A Veiled Deception (9 page)

“Like sisters,” Aunt Fiona said. “Soul mates, I believe. And I don’t mean like she and your dad were soul mates. That was love, the real thing. I envied her that, but I was happy for her.”

“He’s a good dad.”

“Harry? He’s the best. The sad truth is that I fell for him, too, but he only ever saw Kathleen.”

“Have you been carrying a torch for my dad all these years?”

“You tell him and I’ll—I’ll—”

“Turn me into a toad?”

“Let’s save that conversation for when you’re not on information overload.”

“Bummer,” I said, and she smiled.

“If I’m psychometric,” I added, a conditional exploration of the gift settling in,

“then I’m going down to the Underhill Funeral Chapel carriage house to lean against the outside wall and suck up all its secrets.”

“That old shack. Why?”

“A shack. That’s what Eve calls it.”

“That’s what everybody calls it. They say it’s haunted.”

An unexpected thrill of anticipation shot through me. “Haunted? Seriously?” Now why should that entice me? Maybe because I was already haunted by the bride of my socalled psychometric vision. Fiona shrugged. “Who knows? What do you care about that old place?”

“I don’t know, but it . . . appeals to me, always has, to be truthful. Do you know who owns it?”

“No, but I could find out. I hope it’s because you want a tour. Maybe you could poke around a little. Though Goddess knows why you’d want to.”

I’d heard Aunt Fiona say “Goddess knows” a hundred times, but I’d never quite picked up on it before. Neither had I surrendered myself so openly to the spiritual pulse in the air here. I couldn’t define it, but it touched me. Today its warmth welcomed and consoled me. Mom, are you here?

Goddess knew.

Was it this house or was my newfound and dubious psychic ability coming into play?

Every house in Mystick Falls hailed from the nineteenth century, though ours was a century older, so we were talking living history here. Residual energy, perhaps. Entities from beyond this plane.

No, all our houses couldn’t be haunted, though maybe Fiona’s could. For the first time, I sought meaning in the Celtic symbols around me. I listened for their wise whispers and welcomed their comforting peace. One wall hanging in particular caught my attention—a spiral of assorted stars in bronze, silver, and gold—surrounding a mating sun and quarter moon.

I went and stroked the brilliant piece of folk art, feeling closer to my mother than I had in years.

“That was your mother’s,” Fiona said. “I took it off the curb where your father had left it for trash pickup and brought it here.”

“It” represented more than a tapestry, it symbolized the kinship that Mom and Fiona shared.

Besides my troubling psychic ability, what else could I have inherited from my mother? What precisely had brought Kathleen O’Reilly Cutler and Fiona Sullivan, college strangers, together, besides their Celtic heritage? Was it their penchant for dancing beneath the moon?

I turned to ask Aunt Fiona how she and Mom met in college, but she’d left the room, as if she understood that I had puzzles to ponder and a mother to remember.

“I have a gift for you,” she said, returning, cuddling a plump, bright little honeycolored fur ball.

“For me? Oh, Aunt Fiona, she? He?” I checked. “
She’s
adorable. I took the kitten into my arms and something odd happened. “Aunt Fiona, I cuddled her and got the most amazing tingle in my middle and at the same time, joy and well-being seemed to fill me.”

Aunt Fiona grinned. “She has an effect on your solar plexus? Isn’t that interesting?”

“Why?”

“Because she’s yellow and that’s your yellow chakra. When it’s in balance, it brings a sense of well-being, positive thinking, and joy.”

“It’s like we’re connected, somehow. Like she’s supposed to be mine. What’s her name?”

Aunt Fiona looked rather like the cat that ate the canary. “I call her Fraidy Cat, because she’s afraid of everything. Your father doesn’t want a watchdog; too big and too much trouble to walk, he says. I suggested one the other night. But Fraidy Cat frightens easily, and when she’s scared, watch out.”

“Why? What happens? She piddles on the intruder?”

“Wait, I’ll give you a demonstration.”

I presumed then that piddling
wasn’t
the kitten’s forte. Fiona revealed the rubber mouse behind her back right before she squeaked it, and when she did, Fraidy Cat screamed like a banshee.

I jumped; I was so startled by the sheer volume in the capacious sound. “I can’t believe that came from such a tiny kitten. Did it sound like she screamed a lengthy version of my name?”

“See? That’s what I thought the first time I heard her,” Aunt Fiona said. “She’s all vocal cords, that one, the only kitten in the litter who is. Come to think of it, I’ve
never
heard a cat like her. When I got home last night, I scared her, caught the echo of your name, and knew she’d be perfect for you. Now I’m sure of it. She can be more than a watch cat; she can be your charm against negativity. When you feel nervous, stressed, or edgy, just pick her up, and she’ll restore you to balance and well-being. I shouldn’t be surprised. You gave me her mother when you went away to school in Manhattan. I’m glad you’re back, but ticked that when you finally come home, there’s a strangler on the loose.”

“I haven’t left New York for good,” I said. But I wanted to, I didn’t say. I snuggled the yellow kitten against my neck. “I need to name her. I was thinking about something to do with her yellow color like Citrine, but what do you think about Chakra, given her attributes?”

“Her attributes are yours alone, don’t forget.”

“Is that significant?”

“I think so, and you may agree with me . . . someday.”

“I like both names,” I said.

Fiona scratched the kitten behind an ear. “Then give the tiny little fur ball a name bigger than she is.” She grinned. “Chakra Citrine.”

“Given the names of the Cutler children, I should probably call her Dandelion Wine, after the wine my mother always made.”

Fiona coughed. “Somehow, I don’t think your father would appreciate that.”

“I suppose, and I like Chakra Citrine Cutler much better.”

“Your father will love her.”

“Not. And you know it, but you take a perverse delight in annoying him, don’t you?”

“Hey, I’m old. Annoying Harry is how I get my kicks. Cheesecake?”

I looked at my plate, surprised to find it empty. “I’d love some.”

“Aunt Fiona. It sounds to me that annoying my father is how you get his attention.”

She made a self-mocking sound. “If that’s what I’m doing,” she said, “shame on me for taking so long. I should drum myself out of Men Chasers Anonymous.”

“Then you
are
trying to get his attention?”

“No. Maybe. Can I get back to you on that one, too?”

’Nuff said. I brought our dirty dishes to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher.

“Can I go up to the garage apartment when we’re done? I’d like to grab some of my vintage summer clothes, maybe look through Mom’s things. It’s been so long.”

Aunt Fee took a key from her kitchen drawer. “Keep it while you’re home. I’m going out later, but it’s the key to all my doors, so you can come back for Chakra Citrine before you leave.”

“
You
lock your doors?”

“I do now. It’s the twenty-first century. You can’t be too careful. Even in Mystick Falls.”

I thought of last night’s murder with a shiver. “It’s true but sad.”

“And it’s frightening.”

“Hey, I’m a New Yorker; I’m always ready for the worst.” Well, until I found a dead body in my childhood home, I amended in my head.

Half an hour later, from the apartment over Aunt Fiona’s garage, I heard the crunch of gravel in the drive as she left. I hadn’t told her that the apartment had no electricity, because I didn’t want to make her late for her appointment. I simply left the door open at the top of the stairs to let in the sun.

Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but under the murderous circumstances, I slipped my pepper spray from my purse into my pocket . . . in Mystick Falls, no less.

I broke open a preservation box of my mother’s clothes, knowing it was time, and in a way, I felt her presence as I did.

I hadn’t realized that her taste in clothes mimicked Sherry’s. Wispy and whimsical. I needed more whimsy in my life, I thought. I could take a lesson from them. A whiff of White Shoulders, my mom’s favorite perfume, made me look up.

“Mom?”

No, of course not. Maybe that was her way of telling me she agreed with me.

“Okay,” I said. “I understand. More whimsy for Madeira.”

I wrapped a trapeze dress—that I clearly remembered her wearing—around my neck like a shawl and held it to my face, my eyes closed as I tried for another vision, a peek at my mother
alive again
, the way I’d seen the illusory bride in the Vancortland wedding gown, but nothing happened. Yet I sensed Mom behind me, looking over my shoulder.

One way or another, I wasn’t alone, and I took comfort in that. I opened box after box and still no vision of Mom.

Disappointed, sleepy, full of cheesecake, and yearning for a glimpse of the past, I sipped the iced tea I’d brought up with me and sat beside the vintage treasures my father didn’t know I owned. I’d better give him a heads-up when I decided to wear one of my mother’s outfits. He thinks I gave them to charity, and I did. I donated them to the Madeira Cutler Vintage Clothing Foundation.

I’d been keeping them here at Aunt Fiona’s with two antique Singer sewing machines and every other vintage outfit I’d bought over the years. Truth was, I’d probably mailed her a box a month, but only because I’d been
very
choosy. Sorting through an old sewing machine drawer, a favorite pastime, I found bobbins, a thimble in a tiny glass shoe, wooden spools of thread, assorted needles, bone crochet hooks, a zipper foot, a strawberry pincushion, a bodkin for running ribbon through lace, and a darning egg.

I stopped stirring the delightful treasures when I heard a stair creak, a second . . . a third . . . footsteps coming slowly and ominously close to the landing. I put the drawer down.

Any of our neighbors would have called to Aunt Fiona or started talking halfway up the stairs.

This was no neighbor.

I slipped the mace from my pocket and crawled behind a sewing machine not far from the door, but I had to shade my eyes from the sun to see. Quick as a sneak, a man appeared on the landing, gun raised.
Ten

In difficult times fashion is always outrageous.

—ELSA SCHIAPARELLI

The gunman hadn’t spotted me. I elbowed the sewing machine so he’d look my way, and the minute he did, I maced him. A perfect stream for a dead hit, square between the eyes.

His gun clattered to the floor.

He followed it down.

His scream terrified me, until my wits returned, and then I was really terrified, because I recognized his voice.

Macing an assailant gave you time to run, and run I did, straight to the bathroom for a cool, wet towel.

Laboring to take a breath, the Wiener sat on the landing, his beefy hands covering his closed, swelling eyes. They must burn like hell. The ugly burgundy blotches growing by the second around his hands told the tale.

He couldn’t see me, so I could jump over him and run, but he’d figure out who maced him, eventually, if not when he talked to Fiona.

On the other hand, would he want to admit that he’d been maced?

I fought to remove his hands from his face and failed, but managed to wedge the dripping cloth beneath them.

Surprised, he embraced the cooling balm. “Thank you,” he said, congested and coughing up a lung. “Did you see who”—hack, hack, fur ball, hack—“did this to me?”

I huffed. “Aren’t you supposed to announce yourself when you aim a gun into a private residence?”

My victim swore beneath his breath, the wet hand towel muffling his exact words, but I knew that at least three of them weren’t “duck.”

“I wasn’t holding a gun,” he muttered, searching the landing with his free hand, the other plastering the towel to his face. He found his weapon and opened his palm for me to see it.

“A trigger nozzle for a hose,” he said, stating the obvious. “Pure bluff. I grabbed it off the newel post at the base of the stairs. Attorney Sullivan wasn’t home, and the open door made me suspicious. There’ve been a few robberies in the neighborhood lately.” He sighed. “Madeira Cutler, experience tells me that you’re my assailant.”

I said nothing.

“You might as well admit it.”

“I come from
New York
!” I raised my voice in my own defense, my hands fisted, my fight-or-flight response deeply ingrained in the moment. Werner stood as well, like a sloppy drunk, disoriented, stumbling, and reaching blindly. If he fell on me, he’d crush me; he was that big. I shouldn’t give him any ideas. I took another step back. “We’ve had enough murder in Mystick Falls,” I said. “I’m outta here.”

“Madeira, wait. I can’t see. You have the advantage. Don’t go. I’m not angry. I’ve come to expect a certain . . . aggravation . . . around you.”

“Aggravation?”

“Like fingernails across a chalkboard,” he said, “slicing deep into my flesh.”

“I see.”

“May I have another cold cloth? The pepper spray warmed this one.”

“I don’t know where to find another. Let me refresh that one.”

When he handed it to me, I saw the area around his eyes for the first time and remembered what
type
of spray I’d bought last fall. A burst of hysterical laughter escaped before I could clamp my lips together and cut off the sound.

“What?” he asked, stumbling over the threshold into the apartment, attempting to feel his way around the room.

“Stop!” I shouted.

He did. “Why?”

“Because the place is full of valuable vintage clothing and I don’t want you to get blue dye on any of it.”

The Wiener’s jaw fell open. He turned to the wall he’d been using as a guide, fell slowly forward, bowed his head, and banged it. “Why? Why? Why?” A whack for every