Cloaked in Malice Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 detailsof 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. Sometimein 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,