loved. After all, an FBI agent would have to be a fighter. Alex! Damn. Now that Nick, his partner, was out of commission, my brother would be pulled back to work to carry the load for them both. My sister-in-law, Tricia, was going to kill me when she heard I beat the scrap out of Nick. Though this early in her second pregnancy, she probably didn’t pack as much of a wallop. I took comfort in that. The whole family would be together this weekend for the fund-raiser. That would be great. I hugged my sister Brandy and remembered how scared I’d been when I saw that ambulance yesterday. “Brandy, I’m so glad you’re home safe.”

“Safe? Do you think the world is any safer here in Mystic, just because this is a small town in a First World country? Do you think your high-fashion customers have never committed a crime? What about ignoring the hungry around the world?”

Ignore the dig. Ignore the dig. “My high-fashion customers make up two-thirds of your invitation list for this weekend. And they’re generous to a fault, so lay off.”

“I’m just saying.” Her words indicated that she’d backed down but, woolly knobby knits, could that girl raise her nose any higher in the air?

I looked at my father, who shrugged and gave me the puppy dog look that begged me to keep the peace.

“Is Isobel here?” Brandy asked.

“Yes, and she’s suggested we take you for a development director’s makeover.”

“I don’t have time for a makeover,” she said, throwing her torn duffel into the back of my Element like it was Nick’s battered, secondhand, military-issue Hummer.

“Brandy, you don’t have to go high-fashion, in fact you shouldn’t,” I said. “You want to look professional but not like you’re wasting the foundation’s money. Nevertheless, a development director should always represent a winning cause—”

“Five minutes, and you’re going to tell me how to do my job and read me my faults? Besides, Nurture Kids isn’t a winning cause. The foundation’s in trouble, and donors need to know that.”

“No, they don’t. Giving to a losing cause is the same as flushing your money down a toilet. Focus on the foundation’s positives. The good you do. The kids you’ve helped. And for heaven’s sake, look successful.”

“Dad, she’s always telling me what to do. People are coming to help Nurture Kids, not to see what their development director is wearing.”

“You know,” my father said, with a familiar gleam. “This reminds me of a quote by Albert Einstein.” He hugged us both, one on either side of him. “When Einstein’s wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German ambassador, Einstein said, ‘If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.’ ”

I crossed my arms. “I’ll bet Einstein wasn’t wearing mismatched moccasins and a stained top.”

My father squeezed my shoulder in retaliation for the comment and as a signal for me to cool it.

“The moccasins match; it’s just that one of them was a window display and the other stayed boxed, so one is faded.” Brandy chuckled. “Okay . . .” She looked down at herself as if getting it. “I agree to look as professional as I can afford to on a tight budget. Will you help me, Mad?”

I thought I might cry. “If you’ll accept at least a weekend’s worth of outfits as a gift, you’re welcome to come to my shop and look around. I’ve got some classic business suits on sale simply because they’re not as vintage as I’d like or by significant designers. And I know you’re not into spikes, but think about comfy squashheeled dress shoes or flats. I can probably set you up with a go-anywhere, mix-and-match wardrobe wellsuited to a development director.”

“Is tomorrow too soon?” Brandy asked. “I want to accept Cort’s invitation to stay with him until Saturday, but I’d like to look good when I get to his place, though I didn’t quite realize that until you pointed out my wardrobe’s shortcomings.”

“You’re not staying at home while you’re here?” my dad asked, looking only half-disappointed.

She chuckled, because we could all read him dreadfully well. “You don’t mind, do you, Daddy?”

I rolled my eyes at her behind his back.

“ ‘The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, “Daddy, I need to ask you something,” he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.’ That Garrison Keillor must have had at least three daughters.”

We each kissed his cheek. “Hey, a dad sandwich.”

“I like Cort,” Brandy said, stepping back. “I’m flattered at the invite, and it’ll be so much easier getting ready for the weekend if I make my fund-raiser’s location home base. Supplies will be delivered for the next few days, after all. I can’t believe you got Scotland’s famous MacKenzie Carousel to stop at Cort’s on its traveling exhibit across the U.S.”

“Well, you can thank Melody Seabright and Kira Fitzgerald Goddard for that. Your cause is close to their hearts, and their best friend is Victoria Cartwright MacKenzie, wife of the MacKenzie Carousel owner, Rory MacKenzie, who is the great-great-great-grandson of the original carver.”

“Point them out to me this weekend, will you, so I can thank them.”

“I will, because that carousel has elevated your Carousel of Love garden party, vintage car show, and hunk auction, to fantasmagloriously unique. Plus I’ve got models in fifties dress to complement the cars, like in the fifties when they revealed a year’s new line. The models’ll walk around cars indicating their features, and they’ll have the cars’ stats to answer questions. With convertibles, the model will sit up on the back like in a fifties parade. Ticket sales are booming.”

“You don’t mind if I stay with Cort, do you, Mad?”

“I think it’s a splendid idea, Sis.” Yay.

“Dad,” Brandy cajoled. “You know Mad and I will get along better if we don’t live in the same house.”

“You win,” my father said. “But you’re not going to Cort’s tonight?”

“I’m bushed from fighting off a King Kong type who wanted me to move my paperwork so he could sit beside me in an otherwise empty train car.”

“What do you mean, a King Kong type?” I asked, my sleuthing radar going up.

“First he steps into the train car like I’m the one he’s looking for, then he zooms in like I’m carrying international secrets.”

“What did he look like?”

“A Neanderthal. Wide shoulders, beefy hands, hairy knuckles, heavy beard. A thug. Made me nervous, I’ll tell you, though I think the conductor read my body language, because he came through often enough.”

All I could think about were the phone calls as I backed out of the train station parking lot, but I didn’t expect one could use a voice modulator on the run. Even if it was the same person, how would he know Brandy could lead him to Isobel? “Did he get off here in Mystic?” If so, I needed to call Werner.

“I have no idea.”

“I’m taking you both home,” I told Brandy and my dad, “then I’m going to see Werner about the train thing. Dad, you and Isobel can fill Brandy in on what’s been happening the past two days.” I could have just called Werner, but I wanted to see if he had other information on the case, and I knew I had a better shot in person.

“Will do,” my father said.

“Is Isobel staying at our house?” Brandy asked.

“Yes, she’s resting right now. We didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” I said, an understatement and a half.

I dropped them at my dad’s house and didn’t get out of the car. As soon as Aunt Fiona opened the front door and hugged Brandy, I pulled away.

I wondered if the hairy-knuckled Neanderthal and Isobel’s threatening caller were one and the same person. My eyes welled up at the thought of either of them being that close to my sister. Though just because my caller sounded like a Neanderthal didn’t mean it wasn’t a blue-haired granny.

I made a stop for hot, clear broth at the nearest deli and drove over to Nick’s. I found him in bed. “Wow,” I said, hands on my hips. “Nothing subtle about you.”

He opened his arms.

I placed a quart of hot soup in one of his hands.

He jumped from the bed, set it on the nightstand, and gave me a frown. I handed him a straw. “Now, sip.”

In a pair of navy boxers, chest bare, he sat in his leather reading chair and did as he was told.

I threw an afghan over him, paced, and told him about the techno caller and the guy who accosted Brandy on the final leg of her train trip. I told him about the day she was supposed to leave and the caller who said she needed to re-sign her termination papers for the Peace Corps. How her backpack got snatched on that wild goose chase, causing a coincidental loss of her ticket. Linked to Isobel’s ID going missing, I told him about Payton’s death on the train Brandy missed, and Payton having Isobel’s ID. And I told him about my psychometric visions on the boat and as a carhop. It was so nice to be able to share that. “Am I wrong to be nervous?”

He had long since stopped sipping his soup and now sat straight up. He pulled a notepad over and scratched something on it: “Why tell me?”

“Because you’re my go-to guy.”

He scribbled a reply. “Hold that thought. Now go tell Werner what you told me, except for the visions.” He used one of his hands to form a gun and mimed shooting himself in the head.

I kissed him on the brow, lost my breath at the way he looked at me—hunger and something more in his expression. The way my father looked at Fiona. Oy. Again, why me?

He held out the notebook so I could read what he added in caps: “LISTEN TO YOUR GO-TO

GUY.”

Twenty-one

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.

—DAVID BAILEY

Two more quick stops, then I took the direct route to the police station. I hovered in Werner’s doorway, and he looked up from his work. “Oh no,” he said.

“You want me to leave?” I turned to go on my saucy red Louboutin follow-me heels.

“Wait. Have you come to strip for me again?” He looked me up and down. “Please say yes.”

“Perv.” I’d changed into Grand-mère’s fifties white with red polka dots and cummerbund. I half expected it to give me a psychometric reading, but I guess it just didn’t have anything to say; not this particular piece, anyway.