Larcency and Lace

by Annette Blair

  The wide-open room appeared empty, except for the caskets on pedestals in the dark back corner and, in shadow at the far side, the antique hearse, brought up from downstairs.

  In the vast expanse, light from the parking lot spilled in, casting long window shadows across the floor and illuminating what I’d missed on my initial visit. The once-invisible doors cut into the wall to the storage room were now delineated by giant gouges and splinters.

  I moved close enough to see that the lock held and in my stocking feet stepped on something hard, uneven, painful.

  Losing my balance, I dropped the pepper spray.

  Chakra pounced on the small vial rolling away from me, and I didn’t want her accidentally setting it off and hurting herself, so I put down my shoe and ran to grab the pepper spray.

  Once I did, the sound of footsteps came closer from the far end of the back wall behind the caskets. I grabbed the object I’d stepped on, raised the crowbar as high as I held the pepper spray, and braced myself for the intruder, his approach slow, intense, threatening.

  He must have gotten close because Chakra’s banshee howl seemed to ignite the invisible runner to action.

  Footsteps, no longer muffled, rattled down the stairs at a fast clip and slammed out the front door.

  Relief washed over me in dizzying waves, and though I mourned the loss of my Lucite bag, likely bleeding value in the parking lot, Chakra and I were safe.

  A spicy whiff of aftershave reached me. Probably a male, as I assumed. An intruder with class? Well, one who bathed and shaved, anyway.

  I put down the pepper spray to pick up Chakra. She licked my arm as I nuzzled her. “You scared off that big bad intruder with your howl, didn’t you, sweetie?”

  Between my fear for her and the potential, albeit aborted, attack on my person, the episode left me trembling.

  It took a minute for me to unlock my elbow and loosen my white-knuckled grip on the crowbar before I could lower it to my side, though I wasn’t ready to let it go.

  My heart, echoing in my head, slowed by the beat, thanks to our safety and Chakra’s soothing presence.

  As an aftermath to the adrenaline rush, I began to relax and shiver.

  The husky “Bravo” whispered in my ear made Chakra howl, jump ship, and run.

  Me? I gave in to my honed fight-or-flight instinct, screamed, and wielded the crowbar, intending to beat the speaker to a bloody pulp.

  Three

  I’ve been strong and determined all my life about many things I’ve wanted.

  —CALVIN KLEIN

  “I’m already dead, Madeira,” Dante Underhill said. “You may now put down the crowbar.”

  It took a minute for his words to penetrate my panic. I stilled and focused. No blood. I covered my heart with a hand to keep it from beating from my chest. “Dante!”

  This building, once the Underhill Funeral Chapel carriage house, had gone into hibernation when the last Underhill quit this earthly plane, though he can’t seem to leave the building . . . or so he says.

  I know. Shiver. And I mean that in the most titillating of ways. I gave him a withering glare. “You scared me!”

  He bowed. “My apologies.”

  His outdated manners short-circuited my anger.

  Chakra sat on my foot and looked up at him.

  I put down the crowbar, picked up my cat, and huffed. “What’s the point in having a ghost if he doesn’t give you a heads-up when there’s a break-in?”

  Dante raised a brow. “I was thinking only of you. The thief might have been able to see and hear me, like the plumber I scared to death—”

  I scowled.

  He shrugged. “I was planning to appear at the very moment your luscious skin most needed saving.”

  “Compliments will get you nowhere,” I said, though my congenital vanity probably gave me away. “You mean,” I attempted to clarify, “if the intruder had attacked me, and if he or she could have seen you, their fear would have frightened them away and saved me?”

  Dante raised his empty hands. “That’s all I’ve got, Twinkle Toes, a store of scary spirit energy.”

  I covered one stockinged foot with the other. “I guess. But you could have warned me downstairs that I wasn’t alone.”

  “You would have given us both away. You scream every time I appear.”

  “I do not.”

  “Do, too, and your cat seems to take after you.”

  I ignored that. “Did you see the intruder?” I asked. “Who was it? A he or a she? Anybody you recognized?”

  “I have no idea who,” Dante said, “but he wanted in your storage room in the worst way.”

  “No bloody kidding,” I snapped, indicating the damage. “How would I manage without you?”

  Dante’s chin dimple deepened, but he was smart enough not to smile outright.

  I refused to be charmed. “Don’t ever sneak up on me from behind, again. From now on, you appear facing me, or I’m calling Ghostbusters.”

  What a cocky grin. Mr. Delicious tipped his hat, and Chakra tried to catch it.

  “Wait, it’s a man, you said. Has he been here before? Same man?”

  Dante nodded. “He’s been trying to get in since you left. Welcome home, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” I ignored the heart flutter his welcome induced.

  Dante Underhill had died young, relatively speaking. Gorgeous man. Loved women. Broad shoulders, sturdy chest, charm, charisma. Think: Cary Grant in a tux, tails, and a top hat, but dead—fifty, sixty years’ worth.

  I’d had the weird ability to see ghosts from the cradle, every one the silent type.

  Dante, however, had been chiseled from a different hunk of spook. He spoke to me the day I toured the building, and I about jumped from my skin that time, too.

  Not many people can see him, but when they do, he says hello. He’s a people person, to the detriment of that one poor plumber.

  “Now my intruder’s gone,” I said, “I want to see my dressing rooms.”

  Dante shook his head. “Aren’t you going to call the police?”

  I shrugged and turned toward the stairs. “I’ll see what Nick thinks.”

  Dante obediently appeared before me. “Who’s Nick?”

  “FBI,” I said.

  “Like J. Edgar Hoover?”

  “You have been here a long time.”

  The sexy specter furrowed his brows. “Why’s that Dick fellow coming here?”

  “Nick with an N, and he’s mine,” I said, without elaboration.

  “You’re married? Of course you are.”

  I raised a brow. “Why do you say ‘of course?’”

  “Well, look at you. You’re so, so deliciously . . . marriable.”

  I took that as a compliment, since he was looking at me as if he had a sweet tooth and I was a drizzle of hot fudge. He’d used “marriable” in lieu of an earthier word. “So was Dolly, but you didn’t marry her.”

  “Dolly,” he said, sigh wistful, expression sensual. “Being with Dolly was like touching the stars and catching fire.”

  “A scenario I know well.” My echo of his sigh annoyed him.

  He faced me all the way down the stairs—a bit disconcerting, but I’d asked for it, while he grilled me with personal questions I refused to answer. So much for checking out my dressing rooms. Only one way to stop his interrogation: leave.

  “Are you married or not?” he finally asked.

  “Not.”

  “The cad,” he said.

  And I laughed. “You should know.”

  I found my vintage box bag on the floor inside and undamaged, gratefully grabbed it, slipped into my Jimmy Choos, and went out the front door.

  I expected to see Dante in the doorway—which was as far as he could go—his hands on hips or in some other similarly chiding pose, but he’d disappeared.

  I did not expect to see a loiterer across the street leaning on a lamppost—a rather stupid move, standing under a bright light. But between his spot-ble
ached black jeans, leather vest, T-shirt, and green toque, I could pick him out in a lineup, if I had to, which just might become necessary.

  Given his belligerent stance, I wondered if he was trying to scare me away.

  As if in answer to my unspoken question, he stepped off the curb in my direction, but I stood my ground, took out my cell phone, and hit speed dial.

  The slacker backed up and walked away before Nick answered his phone.

  “I’m at Vintage Magic,” I said. “Are you coming?”

  “Are you wearing your lucky panties?”

  “Stop being such a tease. I mean, when can you meet me here?”

  Nick sighed. “I’m flying out tonight, ladybug, on assignment, but I can stop at your place for a minute on the way to the airport.”

  “Bummer,” I said.

  “Tell me about it. I had a helluva private welcome-home celebration planned.”

  I felt lonely and he hadn’t left yet. “I’ll bet you did. See you in a few?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I looked back across the street. No more loiterer. At my open door, still no ghost.

  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 aptitude 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 Hells 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 stitched 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 butt 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 Hermès 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.”