To be fair, she planned her fundraising trip to coincide with our sister Sherry’s baby shower. Justin Vancortland IV, Sherry’s father- in-law, is lending us his mansion for Brandy’s events. She and Cort shared barbs at Sherry’s wedding, and he gave her a donation. Better than good cooking as a way to Brandy’s heart.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve missed my sister. But she didn’t just force a few fundraisers on me, she also talked me into taking on a design assistant. An unpaid one, it’s true, and on the plus side, Isobel Yost, or Izzy, as Brandy calls her, is practically paying me to take her on by giving me her grandmother’s vintage clothes, which I might or might not accept, depending on her attachment to them.
It seems Izzy applied for several fashion design reality shows and never quite made it. She wants to learn at the feet of a master. That’s the crap Brandy handed me, anyway. Fact is, I agreed because Izzy works for a top modeling agency and she’s getting her wealthy boss, Madame Celine Robear, to attend the fundraiser, a coup for Brandy in her new role as development director for the Nurture Kids Foundation. Besides, I need the models Madame Celine is bringing for the fashion show.
My cell phone rang, and since I was beginning to think my problems weren’t that huge, I answered it.
“Mad,” Brandy said. “Izzy and I aren’t coming in on the same train after all. There was a mix-up and she’ll be in before me, like maybe five minutes ago? Can you pick her up at the train station?”
Now I remembered why I thought things could get out of hand. “I’m on my way,” I said, clapping my phone shut before I growled or gave her a bit of snark.
Mystic’s train station projected a quaint landmark beauty. Small and full of character, painted cream, its detailed architectural trim a rusty orange, it had once been used as a model for a toy train terminal by American Flyer. In minutes, I parked in the lot. On the track side, I saw no passengers. They only got off at the station if they were going south.
As the northbound train disappeared around the curve, its absence revealed a swarm of motion. People dragging bags around an ambulance parked on the cross street with its bubble light turning. Directly across from the station, a humming crowd faced into the lean-to where people waited in bad weather.
A compelling whiff of chocolate hit me, and I ran, my heart racing. It couldn’t be Brandy. I broke through the crowd to find a girl passed out on the bench, a paramedic checking her vitals, and I ignored my shiver of unease. Nearby stood Detective Sergeant Lytton Werner, or “Little Wiener” as I’d dubbed him in third grade. Call ours a grudging relationship, except when awareness sizzled, as it unfortunately had one scary night.
Werner gave me a double take. “Madeira, don’t tell me you know this girl?”
“No, I was afraid it was Brandy.” Relief flooded my senses. “I’m here to pick up my new assistant.” I looked back at the terminal, shading my eyes from the April sun to see if someone looked lost. “Isobel Yost,” I said, glancing back at Werner, his lips firming. “Has anybody seen her?”
Werner took my arm to walk me away from the crowd, and I knew. “That’s her,” he said. “She’s dead, Mad. I’m sorry.”
Death by Diamonds Page 19