Part 32 (2/2)

I faithfully believe every customer who tells me that my restoration of the funeral chapel carriage house added a certain cachet to the charm of historic downtown Mystic.

I believe it and I wallow in it.

The designer originals I sell are my own, under the Mad Magic label. You see, I'm an escapee from the highest levels of the New York fas.h.i.+on industry. You can call me Mad, or Maddie, unless you're my father, Professor Harry Cutler, in which case you will call me Madeira whether I want you to or not.

As for the Magic, I'm also my mother's daughter, not a witch, precisely, but I have a whole psychic thing going on that feels like magic, which I evidently inherited from her. I can't ask for confirmation. She died when I was ten.

So, vintage clothes occasionally speak to me, often about dead people. I see snippets of greed, jealousy, hate, revenge . . . motive. But since it's been quiet on the vision front for a couple of months, I'm hoping that was only a phase.

As I parked in my lot, my best friend Eve's Mini Cooper sat beside a Wings overnight delivery truck. Eve, aka, the Man Magnet, had already taken to charming the driver's socks off.

”Hey,” I said, when I joined them. ”Am I late?”

”No, I'm early,” Eve said. She handed me a caramel latte and the morning paper, signed for, and accepted, the box from the driver, then slipped her business card into his pocket. ”Later,” she said with a wink.

I don't know if he winked back. His billed cap was tilted forward to shade his face, his jacket collar stood high and zipped tight, and his dark gla.s.ses protected him from . . . snow glare?

We watched his truck turn onto Main Street and disappear. ”You're my idol,” I said. ”Did he join your stud of the month club?”

”He will.”

In the shop, Dante Underhill, former undertaker and hunky house-bound ghost, waited for our morning chat. Nothing like catching up on seventy years worth of gossip.

Today, however, he saluted and disappeared. Eve couldn't see him, and since she could get a bit edgy where ghosts and magic were concerned, I'd never told her about him.

None the wiser, she relaxed in the chair Dante vacated to read the morning paper while I opened the box. Leery about touching a potential vintage item, because of my visions and the murders they'd dragged me into, I carefully parted the layered tissue.

I recognized the dress immediately but could hardly believe my eyes. Some years ago, in fas.h.i.+on school, I won the opportunity to design this awesome gown, trimmed in pricey cubic zirconias, for an actress, now a dear friend. But since she collected designer clothes, I couldn't imagine why she sent it to me.

Dominique was a note writer, so I fished through the tissue, careful not to touch the dress, and finally opened the parchment envelope that had slipped to the bottom of the box. ”Mad, Sweetie, I always wanted you to have this. I hoped someday to give it to you myself. If you have it, I'm dead. Use your talents wisely. Love, Dom.”

”Oh my stars,” I said. ”Dominique DeLong died.”

”No kidding. It's all over the front page of the Times,” Eve said. ”She collapsed during an Off-Broadway performance.”

”She would rather have died on Broadway,” I muttered, aware that I was in shock.

”At least there were witnesses,” Eve said. ”Hundreds of them.”

My stomach flipped while Dominique's note trembled in my hand. ”Witnesses?”

”You know the infamous diamonds she wore around her eyes during each performance? They disappeared sometime between her death and her arrival at the hospital. She was D.O.A.”

I removed myself from the vicinity of the dress, my stomach lurching. ”When did she die?”

”Evening performance. Last night.”

I lost my breath, looked back at the dress, re-read the note, and considered the feasibility of a legit ten-hour delivery.

Dominique's words, swimming before my eyes, echoed in her voice. ”Use your talents wisely.”

She did not mean dress design.

Two.

Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means . . . Airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash.

-CECIL BEATON.

Eve's brows furrowed. ”Hey, how did you know she was dead?”

I handed her the note and weighed the possibilities. ”Why someone would send me the dress, I can't imagine. Unless the box was already packaged and addressed to me. Though it wouldn't be, would it, if Dominique wanted to hand it to me herself?”

Eve focused on reading Dominique's note. When she finished, her head came up fast, her face a mask of confusion. ”Huh?”

”Right.”

”Does this mean you're going to New York?”

”It means that I'm going to Nick's to lock this gown in the cold storage unit he had installed in his bas.e.m.e.nt for me.”

”Why at Nick's? Why not here?”

”Because Nick's an FBI agent who lives closer to me than his partner, my brother Alex, does. Because the storage unit's a safe, it's a closet, it's climate controlled, and it's where I keep my furs, unless I get a call for them. Because my shop, and my Dad's house, are too obvious for a safe. Nick's a Fed, so his house is naturally safer, and because-”

”You keep half your clothes there, anyway, since Nick moved back to Mystic?” Eve had raised a brow, her mouth pursed in disapproval.

I chuckled inwardly at the snarky relations.h.i.+p between my on-again, off-again Italian Stallion, Nick Jaconetti, and Eve, my best friend since kindergarten. ”Can you keep an eye on the shop while I go lock this up?” I asked putting on my black, Sonia Rykiel coat with a capelet collar, and going for the box carrying Dominique's gown.

Eve checked her watch. ”Sure, I don't have to proctor end-of-semester exams until two.”

With the gown box igniting a stress ulcer that felt a bit like the lit end of a ciggy b.u.t.t in my gut, I'd barely gotten to the door when Detective Sergeant Lytton Werner, my nemesis, walked in. ”Miss Cutler, Miss Meyers,” he said, tipping a nonexistent hat.

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