by Nancy Warren
Oh, what a relief to have her mouth back.
Taking the compact from Holden, she turned to her feet. Her hands were clumsy from being tied up, but with a lot of cursing and two broken nails, she managed to cut through the plastic and get her feet free. She bolted from her chair and ripped the tape off Holden’s mouth. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He moved his mouth. “But I won’t have to shave for the next six months. You?”
“Fine. I love you.”
He grinned at her. “Not the time or place I’d have chosen, but right back at you.”
She kissed him quickly, just because she could, and then went to the rack of drawers where she’d seen Peacock with the scissors. Sure enough, they were still there. A good sharp pair of sewing scissors. It took her all of two minutes to get Holden free. He took a minute to rub circulation back into his hands and feet and then went swiftly to the door.
Of course, it was locked from the outside with no mechanism to unlock the door from the inside. The notion of illegal sweatshops flipped into her mind only to be banished. No time to think of that now.
“Can you get me that nail file?”
“Sure.”
She got it off the floor where it had fallen and passed it to him.
“Thanks. If you’ve got a hairpin or some kind of hook, that would be great.”
She went back into the supply drawers and returned with a selection of heavy darning-type needles, a small crochet hook and a stitch ripper.
The light in the room was dimming fast, but he didn’t seem worried. He worked the nail file and a darning needle and, after swearing liberally and wiping his hands on his pants twice, he suddenly beamed at her.
He rose and putting his finger to his lips, opened the door carefully. But there wasn’t a soul outside. She saw him glance around in surprise and she had a feeling he was insulted that Brewster hadn’t considered the need for a guard on the door.
She wasn’t macho enough to care. She wanted out of this awful place and she wanted it now.
Holden went down the stairs ahead of her. He moved swiftly, quietly, holding the sewing scissors in his hand, since they were the closest thing to a weapon that he had been able to find.
Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs, and she felt exposed and vulnerable as they crept past each landing with its trio of blank doors. But none of the doors opened, no armed goons rushed out to stop them. In fact, as they crept down the metal stairs she got the sense that they were alone in the building.
Still, Holden was cautious. He opened the metal door of the lowest floor, and peeked carefully outside, surveying the street for a few minutes. Staying still and quiet behind him was one of the toughest things she’d ever done, her urge to run was that strong.
At last he signaled her forward. It was much darker than when they’d arrived and she liked the neighborhood even less. It seemed sinister to her now, forbidding, as though every derelict building housed a hundred unfriendly eyes peering down at her.
“You okay?” he asked softly, his arm around her shoulders.
She wasn’t going to fall apart now, she told herself. They still had work to do. Later, she’d find a nice bar somewhere and order herself a very large brandy. But for now, she said, “Yeah,” and pretended she didn’t notice the burning in her wrists or the jumpy feeling in her stomach. They walked a couple of blocks. A tiny police van roared past them with its lights flashing and its toy-sounding horn blaring, but Holden made no attempt to get the driver’s attention, if that were even possible. No taxis went by, nothing but regular traffic. “We could take the metro,” she said, noticing a station, then realizing they didn’t even have a single Euro between them. Vladimir and Peacock had taken all their money as well as their cell phones. She could try to explain the situation and sweet-talk a metro ticket seller into letting her and Holden ride free, but right now she didn’t think she had the energy. Besides, he didn’t seem enamored of the idea.
They kept walking until they reached a touristy area. The Sacré-Coeur rose above them and she felt marginally safer. Taxis were as abundant here as ants at a picnic and Holden quickly found them one and helped her inside.
Once at her hotel, he waited with the unimpressed cabdriver while she ran in, got a replacement key to her room and retrieved the wad of cash she’d put in her room safe.
She paid the driver, and Holden got out of the cab, barely getting his feet on the pavement before it roared away. His tux was hanging in her closet, for which she was profoundly grateful.
Once they were inside her room, she said, “You need to call the cops. Simone’s show will start any second.”
“Dress for the show. Fast.”
“But—”
“No cops. Trust me, Kimi. I know what I’m doing. I watched the run-through. Don’t worry. We’ll make it.”
She broke every one of her own speed records and was dressed and ready to go in under ten minutes. Refusing to let her call the car, so Brewster and Vladimir would have no reason for suspicion, he got them a taxi at the front of the hotel.
“We should call the police,” she said again, once they were roaring toward the opera house, but he shook his head. “Holden—” she put her hand on his arm “—we’re probably too late.”
He touched her face. “We’re not too late. We’ll get them. But I’d rather catch them red-handed in front of a lot of witnesses. Don’t worry.”
She tried not to, but it was tough. As the cab drew closer, she almost expected to see Nicola Pietra racing down the street, distraught, searching for her wedding gown, and hysterical fashionistas running around like a Greek chorus of fashion doom.
But the streets were free of drama, though the traffic grew busier as they approached the opera house.
“How are we going to do this? What if Brewster or Vladimir sees us?”
“Then they’ll call off the theft. We can’t let them see us. Not until we’re ready.”
“You already have a plan.”
“I’m trying to think of one. But you keep talking and distracting me.”
“Oh. Sorry. I talk when I’m nervous.”
“I noticed.”
“I’ll stop talking then and let you think.”
“Thank you.”
She let a couple of minutes pass. The taxi roared past street after street of elegant apartments. Soon they’d be there. A part of her would be quite happy if Brewster and Vlad the Fashion Week Destroyer saw them and called off the theft. Because trying to catch them in the act was going to be a delicate matter of timing and stealth. And the fact that the two had been happy to leave them tied up most likely to die, suggested they’d be ruthless if they were thwarted. Tonight could easily turn dangerous. And her family was involved. Someone could get hurt. She turned her head and looked at Holden beside her, obviously deep in planning mode.
Most likely the person who would be hurt would be him, and she couldn’t bear the thought of that. She remembered the guns.
He asked the cabdriver to stop by a junky tourist store that was still open. He ran inside before she could scold him for delaying them further.
“We should call the police,” she said again when he returned with a brown paper bag. “They can take care of this.”
He shook his head. “Our buddies get a sniff of the gendarmes and they’ll pull the plug.”
“But we know what they tried to do.”
He shook his head. “Our word against theirs. Not enough to stop them. Not enough to convict.”
“So you have to put yourself in danger?” Her voice rose, but she was beyond caring.
He sent her a half smile. “I’m good at what I do.” Then he was all business. “How well do you know the opera house?”
“I’ve seen Phantom of the Opera. I know the interior is spectacular, and the place is supposed to be haunted.”
“Below there’s a warren of change rooms and storerooms. Lots of hiding places, but they’ll prefer getting the dress off-site.” He looke
d at her. “If you were going to steal that dress, and you had a dresser onside, how would you do it?”
“It’s mayhem backstage, people everywhere—models, dressers, emergency seamstresses, the director, the designers, the hair and makeup people, the staging crew, there’s security.”
He nodded.
“They must be using the dresser to get the wedding gown out of there.”
“I agree. But how?”
She drummed her fingernails against her bag. “The dressers get treated like crap by the high-maintenance models and it’s like they’re invisible to most everyone else. The dresser will be in charge of the gown. She’ll have a list of all the accessories, shoes, jewelry that go with it. It will be her responsibility to make sure the dress is perfect when the model steps out onto the runway.”
Wow. It was so simple.
“A hem gets loose, some trim gets damaged, sometimes in the rush a model puts her heel through the fabric. Then the dresser has to run the gown back to a seamstress. It usually means the order of the show gets changed, or if it’s too badly damaged, they would remove the gown from the program.”
“They won’t remove ApplePie’s wedding gown from the program.”
“No.”
She leaned forward, as if she could urge the cab on by redistributing her body weight farther forward. “How many wedding gowns were in the final segment of the show? When you watched the run-through? Do you remember?”
He closed his eyes. “Eight.”
“And they’ll bring that gown out last. There will be tons of attention on it, so the model will be out there longer. Then she’ll go back and they’ll do the finale. With all the models. And that gown as the centerpiece of the show, with Simone proudly hovering over it.”
“So when’s the dresser’s opportunity?”
“After the wedding gowns start showing. She’ll make sure there’s a tear or something and run it back to the seamstress. She’ll put it inside a bag so it’s not obvious what she’s got. And instead of going for the seamstress, she flees with the dress to an outside exit. Where there’s a van waiting. There are vans and delivery vehicles all over the place. She jumps in the van with the dress. It’s minutes before anyone notices the theft. Holden, she could be miles away before anyone notices. At least alert the security guys.”
“Can’t. If you’re right, how does she get past security to get outside to the waiting van? They need more than one dresser on the payroll to execute this. They’ve got somebody in the security team too.”
She was about to speak, when the cab came to a jerking halt that had Kimi bracing her arms against the back of the front seat to stop from being thrown onto the floor.
19
“ATTENTION!” she cried to the crazy driver.
The driver gesticulated and swore, pointing out the front window of the cab.
“Merde,” she said, immediately seeing the trouble. On the road ahead two vans had collided. With no room to drive around the mess, the driver stuck his head out the window and added his voice to the mix of shouting.
“This is going to take a while. We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot,” she told Holden.
He was out of his side, throwing money at the driver, while she got out the other side. The opera house gleamed like the rich jewel it was, but it was several blocks away and her heels were not made for sprinting.
“Come on,” he said, already jogging.
“The things I do for fashion.” She bent over and took off one very expensive Jimmy Choo and then the other. Holding them in her hand by the silver straps, she took Holden’s hand and began to run. The pavement was rough beneath her feet and cold, and she tried very hard not to think of all the gross and disgusting substances she was probably running on.
“Go on ahead,” she shouted when she could see that he was holding himself back for her.
“No. We’ve got time. We’ll make it.”
So they ran. Obviously he was in better shape than she was since she was using up all her energy to keep breathing and moving at the same time, and he could do both with ease while outlining a plan of action like a general before a big battle.
The opera house grew closer, gleaming gold in the lights.
“You’ve got it?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she panted.
“Good. Keep your eyes open, but don’t get close enough for them to see you.”
“Right. But the two of us can’t stop them all by ourselves.”
He squeezed her hand. “I called my buddy at Interpol. He’s sending some guys who won’t be recognized.” He checked his watch. “They should be here any minute.”
She nodded.
He took out a kid’s whistle from the brown paper bag he was holding. It was like the gendarme whistles as seen in The Pink Panther movies. He solemnly hooked hers over her neck. “A cell phone would be better, but blow your whistle if you need me.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her once, hard and fast. Then they split up as arranged and she walked the perimeter of the opera house going clockwise, while he went counterclockwise. She slipped her shoes back on since she’d look less peculiar than if she was caught skulking by back entrances with a pair of heels in her hand. She tried to keep to the shadows.
There were vans everywhere, of course, parked haphazardly, with barely enough room for anyone to drive out of the area.
She kept her eyes open for Vladimir or Brewster, but saw neither. In fact, she saw no one more sinister than a few burly drivers slouching in their vehicles who gave her the once-over. But nobody approached or spoke to her, no dresser came flying out a door with a priceless wedding gown bunched in her hands.
The word she’d have to use to sum up her current feelings would be anticlimax.
It took her fifteen minutes of eyes-focused, ears-straining sleuthing to discover that everything was peaceful. She rounded a corner and saw Holden coming her way, shaking his head. Even his camera bag drooped with disappointment.
“We’ve worked too hard to let them win. I’m going inside,” she said. “Through the back.”
He nodded briefly. “I’m coming with you.”
She raised her brows, but he jerked his head in the direction of his camera bag. “I shot the run-through, remember? They all know me.”
“Okay.”
She showed her credentials at the door to a bored security guard who shook his head. Nobody allowed in.
There was no point in telling some story about writing an article from backstage. The security guard wouldn’t believe it, and if he did he wouldn’t care. She saw Holden start reaching for his wallet.
“Can you reach Marcy Wolington-Hicks?” she asked the guy. “It’s important. Tell her Kimi Renton needs to see her right away.”
The man looked as though he was still going to refuse, when Holden slipped him a bill. It was in the guy’s pocket so fast she could have imagined the transaction. “Un moment,” he snapped, and got on his radio.
At that moment they heard a woman scream.
The security guard leaped forward and Kimi and Holden followed.
Following the scream, they raced into a scene of utter chaos. Simone, in her signature black, was on her knees. Her normally pale face was the color of sushi rice. In front of her stood a model who was rapidly falling into hysterics. Arianne Boucle, Simone’s favorite, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, six feet tall, was flapping her arms, hyperventilating and crying hysterically. She was also stark naked.
“Where’s the dress?” Kimi demanded of the model.
She broke into a torrent of French, so fast Kimi could barely keep up. But the gist of it was that one of the perfect diamonds had come loose. She had to get out on the runway. Now. It was almost her cue. The wedding gowns were almost finished. She was to wear the grand finale gown.
Tears spilled over her spiky lashes as she cursed; then shouted for a cigarette.
Kimi grabbed her arm. “The dresser. Where’s the dresser?”
“When did she leave?”
A hysterical hiccup. “I don’t know. Five minutes? Ten? Somebody better find my dress.”
Then she jerked out of Kimi’s grasp and dashed over to her makeup girl.
Kimi knelt beside the weeping designer. “Simone, you’ve got to pull yourself together.” But it was hopeless. The woman was sobbing as though she’d lost a child. “C’est fini!” she wailed. “Tout fini!”
“You’ll need to go out there and talk, give us time to get the dress back.”
But Simone was beyond reason.
The director was standing like a statue, watching the crisis. “Get them to slow down or something,” Kimi ordered.
“Already did.”
“How long have we got?”
“Five minutes tops.”
“Okay. Stall. Do whatever you have to. Go out front and tell jokes if you need to.”
He looked down at Simone. Shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Did you see the dresser leave with the gown?” Kimi asked.
“It’s chaos back here. Maybe someone in makeup saw something.”
Holden headed toward the exit.
She asked the director, “Which way to the seamstresses?”
She ran in the indicated direction. As she plunged into the dim recesses of the opera house she hoped she didn’t run into Vladimir or Brewster. At another time she’d have worried about coming face-to-face with the famous phantom, but right now she’d take a masked, operatic ghost over a gun-wielding thug in a heartbeat.
She found the seamstresses tucked around the corner looking tired and frazzled, but, of course, no one had seen ApplePie’s wedding dress. And they were so busy with last-minute repairs, they hadn’t seen the dresser either.
She caught up to Holden. “She can’t have left. We didn’t see her. Could she be hiding? What if we got people searching down here?”
Frustration was written all over his face. “I was so sure they’d get the dress out of here fast. But maybe you’re—” At that moment they both saw a shadowy figure dart across the corridor. It was the drab dresser they’d seen talking to Vladimir on the day of the lingerie-shopping trip, and she was carrying a large bag.
