Cloaked in Malice (5 page)

I tried to temper my snicker. “As you see,” I said, “I have just one big gaping wound. No need to worry.”

It took Paisley’s admirers about ten beats to drag their gazes from her to me.

“I was kidding. Get the ambulance back on the road.

“See you later, boys,” I said, and they all stepped toward the door, even Nick. But I grabbed his hand and pulled him back. “No,
you
stay.”

Werner’s lips firmed as he left. I’d probably always regret the one who got away, but hey, he deserved better than she who called him “Little Wiener” in third grade, because well, it stuck. Even I slipped once in a while, and Eve, my best friend, she called him that all the time. Which was nothing to what she called Nick, but that’s a story for another day.

After the drooling stumble-squad left, I introduced Paisley, officially, to Nick and made us each a cup of tea.

“Do me a favor, Paisley,” I suggested, “spread your outfits on the fainting couch so I can look them over.”

Our eyes met, hers and mine, and I knew
she
strongly suspected that I didn’t want to touch them. Well, I could do damage control regarding her supposed knowledge of my psychic gift later. Right now, I wanted to see more of what she had to show me while I tried to figure out a way to get her to leave the valuable treasures overnight.

I wanted to know what they had to say; I just didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself while I read them. Nick
would play a prominent role in my plans. I’d make him the responsible one, the guy who’d hold the hose while I set the pile of dry leaves on fire, so to speak.

That’s how scary reading vintage clothes had become to me, like a matter of probable death and destruction, both of which came in the form of an often deadly puzzle, snippet by dizzying, nauseating snippet.

Five

Shoes and clothing damage our ability to survive naked in the wilderness.

—STEVE MANN

While Paisley spread out the children’s outfits, I sought her nod of approval before I related to Nick the gist of what she’d told me so far about her childhood.

That done, I walked the length of the fainting couch to check out the vintage goods.

The little white dress, a confection of silk charmeuse with a plain bodice, had a skirt covered in ruffle upon ruffle, from waist to hem. I’d seen a couple of those ruffles peeking out near the hem of my cloak at the horrific scene of my father’s, or someone’s father’s death/shooting, though with that much blood…I supposed it could have been a knifing. And yeah, probably his death.

I turned to the mysterious man-magnet who’d scared my
ghost earlier. “Do you know who originally wore these clothes, Paisley?” Or maybe I should ask who last wore them. I hadn’t quite yet figured out the rules of the universe concerning this psychometric gift of mine.

“To be truthful, I don’t know,” Paisley said, answering my question, “but the more I look at them, the more I suspect it was me, or someone close to me. Like, maybe, I was there. Maybe. Or they belonged to my mother. Not Mam. I never believed
she
was my mother. The farm animals had stronger maternal instincts than Mam.”

“Have you been saving these clothes your whole life?” I asked. “Just to bring them to me now?”

Paisley straightened, a bit of excitement glinting in her eyes. “That’s another big part of the story. One of the darker memories of my childhood was the way Mam and Pap whispered secrets to each other while they watched me. More specifically, while they watched me pass by this one closet, top of the stairs, almost at the landing, with a padlock on it. I couldn’t go near that door without my constrained parents—if they were my parents—going bonkers. I mean, it makes a girl want to take a look, you know?”

“Obviously, you looked,” Nick said.

“Not until they died. I looked, forgive me for the irreverence, about an hour after I buried Mam beside Pap and Spotsylvania. Just to be ornery, I buried the dog between them.”

Paisley giggled, poor thing. Separating her keepers by their dog had obviously been a rare prank.

“First,” she said, “I wasted my time looking for a key, then I went down to the cellar and got a giant pair of metal cutters, the ones Pap used on the fence around the property—when the electricity was off, of course.”

“Wait,” Nick said, “you had an electric fence?”

Paisley Skye nodded. “It was lethal. Every once in a while we’d find a fried raccoon or squirrel hanging from it. We had that, and an alarm system, that cost a couple hundred grand, which seems a lot to me, considering how frugal we were. I know, because I found the receipt among some papers before I left. Frankly, the farm isn’t worth as much as protecting it cost.”

“Maybe more than the farm’s original cost,” Nick said. “But if that farm sits on its own island, I’m thinking you’re a rich woman, Paisley.”

“Oh, I was already rich with money, just not people, though Mam and Pap, they were so tight, Mam made her own bread and butter, and Pap butchered cows for eating.”

“The closet,” I said, not wanting to get into an animal’s trip to a cleaver.

Paisley crossed the floor as if she might get caught, and turned to us. “I felt like I was ten and due a strapping when I crept up those stairs—I’m telling you, my whole body shook—but I cut that lock, sure I’d awakened the pair of them from the dead with the sound it made
snapping. Thought I broke my wrist, too, but it was just sore for a few days. Every time I looked at it, I could practically hear Mam scolding me and saying it served me right.”

“Then what happened?” I asked, sitting literally at the edge of my seat.

“At first I saw an empty closet, and I thought, well, that was a big to-do for nothin’. Then I noticed it, just sitting all alone in the back corner, almost invisible.”

“Saw what?” I asked.

“Oh, the box, ’bout this big.” She used her hands to give us an approximate size. “All shiny with little cutout pieces fitted together into a fancy design.”

“Was the box empty?” Nick asked.

“No, it had these clothes and some other things in it.”

“What things?” I asked. “I don’t see anything but clothes.”

“I left them in my car.”

I sat back. “You can drive with that kind of up-bringing?”

“Pap taught me to drive with the old pickup on the farm. He said if something happened to them, I’d have to know how to drive. I just got my license.”

“Why didn’t he teach you how to row a boat, then?” I asked.

“I thought the same thing when I found the water. Well, damn. What good was that old truck gonna do me?”

Nick nodded thoughtfully, clearly processing the details
of Paisley’s life like an FBI agent, as ready to sink his teeth into this case as I was. “I think the man was worried about what would happen to you when you left the island, which he knew you’d do after they died. He figured you’d need to know how to drive.”

She beamed. “It has certainly come in handy—much handier than knowing how to row a boat would be.”

I got the feeling that nothing scared her. Or everything did, which was why she was blocking what I’d seen through her eyes.

“I just brought in the clothes,” she said, “because you’re an expert on clothes.”

“Can you bring in the other items now,” Nick asked, “before we go any further?”

“Sure,” she said, running outside.

The minute the door shut, Nick turned to me. “Give.”

“I zoned and read the outfit she shoved at me, which is why she called nine-one-one.”

“I figured. What’d you see?”

“She may have been kidnapped. I know her mother was, and it looks like her father was murdered. I believe it was her skin I was in—I was wearing that small cloak and gown. Guess I could have been any kid but there’s no way to tell; she has a frustrating lack of memories. Can you check out kidnappings connected to the death of a man in a tux?”

“Month, year?”

“Winter, around Christmas, judging by the colors. Sometime
in the eighties, judging by the cars. Could have been any city street in front of an old stone church.”

“That narrows the field,” Nick said, cupping his neck. “Not. Witnesses? Say yes.”

“None who stuck around long enough to be questioned.” I stopped as Paisley returned, and Nick gave me a nod.

She brought the inlaid box this time, a hefty armful, gorgeous with marquetry and parquetry, woods of varied tones and shades, probably worth a fortune empty. British, Regency, or Georgian perhaps, it would have been called a “trinket casket,” because of its posh satin lining, but I knew clothes better than antiques.

In the box, the white mink muff matched the cloak, and the box held a pair of the sweetest turquoise velvet Mary Janes I ever held. No wonder the little girl whose skin I crawled inside—shiver—worried about them in the snow. Each tiny shoe had a self-bow on top and, in the center of each, a row of five—

“Call me crazy,” I said, “but I think those are real diamonds on the shoes. Ten of them. The gloves are turquoise kid and as old as the cloak, also probably from Paris.” Each glove closed at the wrist with a loop that clasped a pearl—real pearls, no doubt. In one of the shoes, I noted a rolled sash, likely for the ruffled dress. The sash was made of the same turquoise velvet as the shoes. If that wasn’t couture…

“Some child went to one big event,” I speculated.

Paisley shifted from one foot to the other. “You think it was me, don’t you?”

“Which you?” I asked. “The one who grew up on an island with Mam and Pap? Or the one I suspect wore diamonds in a big city when she was three?”

Paisley’s eyes filled, and I wasn’t certain if it was because of something she remembered or because of everything she couldn’t or refused to remember.

Six

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up?

—CHUCK PALAHNIUK

“Slip your hands into the shoes and the muff to see if there’s anything inside,” I suggested to Paisley. I didn’t think I could read shoes or muffs but I was taking no chances.

She did as I suggested, but she came up empty.