If Looks Could Kill

by Andi Marquette

  “Ms. H?” he said to Hampstead. “Are you ready for the meeting?”

  She nodded, brusque, and motioned at the table. He came in, followed by a few other young men, a couple of men who looked to be in their forties, and three women, two in their thirties, Ellie gauged.

  “Nice to finally meet you,” Ellie said to Hampstead as she left, not expecting a response. She ducked out of the office and saw Khalil hurrying toward her in the corridor, wearing a different shirt. “Here’s your cover story. You took a phone call in the coffee room about the layouts,” Ellie said to him with a grin. “And enlisted my help delivering the coffee.”

  “Thank you,” he said as he rushed past. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  He hesitated, as if he wanted to ask her another question, but went into the office instead. Ellie went back to the coffee room to get herself a cup before she went back to her own office.

  Hampstead hadn’t been quite what she’d expected. Maybe Ellie had caught her on a good day, even with the incident on the elevator. And interesting, how Hampstead had remembered her. She paid attention, and that could be a problem since Ellie had wanted to stay under Hampstead’s radar. She figured Hampstead would just dismiss her as one of the many acolytes roaming the halls of Fashion Forward, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

  Hampstead was also much more attractive in person than in photos and videos, and it didn’t have much to do with her physical appearance, which was nice, but rather with her eyes. Ellie had caught a glimpse of their depths beneath the armor of the dragon lady, and in spite of herself and this assignment, she wanted another look.

  Coffee in hand, she checked her hair in the reflection afforded by the microwave door and went back to her office.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Anything?” Ellie leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling as she held her phone to her ear.

  “She’s still at dinner,” Rick said. “Same people she went in with.”

  Ellie had already identified them. Khalil, Tyler, a guy Hampstead used for security, and the other one was a designer with his own two-man posse. “It’s been a week since I messed up Laskin’s knee,” she said. “Anything new on Daddy Hampstead?”

  “Nothing that you didn’t track down.”

  She frowned. “Media says he’s still in Los Angeles. Our buddies out there confirm he’s attending a business summit, and there’s no sign of his Russian friends.”

  “So maybe he just pissed somebody off in New York.”

  “Him and seven million other people in this city,” Ellie said. “Could be they figure it’s easier to fuck him up when he’s here, since he’s been here four times already in the past five months. All they have to do is wait for him to show up.”

  Rick grunted. “Something smells. Why would a guy like Laskin be hanging out with the Petrovs?”

  “And why would they target Hampstead?” Ellie stared harder at the ceiling, as if it would suddenly open and reveal all the secrets of this case.

  “If Koslov is running guns, maybe Hampstead is the money guy.”

  Ellie pondered that. “Not a bad idea.” She sat up, her feet hitting the floor with a plop. “What if Hampstead is the dude who ordered the hits on the Petrovs?”

  Rick didn’t say anything for a few moments. “He’s going behind Daddy Koslov’s back? Getting rid of the competition?”

  “Why not? He doesn’t have to ask anything. He just tells Hampstead to take care of it, and then he has deniability. So the Petrovs maybe found out and hired a couple of guys to take care of Hampstead.”

  “All right,” Rick said. “I could buy that. But we don’t have the evidence that Hampstead is in on this. So the next line of business is, let’s see if we can tie Hampstead to our three dead men. And did you try to find any family connections between Laskin and the Petrovs?”

  “Yeah. Nothing yet.”

  “Might not be by blood. He could’ve married into the family.”

  “Good point, but Laskin’s Interpol info doesn’t list a wife. And maybe he’s been hired for business only, on recommendation.”

  “True, but these guys tend to keep shit like that hidden. Maybe he’s divorced, or maybe he’s in deep with the Petrovs and owes them a favor or two.”

  Ellie idly clicked one of her browser tabs and Marya Hampstead filled her laptop screen. Another celebrity sighting article from last week. She wore her sunglasses in this image, but her hair fell in dark waves around her shoulders, and the collar of her blouse was open just enough to make a person look a little farther down without sacrificing modesty. Ellie closed the window. Not good, getting caught up like that.

  “Do you think they’ll try to use Marya to get to Jonathan?”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” Rick said, “but I think her celebrity status probably protects her. The last thing the Petrovs want is a dead or missing internationally known fashion mogul that can be linked to them.”

  “True.” Ellie breathed a little sigh of relief. Sure, Marya might be an arms dealer, but the thought of her getting roughed up by a bunch of Russian mobster assholes—maybe killed—was not something she wanted to contemplate.

  “Target’s on the move,” Rick said. “Out.”

  He hung up, and she took a swallow of coffee then did another search on her laptop. She had turned down a Friday night out with friends to go to the office and do some more research on Fashion Forward, but she didn’t mind as much as she should have. Maybe it was because every photo she came across of Marya Hampstead provided serious eye candy, especially if she wasn’t wearing her sunglasses.

  Speaking of candy, she unwrapped another one and popped it into her mouth and chased it with another swig of coffee. Rick didn’t know what he was missing; lukewarm coffee with a cinnamon blast. She paused at another photo of Hampstead. In this one, a press shot, she wore her trademark enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. Not quite full-blown and just enough mystery to make a person want to know more. She stared at it for a while, then went back through all the information she had on Daddy Hampstead. Nothing jumped out at her. No criminal record. Solid reputation in international banking. The kind of guy you wanted handling your money.

  So what the hell did two Russian gangsters want with him? She looked at the photo of Marya Hampstead. Her expression made Ellie think she knew but wasn’t about to tell. Okay, fine, Mr. International Man of Mystery. Where had he been over the past year? She ran various searches and constructed a list of business meetings and expos. She typed it up, printed it out, and then checked it against the dates and places that the three dead guys had been found.

  And hello, this was interesting. Hampstead had been in Moscow at a banking summit in January two days after the first Petrov turned up dead. And then in March, Hampstead just happened to be in Prague launching a branch office the same day the second Petrov died. Where was Mr. Mystery in June? Oh, look at that. She stared at the list she’d just made and at the date of death for the third murdered man. Hampstead was in London about that time. But then, he was based in London. Except he was in Madrid two days before the London guy turned up dead and then all of a sudden Hampstead was back in London with a day to spare before that guy was killed.

  She went back through all the info she had on the Russians. Her money was on Laskin being hired by the Petrovs because maybe, just maybe, Hampstead was ordering hits on their arms dealers overseas. So Marya was running around with Lyev Koslov because her dad was doing all kinds of shit with them. The question was, did she know about it?

  Ellie ran several searches but nothing came up except a photo from some high-priced fundraiser four months ago that she’d already seen. Marya was getting out of a limo as Lyev Koslov extended his hand to help her. He was wearing a tux, the perfect male escort. He looked like the male lead in an action film. Ellie scanned the people near the limo, but didn’t see either Laskin or Zaretsky. Her research demonstrated that Lyev was more a playboy type and didn’t spend a whole lot of time
with the family business. Daddy Koslov farmed it out to the older brothers.

  “Shit,” she muttered as she took another drink of her coffee, now cold. Nothing to tie Laskin to Daddy Hampstead beyond what Ellie had seen on the street and the possibility—unproven—that Hampstead was ordering hits on Petrovs. Fuck this, she decided. How about business-related info? Twenty minutes later, she stumbled across an online article from a UK news source that mentioned a gathering of business heavy-hitters in London a year ago. Daddy Hampstead was mentioned and hello—so was Daddy Koslov.

  Okay, so she could tie Koslov to Daddy Hampstead and Koslov’s son Lyev to Marya. Was either Hampstead aware of Daddy Koslov’s extracurricular activities? It could be a total coincidence that Jonathan Hampstead was in those cities at the times when three different Petrovs died. But she doubted it, because a couple of Russians with Petrov ties were clearly interested in Jonathan Hampstead. Ellie had also run a ton of searches looking for ties between Hampstead and the Petrov family, but had come up blank.

  “This is a clusterfuck.” She went back through her notes about other staff at Fashion Forward. Tyler Jackson checked out. Originally from Chicago, a nice Midwestern upbringing in the ’burbs, did theater and fashion throughout high school, went to an arts academy and got some local fame for a few of his styles. Ellie had dug around on the connections between Tyler and Marya, and every version of the story was the same. Tyler had been working a spring Fashion Week three years ago and caught Marya’s eye. For whatever reasons, people said, she liked him. But Ellie found nothing in his past to suggest nefarious contacts or activities. And the same went with the rest of the staff, though she was having profiles run on all of them just to be sure.

  She stood and stretched. Shit like this could get really tangled, and if she pulled on one thread, it just knotted up with a bunch of others. Her phone rang.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  “She went back to her apartment building,” Rick said.

  “Who went with her?”

  “Rent-a-cop, but he didn’t stay. At least, not with her. He’s got his team on surveillance, like usual.”

  That was the big dude Ellie had seen in other pictures. He wouldn’t need to stay in Hampstead’s apartment, since her building was security-conscious. She wasn’t the only celebrity who lived in it. Ellie checked the time. Eleven-thirty. She’d been at the office doing research since she left Fashion Forward at two that afternoon.

  “Did you come up with anything else?” he asked.

  She filled him in on what she’d found, and when she finished, he whistled through his teeth.

  “Now that’s why I brought you on to this team. I’m going to check in with some of my contacts in the UK who have been looking into this, see if anything comes up with them. Good work.”

  “So what’s going on over there now?”

  “Nothing much,” Rick said. “We’ve got the front and back covered. Lights are on in her place. Speaking of, go to the apartment and get some sleep. And eat something healthy. I’ll let you know if anything freaky happens.”

  “Define freaky.”

  “Els,” he said, stern. “You’ve been on this all day.”

  She sighed.

  “Go. Sleep.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said with a grumble before adding, “Bye,” in a sing-song voice before she hung up. He was right, though. Her eyes burned, and fatigue had stiffened her back. By the time she got back to the apartment, she was too tired to make a sandwich, so she went straight to bed, and the last thing on her mind was, disconcertingly, Marya Hampstead.

  * * *

  Ellie checked her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Not bad. The fashion consultant had continued with the classic but edgy look, so today’s black skirt was slim and professional, but her hose were black accented with tiny black hearts in the pattern. Not something Ellie O’Donnell would wear, but Ellie Daniels would. Plus, you had to look hard to see the hearts, and nobody was getting close enough to her to do that, though she’d totally let Marya Hampstead in for a look.

  Ellie grinned at herself in the mirror and smoothed her blouse—gray silk with a slight masculine cut—and checked her earrings, plain silver hoops that matched the buttons of her blouse. Today’s shoes were a forties-style heel, classic black, but the retro lines added to the edgy look. Agent Carter-ish, maybe. She nodded at herself.

  Done in the bathroom, she returned to her office for some files. Liz looked up at her from her own desk.

  “How do I look?” Ellie asked, though she already knew she looked fine.

  “Very nice. Too bad you didn’t consider being a model.”

  “I don’t look like a stick figure. Besides, I like food.”

  Liz giggled, then frowned. “Are you ready for the meeting?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Good luck.”

  Ellie gave her a thumbs-up and left for her first official layouts meeting with Marya Hampstead and the primary staff who handled that sort of thing. Tyler had said it was important for interns to attend such meetings when Hampstead allowed it, and this was one of those times, three days after Ellie had taken coffee to her.

  The gathering was scheduled for a conference room just past Hampstead’s office, and Ellie was early. The door to the conference room stood slightly ajar and as Ellie entered, she almost ran into Hampstead, who was on her way out.

  “Excuse me,” Ellie said with a professional smile as she stepped aside, noting that Hampstead held a small flip phone in her hand. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

  “Ms. Daniels,” Hampstead said by way of greeting, but she didn’t move and instead she fixed Ellie with a gaze that made Ellie forget, momentarily, why she was there.

  “Ma’am,” Ellie said after a few moments, acutely aware that her heart rate was up and not because Hampstead had startled her.

  Hampstead didn’t respond and instead moved past her into the corridor and walked briskly toward the lobby. Ellie watched her and wondered why the hell someone like Hampstead would be carrying a flip phone. She’d been using a smartphone on the elevator earlier that week, and even if she carried more than one phone, why the outdated tech?

  Unless it was a burn phone, which raised an interesting question. Why would Marya Hampstead need one? If she were carrying on some kind of illicit affair, why wouldn’t she just use another smartphone for all her affairs? And why at the office, if it was something shady? Unless it was some kind of emergency in the something shady realm.

  Ellie settled into a chair. Usually, people who tried to stay on the down-low used burn phones. They went for cheap ones with minimal function that were easy to carry and easy to get rid of. Like a flip phone. Ellie got up and went to the lobby, where another beautiful receptionist was working the desk.

  “Hi,” Ellie said to her. “Have you seen Ms. Hampstead? There’s a meeting in a few minutes.”

  “She’s out by the elevators,” she said. “She’ll be back in time. She always is.”

  “Good to know. I was just wanting to get a cup of coffee.”

  “Oh,” the receptionist said with a conspiratorial smile. “You’ve got time.”

  Ellie checked the time on her phone. The meeting was slated to start in five minutes. She went into the coffee room, which was empty, and fired off a quick text to Rick about the possible burn phone and to see if Marya went outside to use it. She returned to the reception desk. “There’s a line,” she fibbed. “I’ll wait here a couple of minutes.”

  The receptionist was on the phone, and she gave her a nod and another smile.

  Four minutes. Ellie pretended to check her phone but she had positioned herself so that she could watch the elevators through the glass doors of the Fashion Forward lobby. Marya was not even interested in getting on the elevators. She stood near them, her back to the Fashion Forward offices, talking on her flip phone. The conversation ended, and Marya turned back toward the offices. Ellie went into the coffee room and texted
Rick to let him know the target had not left the floor.

  She returned to the conference room, carrying her phone as if she was checking something on it. A few others were already there, and several magazine layouts were positioned precisely in the middle of the table. Ellie offered a “hi” before she re-seated herself where she’d left her folders and tablet.

  Tyler came in and greeted everyone before he sat next to her, putting himself between her and the head of the table. “How are things? I haven’t gotten a chance to check in with you,” he said.

  “So far, so good. Liz has been really helpful, though some things are a little overwhelming.”

  “In what sense?”

  “There’s just a lot going on,” she said, to alleviate his worried expression. “I guessed there would be, but when you really see the industry working through a place like this, it’s so much more than anything you might have imagined.”

  He relaxed and smiled as a few other people came in. He greeted them by name and introduced her, though she figured nobody would remember her. Which was fine, since the less people remembered about her, the better.

  The table filled up with one exception. Hampstead came in just as the clock on Ellie’s phone registered the exact time that the meeting was supposed to start. She sat down.

  “Look at this,” she said without preliminaries as she pushed a button on a remote. One of the young women at the table had another remote and when she pressed hers, the lights dimmed and an image appeared on the screen against the opposite wall. It showed a magazine layout that was what Ellie would have called sleek with just a touch of grunge.

  “Mix just hired a new design director who clearly is not afraid to take chances,” Hampstead continued. “And there is no way in hell we are taking second to them.”

  The other woman with a remote turned the lights back up. Did Hampstead choreograph everything in her life? Was she never spontaneous? Regardless, she looked really good in her skirt. She probably looked even better out of it.