Veiled Revenge (16 page)

“And I love Lady G too,” Stella said.

“You’re giving up on love? Just because of a little bad luck?”
Granted, not so little.

“Don’t make me the bad guy. I love him, but I have to let him go. I’m going to have to put all my memories of Nigel in a box and put that box on a shelf.” Her voice choked up.

“Speaking of boxes—” Large brown packing boxes were lined up against one wall, all addressed to Stella Lake. “I hate to ask, but what’s in all these boxes?”

“Boxes? Oh.” Stella stared at the boxes. She wiped away a tear. “Our wedding favors and candy. For our guests. At the wedding I’ll never have.”

“They’re still in the boxes? You haven’t put them together yet? That’s a lot of favors, Stella, for a lot of guests. It’s going to take some time.”

“It doesn’t matter now. What’s the point?”

Lacey knew Stella had agonized over selecting and ordering those favors. She’d chosen petite candy boxes in the shape of wedding dresses and tuxedos, each to be filled with delicious treats. Each guest would receive one of each, a matched set, like the bride and groom. The little tuxedo boxes represented the English groom and would be stuffed full of English toffee. The wedding dress boxes symbolized the Jersey girl bride, of course, who had planned to tie pink satin ribbons around the miniature bridal gowns and embellish them with pink rhinestones. The glue gun was at the ready. They would be filled with chocolate kisses and personalized miniature Hershey bars, on which flowery pink labels would read S
TELLA AND
N
IGEL
F
OREVER,
followed by the date of the wedding. For the two hundred guests, four hundred favor boxes would have to be assembled. Plus an extra twenty or so, “for all the thieves in my family who are gonna steal more favors than they deserve,” Stella had said.

I blame
Modern Bride
magazine
, Lacey thought.
And the wedding-industrial complex
.

“Wedding favors are so froufrou,” Retta said. “I mean, if you had to do favors, Bugsy, why didn’t you think of something practical, like little shampoos or scrunchies? At least that would represent your trade.”

“First of all, Ma, hairstyling is my art,” Stella said, sitting up straight on the sofa. “It’s an
art
. Not just a
trade
. Of course I expect people to buy
product
from me, because my art is also my
business
. But
product
, for something to give my friends? At something as important and romantic as my only wedding? Chocolate kisses are the ultimate romantic symbol! Everyone knows that!”

“I think kisses sound sweet and really cute,” Cousin Rosalie ventured hesitantly. “So maybe—”

Retta’s raspy voice cut her off. “Rosalie, the world is a nasty, cruel, hard place—it is neither sweet nor cute. Nor should we encourage people who think it is.”

“Oh. So as far as a symbol of romance goes—” Stella’s voice rose. “Maybe I should just give everyone a rusty old nail! Like your necklace! So they could stab themselves through the heart with it at the reception! How’s that for representing love and romance, Ma?”

Retta scowled and took a step back. “I know you don’t mean that, Bugsy.”

Lacey watched Retta disappear into the kitchen, dragging Rosalie with her. She knew Stella’s mother would be back in mere moments, with some fresh cause for gloom and despair. Lacey saw her opening and she took it.

“Stella, if there is the
slightest
chance you’re getting married on Saturday, and if you want to do something with the dress, it has to be now,” Lacey said. “Miguel and I will make it happen, I promise. You remember that magical gown he whipped up for me for the Bentley’s ball.”

“Yeah, Lacey, and I remember you in that gown. You were amazing. Listen, I don’t know what to do about my wedding dress. It’s really not me. I have no idea what made me buy it. Except maybe it was the thrill of the hunt.” Stella slumped into the sofa and sighed as if she were a deflating balloon.

“Is there anything we can do to make it better?”

“Well, if I
was
going to get married and if I
could
do something with it . . .” Stella struggled back into a sitting position. She squinted at the fluffy white gown floating in the April breeze through the windows. “Maybe I would add, like, some
pink
to it. Pink is really what’s missing, I think. But there’s no time! I mean, the wedding is Saturday! Not that there’s gonna be any wedding.”

“Pink what? Bows?” Lacey suggested.

“Nah, bows are too babyish.”

“Some pink ribbon around the skirt?”

“Maybe.” Stella thought hard. “No, no ribbon. Too Scarlett O’Hara. And Rhett Butler still left her in the end.”

“Pink lace? Pink appliqués? Pink satin flowers maybe?” Lacey was reaching now.
How many pink things are there in the world?

“It’ll look like an afterthought. You don’t want it to look like a bunch of stuff stuck on with a glue gun, like some crazed artsy-craftsy project of Mom’s.”

“Don’t even think about wearing that dress!” Retta returned with a giant steaming mug of something that smelled like a swamp after a hard rain.

Lacey was nearly at the end of the universe of pink apparel.
What says Stella like nothing else could say Stella?

“What about a pink corset?”

“A corset? Really? Maybe that could work. You mean like over the dress, around the waist? Like really cinching it in? And under the bust, so it would make the Girls look even bigger?” Stella finally seemed to come to life. She traced her hands around her waist, over her ratty brown T-shirt. “And all cinched up, it would make that skirt just explode, with all those ruffles!”

Lacey rolled all her pink marbles. “Stella, you’ve got a pink corset, don’t you? Sort of cherry-blossom pink? One of the corsets Magda made for you? It could be cut to fit. Originally you were debating between the punky pink leather bustier or sexy corset look and the big traditional white gown look, right? Well, why not both?”

Let her look like Little Bo Freakin’ Peep! Just let me get her to the cherry blossoms on time!

“Wow. Why not both! I never thought of that. And it would be a tribute to Magda. So sorry she died before my wedding. She was the most incredible corsetiere. Yeah, that could be really cool.” She was nodding, her eyes were starting to glow. Lacey felt she might finally be pulling Stella back from the brink of despair. “And maybe with some pink sparkles all over the lace of the skirt, like sequins, like the corset has just, like, showered cherry blossoms everywhere?”

“You know what I think? That dress has got bad karma written all over it.” Retta sipped her hot swamp water and twisted a lock of gray hair around one finger. “But sure, you could change it. You could always just cut that Moby-Dick of a dress off at the knees and dye it a nice smoky taupe color. Earth tones, you need some earth tones for that earth energy—”

Stella leapt up off the red sofa. “Party dresses aren’t smoky taupe! Who ever even heard of that? Maybe you’d like I should set it on fire and have a funeral for it? And bury it, wrapped around my heart.”

“No need to be melodramatic, Bugsy.” Retta started toward the dress. Turtledove stood up again, looking about twice her size. She froze. “But you know, a ceremonial burial and formal good-bye to that dress might be just the thing to start the healing process. We could maybe get a Native American healer to smudge it with burning sage, like I seen them do in Sedona, Arizona.”

“Now that sounds perfect.” Rosalie broke in. “Or maybe I could dye that dress for you, Stella, as a wedding gift. Like a tie-dye? I totally agree with Aunt Retta—the dress has got to go, or be totally changed. Should we do it right here, Aunt Retta, or take it home to Jersey?”

“Hold on. Nobody make a move.” Lacey stood protectively before the dress hanging in the window, her arms spread to defend it. She exchanged a look with Turtledove. He gave her the smallest possible nod. “You are not going to destroy this dress.”

“Yeah, you got no reason to murder my gown,” Stella said, taking a stand next to Lacey. “It hasn’t hurt anyone. That is a beautiful thing, even if it’s not quite me!”

Lacey nodded to Turtledove, who carefully took the dress down from the curtain rod.

“I am the maid of honor,” Lacey announced to the company at large, “and I am taking this wedding gown into my personal custody.”

“And I am this dress’s personal protection agent.” Turtledove folded it over one of his rock-hard arms. He let the other arm fall casually to his side, but his hand curled not so subtly into a fist. Retta and Rosalie took a step back toward the kitchen.

“You heard him,” Lacey said. “No one is cutting it, dyeing it, smudging it, burning it, or burying it in some screwy New Age ceremony. You got that?” Lacey unchained the chain, unlocked the locks, and opened the door, holding it wide for her, and the dress’s, very impressive bodyguard. “Stella, I’m taking your dress to my seamstress, Alma Lopez. Right now. She made my dress. I’ll talk to her about your pink corset and the pink sparkles, just like you said, so get me that corset too. I’ll call you later.”

Stella jumped up to pull the pink corset out of her closet.

Retta dropped her mug of aromatic swamp water. She looked like her world was ending. “Are you really going to let her do that?” Rosalie cowered behind her aunt. “Stella, just what does she think she’s doing with that awful dress? The dress you said you hated? I’m your mother and I know what’s right for you! She can’t just take it away. She can’t do that!”

Stella smiled for the first time since Lacey arrived.

“Sure she can. Lacey’s my maid of honor. She’s got certain rights. And she can do
anything
.”

Chapter 19

Turtledove pointed his enormous charcoal gray SUV down Connecticut Avenue onto Rock Creek Parkway, heading south. They were just in time, before the traffic flow made its daily rush-hour shift to one-way northbound. Lacey rode shotgun. Layers and layers of creamy white wedding dress filled the backseat. Somewhere beneath it lay a pale pink corset, made by the hands of the late lamented corsetiere, Magda Rousseau.

“I warned you there would be girly stuff,” Lacey said.

“Duly noted.” His mouth turned up at the corners in amusement. “It got pretty girly there for a minute, but we made it out alive. You, me, and the bridal getup.”

Her cell phone jingled. It was Brooke. Lacey was feeling bad about the way her last conversation with Brooke ended. She reluctantly picked up, wondering if they were still friends.

“Lacey, I am so sorry! I had no idea someone tried to kill you! And with a black Lincoln Town Car, no less. And the chauffeur of the Lincoln is still on the run. It
was
a Lincoln, wasn’t it?”

“I gather you talked with Stella.”

“This morning. I’ve been in court all day. And I think it was Stella,” Brooke said. “But the gloomy lady I spoke to sure didn’t sound like our chirpy bride-to-be.”

“Attempted vehicular homicide will do that to you,” Lacey commented.

“Granted. This incident is obviously connected to Leonardo’s death. And the shawl.” Brooke sounded way too upbeat.

Lacey groaned audibly and Turtledove glanced over with concern. “Brooke, shawls don’t drive cars,” she said.

“Ah, but perhaps someone is doing its bidding.”

“Shawls don’t give orders. Neither do they practice mind control.”

“Nevertheless, I believe his death and that limo are connected to this strange Russian artifact.”

Lacey leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. “If we were in an alternate universe where shawls were magical entities with minds of their own, I’d say
maybe
.”

“Was that sarcasm?” Brooke asked. Lacey was aware that Turtledove was listening in, attuned to Brooke and Damon’s particular wavelength of weirdness in the universe.

“No, that wasn’t sarcasm. That was skepticism. Please remember, we did nothing to irritate the shawl, Marie’s and Stella’s superstitions notwithstanding. And don’t forget, Marie predicts a long and happy life for these lovebirds.”

“If they don’t get killed.” There was a pause. “Do I still need a pink dress?”

“I wouldn’t bet against it. Especially now. I just took personal command of Stella’s wedding dress and corset, and I’m going to try to save this mess.” Lacey opened her eyes to make sure it was still there in the backseat. It was.

“You took the dress! Yay for you! What is going on?”

“Are you fishing for quotes for Damon’s Web site?”

“No! He’s promised to be a good boy and hold off till we get to the bottom of this. I’m not quoting you.”

“All right. I have no idea who’s behind this. I don’t think I’ve incited my readers to homicide. Lately.”

“Fashion can be murder. In the meantime, what can I do to help?”

A vision of Stella’s cluttered apartment and those packing boxes appeared to Lacey. “There is one thing. Favors,” she said.

“A favor? Sure. Anything.”

“No. Favors.”

“Favors?” It was Brooke’s turn to sound suspicious.

“Stella hasn’t assembled her hundreds of wacky and wonderful wedding favors yet.”

“And this concerns me how?”

“She’s going to need help putting them all together and filling them with yummy treats.”

“You think Stella’s getting married after all?” Brooke considered. “Can’t her family do that?”

“Um, no.”

“Her hippie mom from Hell doesn’t approve of wedding favors?”

“I’m not sure Retta approves of anything. Except misery. And Stella is in a state. I confiscated the wedding dress to keep her mom and cousin from mutilating it in the name of healing.”

“Where is the dress now?”

Lacey stared at the Great White Whale Dress. It looked even larger and fluffier than it had before. “In a secret undisclosed location.”

“I see.” Brooke sounded impressed. She loved “undisclosed locations.” There was a pregnant pause. “Exactly what is involved in making these favors?”

“A little assembly. It’ll be fun. Be forewarned: There will be glue guns,” Lacey said.

“No! You know I’m not qualified with glue guns. I’m much better with real guns. And not pink rhinestones again?”

“It’s always pink rhinestone time at Stella’s,” Lacey said. “You know that. But on the plus side, there will also be chocolate. Tons of it.”

“There had better be chocolate.” Brooke clicked off, still groaning.

When Stella’s leg was in a cast, she’d hosted a party for her friends to decorate it with pink and red rhinestones, stars and hearts. It was the most
fabulous
cast ever, and Lacey had hoped Brooke had overcome her fear of glue guns. But old fears die hard.

“You talking about the legendary Killer Shawl on DeadFed?” Turtledove piloted the SUV down Route 50, heading to Lacey’s seamstress’s house in Arlington, Virginia.

“Some people make up stories, Turtledove.”

“It’s old, it’s Russian, it’s mysterious, and it’s missing? And strange things have been happening around it lately.”

“Strange things are always happening,” Lacey said. “Maybe it’s something about
me
.”

 * * * 

The sign over the side door read:
A
LMA’S
S
TITCH IN
T
IME.
C
REATIVE
T
AILORING AND
A
LTERATIONS
. Seamstress Alma Lopez lived in an attractive little bungalow on a side street in Arlington where the trees were leafing out a light spring green and tulips were popping up in the flower bed in front of the brick porch. Lacey and Turtledove stood at the door and rang the bell. It was loud enough to wake the dead. No matter where she was in the house, or even in her neat-as-a-pin garden, the seamstress wanted to know when her clients arrived.

Alma let them in and asked them to wait just a minute while she finished a phone call with a client. Her dressmaking business filled a large converted family room off the sunny kitchen. Alma’s pale green and white sewing studio was cheerful and filled with good light. There was a long table along one wall, with three sewing machines: her standard machine, one that quilted, and one that handled specialized stitches.

Turtledove seemed outsized and a little uncomfortable in the studio. Lacey had warned him that things were going to be getting girlier by the minute. He settled onto a bench by the windows, where he could see both the yard and the door. He pulled out his dog-eared
Odyssey
.

Lacey loved looking at Alma’s domain, where elegant creations were crafted from cleverly cut bits and pieces of fabric. She loved being in the atmosphere of needle-and-thread alchemy that Alma had perfected. Lacey noticed something new every time she visited.

A round platform stood before a three-way mirror where Alma fitted her clients. The north wall was filled with shelves bearing bolts of fabric and white-paper-wrapped packages of finished projects, tagged with their owners’ names. One rolling garment rack held clothing in various states of construction. Another held completed dresses and suits.

A tall and heavy Peg-Board leaned against one wall. Alma had decorated it with hundreds of spools of colored threads and dozens of sewing tools, including every size and description of sewing scissors and pinking shears, and a couple of large steel and wood T-square rulers. It wobbled a little as Lacey walked toward it. Alma always took pains to warn her that the Peg-Board was heavy and not very stable. Lacey was examining the collection of threads, admiring the vast array of colors, when Alma strode into the room.

“Don’t even breathe wrong on that thing,” she said with a grin. “It will fall over and kill you. Cut you to ribbons with all those scissors!” Alma had been issuing that warning for the past year and Lacey grinned in response. “I need to get my man to nail it to the wall.”

Alma had sleek dark hair that she wore knotted at the back of her head. In her mid-forties, she had clear, unlined creamy skin and wore almost no makeup, except for the dark eyeliner and bright red lipstick that Lacey thought of as her visual signature. Alma was lovely when she smiled, which wasn’t that often. Perhaps because when she was working she usually had a mouthful of straight pins for fitting and for pinning pattern pieces. In her studio, Alma liked to wear a pastel painter’s smock over her clothes, with big pockets to hold the sewing tools she needed: scissors, marking pencils, tape measures, pincushions, and the inevitable straight pins and needles stuck to the outside of the pockets. She was the queen in her studio, and she could be abrupt.

Alma took one look at Turtledove and told him to sit still and not to touch anything. “You look like a bull in a china shop.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said mildly. He was already sitting still. He winked at Lacey and returned to his book.

“And you, Miss Fashion Reporter—” Alma pulled a rose-colored dress off the in-progress rack and handed it to her. “Try this on to see if the hem is right.”

Lacey slipped behind the changing curtains and poured herself into her maid-of-honor dress, slipped on the matching high-heeled sandals that went with it, then trotted over to the fitting platform and gazed at her reflection.
Pretty in pink.

The dress might be new, but the style was old, and classic. Dating from the late 1930s, the pattern—one of Aunt Mimi’s—featured a bias cut that skimmed the body, with a raised waist. The skirt floated below Lacey’s knees. The shawl collar grazed her shoulders and revealed her collarbones. She had found the silk-blend fabric in Washington. The material was a delicate shade of pink that flattered her skin, neither too pale nor too shocking. The hemline and the fit were perfect.

As always, Alma was a wizard with a pair of scissors. She had stitched a small collection of pieces for Lacey, all of which had come from patterns or fabric, or both, excavated from Aunt Mimi’s trunk.

“These old patterns. They’re pretty, they fit, but they are a lot more complicated than they look.” Alma said something like this every time. “And the old instructions—when they have them—they don’t tell you exactly how to do everything. Way back when, they just expected a woman to know all these tricks, things most people who sew never learn anymore. So you are lucky to have me.”

“You are a treasure, Alma. I know, and I’m so grateful.”

“You didn’t give me much time for this, you know,” Alma complained.

“I’m sorry. Stella didn’t give me much time,” Lacey said.

“The bride? Is she pregnant?” Alma spoke with several straight pins stuck between her lips. Lacey was afraid she’d swallow one. “That doesn’t faze people nowadays. Fact is, getting married before the baby?
That
would be downright old-fashioned.”

“She’s not pregnant. But she does plan to have blue-eyed babies someday.”

“Hmph. When it comes time for babies, only thing she’s going to care about is, are they healthy and do they have all their fingers and toes.”

Lacey glanced over at Turtledove. He’d put down the
Odyssey
and was leafing through an issue of
Cosmopolitan
. He seemed to be enjoying himself. No doubt admiring the
girly
pictures, skipping the quizzes on how to tell if your guy is the perfect mate.

“Nice dress,” Turtledove commented, with a thumbs-up.

She took another look. Her bridesmaid’s dress was very simple, but very flattering, and yet in no danger of pulling anyone’s attention away from the billowy white gown Stella planned to wear down the aisle. Particularly with the Bo Peep Special look that Lacey had just accidentally sold her on.

Now comes the tricky part
.

“Alma—” Lacey began.

“No, no, no. I’m too busy.”

“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”

“Do I have to know?” Alma said. “You use that tone and it always means more work for me. And I’m telling you, Lacey, I don’t have time right now.”

“Okay.” Lacey turned slowly, checking her rear view in the mirror. “I know you’re busy. Perhaps you could suggest another seamstress? Someone who could do a small job quickly? It’s not for me, it’s for the bride. Just a—you know,
a stitch in time
?”

Alma sighed at the mention of her shop’s name. “This is the bride who decides everything at the last minute?”

“That’s Stella. It’s all because of the cherry blossoms.”

Alma shook her head in exasperation. “Cherry blossoms! I got a bride who wants a wedding in the bluebells. Three blue dresses that must be the exact shade of blue of Virginia bluebells! Another has to have hers when the dogwoods bloom. They all have to be pink and white, dogwood colors. Don’t even mention daffodils. I tell you what. Stella better already have a dress, because she’s getting married on Saturday.”

Lacey could almost hear the clock ticking over her head. “She has the dress. I have it with me. It just needs some, um, tweaking.”

“Tweaking! Always brides need tweaking! What kind of tweaking? I’m only asking because I’m curious, not because I’m going to be able to do anything about it.”

“A pink lace under-bust corset. It could be attached over the dress? She has a corset I think will work, I brought that along too. Maybe it just needs a little cutting, a little fitting, to pull it all together? Oh, yeah,” she added in a rush, “and maybe some pink sequins on the skirt.”

“A corset? Over the dress? Whose crazy idea was this?”

“Long story. Do you think it’ll work?”

“Where’s the dress?”

Lacey nodded to Turtledove, who slipped out the door to his vehicle and returned with Stella’s wedding gown and the corset. Lacey prayed Stella would actually be cruising down the aisle Saturday, especially if Alma went to the trouble of trying to make this work. Alma had Turtledove hold the dress up and spin it around for her inspection.

“And it’s already been fitted?” Lacey nodded, but Alma was not impressed. “Same old dress they all want this year. Typical. Not terrible, but not distinguished. It’s not one of your special vintage patterns, Lacey. Not even special order.”