Cloaked in Malice (19 page)

“I do not.”

“I’ll play you my recording sometime,” I said, and things got awkward, because, well, I’d heard Werner’s snore one fateful night, as well. Perfectly innocent situation, of course, if you didn’t count our thermonuclear kiss—story for another day.

“About Paisley living on a farm surrounded by an electric
fence,” I said, choosing a safer topic than “the males whose snores we know,” “her time here was more of an incarceration. It’s a long story, and, Werner, I know I promised not to step on your jurisdiction but—”

“This isn’t his jurisdiction,” Nick said. “We’re in New York.”

“Really?” Paisley brightened. “I grew up in
New York?
How metropolitan of me. Who knew I was so worldly?” She actually strutted a bit in her homemade second- or third-generation jeans, so old and worn, they could qualify for retro pop culture, though never designer. Her princess top, an undoubted hand-me-down as well, had that grain bag weave. Unfortunately, I just realized that her handmade leather moccasins had probably been fashioned from the hide of an animal they’d killed here for food.

Dry heave alert.

Turning my thoughts, I’d bet Paisley was more worldly than she thought, since I suspected that she spent her early years in Paris with her parents and grandparents.

I came to that conclusion sometime during last night, after having given the ancient architecture on the church where her father was killed, and the width of the street beyond it, another thought, a Parisian thought, but that was only a guess.

Hardly a good time to speculate, though I did have good reason to connect those particular dots. “Anybody hear
how Dolly’s doing in Paris?” There had to be a reason Paisley looked like Dolly, a connection to what was happening here. There had to be—

My universe, the one that handed me vintage clothes to read in a timely fashion, didn’t screw around for no good reason.

What a scraptastic clustertuck. Was Dolly being a spy the reason why, at nearly a hundred and four, she was so much more worldly than her daughter-in-law, Ethel?

Dolly didn’t look like a spy. I nearly laughed at that thought. What spy looked like one?

“Nobody’s heard from her,” Eve said. “Dolly’s gone silent, and Ethel may never speak to her again.”

“Would that be so bad?” I asked, “For them and the rest of us, I mean.”

“Can we get out of here?” Eve asked. “This place gives me the flying heebie-jeebies. How did you sleep here?”

“Paisley and I couldn’t, but Nick did.”

“I kept one eye open the whole time,” he said.

“Sure you did.” I gave him a wink.

“I was skeeved out by the caskets in the basement,” Paisley said. “I thought they were metal boxes. I didn’t know they were military caskets until Nick identified them. Wanna see them before you go?”

“Caskets?” Fiona paled. “I’m outta here.”

She turned to go, but I hooked her arm and pulled her close. “I’ll protect you.”

“Oh, Fee, don’t go before you see where Smoots and company are planted,” Paisley said, like we were at an amusement park all of a sudden.

“What kind of farm is this?” Fiona asked. “I mean, like, what did you grow here, fish?”

“It’s definitely fishy, but there’s a whole crop out there that needs looking into,” Nick muttered.

“As a matter of fact, we named it today,” Paisley said. “Coffin Farm. I’m gonna get it put on the map.”

I personally thought the Feds would see to that, but I kept my mouth shut for a change.

Fiona shuddered and paled. So did Eve a little bit; hard to tell, given the contrast of alabaster skin against neon-red hair.

Suddenly an ascending sound cut into our tenuous peace, however angst-ridden, a sound like a herd of buffalo charging up the stairs, front and back.

Guns! Guns pointed at us from
both
sewing room doorways, the one leading from the front stairs
and
the one leading through the den, from the back stairs.

“Drop your guns and hit the floor!” demanded one of the thugs in shiny black metal superhero gear, his voice dull behind his gas mask.

Nick set his gun on the table as we all hit the floor.

Twenty-five

Once you embody the language, the character comes really naturally, especially when you put on the costume.

—LUCY LIU

“This is stupid,” Eve whispered, facing me, both of us flat on the floor.

“Any particular reason why?” I whispered back, remembering some of the dangerous, wild, and/or weird pranks she and I had pulled in the name of sleuthing.

“Because we supposedly dropped our guns and now we’re down here with them. And we could have more hidden down here.”

“This is not an Easter egg hunt, Meyers.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well, I’m scared,” Paisley admitted between hiccups, her “tell” for that particular emotion.

“Where’s the contingent from the New Haven office?” one of the thugs asked. “I thought they were right behind us.”

Paisley whimpered. “Even mobsters have offices? I gotta get outta the last century.”

“New Haven contingent, sir. Bringing up the rear, as commanded.”

Nick sat up and drew the aim of a half-dozen guns. “Boy, are you gonna look stupid in a minute,” he said, and a couple of those guns got cocked.

“Nick, shush,”
I
commanded. “Don’t taunt them.”

“New Haven here and accounted for, sir,” a black robotic type said.

They all looked and sounded like space cowboys in those things. Voice inflections or differences hardly mattered, except for—

“New Haven, Special Agent—”

“Cutler!” I snapped, doing a sudden jack-in-the-box-style face-to-face. “Alex Cutler!” I ordered. “Take off that Halloween costume and stop scaring us, you big bully. And that goes for your friends as well.” I eyed them. “Who’s the dork who said, ‘Drop your guns and hit the floor’?”

One guy cleared his throat.

I grinned. “New on the job, hey?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My brother got off his head gear and I jumped into his arms.

“Uh, Mad,” Eve said, gently patting me on the shoulder. “I forgot to tell you something.”

“Forgot to tell us what?” Nick asked with that I’ll-get-you look, almost-always reserved for Eve, though this version bore certain threat.

“I called your brother, Alex, Madeira, and please remember that I’m your best friend. I called him between home and breaking into Nick’s computer, to see if he knew where Nick could be, him being Nick’s FBI partner and all.”

Nick flashed his badge in a half circle, so the armed watchdogs could see that he was one of them, and they stood down. “Special Agent Nick Jaconetti,” he said, while picking up his revolver, checking the safety, and slipping it into his holster.

“My partner, sir,” Alex said.

“What’s with the deferential treatment toward these thugs?” I asked Alex. “I mean, you and Nick are usually in charge, aren’t you?”

“When we’re on our own assignments, sis. This is different. DC and New York contingents have been watching this place for a long time, which I didn’t know when Eve called.”

Paisley hiccupped. “Watching with me inside?”

The Feds’ guns came out again, except for Nick’s. He lowered the ones nearest him with one arm. “This is Paisley Skye and she’s been incarcerated here since she was a toddler, with no concept of why.”

Paisley did a hell-lo double take. “Incarcerated? Really? I have?”

“It appears that her nightly warm milk had been drugged. We assume that while she slept, the owner made contact with the outside world, accepted supplies and such, night boat deliveries, people coming and going.”

She hiccupped. “Could those drugs be fatal?”

“The shaking at bedtime,” Nick said, turning to the guy that acted as if
he
were in charge. “My partner can vouch for her withdrawal symptoms.”

Alex frowned. “I don’t know anything about—”

“I mean my life partner. Tell ’em, Madeira.”

“Oh, it’s true. Paisley had the shakes for several hours last night.”

Now I had the shakes, because Nick called me his life partner. Werner noticed, too; I could tell by the purple tinge to his skin.

Life partner—good or bad? I’d have to think about that later. Tomorrow. Next month?

Yeah, just call me Scarlett.

“Now, gentlemen,” Nick said. “How could you arrive this morning, since it’s clear that my family didn’t know we were missing until a few hours ago?”

“DC called us, Nick,” Alex said, though I sure didn’t connect their call to Eve’s.

“And you called us, Jaconetti,” DC’s head guy said, “with the technical skill you employed to attempt to break the code on our computer.”

“I thought I failed to call you,” Nick said, “because I didn’t know the safe room and everything in it was ours.”

I shoved Alex’s shoulder. “Did you guys cut the rope on our boat?”

Alex hugged my shoulders. “We tried, but somebody beat us to it.”

“You brat.” I shrugged from his one-armed brotherly embrace.

“We didn’t know it was you, Mad. You heard the guys from DC and New York; they’ve been watching this place for years, waiting for somebody to make a wrong move. They thought yesterday was wrong-move day. Frankly, when Eve called me, I thought you got yourself in some soup again, and took my FBI partner with you. I have to admit, I didn’t expect to find you
here
.”

“I never get myself in her soup,” Nick stated, “for the record.” And snickers and throat clearing could be heard round the room.

Apparently Alex chose to ignore the double meaning. “Unless you dive in to protect Mad and the noodle, and hey, I’m not complaining. Thanks for being there for her, because if it weren’t for you, I’d be dragging her out of the broth all the time.”

Eve crossed her arms. “I suppose I’m the noodle?”

Nick knuckled his nose. “If the stew pot fits, Mey-ers.”

I huffed. “I object. You don’t even know how much I get into”—that didn’t sound right—“and stop talking about me as if I were a five-year-old.”

I turned to examine my brilliant designs of the night before.

“Which reminds me, Mad,” Alex said, “you and Fiona had better call home, because Dad’s going ballistic. He’s spouted quotes in the last two calls that even I never heard.”

Couple of the Feds chuckled as the contingent—ten men, who’d seemed like a hundred when they arrived—disbursed to begin what appeared to be a forensics-type search, most stepping from, and packing up, their protective gear for ease of movement. They all carried the kind of backpack that men who climb mountains do. Probably, because sometimes they got stuck on mountains, though Nick had never said as much.

Werner eyed me. “Madeira, I feel vindicated. I’m in
good
company. Great company. You drive
all
the men in your life crazy, even your father.”

My brother agreed, and despite that, I was so grateful Alex was here, I had to hug him again.

He patted my shoulder, his suntanned face ruddy in front of the men.

Nick pulled me his way, and Alex gratefully accepted my “life partner’s” rescue.

Did this mean I was in the soup again? You bet your Pucci,
Rucci, and Gucci it did, for my money anyway. Life partner…
I
felt a case of the hiccups coming on.

“Why the doomsday gear?” Nick asked, and I buried my angst and waited for the answer.

My FBI hunk sounded pissed at the guys who usually watched his back, whose backs he’d watch, danger or no, the comrades he’d risk his life for.

“Assistant Director in Charge, Ray Scanlon, here, DC office,” the head man said, extending his hand to shake Nick’s. “People came here early on, years ago, but no one ever left, that our predecessors saw, or that we saw, except for the girl. When we confirmed that she was truly alone
and
no one came to meet her, we sent McCreadie for her.”

“Me?” Paisley squeaked. “You’ve been watching me?”

“McCreadie’s one of ours, then?” Nick asked.

“So, Jaconetti, tonight we prepared for the worst, suicide pact, deadly gasses, whatever, especially after we saw that one of you went down.” Agent Scanlon had neatly sidestepped both questions.