Suckered

by Gina LaManna

  My cheeks warmed as he pulled me even closer, the swarms of tourists and locals exiting the airport nothing but white noise. When Anthony’s black eyes met mine, the rest of the world fell away, the honks and chatter of thousands of strangers a blur in the background.

  Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed my lips lightly to Anthony’s and somehow he didn’t get the memo that I just wanted a quick kiss. His fingers sank into the skin of my back, holding me to his long, firm torso as our kiss deepened, his lips molding to mine. When his hand wove its way through my hair, I stopped caring what anyone thought. My arms wrapped around his neck; he tasted warm and delicious, like freshly baked brownies.

  The driver called Roberto lumbered over, grabbing Anthony’s bag from the ground. Without a word, Roberto carried it back to the vehicle and popped it in the trunk. Anthony and I broke apart, he somewhat reluctantly, me somewhat embarrassed. Maybe we’d gotten a little carried away.

  Meg stared unabashedly at the two of us. “Maybe you’re not so stale,” she said, fanning herself. “Yowza. You weren’t kiddin’, chickadee. That was hawt. I think I’m ready for Flirting 102.”

  Roberto nodded in agreement. “Yowza,” he said in a thick, Italian accent.

  At first glance, he looked like the Jersey Shore version of Harold. But where Harold was tall, Roberto was short. Where Harold had luscious, gray hair, Roberto had some greasy brown strands lining his mostly bald head. Where Harold existed in a polished, sophisticated world, Roberto leaned more toward sweaty and boisterous. His gold chain banged against an array of rings on his fingers as he threw it over his neck.

  “We go!” Roberto declared. “Andiamo!”

  Anthony pressed a kiss against my cheek. Then he wound through the heavy traffic to the big black car, and helped my grandmother inside first. He then climbed in after her, while Carlos took the front seat. Clay sat squished on the other side of Nora.

  My grandmother couldn’t stop grinning, one of her hands on Clay’s knee, the other on Anthony’s. She was in heaven with her boys.

  “I apologize for breaking up you lovely couples,” Lizabeth said, ushering Meg and me into the tiny Fiat, “but we need to talk business, and I wanted to keep it ‘girls only’ for now. Capisci?”

  I began to respond, but Lizabeth had already dissolved into a stream of Italian, hurling phrases at our own driver. Unlike Roberto, this guy could’ve stepped onto the Gucci runway and not looked out of place. Polished, professional, his face impassive, the man listened to Lizabeth’s directions, absorbed them, and took off without a word.

  As the car leaped forward, my body flew back. The driver whizzed out of the airport without looking over his shoulder. Plastered against the seat, I watched with a rapidly dropping jaw as he completely disregarded all traffic signs.

  “Huh! Red must mean go in this country,” Meg said, twisting in her seat to watch as a series of cars almost collided. “I think I can get used to this place.”

  I tried to listen as Lizabeth spoke, but I was too busy praying for my life to comprehend. I exchanged bargains with The Man Upstairs as our driver clipped the side of a Metro car, then barely missed a gelato stand on the side of the road.

  When a pedestrian jumped out of the way, I took off my sweater because I was really starting to sweat. When we turned the wrong way down a one-way street, I gave up worrying altogether and focused on Lizabeth.

  “—and I am starting a new venture,” she said. “Any guesses what it may be?”

  “Underwear.” Meg blinked. “You’re starting your own underwear line. I can feel it.”

  Lizabeth shook her head.

  Meg snapped her fingers. “Dang, I was really sure that was the answer! Plus, I wanted some of those candy undies. You know the ones, don’t you Lizabeth? The Smarties’ bras?”

  “You’re starting a new line of something?” I asked, sparing Lizabeth from having to answer. “That’s wonderful!”

  “Jewelry,” Lizabeth said with a proud smile. “I’m beginning my own jewelry line. Top notch, first in class. It’ll be shown at its worldwide debut this week.”

  “What’s so special about this week?” Meg asked.

  “I was hoping you’d ask!” She gave a girlish giggle. “It’s Fashion Week! In Milan! Can you believe it?”

  “Congratulations!” I gave Lizabeth a happy hug. “That’s wonderful!”

  She smiled as widely as Nora after three glasses of wine, her eyes twinkling with giddy excitement. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a child.”

  Meg leaned over, an eyebrow raised. “No offense, Miss Lizabeth, but why’d you wait so long to do it? I’ve seen your house in Hollywood. You’ve got a lot of money.”

  “Meg, we talked about appropriate questions.” I shook my head in apology. “Sorry, Lizabeth.”

  “I’m just stating facts,” Meg said. “She has those ghosts who deliver warm towels to her bathroom in the middle of the night. Ghosts have got to be expensive to keep around the house. I can’t see them workin’ for cheap.”

  “That’s not true. There are no ghosts,” I said. “She has human help running the house.”

  “It’s true, I haven’t hired ghosts…yet.” Lizabeth leaned against Meg, whispering conspiratorially in her ear. “But your other question has an easy answer. Why now? Because of Harold!”

  “Harold?” Meg arched an eyebrow. “The crusty old gent with a strange accent?”

  Lizabeth clapped her hands. “The one and only! He gave me the confidence to branch out on my own, start a business for fun. Purely for fun! A dream come true! Isn’t he incredible?”

  “He is dreamy,” Meg said. “That man knows how to wear a tux.”

  I gave Meg a funny look, and as the two of them talked about Harold’s “great genes” and “stunning eyes,” I sat back and watched the streets of Milan fly past the window.

  Tiny cobblestone roads wound in intricate patterns, the lefts and rights merging into one another until I had no clue which way was north, let alone any of the other cardinal directions. Our driver raced toward the city center, up and down and around, weaving in a way that made me think we were headed straight into the middle of a spider web. My spine tingled at the thought.

  “I have been working on getting the company up and running for the last few months. We’re small still, and private. No name recognition whatsoever, but that’s all about to change.” Lizabeth made a swooping hand gesture. “After this week, everyone in the fashion world will know my name. At least that’s the hope. That’s where you two girls come in.”

  Meg and I exchanged a confused look.

  “I understand why you might have called me to Italy as a style consultant.” Meg whipped her hair over her shoulder, the twisted, snarling locks cascading down her back like a bundle of tumbleweed. “I have excellent taste in fashion. But no offense, how come you called Lacey Luzzi Security Services? Lacey isn’t known for her taste in clothes. She’s more concerned with her taste in ice cream.”

  “Hey!” I said. “I’m not that bad.”

  But Meg eyeballed my current outfit, which was little more than glorified yoga getup.

  “I was flying,” I grumbled, grabbing the fabric around my leg and pulling to show its flexibility. “It was a long flight. I needed stretchy pants.”

  “If you were like me, you’d sacrifice comfort for fashion.” Then she extended her hand and dropped the microphone. “Boom.”

  “Who exactly are you hoping to model for in the fashion world?” I sized up her camouflage vest as she proudly adjusted the hundreds of pockets fastened to the outside. “A hunting magazine?”

  Underneath her infamous vest, she wore some sort of lacy camisole, also sporting an array of browns and greens and neutral colors of dirt. The lacy design was a new addition, and I highly suspected it was due to her new relationship. She had added jeans to the outfit, full of more holes than fabric, which allowed one or two of her tattoos to peek through.

  “You both have…unique styles,” Lizabet
h said. “As for my jewelry line, we are only accepting the most discerning buyers at this point. We are a very small operation, and we pride ourselves on our ability to provide a personal touch and an exquisite product.”

  “That’s neat,” Meg said, as Lizabeth interjected a blip of rapid-fire instructions in Italian toward the driver. “I’m a discerning buyer. I don’t buy ugly crap.”

  “Meg, that’s not—” I started, but the driver chose that moment to whip the car into a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, and I had to stop speaking when I almost passed out from the number of G’s generated by the turn.

  “Because we’re so new to the game, I have only a few of the finest employees in the business. We make each piece by hand—custom-cut, custom fit, custom jewels, custom service, custom everything.” Lizabeth smiled. “I’m very proud of it.”

  “Where can I get a custom grill?” Meg bared her teeth like a rabid dog. “I think I’d look really fantastic with some grillz on these babies. I’m thinking a diamond on my front tooth, or maybe I’ll spell M-E-G across the side. What do you think?”

  “The price tags on my products begin at 1.2 million dollars,” Lizabeth said. “As I mentioned, it’s a high end line.”

  Meg’s eyebrows cinched together. “I’m confused. Are we talking US or Italian dollars? Because it seems to me we’re in Italy right now, so I should probably get a discount. Exchange rate and whatnot.”

  “The price doesn’t change,” I said. “The money just adjusts based upon…I don’t know, things. The world. Economy.”

  Meg held up a stack of pink and blue euro bills. “Yeah, but you can’t tell me this is real money. It’s shiny. There’s a strip of shiny tape on here. It’s basically Monopoly money.”

  I grinned. “I know, I love it. I think it should be called fun money.” I held up my own bill, and together we gloriously examined the sparkly stripe across the bottom of the bill.

  Lizabeth frowned at us. “You ladies do know that is real money, right?”

  I cleared my throat and mentally reminded myself that I was here on business. “Oh, yes, of course.” I hesitated, running my fingers over the slip of paper. “Lizabeth, Meg does have a point, though I hate to admit it. I really don’t know all that much about fashion. And neither does Meg.”

  “Eh, that’s true,” Meg agreed. “I’m sort of a fake it ‘til you make it type, anyway.”

  “You’re not here for fashion.” Lizabeth smiled. “You’re here to help with a security issue. After you and your team did such an incredible job saving Poopsie during the Hollywood red carpet event, I wanted to bring you along to make sure my worldwide debut is a success.”

  I nodded, wondering if she really considered that a success, or if she was just being nice.

  Lizabeth’s face clouded. “You see, if something goes wrong this week, my business will flop before I can get it off the ground. That cannot happen—I have invested too much into it. My hopes, my dreams, my heart…not to mention my money.”

  “Of course we can help,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “Do you have a reason to believe something will go wrong?”

  Lizabeth had refused to tell us the details of the gig before we’d climbed onto the plane, but she’d promised it wouldn’t be a difficult job. Then she’d attached the price tag, and my eyes had bugged out of my head. If Lizabeth had asked me to climb Mount Everest for that amount of money, I’d strap on my hiking boots and start marching.

  Now Lizabeth hesitated, tilting her head to the side. “A little bit. Here in Milan, there has been a series of thefts in the fashion district throughout the past week. The news stations are reporting that it’s the work of extremely thorough, uniquely professional thieves. All of the victims have been high end designers set to participate in Fashion Week. I’m afraid I might be next.”

  “Has it been more than one thief?” I frowned. “Could it be a copycat?”

  “Possibly, but I doubt it. There is a rumor,” Lizabeth said carefully. “A rumor that’s been whispered to me, but never confirmed.”

  Meg rubbed her hands together. “Hit me with it. I love rumors.”

  Lizabeth glanced between us. “Does the name The Violet Society mean anything to you?” she asked.

  I blinked and shook my head.

  “Is that a perfume?” Meg asked. “I feel like I’ve seen it at Bath and Body Works. I do enjoy the violet scent, and I am a contributing member of society. Therefore, I think I’d like to join.”

  Lizabeth shook her head. “The Violet Society is a ring comprised of the most elite criminals in the world. Though it’s a worldwide network, their membership is small. Discreet. Impossible to uncover.”

  “Dang,” Meg said. “Now I really want to join.”

  “Not a single member of The Violet Society has ever been caught. No photos exist of its members in any police database—not in the Carabinieri, not in the CIA, FBI, not in MI5.”

  “Carabinieri?” I asked.

  “The Italian police,” Lizabeth said. “They police both the military and civilian population.”

  “I’m thinking of coming out of cop retirement,” Meg said. “I’d like to be a carabiner.”

  “A carabiner is what you use to climb rocks,” I said.

  “I’m thinking you should have called James Bond,” Meg said to Lizabeth. “He’s more into this sort of thing than we are.”

  Lizabeth pursed her lips, as I quietly explained to my friend that James Bond wasn’t real.

  “That’s what they want you to believe,” Meg whispered back, thumbing toward the sky. “But I know better.”

  I turned to Lizabeth. Surprisingly, Meg’s wild theories had brought up a good point. “If they are so discreet, how do you know about them?”

  “I am very well connected.” Lizabeth ended her explanation abruptly, and I understood we’d reached a dead end. “We don’t know if The Violet Society is behind the thefts; however, all of their signatures are present.”

  “They autograph the crime scene?” Meg blew out a huge breath. “That’s ballsy, excuse my Italian.”

  “Excuse my French,” I corrected.

  “Italian,” Meg said. “We’re in Italy, duh.”

  “Either way, it’s not really professional. We’re professionals.”

  “We’re attempting to be professionals,” Meg said. “It’s a work in progress.”

  Lizabeth spared us more floundering. “Not literal autographs, just their trademarks.”

  “What sort of trademarks are we talking?” I asked.

  “A perfect crime scene.” Lizabeth gave a vague sort of smile. “No fingerprints, no weapons, no clues. Everyone in the world is stumped.”

  “This definitely sounds like it’s up our alley,” Meg said. “Because I’m stumped too.”

  “It’s sad,” Lizabeth sighed. “More than a few designers are closing their doors before the shows even begin, and that’s a shame. I refuse to do that; I will not hide. I am going to bring my jewelry into the world with the biggest flash and sparkle these photographers have ever seen.”

  “Amen!” Meg fist pumped the air. “We’ll help!”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. “We’ll do everything we can, I promise. Where do we start?”

  Chapter 2

  “This is Angelica.” Lizabeth waved to a wispy blonde with legs as tall as the Eiffel Tower. “She’ll be modeling The Miranda.”

  “Who’s Miranda?” Meg asked. “I want someone to model me. Angelica, would you like to model The Meg, too? How does one model a person?”

  Angelica puffed on a cigarette, though how she kept her teeth white and her skin flawless with all that nicotine boggled my mind. Her blue eyes stared vacantly forward, the palest of blues. Or maybe that was the look of hunger. Definitely could be hunger, since the girl had a waist the size of my pinky finger.

  “Hallo,” she spoke through a cloud of heavy smoke, her accent even heavier. “I model The Miranda.”

  “Hello,” I sai
d, extending a hand and shaking her tiny fingers. “I’m Lacey, and this is my sidekick, Meg.”

  “Meg the Psychic, at your service.” Meg bowed so low her nose brushed the cobblestones. “I can read the future sometimes, but I’m even better at reading the past.”

  Angelica frowned, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the language barrier, or just because it was Meg. “What you do?”

  I hesitated. There were so many places to start.

  “Lacey runs a fine agency,” Lizabeth explained. “She’s the CEO and owner of Lacey Luzzi Security Services, and I’ve hired her for the debut of The Morgan Collection.”

  “I get it.” Meg gave a decisive nod. “You named your jewelry line after your last name. Smart!”

  “With the series of thefts happening in the fashion district, I didn’t want to take any chances.” Lizabeth was already talking to Angelica again. “Since you will be wearing the most expensive, priceless piece on the runway, I wanted to introduce you to my team. They’ll be taking care of you from here on out.”

  “You watch over me?” Angelica raised an eyebrow, her eyes scanning our outfits. She was dressed in skinny jeans in a pale blue that matched her eyes, the fabric loose on her thin legs. On top, she’d paired a slouchy black tank with a spiky leather jacket. The top model shook her head. “No thanks.”

  “We won’t interfere with anything,” I offered. “We’ll stay backstage at the show, and we’ll do a sweep of the venue first to make sure nothing shady is happening. Lizabeth, where are you keeping The Miranda? Should we take a look at the premises?”

  She shook her head. “It’s in for final polishing right up until the last second. It’ll be safe there; my staff is professional, and they’re on high alert.”

  “Will the fashion show be near here?”

  We’d stopped to meet Angelica outside a small cafe somewhere near the city center. At least, that’s what the driver told us. I was still getting my directional bearings.

  Lizbeth smiled. “Follow me, girls.”

  Meg and I shuffled behind Lizabeth, while Angelica strode with the grace of a giraffe. Her long legs moved her body like a set of stilts, her head so far above the rest of us I wondered if the temperature might be a few degrees warmer up there.