Shot Through Velvet Read Online Free PDF

were even working.
    Lacey was ensconced in one of the glass-windowed offices with a view onto the factory floor. Though she could see flashes from the police cameras in the dye house, no one was around to see her. She fretted that the local reporter might already be filing his own story. It might not be accurate, but it might scoop her own, practically eyewitness, account. She thought about it. Although Armstrong had cautioned the witnesses not to talk with each other, he didn’t tell Lacey she couldn’t call her newspaper or her editor. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Douglas MacArthur Jones.
    “Mac, it’s Lacey.” There was a pause on the other end. He wasn’t expecting her to call. “You remember. Funny name? Fashion beat?”
    “Tell me now, Smithsonian,” Mac said. “Do I open the Maalox, or is this a social call?”
    “Well—” She hesitated. This was always the hard part. “Does Maalox count as a social drug?”
    “You’re writing a feature, Smithsonian. A simple feature, tugging at our readers’ heartstrings. Workers out of jobs, fashion down the tubes. That’s all. Right? That’s the deal. No dead bodies. No problems.” Mac was trying to be funny, but his voice was questioning. He always jumped to dire conclusions. Not that he wasn’t sometimes justified. She wasn’t supposed to have any reason to call in.
    That’s what comes of having a history. Lacey took a deep breath. She could imagine Mac unscrewing the cap of the blue bottle of antacid and taking a big slug.
    “I’m waiting, Smithsonian. We’re on deadline here.”
    “All right. Just let me get this out. Yes, there’s a dead body.”
    “There is no dead body in this story, Smithsonian,” Mac said.
    “Do you want to hear this or not?”
    He moaned with dramatic flair. “Go ahead.”
    “A man was pulled out of a tub full of blue dye here at the velvet factory, and, yes, the corpse was dyed blue. Midnight Blue is the exact shade. Looks like homicide,” Lacey said in a rush. “Name of the victim is Rodney Gibbs. And yes, he was the guy I was supposed to interview. And Houston, we have another problem.”
    “Beyond the fact that you can’t go a month without stumbling over a dead body? And not just a body, a murdered body? And check my hearing here, Smithsonian: Did you say the victim is blue, as in the color blue? Not black like me or white like you?” Mac was actually a little of both, but she didn’t quibble.
    “Yes, he is blue. Like a crayon is blue. And I like that rhyming thing you do.”
    “I do not rhyme and we’re wasting time. Now talk to me, Smithsonian.”
    “I didn’t ‘stumble’ over him. He’s actually hanging out to dry. But listen, Mac, here’s the rub: The dead guy was part owner of the last velvet factory in Virginia. But so is our publisher, Claudia Darnell.”
    “What the hell—”
    “I didn’t know about Claudia. Turns out she’s from here—Black Martin, Virginia, where the factory is. Did you know that? The factory is closing, she owns a stake in it, and people down here blame her and this dead blue guy. She could be involved somehow.”
    “Smithsonian, when you put your foot in it, you really—”
    “So I want to know, conflict-of-interestwise, what does this mean for my story? A disclaimer or what? Do you want me to forget this feature? It’s visual, Mac. Very visual. I know how you like visual.”
    There was a pause. Lacey could envision Mac wiping sweat off his chocolate brown forehead, his eyebrows dancing a troubled tango. She heard his irritated whistle. Lacey was glad she wasn’t there.
    “Keep on the story. We’ll do full disclosure. Claudia may be part owner, but we won’t hide that, especially with a death on the premises. A particularly lurid death, the kind that only fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian can find.”
    “That sounds suspiciously like that sarcasm thing,” Lacey said.
    “Now send me what you can about this royal blue mess.”
    “A little tricky,