“The
perfume!”
Brooke
made
a
face.
“Gardenia,
right?
She’s
just
like
the rest of them,
always
proselytizing,
always
in your
face,
never
gives
it a rest for a second,
can’t
see the forest for having a tree jammed up their—
Well,
you
know.
When
you’re
in a meeting with
her,
you stay by the door so you can
make
a
quick
escape.
And
get
a
breath
of
fresh
air.
It’s
sad
really.
Wendy’s
always
struck me as desperate,
driving
people
away
when she thinks
she’s
doing just the
opposite.”
“Where do you
know
all these people from?”
“Oh, I thought I told you. Garrison of Gaia sued a client of ours.
We
won.
They
lost. End of
story.
Wasted
a lot of
money,
theirs
and
the
client’s.
Not
that
I
consider
paying
massive
attor
neys’
fees
wasting
money,
actually,
not when I’m the
attorney.”
“Is
she
capable
of
attacking
someone
physically?”
Wendy
Townsend
had
enjoyed
making
Lacey
uncomfortable, particu larly with her dog Bruno the killer beast,
but
that
didn’t
make
her an armed assailant.
“Wendy
is pretty passionate. I think she has the temper for it, if not the strength. And
she’s,
ah,
what’s
the
word?
Unforgiv
ing.
She’ll
take
a grudge to her
grave.”
“When
I was
at
the
hospital,
both
Markham
and
Wilcox demonstrated some manly snorting and
pawing
the ground
over
Cassandra.”
Lacey
sighed.
“Like
a couple of
bull
moose bel
lowing
over
their prize
doe.”
“Over
this shrill, mousy little
woman
you’ve
told me about?
Baffling.
There must be something to
her,
or else the meek shall inherit the
pheromones.”
Brooke
and
Lacey
had often discussed the strange animosity between
Washington
men and
Washing
ton
women,
the problem of the apparently jammed pheromones in the
Nation’s
Capital.
Lacey
was
very
grateful she had
finally
connected with
Vic
Donovan,
and
Brooke
was
gaga
over
her
fellow
conspiracy
nut,
Damon
Newhouse.
But
it
had
taken
time,
way
too much time, for romance to
fall
into place in their
lives.
“Apparently
after the attack
everyone
flew
to the hospital to declare their undying
love.”
Lacey
shook her head.
“They
said
they’d
been there
off
and on since Friday night. A vigil. And then I get in to see her
first.
Made me Miss
Popularity,
I can tell
you.”
“Something
funny
is going on in this
town,”
Brooke
said. “Maybe this Cassandra
Wentworth
is a
raving
beauty and we just
can’t
see it. Or maybe these guys
have
been
affected
by some sort of pheromone fog. Some secret chemical weapon.
Weaponized
female
pheromones.
I’ll
have
to
check
with
Damon.”
“Very
funny.”
Lacey
laughed, one
eyebrow
arched
skepti
cally.
“Okay,
I’m reaching. But
it’s
a
theory.”
She swirled the last
of the espresso in her cup. “What else are you hearing from this cult of Cassandra
worshippers?”
“Cassandra
volunteered
at
Garrison
of
Gaia
for
a
while,
Wendy
told me.
That’s
how
they
met, and
they
all seem to
have
slept with each
other.
Not sure about the
two
women,
but
after
finding
out Cassandra has actual friends,
anything
is possible. Cassandra has dated Markham and Henderson
Wilcox,
Wendy
said
she’s
been with Henderson, and she and Markham seem pretty tight. Friends with
benefits.
I
haven’t
even
mentioned the big killer dog that
wanted
to
take
a bite out of me for
dinner.”
“You’re
kidding.”
Brooke drained the rest of her
sugared
espresso
and
gazed
morosely
into
the
cup.
“Maybe
the
pheromone jammers
have
been
taken
off
the White House roof. Maybe
now
the CIA is pumping wild pheromones into jet plane chem trails
over
the District and
it’s
all a mad CIA
sex
stimu lant
experiment
run
amuck.”
“It’s
a
theory,
Brooke.
That reminds me, I
saw
your mother last
night.”
Lacey
drank the last of her
coffee.
“That’s
right, at the
Nativity
at that little church with the big
name.”
Brooke
grinned at
Lacey.
“I’m so sorry I
wasn’t
there.
This
damn
lawyering
business
really
cuts
into
my
personal
time.”
“I had no idea your mom and
Vic’s
mom were such good
friends.”
“Yeah,
apparently
they
just
clicked.
I think
it’s
so cute. It
didn’t
hit me that Nadine
Donovan
was
your
Vic’s
mom until Mom called me last night.
Wow,
small
world!
So did you
find
anything
out? I thought maybe you went back to the neighbor hood to search more
alleys
after you ditched the moms.
You
saw
a child in a
shepherd’s
robe. A
shepherd’s
robe
was
stolen from the church.
Two
plus
two,
right?”
“So you do
believe
it’s
a child? Not an
evil
alien
dwarf?”
Lacey
refrained from telling
Brooke
that the child
was
actually a
girl.
Let
Damon
Newhouse
go
off
the
deep
end,
Jasmine
would
be safer the less
anyone
knew
about
her.
Maybe Damon
would
decide the child
was
a shapeshifter and could appear in
any
form to
baffle observers.
“Of course I
believe
you,
Lacey,
Damon
was
just
having
a little fun with you. But I
always
listen to what Damon says, es pecially if he has an
alternative
theory.
He has a lot of alterna
tive
information.”
“Alternative
to what? The truth?”
“Damon is my soul mate. He is a
voice
of wild possibility in the wilderness of mundane
Washington rationality.
I’m
hurt.”
“No,
you’re
not.”
Lacey
pulled on her
jacket.
“Okay,
not
too
hurt.”
Brooke
stood
up
and
gathered
her
things.
“I’d
love
to
stay,
Lacey,
but
duty
calls.”
Lacey
followed
suit. Since
Brooke
was
going back to
work
and
couldn’t
give
her a lift home, she
wondered
whether she could
afford
another cab ride back across the Potomac to Old
Town
or
she’d
have
to
take
the
Metro.
Again.
“Damon didn’t mention renegade circus midgets, did
he?
What’s
DeadFed going to say
tomorrow?
Brooke,
are you lis tening to me?”
Back in her apartment half an hour
later,
Lacey
changed her clothes and opened her Greataunt
Mimi’s
trunk. She took out some light blue
wool
fabric
that had been stashed in the trunk decades before by her aunt. A
Life
magazine
from
the
1940s
was
open
nearby,
featuring
schoolgirls
in
Washington
with
braided
hair,
wearing
chesterfield
coats with
velvet
collars. The girls
looked
smart and the coats
looked
warm.
The
faces
were all wellscrubbed white
faces.
It
didn’t
look at all
like
the
Wash
ington, D.C., that
Lacey
knew.
It
didn’t
look
like
the
Washing
ton
of
Jasmine
Lee.
Lacey
wondered
if
the
girl
would
call
again.
And
if
the
offer
of
a
new
coat
was
enough.
“Reel
her
in,”
Mac had ordered.
Fine,
Mac,
but
how?
Vic
liked
to
tease
Lacey
about
living a
secret
life
inside
Aunt
Mimi’s
trunk,
but
he
knew
that rummaging through the trunk
was
something that took her out of the moment to a time less place. It was part of her thinking process, allowing
her
troubles to simmer on the back
burner
until a solution
bubbled
up. Or not.
Her Aunt Mimi had
stuffed
the trunk with old clothes and memories, letters, clippings, photographs, surprises, mementos, the memorabilia of an unusual and
adventurous
life. And it
was
filled
with patterns and
unfinished
suits and dresses from the late 1930s and 1940s. The dress patterns were classic
styles
with a touch of
whimsy,
fashions
that flattered a
woman’s
fig
ure without torturing it.
Lacey
loved
them, and she had
several
of
the
most
striking
patterns
made
into
brandnew
vintage
clothes that
fit
her
beautifully.
How
very
clever,
she thought, of