Larcency and Lace Part 2

I wondered-a bit late, perhaps-about the wisdom of buying a haunted building. I'd acquired it in my usual, perverse way, by acting first and thinking later. Dante, I'd considered a bonus after the fact.

That was then. This is now.

An owl hooted, and Chakra came to sit on my foot.

I picked her up and we both calmed. I wondered if our "familiar" attachment had to do with any untapped, other-worldly talents I might own.

I came by my ability to specter-speak naturally, only one of the arcane endowments from my late mother-a broom-carrying witch, as it turns out.

That black cat out of the bag-as far as my father is concerned, as in: he can't know that I know-I'd learned recently from Mom's best friend and soul-mate witch, Aunt Fiona. She hadn't exactly mothered us over the years, unless you counted my craft, needlework, and early sewing lessons, but she'd always been there for us.

So far, I haven't shown any signs of spell casting or moon dancing. Except in my recurring dream of being held in my mother's arms while we danced with Aunt Fiona under a full moon, a dream I usually have before a significant life change. But the jury's still out on whatever witchcraft or magic I might harbor.

What kind of witch, I ask you, owns a yellow cat?

For fun, I'd recently haunted the occult section of a bookstore, thinking a spell for kissing toads into studs could be fun. I mean, if somebody had to do it, I was up for the job. Other than ghost gab and a weird clairvoyance around certain vintage clothing items-an apt.i.tude I discovered when my sister Sherry was accused of murder-I don't know what other metaphysical skills I might possess. But I'm game to find out.

Four.

Design can have such a positive impact on the way people live and on their relationships and moods.

-GENEVIEVE GORDER I took Chakra to make use of the sand near my driveway before we checked out the boxes by the front door. They were stuffed with old clothes and notes from Mystick Falls neighbors, friends who didn't want me to fail and must have known I was coming home today. Gossip travels the fast lane in Mystick Falls.

The brunt of the donations might best be used for dust rags, which would hurt their feelings, though I did spot the occasional treasure.

I was up to my elbows in old clothes when Eve, my best friend, a platinum blonde two weeks ago but a raven-haired vixen today, pulled up in her Mini Cooper convertible, top down.

As she got out, her h.e.l.ls Angels jacket fell to the ground. She picked it up and tossed it in her backseat.

"You're early, Cutler! Don't deny it," Eve said with a one-fingered scold.

I went to meet her. "I know. I've already been inside."

"You know that I like to be first on the scene," she griped. "You said to meet you at nine, and it's only eight thirty."

"Don't get your knickers in a knot, Meyers. I was glad to have some alone time to wallow."

She gave the building a dubious glance. "In misery?"

"In possibilities, brat. It's a showpiece, and you know it."

She shrugged, toying with me, and looking good in the boot-cut black jeans I'd designed and st.i.tched for her. She wore them with a delicate, black silk baby-doll cami and clunky Doc Martens.

The walking "fashion don't" with the huge heart, who'd watched my back and saved my b.u.t.t more times than I cared to remember, handed me a caramel latte and an Allie's maple frosted doughnut.

"Yum. Thanks. You've been to Rhode Island?"

"New England educators' meeting."

I opened the cup's sippy slot, recaffeinated, munched on the primo treat, and sighed in appreciation, while Chakra curled around our legs.

Eve drank her coffee black, the way she wore her clothes, and she did both with gusto.

"Your hair looks great," I said. "I like the cut, but now it's the same color as your clothes."

"It's a confirmed fact that sports teams who wear black are more intimidating, like warriors prepared for battle."

"So that's why you wear bold and black, so people will take you seriously and appreciate your brain?"

"Well," she said, looking me up and down, "when a man starts by looking at your spikes and works his gaze up your bare legs, it's not your brain he's thinking about."

Our arguments about her single color apparel choice of black could go either way, but I conceded defeat. "Eve one, Madeira zero."

She bowed regally. "You're hardly a zero, my friend," she said, "but I hope whatever's in your surprise storage room is worth the trip."

"It must be. Somebody just tried to break into it, but Chakra and I scared him away."

Eve stepped closer, horror etching her features.

Uh-oh, I thought. I should have kept my mouth shut. "Meyers, swear you won't tell. I don't need a lecture from the men in my life."

"Somebody broke in? While you were here? Who? Why? Are you all right?"

"I didn't see who, and how the Hermes would I know why? I'm fine. Don't I look fine?"

"Did you call the police?"

"What do you think?"

"Oh," Eve said, "not calling is why you expect a lecture, and I wouldn't blame the men in your life. You really should have dialed 911."

"I do not need an investigation further delaying my opening."

"It's not the investigation, it's the investigator you don't want to deal with," she said with a smug expression, knowing me too well.

"Exactly. Better I should stay away from the Wiener."

"I'm sure he feels the same about you, with good reason."

I crushed my napkin. "Thanks."

"Who else are we waiting for?"

I checked my watch. "My dad and Aunt Fiona should be along in a bit."

Eve sighed. "And Nick, I suppose?"

"Yep. He just went home to change."

She gave me a bland look. "Gee, and I thought he needed a full moon."

"Eve one, Nick zero."

Nick Jaconetti, my on-again, off-again since high school, ticked Eve off with his very existence.

In the seven years I'd worked and lived in New York-Eve with me for two of them-Nick had visited only once, though I often saw him at family gatherings. This time, when I went back for two weeks, he visited me twice. I smiled.

"Gross!" Eve snapped. "You and Nick are on again, aren't you?"

"Al-mo-osst."

She frowned. She and Nick had a snarky, grudge-rooted relationship, because she thought he took me for granted, and he thought she was a pain, but they put up with each other for my sake, more or less.

To my surprise, Eve handed me her cup and abandoned me to run across the parking lot. "Vinney?" she called to the guy on the sidewalk in front of the old playhouse.

Vinney? Wearing a green toque and bleach spots on his jeans? The belligerent lamppost leaner was Eve's Vinney? If so, this was no time mention my suspicion that he might be the one trying to break into my storage room.

The playhouse, which still held theatricals on the main floor and rented its ballroom upstairs for special events, looked closed, except for lights in the back office on the main floor behind the stage. Broderick Sampson's latest sparring partner seemed to have left, since all was quiet. Also known as McScrooge, the curmudgeon was working late again, probably stacking his gold coins.

"Yo, Vinney!" Eve tried, again, her hands cupped around her mouth.

The toque wearer kept walking, head down, hands in his pockets, as if Eve couldn't possibly be talking to him.

She came back, her expression puzzled, and took out her cell phone, but whoever she called didn't answer.

"Is Vinney your hunk du jour?" I asked, getting an affirmative nod.

No surprise; Eve was a man-magnet, though I didn't have a good feeling about this particular catch. "What happened to Ted?"

"Ted was just a fling. I'm not a keeper."

I sucked in a breath. "Did he say that?"

Eve looked up from her phone. "No, I did. Ted didn't dump me. I dumped him." She clicked her phone shut, slipped it into her jeans pocket, and took back her coffee.

"Guess that wasn't him across the street, then?"

"But it was." She looked over there, as did I, but the loiterer had vanished. "Never mind," she quipped. "I'll beat him up later."

Suspecting that her Vinney might be my intruder didn't count for much with no proof or motive behind it. "You're a keeper, Meyers," I said. "And don't you forget it."

"Yeah, yeah. What about Dolly? Is she coming to see the secret room?"

"She's not up to it tonight. I'll bring her tomorrow."

Eve ran a hand through her hair, leaving the short, ebony spikes in fashionable disarray. "For a hundred and three years old, Dolly sure gets around. I wanna be her when I grow up."

Eve glanced at her diver's watch, then picked up Chakra, one-handed. "Hi, baby girl." Chakra and Eve were pals. "Probably past Dolly's bedtime, anyway," Eve added.

"True."

Dolly Sweet and the late Dante Underhill had been lovers, mid-twentieth century, a huge secret that everybody in Mystick Falls knew, even before he left her his building and his fortune.

Dolly was dying to see Dante again.

Five.

I want to do my best to take care of the planet by designing with recycled and eco-friendly materials. I think we all have to start with what we know . . . I design clothing, so I figured I'd start there.

-DEBORAH LINDQUIST "I'll bet this place was beautiful in Dolly's day," Eve said examining my building, known for years by the locals as "the Shack." As of last month: "Maddie's Shack."

"h.e.l.l, I'll bet Dolly was beautiful in Dolly's day," she added, taking another sip of her coffee.

"Beauty-pageant beautiful." I'd seen her wedding pictures. "But, Eve, you should know that I thought this place was beautiful when we were kids."

She spewed a mouthful of coffee my way.

I jumped back in time to save my Prada blouse, pencil skirt, and spikes, but not my rare Lucite box bag.

"Watch it," I said. "This is a valuable collectible." I wiped it with my napkin.

"Sorry." Eve chuckled as she dabbed coffee off the protesting Chakra. "Speaking of collectibles-not. Here comes Jaconetti."

Nick's refurbished military surplus Humvee had alerted us both to his approach before he turned the corner.

"Good thing he makes his own fuel for that guzzler," Eve said, wincing at the sound.

"The bio-diesel? Yes," I said over the roar as he drove into my parking lot and took up two parking s.p.a.ces. "He makes it in his garage with used French fry oil and a couple of reagents. Imagine. Very eco-friendly."

"That's me," Nick said. "You're eco-friendly, too, ladybug. You recycle clothes." He swooped in for a h.e.l.l-lo kiss and communicated the added longing that went with a good-bye. A kiss, very well executed. Gentle but hungry. Respectable, yet French.

Nick and I shared a long-standing relationship built on a white-hot charge of spontaneous combustion and a mutual fear of catching fire.

I could live with that.

Eve could not. She faked a gag.