Free Veiled Revenge by Ellen Byerrum Page B

soon enough from her own police sources, and then she would call Damon Newhouse, who would soon create a storm of cyber-nonsense about the “haunted Russian shawl” over at DeadFed dot com, delighting his credulous readers and infuriating a skeptical Lacey Smithsonian. She wondered exactly what Leonardo’s housemate had told the police about the “fortune-teller.” Had they located Marie, and if so, what was she telling them?
    What exactly is the shawl supposed to have done, and who has it harmed, if anyone?
Lacey asked herself.
Where did this curse nonsense get started?
Maybe if I can find Marie she can clear the whole thing up
.
    It felt like hours since Stella had burst into the lobby with her news. Lacey filed a news brief on the opening of a new clothing store, then turned off her computer and grabbed her bag, intent on consulting the psychic. She could warn Marie that in the matter of the shawl, discretion was the better part of valor.
    Lacey momentarily wished she had driven to work today, but the roads into the District were always such a mess: According to headline news in her own paper, the city was rated second in the country for gut-wrenching traffic. Now she’d have to take the Metro to Alexandria, then back again, before this day was over.
    She almost made a clean escape from the office, but her desk phone rang and she made the mistake of answering it.
    “What’s the deal with this ghost shawl?” the voice demanded without preliminaries.
    “Damon.” Brooke was even quicker on the trigger than Lacey expected. “I’m fine, and how are you?”
    “I understand this shawl, or whatever it is, has mystical powers and it’s Russian in origin, is that right? Is it some sort of secret Soviet-era assassination weapon? A high-tech weaponized babushka of death?”
    Lacey rubbed her forehead, trying to avert the headache she was sure to have. “
The X-Files
went off the air—have you heard? Are they still in reruns in your head? Or are you listening to the
other
voices in your head?”
    “Don’t change the subject, Smithsonian. You are Spook Central right now, you and your baldheaded ex-KGB buddy, Kepelov. Don’t tell me you don’t know. You know what’s going on, and DeadFed needs to know. The world needs to know.”
    She exhaled loudly and tried to breathe in some fresh air. “I don’t have time for you, Damon. Or your insane ramblings. I’m on deadline.”
    “We’re all on deadline, Lacey. All of us, all the time. We’re on a deadline to disaster.”
    Lacey knew why reporters were hated in so many quarters of the Capital City. Because of reporters like Damon. Reporters who only reported what they already believed and who twisted every fact to fit their beliefs.
    “Don’t you have any blue aliens or cannibal congressmen to report on?”
    “That’s a good one.” He laughed. “And they’re supposed to be green, not blue. The aliens, not the congressmen. Sorry, fresh out of alien cannibal congressmen. I’d kill to write that story though.”
    “And I’m fresh out of Soviet weaponized shawls. Bye.” Lacey hung up and raced for the door. Her cell phone rang. She checked the number: Damon again. She turned it off. She wanted to get to the bottom of this haunted shawl nonsense before Damon Newhouse turned it into this week’s “alien autopsy” story. Not only that, he often linked her articles in
The Eye
to his site, making it seem like she was his partner and collaborator, part and parcel of his whacked-out world.
    The problem with Damon is not just that he’s crazy. Who cares if he’s crazy? It’s that so many crazy people believe him.

Lacey Smithsonian’s
    FASHION BITES

    The Magical Properties of Clothes
    Do you believe in the magic of what you wear? That your clothes have a meaning, a story to tell, or even a life of their own? Or do you scoff at the very idea that your clothes can speak for you, or speak to you?
    What about that dress that always seems to bring you luck? Is it an