you need saving from . . . the color black. You keeping a Harley I don’t know about?”
“Stop changing the subject. You checked out. Why?”
I eased the pimpmobile out of the driveway. “You won’t believe it,” I said. “You’re a scientist.”
“I’m a computer geek. Get your labels straight. Now give.”
“I can’t even put a name to it.”
“Try, dammit!”
“You asked for it. I experienced some kind of . . . vision. I saw a strange woman wearing Deborah’s wedding gown.”
“How strange?”
“So strange that she lived about thirty years ago, give or take a few years.”
Eve whistled. “How much sleep did you get last night? How long since you’ve seen a doctor? Have you hit your head lately? Is Nick good in the sack?”
I gave her a double take. “What does that have to do with the price of Jimmy Choos?”
“Hey, watch the road.” Eve sighed. “I’m skeeved and I’m overcompensating with inane frivolity. So sue me.”
“You’re taking advantage of my possibly dull mental state to Google me about my sex life.”
“Cut me some slack. You scared me.”
“You think I’m not freaked?” I snapped. “I scared the wigan out of myself.”
Eve tilted her head. “What’s wigan again? I keep forgetting.”
“It’s a bias-cut interfacing. Makes me think of wigging out; ergo scaring the wigan out of myself makes perfect sense.”
“To you, Mad. Only to you.”
“My coworkers at Faline’s understood.”
“I rest my case. Something tells me that I’m not the one to save you this time.”
“I’m gonna tell Aunt Fiona, because zoning out today was the closest I ever came to doing something witchy.”
Eve turned in her seat to face me. “Sounds more psychic than witchy.”
“You believe in psychics?”
“No, but I took a course in parapsychology. Some academics call it a pseudoscience, though a lot of people believe in it. Because I know you, and you tell it like it is—no matter which of us you get into trouble—let’s say that I’m temporarily suspending disbelief.”
“Don’t bother. We agree. I’m not psychic.”
“Maybe not, but . . . you do know what people should wear, what they’ll look good in, and what they’ll like.”
“That’s a learned skill.”
“Judging their style may be, but knowing what they’ll like? Besides, you knew what the other kids should be wearing in kindergarten.”
“That’s called instinct.”
“Okay, but talking both of us out of believing in psychics means that you must be a nutcase.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Eve snapped her fingers. “What about the time Sherry fell in the river?”
“It’s true that I ran to the water for no reason, and there was Sherry too full of river water to call for help. But that’s different. That was a mother’s instinct.” My heart raced with the memory, enough to make me question my own denial. Eve looked out the window. “Isn’t ‘mother’s instinct’ a rather psychic phenomenon? It comes into play when it’s needed.”
I tried to hide my confusion. “Your point?”
“What’s different about today that made you open your instincts to a vision?” Eve asked.
“Different? Everything. I found a dead body last night. Sherry’s the prime suspect in the murder. I worked on my first vintage wedding gown today. Sherry’s wedding gown.”
“Also Deborah’s wedding gown,” Eve added, absently, focusing as if she were doing math in her head, a party trick of hers.
I thought about that. “And the gown of several dead Vancortland brides, as well, if we’re being picky.”
Eve focused on me. “We have to be picky. Okay, so let’s say that the murder, your first vintage bridal gown, riddled with history, for a murder suspect who happens to be your sister, and your need to fix everything . . . freed your imagination.”
“It was not my imagination!” I hoped, I think.
“Okay, wrong word. The series of events, and historic conditions, freed, perhaps even cultivated, a
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