If Looks Could Kill

by Andi Marquette

  Rick shook his head, skeptical.

  “Or,” she continued, “because Dad was black ops, she knows he has to be careful with some shit, and she’s okay with the burn phone as part of life as she knows it. It could be anything, and so far, the only thing we’ve got is she hangs out sometimes with Lyev Koslov and there’s a Koslov model in her stable. Which could be totally benign. Maybe Lyev asked Marya if she’d have a look at Natalie’s portfolio and that’s how there’s a Koslov on the roster.”

  “Your point?” Rick asked.

  “I’ve been there two freaking weeks and you’ve been monitoring her longer, and we still have nothing to prove there’s shit going on at Fashion Forward. And it’s three-thirty in the goddamn morning and I’m fucking tired. That’s my point.” And it was. Her bones practically ached she was so exhausted.

  Rick’s expression softened. “You’re right. Can you crash here?”

  “I kind of have to or I won’t get any damn sleep, since it’s at least thirty minutes driving to the apartment. I’ve got some outfits here, don’t worry. Seriously. I’m going to crash, and Rick knows my cranky side is not pretty.”

  “I can tell. Thanks for your help.” Wes waved, and Ellie went to the room just off the station locker room that had a couple of cots set up for occasions such as this. She took her shoes off and stretched out. She was too tired to even undress. The last thought on her mind was why the hell she was trying so hard to defend Marya Hampstead.

  * * *

  Considering she felt like the ass-end of a long weekend in Tijuana, Ellie looked okay. She checked her face in the mirror. No dark circles under her eyes, though she did look a little tired. Because of the huge bruise on her shin, she’d worn trousers today. Black slim line, with tapered ankles because fuck it, it was Friday and definitely a wingtip day. Her blouse was a tad on the feminine side, but she liked its classic lines and French cuffs. Off-white with muted red pinstripes. She’d left the top two buttons undone, and a simple silver chain decorated her neck, which matched the simple silver cufflinks she wore. By the end of this assignment, she’d be shopping using proper clothing terminology.

  It was also definitely time for another cup of coffee.

  Her work phone dinged with a text message. Rick, telling her to call ASAP. He wouldn’t ask that of her while she was here unless it was urgent. She left Fashion Forward and took the elevator down to street level. Once outside, she dialed Rick’s number

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Zaretsky turned up dead.”

  “Shit. Where?”

  “Pier near the Washington Bridge. Gunshot to the head. Execution style.”

  “Like the other three?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Ellie thought immediately of Jonathan Hampstead. “We’re sure it’s Zaretsky?”

  “Pretty sure. Some distinguishing gangster tattoos. We got a local LEO courtesy call. We’re trying to get jurisdiction over the body.”

  “Found the body quick. What’s that about?”

  “Tip called in.”

  Ellie frowned. “Why the hell would you kill a dude then phone it in? ‘Oh, hey, sorry about the mess, but I left a body.’”

  “We’re digging. If I didn’t know better, there’s a public relations element going on here.” Rick paused and said something to somebody else, then he was back. “Koslov might be warning Petrov.”

  Ellie put a candy in her mouth. “Huh. We know about your boy, here, and this is what happens if you try to do shit like this while we’re in secret talks about murders overseas? Like that?”

  “That’s about right. Otherwise, why call in a tip?”

  The cinnamon burned her tongue. “Any sign of Daddy Hampstead?”

  “Nope. Dude’s in the wind. Hell, he might be the wind. Everybody at his bank says he’s in Chicago.”

  “Well, aren’t they all well-trained? Any idea when Zaretsky died?”

  “Estimate is around four this morning, based on your timeline.”

  She’d last seen him around two. She ran a hand through her hair, frustrated and still tired. She started walking toward the corner. Across the street was a Starbucks. “Maybe whoever was in the van shot him.”

  “Seems likely. Doesn’t sound like Hampstead was in on this one, unless he knows that van and was able to track it down. We might know more after they’re done processing the scene.” He didn’t sound convinced, and given where the body was found, Ellie doubted they’d find much of anything. They needed that van if they were going to follow this part of the case.

  “You gonna talk to the Petrovs?” Ellie paused at the street and waited for the light.

  “Already on it. I’ve got a call into Daddy Petrov. And yes, I’ll talk to the Koslovs, too.”

  “What about my model search? Anything on Natalie Koslov?”

  “Like Liz said, she’s a niece of Daddy Koslov. Daughter of his oldest sister. We’re still running more down. Watch your six, Els.” He hung up, and Ellie crossed the street, thinking, but nothing was making sense.

  What if Jonathan Hampstead wasn’t a businessman and wasn’t an arms dealer? What if he was doing black ops for some government agency somewhere? But if he was, then why would he kill all those Petrovs? And Zaretsky? That seemed like a waste of good information right there. Unless he didn’t kill them.

  If he was some kind of government spook, maybe he was trying to find out who was killing Petrovs, and he got really close, which was why he was in the same cities as the guys who died. He got that close, but not close enough.

  And this sounded totally insane, like a damn Bourne movie.

  The smell of strong coffee welcomed her as she went into Starbucks and got in line. Fortified with a giant cup, she went back to Fashion Forward, cradling her coffee like it was the last on the planet. When she arrived in the lobby of Fashion Forward, Tyler cornered her in front of the reception desk.

  “Thanks for the layouts. Do you have some time now to go over tomorrow again?”

  Tomorrow. Ellie stared at him. Oh, yeah. The fashion show. Hell. Please let her get some sleep tonight. “Yes. How about now?”

  “Super.”

  She followed him to his office and listened as he gave her the rundown. “Questions?” he asked about fifteen minutes later.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you’ve got my cell phone, and we’ll all be in contact via headset if anything goes sideways.”

  “Like what?” It was a fashion show, not a military op.

  “Model meltdown. Some of them are precious,” he said wryly, and Ellie almost spit her coffee out.

  Tyler’s eyes practically twinkled. “Marya would agree.”

  She looked at him. He called her Marya? They were tighter than she’d thought.

  “So they might flip out over having the wrong kind of bottled water or something?”

  He laughed. “One never knows. See you tomorrow morning.”

  She got up and went back to her office. Liz was out today, which was a relief. As nice as she was, Ellie was not in the mood to deal with a side of extra perky. Instead, she opened her personal laptop and went to the events page on Natalie Koslov’s website. She took a screenshot of it before she went through more carefully. All the usual fashion sites. Milan, Paris, London, and yes, Moscow.

  Sure, Moscow was on the international fashion circuit. But what interesting things that brought up here.

  Natalie Koslov, an American-born model who just happened to be a niece of a high-powered Russian dude who owned a company in Moscow. Shipments from that company were actually discovered to be illegal arms. So if you’re not running guns domestically up the I-95 corridor—practically the supermarket of gunrunning from the south to NYC—you’re needing to touch base with international contacts. They need to get their orders to you. Some they might be able to send via email, through a front on a website. But in this world of high-tech surveillance, how do you stay on the down-low with that?

&nb
sp; Burn phones and maybe some old-school face-to-face. Daddy Koslov didn’t travel if he didn’t have to, and he hadn’t been out of the country for over a year.

  But Natalie had been. She traveled all the time, to major cities all over Europe and at least one major city in Russia. Ellie stared at the website. What if Natalie was a point of contact? People could put their orders in with her, and she’d hook Daddy Koslov up with them. She was his niece, after all. It wouldn’t be weird for her to do that. And maybe they had some kind of code. Or she could just funnel the info to someone else who would then forward it to Daddy Koslov.

  Someone who was tuned into the celebrity scene, who hung out with models and moguls all the time.

  Or someone who was those things.

  Lyev Koslov could be working alone with Natalie, or Marya was in on it, too.

  She groaned. The other option was that she was running on too little sleep and these ruminations were the product of exhaustion and stress. Her e-chat dinged with a pop-up indicating a message from Tyler: Drinks after work with some of the staff?

  Oh, God. Really? Another night out? Did fashion mogul staff never sleep? She took another swallow of coffee and messaged him back: Sure. Where and when? “Please let it be right after work,” she muttered.

  The answer came quickly. Five-thirty, Pig and Pint, two blocks up Fifth.

  She knew the place. A pub that showed a lot of soccer on TVs hung over the bar. Casual, and it offered booths that were semi-private. Probably a good place for fashion mogul types to unwind, out of sight of the dragon lady. Have a few beers, nachos or wings, and commiserate about the high pressure involved in selling ridiculously expensive and often weird-ass clothing to the masses even though it only looked good on women shaped like clothespins. And thank all the deities who had heard her plea about the time. She might be able to get home at a reasonable hour for some sleep, because making sure models had their proper bottled water was something everyone should aspire to on a Saturday morning.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ellie finished the tasks Tyler had assigned and moved onto checking videos of Natalie Koslov’s most recent appearances on catwalks, including her Moscow trip the previous month. Those links Ellie sent to Rick with a message telling him to have the team look through the audiences, see if anybody pinged their arms-dealer radars. If Natalie was the point of contact for her Uncle Koslov, then there was a possibility that some of the customers attended her shows.

  The Petrovs had to fit in here somewhere, too. Ellie did a few more standard web searches using the names of the dead men and got several hits. Clearly, they weren’t shy about using their names, and hello, they were in attendance at three specific fashion shows. Moscow a week before the first murder, Prague three days before the second, and London the night before the third death.

  What the hell did this mean? Ellie ate another cinnamon candy and called Rick.

  “What’s up?” he answered.

  “Dude, did anyone check our dead guys’ connections to fashion shows other than me?”

  Silence.

  “So that’s a no. Well, I got something. Shows in each of the cities a few days before each of them died. Run that shit. Get lists of guests, if possible, and the models involved. And I want a raise.”

  He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. Nice find.”

  “Damn right. I’m also going out for drinks with Jackson and some other staff, but he didn’t say who. Pig and Pint on Fifth. Five-thirty.”

  “Okay. You hereby have official permission to imbibe a couple for the sake of appearances. Check in after.”

  “Yep.” She hung up and stared at the clock on her laptop. An hour to go. So how about she dug around on the Petrovs some more? See what else she could turn up. Thirty minutes later, she hadn’t turned anything up that she didn’t already know, so she tried a web search on models with the last name of Petrov.

  “Well, lookee here.”

  Yana Petrov, based in London. She called Rick back.

  “People are going to start rumors about us if you keep calling this much,” he said when he picked up.

  “Whatever. Yana Petrov. Found her on the model circuit. Run her and see how she relates to Daddy Petrov, if at all. While you’re at it, see how many Petrovs and Koslovs are modeling.”

  “Aren’t you just full of helpful tips.”

  “See to that raise, bro.” She hung up. Yana had a website, so Ellie spent some time on it. Yana had been born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but worked primarily in London. Her events schedule, however, had her all over Europe and the US, like Natalie Koslov. On another hunch, Ellie did a search on both names to see if they’d pop up in any context together.

  Yes. At two shows the year before and, most recently, in Paris and Moscow. Was Petrov scheduled for tomorrow’s show? Ellie popped back over to Petrov’s website but didn’t find it listed in the events. The next thing Petrov had coming up was in Los Angeles in a month.

  There might be something here, she thought. Or there might be nothing at all. She shut her laptop down and put it in her bag along with her work and personal phones, then finished the last of the coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. It was quarter after five, but it would take her a few minutes to get to the pub, so she put her jacket on—the same one she’d worn the night before—and slung her bag over her shoulder.

  The fashion world apparently never slept and never stopped, because people were still bustling around in the lobby, on their way to offices or getting more coffee. Ellie waved to the receptionist and made the elevator just as it was closing, which earned her an irritated glare from an older guy in the back. She ignored him and shoved herself in. A couple of people chatted about some kind of real estate thing on the way down, and a few others were messing with their phones.

  They finally arrived at the ground floor and Ellie stepped off the elevator with relief. She wasn’t a fan of close quarters like that, especially when there was nowhere to go. The weather had stayed nice, though a bit cool. Fall was her favorite season in the city. September was a transitional sort of month, and it always carried hints of impending autumn in the breezes and drop in humidity. And with the nice evening weather, there would be lots of people out, enjoying it and the end of the work week for many of them.

  Ellie didn’t often get a Friday off, because her job had her on different schedules every month. Plus, given the nature of the work she did for this division of NYPD, it seemed she was always on call. Then again, cops were always on call, regardless, even when they weren’t. Rick had been after her to take a vacation since she hadn’t in a couple of years, but she liked her job too much. Her parents had thought she was insane when she pursued police work. Since they were both teachers, they had no idea where she’d gotten that urge. Too much adrenaline in the womb, her sister used to tease her.

  Anymore, Ellie wondered if there was something to that.

  The Pig and Pint was just ahead, its front evoking what an Irish pub might look like if it were actually in Ireland. Glossy green paint around the front windows and door trim made the place look festive, and the name was painted in gold across the glass. She went in, and it smelled like most other bars, minus the cigarette smoke. Beer, bar food, and various colognes. It was about halfway full. Tyler waved at her from a booth, which was a high-backed wooden affair that looked more like an alcove. Each side of the table could seat three.

  “Hey,” he said as she approached. Khalil and Liz sat on his side.

  “Hi,” she said, and Tyler motioned at the empty side. She sat down and put her bag and jacket next to her.

  “We just ordered a few minutes ago,” Tyler said. “Drinks and snacks.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll throw in for snacks.” She smiled, trying to be her suave, professional self.

  “So how are things going for you, as Ms. H’s intern?” Liz asked.

  “Pretty well. I feel like I’m learning a lot and all of you have been really helpful and nice.”

  “Really? I thought yo
u had met Ms. H,” Liz said with a smile.

  “Oh, she has,” Khalil said. “And she’s lived to talk about it. As for me, I’m currently on her good side.”

  Tyler laughed. “Marya liked one of Ellie’s ideas.”

  Liz’s eyes widened. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” Ellie said.

  The server appeared with a tray of drinks. Khalil had ordered what looked like a gin and tonic, Liz a martini, and Tyler’s was most likely a vodka cranberry.

  “Hi,” the server said to Ellie, all bippy with an understated Irish lilt. “What’ll you have?”

  “Do you have Red Breast?”

  The server brightened even more. “Yes.”

  “I’ll take one of those, neat.”

  The server smiled. “Excellent. Would you like to order any food?”

  “I think we’re covered for now.” She looked at Tyler, and he nodded.

  “Great. Just let me know if you change your mind.” She gave Ellie another smile and retreated to the bar.

  “We should bring you here more often,” Khalil said. “She rarely gives me the time of day.”

  Liz giggled. “You’re not her type.”

  “And we will use it to our advantage,” Tyler said. “Anyway, Khalil and a few others you know will be on hand tomorrow as well.”

  “Thank God. Now if there’s a meltdown over the bottled water, I’ll have backup.”

  Liz giggled again and carefully sipped her drink.

  “Where will you be?” Ellie asked her.

  “I’ll be watching from the audience.”

  “Nice. One of the chosen.” She looked up as the server returned with her glass of whiskey.

  “Here you go. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Khalil smirked, but Ellie pretended not to see it.

  “Your food will be right out.” She retreated again, but not before she gave Ellie another cute little smile. That was definitely flirting, Ellie decided. This haircut worked with more than just being an intern at a fashion mag.