Shattered Silk Read Free Page B

time.
    "Well, well. I didn't know vintage chic had reached the far-off Midwest."
    Karen smoothed the skirt of her dress selfconsciously. It was yellow batiste faded to a soft cream and sprinkled with orange flowers. The deep ruffle framing the neck was echoed by short ruffled sleeves.
    "I found it in the attic. It must have belonged to Cousin Hattie. She was a stout woman, though much shorter than I am."
    "I thought I detected an aura of eau de mothballs." Julie's eyes moved down the loose, unbelted folds of the dress to the hemline, which reached just below Karen's knees. "They wore dresses long in the early thirties. In the attic, did you say?"
    Karen sat down with her own drink, plain tonic and ice. She had never been much of a drinker, and wasn't about to start now.
    "Don't be subtle, Julie, you aren't good at it. I know you've been dying to get into Ruth's attic."
    "I'd kill for the chance," Julie said coolly. "Acquiring stock is one of the biggest problems in the antique business these days. The good stuff has been bought up, and there aren't any bargains; every little old lady in the backwoods knows her junk is worth money."
    "You've told me that a dozen times." Karen sipped her drink. "That's really why you hired me, isn't it? You had your eye on Ruth's attic."
    "Hers and a few others."
    "Such as Mrs. MacDougal's?"
    " She's sort of an adopted grandmother, isn't she?"
    "There is no relationship. She's Pat's mother, and he is only my uncle by marriage-"
    "But he hasn't any children. I'm sure he thinks of you and your sister as his own."
    Julie tried to look sentimental, without success. Her green eyes were as hard and calculating as a huckster's. Karen did not reply; without appearing to notice her distaste, Julie went on, "The old lady is a legend in this town. Her family was old Georgetown, creme de la creme, and she married big money. It was considered something of a mesalliance back then; Jackson MacDougal was one of those robber-baron types, a self-made millionaire with no culture and no class. I suppose his millions made up for his lack of table manners."
    "Mrs. MacDougal wouldn't marry for money," Karen said stiffly. "She loved her husband very much."
    "I'd have loved him too. Passionately. She was the most influential hostess in Washington for over forty years. And she knew how to spend old Jackson's money. That house is like a museum! I was in it once, on a charity tour. How old is she, a hundred?"
    "In her nineties. Julie, you are not only a gossip, you are a ghoul. Do you sit around and pray for people to die so you can buy their antiques?"
    "Well, sweetie, they can't take it with them, can they? I've heard rumors that she is going to sell the house and move to a nursing home, and dispose of most of her things. The important antiques will go to Christie's or Sotheby's, of course. I haven't the capital to deal with a collection like that, even if I had the entree. But her odds and ends would make my fortune! In her day she was one of the snappiest dressers in town. I'll bet she's got designer gowns, hats, accessories-"
    "I thought you didn't deal in vintage clothes." Karen added waspishly, "We aren't that out of it in the dreary Midwest. I know old clothes are fashionable-collectible is the word, I believe. Not that I would wear things like that-"
    "That's exactly what you are wearing," Julie pointed out. "It looks fairly decent on you. And it's comfortable, isn't it?"
    "Yes, but-"
    "But nothing. I don't specialize in vintage, but I'd market shit if people would buy it." She leaned across the table and fingered the ruffle. "This is in super condition. I could get… oh, say, seventy-five for it."
    "Seventy-five
dollars?"
    "What do you think, yen? Maybe more. It's a good size, too. A lot of older clothes were made for those Scarlett O'Hara twenty-inch waists. How much more of this sort of thing does your aunt have?"
    "Boxes and boxes and bags and bags."
    Julie sprang to her feet, her eyes gleaming with avarice.