Fleeced: A Regan Reilly Mystery by Carol Clark (grave mercy txt) 📗

Sitting back down on the bed, she closed her hand over the stones and started to chant. Not that she was a real chanter. This was a chant she made up. Over the years, she’d visited psychics and had a mild interest in enlightenment. She thought that by chanting right now she might get a message about the location of the real diamonds.

“Ummmmm,” she chanted in a singsong voice, closing her eyes. “Ummmmm.”

No message so far.

She opened her eyes and stared at the glass stones. Nothing. She shut her eyes even tighter, leaned back and cried, “Ummmmmmmmm.”

“Ummmmm” turned to “owwwww” when she banged her head against the cinderblock wall. Rubbing her bruised cranium, she pulled up the teddy bear that had been with her through thick and thin-lately mostly thin-and gave it a hug.

“Buttercup, what are we going to do?” She smiled when she thought about how she’d told Nat to call her Buttercup. He was a really nice old guy. Better than the one down in Florida who got nasty and called the cops when he caught her taking some jewelry. She hightailed it out of there fast. But Nat was sweet. Just the way he loved those sheep meant he had a good soul.

Georgette held out her teddy bear. “He had Dolly and Bah-Bah, and I have you.”

The teddy bear stared back at her. It was so old that one of its eyes was gone.

“My poor baby.” Impulsively, Georgette took one of the round glass stones and stuck it in the eye socket. It looked good! “There, that’s better. I’ll have to get some glue.” She started to get up when an image flashed through her mind. She screamed again, but this time it was definitely not a chant.

“Dolly and Bah-Bah!” she cried, staring at the glass stones in her hand. “These are the eyes of Dolly and Bah-Bah! That’s where the diamonds are!” She slammed her hand down on the bed, thinking of Nat’s favorite song, “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Ewe!

“Isn’t that just like Nat?” She raced for her cell phone and called Blaise’s. She got his voice mail. “He’s probably learning how to change a lightbulb properly,” she hissed. When his message ended, she practically spat into the phone. “I know where the diamonds are! Call me back before we’re too late!”

62

Thorn Darlington was tired and irritable by the time he got off the plane at Kennedy Airport. Archibald had arranged for a car to pick him up. The driver was waiting, holding up a sign that said simply, COUSIN THORN.

How amusing of Archibald, Thorn thought sarcastically. He waved and walked over to the driver.

“Cousin Thorn?” the driver asked.

“To some people. Let’s get my bags.”

Fifteen minutes later, Thorn was settled in the back of a stretch limousine on his way into Manhattan. “Driver,” he said, “a little privacy, please?”

The driver nodded and pressed a button, raising the glass partition between them. Thorn then pulled out his international cell phone and dialed. As usual, he got the voice mail on the other end.

“I hope we’re ready for tonight,” he said. “I’ll be across the street at Cousin Archibald’s. His superiority is so annoying. He thinks I’m here to celebrate the demise of the Settlers’ Club thanks to him. Little does he know I have my own plans for the home of the Maldwin Feckles School for Butlers! Call me back!”

Thorn turned off his phone and giggled.

This is so perfect, he thought. My family was always much more cunning than Cousin Archie’s.

63

Regan looked in the Yellow Pages and found a perfume shop off Seventh Avenue, near the site of the crime convention, called Our Scents Make Sense. “We carry every brand you can think of,” the ad proclaimed. “Come take a whiff.”

“I’m on my way,” Regan announced to no one in particular. She grabbed a cab outside the club and found herself standing in front of a little hole-in-the-wall establishment with numerous perfume bottles lining the tiny storefront window. She opened the door, and bells that were taped to the other side tinkled, signaling her arrival.

A sixtyish woman with platinum-blond hair teased into helmetlike proportions was standing behind the long counter to the left. Even from six feet away, it was easy to spot that she had on the thickest, blackest eyeliner Regan had ever seen. Her outfit was a leopard jumpsuit, and her nails were three inches long. She must have gotten the job here when Cats closed, Regan thought.

Not surprisingly, the air in the tiny shop was filled with scents fighting with each other for domination.

“Hello, dahlink,” the woman said to Regan. “How can I help you?” Her name tag read SISSY.

“Hello.” Regan had the list in her hand. “There are about seven perfumes here I’d like to buy.”

“Perfect, dahlink. One for every day of the week.”

“Right,” Regan said, thinking that Sissy’s accent was of indeterminate origin. “The first one is called Ocean Water.”

“Beautiful. Beautiful outdoor scent.” She stepped away and pulled a bottle off the shelf. “There’s Sunday.” She smiled. “What about Monday?”

“Express to Passion.”

“The best. That might be too much for a Monday!” she laughed as she reached for it and put it on the counter. “Next.”

“Daisy Dewdrops.”

Sissy made a face. “You sure you want that? A pretty young girl like you? It’s so old-fashioned.”

“I’m sure,” Regan said. It was the perfume Miss Snoopy Purse had been wearing. No wonder she’d been complaining about the others.

“Okay.”

Within a minute they had nearly filled out the week with the scents Regan was looking for.

“Quite a variety,” Sissy remarked. “That is good. Keeps a man on his toes.”

If Jack could see me now. Regan smiled as she imagined his reaction. “The final one is Lethal Injection.”

Sissy’s eyes opened wide, even under the weight of her makeup, and she giggled. “You are a naughty girl.”

Good God, Regan thought.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Sissy asked as she reached