by Kylie Logan
That is, until a security guard stopped me.
“The set is closed. No press,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“No gawkers.”
“I’m not that, either.” Not true. Not technically, anyway, since gawking was exactly what I was doing. I snapped my mouth shut. But only until I told the man, “I have an appointment with Margot, Kate Franciscus’s assistant. That’s why the guard outside . . .” I poked a thumb over my shoulder toward the twelve-foot-tall oak doors that led out to the front stoop. “He said it was OK for me to come in. Kate had some of my buttons. She was going to show them to her designer and now . . . well . . .” I didn’t need to explain. “I’m here to pick them up.”
Was it obvious that I was telling the truth, but not the whole truth and nothing but? I had an ulterior motive, see. When it came to the mystery button I’d found in the shop, I’d struck out with Hugh, but I wasn’t ready to give up. The way I figured it, nobody knew Kate better than her assistants, whether they wanted to or not. They were the next logical step in my investigation. Lucky for me, there were those buttons Kate had taken with her when she visited me the week before. The ones she hadn’t brought with her to the shop the night she was killed. Those buttons provided me the perfect excuse to dig a little deeper.
While I was thinking these things, the security guard was busy edging to the side, the better to check me out from every angle. His eyes lit with recognition. “Hey, you are that button lady,” he crooned. “Your picture was in the paper. I recognized your—”
I was grateful when the door swung open and interrupted the man. Not so grateful to see we’d been joined by—
“Kaz?” I rubbed my eyes. I must be hallucinating.
No such luck.
In spite of temperatures outside that were quickly skyrocketing from hot and sticky to hotter and unbearable, Kaz looked as fresh as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. He was dressed in his usual jeans and a polo shirt that looked familiar. It should. I’d bought it for him for his birthday two years before. The chocolaty color of the shirt perfectly matched his eyes. No surprise. That’s why I’d bought it in the first place.
Like he belonged there, he strolled over, gave me a peck on the cheek, and shook the security guard’s hand. He introduced himself and added, “I’m Ms. Giancola’s assistant.”
I nearly choked. “You’re—”
“Late? Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” I knew something was up the moment that last word was out of his mouth. Or maybe it just sounded weird because it was a word I’d never heard Kaz use before.
“You can both go on up,” the security guard told us. “Fourth floor. They weren’t using any of those rooms up there for the filming, so they gave them to Ms. Franciscus. You know, for like an office and a dressing room.”
I was too stunned by Kaz’s sudden appearance to do anything else but what I was told, so I went the way the security guard directed. Kaz walked along at my side. We’d already climbed the elegant winding staircase and were on the second-floor landing before I trusted myself to speak.
“I don’t like getting blindsided,” I told Kaz, refusing to look at him. I did a hairpin left turn to the next staircase—less ornate than the one that led up from the first floor. “What are you doing here? And how did you know where I was in the first place?”
“That’s a no-brainer. All I had to do is follow that crowd of paparazzi that’s been tailing you.”
I grumbled. The reporters and photographers had been waiting outside my apartment building when I left there that morning—again. I would have thought that by now, they’d be tired of trying to get me to talk, and me saying nothing. I’d seen a couple of them hop into cabs and follow me when I headed to the movie set. “All I want is to be left alone,” I grumbled. “I’m starting to feel like a zoo animal.”
“You could always come stay with me for a while.”
My right foot on the step ahead of me, my left on the one below, I froze and looked over my shoulder at Kaz.
“What?” Mr. Wide-Eyed-and-Innocent had the nerve to look . . . well, wide-eyed and innocent. “I’m just saying, if you need a place to crash—”
“I’ll drag a cardboard box under the North Wabash Avenue Bridge and hope I don’t roll over in my sleep and land in the river.”
“If you say so. I only thought that if you came to my place—”
“What?” I steadied myself, my fingers in a death grip around the banister, and I made sure my glare was searing—and as no-nonsense as it was possible to get. “What did you think was going to happen if I came to stay with you? We’re not married anymore, in case you forgot.”
“Like I could.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at. I was sure I didn’t want to know.
I turned around and clomped up another few steps.
“I thought if I followed you I could . . . you know . . . protect you from those reporters and photographers who are after you.”
For all his faults—and believe me when I say there are many—I could never accuse Kaz of not being chivalrous. It was one of the things that made me fall in love with him in the first place and, ironically, one of the things that doomed our marriage. Nobody dreamed the impossible dream quite like Kaz. Especially when that dream involved scoring big on his next sure bet.
Which wasn’t what we were talking about.
Which meant my jaw shouldn’t be tight and my stomach shouldn’t be lurching into my throat.
I forced myself to relax, and at the third landing, I stopped and turned to face him. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the offer. But I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Except that those guys won’t leave you alone. Who knows what they might do to get at you.” This landing ended in a blank wall, and knowing what I know about history (a natural offshoot of learning about buttons, who wore them, and the times in which they were made), I wasn’t surprised. Like so many others of its vintage, a house this grand was sure to have a servants’ stairway at the back of the building.
I was already heading that way when Kaz snatched my hand. “Jo, if you won’t come stay at my place for a while, at least let me stay with you at your apartment. You know, just to make sure you’re all right. Once I walk out of the building with you a couple times and tell those jerks where to get off, they’ll stop bothering you.”
Warning! Danger!
Oh yeah, I recognized that voice inside my head. It was the one that cautioned against getting tempted by the heady feel of my hand in Kaz’s.
It was also the one that told me there was more to his offer than met the eye.
I shook away my chocolate-induced fantasies, narrowed my eyes, and gave Kaz a careful once-over. “You knew I’d never agree to stay at your place with you. Admit it, Kaz. You threw that out just to make yourself look good. As for you staying with me . . . You’re trying to dodge somebody, and my guess is it’s somebody you owe money to. Who’s looking for you? And what is it this time? They’re going to bug you until you pay? Or have they graduated to the break-your-legs stage?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. But then, I didn’t really care what his answer was. I stomped down the hallway, searching for the servants’ stairs, and when I found them, I took the steps two at a time. No easy thing considering my heart was already pounding and my breaths were coming fast.
I honestly didn’t care if Kaz followed me or not, and frankly, now that I’d seen through his lie about caring about my well-being, I figured he wouldn’t. I reminded myself that I had more important things to think about than Kaz’s bad habits, and I stepped out of the narrow stairwell into a room that ran the length of the building. Through the oriel window at the front of the brownstone, there was a killer view of the lake. Through the windows at the back, a look at the third-floor roof garden. At this time of the year, the place was alive with color and blooms. A fountain trickled at its center.
Although the rest of the building had been carefully nurture
d to be true to its Victorian roots, this entire level was different. The floors were bleached oak. The furniture was black leather, accented with stainless steel. The walls were painted a color that reminded me of sterling.
I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Kate had demanded the fourth floor be remodeled and turned over to her before she ever agreed to do the movie, nor would I have been shocked to find that Hugh had caved in to her demands and begged the building’s owner to comply. No doubt there was a construction crew in here the very next day.
Kate always got what she wanted.
Except she never wanted to get murdered.
The thought settled inside me like a rock, and I reminded myself not to forget it. That was exactly the same moment Margot and Sloan came bustling out of a room over on my right. Between them, they were carrying a cardboard box the size of an easy chair. Margot had her back to me. Sloan saw me, gurgled out a noise of surprise, and stopped.
“Forgot you were coming.” With a grunt and a glance over her shoulder, Margot dropped her end of the box on the floor. Sloan followed suit. I heard a dull, clinking sound like breaking glass. Neither young woman seemed concerned.
Margot brushed her hands together. “You’re here for your buttons.”
I’d hoped not to be dismissed so quickly, so I glanced around the room and tried to make small talk. “It’s beautiful here, so different from the first three floors, but just as spectacular in its own way.”
Margot’s shrug was designed to show me just how much she didn’t care. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been perfectly turned out in a trim, black business suit and pumps. Today she was wearing skinny jeans and a purple T-shirt, and her blonde hair was pushed back and held off her face by a green headband. Sloan was similarly dressed, in jeans and a flamingo-pink tank. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail. One blindingly pink fingernail was broken to the quick, and Sloan looked at it and moaned, “It will all look a hell of a lot better once we’re standing outside waving good-bye to this place.”
I glanced past them and toward the room they’d just come out of. From where I was standing, I could see a couple of rolling clothing racks. One was packed to the gills with designer outfits in a very small size. The other was filled with costumes so incredible, they took my breath away. Back in college, where I majored in theater with the hope of someday doing the costumes for movies or plays, I would have given my right arm to work with garments so authentic looking and so fabulous. Blouses with leg-of-mutton sleeves, ball gowns with deep-veed bodices and nipped waists. Skirts designed to hug hips, then flare out just above the knee. Above-the-elbow kid gloves in white and ivory and black.
I thought about the mystery button—the one that didn’t have any fingerprints on it—and swiveled my gaze from the costumes to the assistants. “Have any of the costumes gone missing? Like the gloves?”
“Gloves?” Sloan made a face. “You’re kidding, right? Who in their right mind would want them?”
“Of course.” There was no use tipping my hand. Instead, I glanced at the box Margot and Sloan had brought in from the other room. “There must be a lot of details to take care of,” I said. “All Kate’s things. You’re packing them to go to—”
“Paris,” Sloan said, at the same time Margot said, “Maui.” Maybe Margot was right. Or maybe since she was on top of the assistant totem pole, she always won out. “Maui, of course,” Sloan mumbled.
No way I was getting in the middle of that. Hoping that the farther I was from the doorway, the longer I could get away with hanging around, I edged toward the sofa and the glossy metal table next to it. “There must be buttons, too, of course. I don’t mean mine. I mean—”
“Buttons, sure.” I should have known someone as well trained as Margot wouldn’t let any grass grow under her feet. She zipped off and came back in a jiffy, holding the small leather briefcase I knew contained the buttons I’d given to Kate for her consideration. “Kate called. The night she was killed. I was still here, and she’d already left and when I heard the phone ring . . . Well, I checked caller ID and when I saw it was her, I didn’t answer. I was already off the clock that day. She left a message, said she’d forgotten those buttons she was supposed to get back to you and said I should drop whatever I was doing and run them over. On my night off!” Margot sniffed.
I took the briefcase from her and gave myself a mental kick in the pants. This investigating stuff wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV, and I wasn’t going to find out anything if I didn’t take it easy, take my time, and get the assistants to talk.
Stalling for time, I snapped open the case.
The buttons I’d given Kate were mounted just as they would be if I was taking them to a show for sale or entering them in a competition, on what we in the business call trays, nine-by-twelve-inch white, acid-free matt board. Normally, I would have just slipped each tray into a heavy plastic sleeve to prevent the buttons from rubbing against each other. For Kate, I’d used the plastic sleeves, then wrapped each tray in velvet and set all three trays in the briefcase. No, I was not playing favorites. In fact, this was the way all my most prized buttons traveled.
As I knew they would be, all the buttons were present and accounted for, and I closed the case and wondered what a real detective would do next. That lasted maybe half a second before I reminded myself that I wasn’t a real detective; I was a button dealer. Buttons were, are, and will always be the only thing I know how to talk about.
I looked from Margot to Sloan. “I found a button in my shop, and it doesn’t belong to me. I thought Kate might have left it there.”
“Kate didn’t even remember to take those buttons with her when she went to see you the other night,” Margot said with a look toward the briefcase. “You really think she would have brought buttons of her own?”
“You really think she’d have any? I mean, any that weren’t attached to clothing?” Sloan didn’t need to elaborate. The unspoken words hung in the air between us. Like Hugh, Margot and Sloan believed buttons were for nerds.
And Kate Franciscus was anything but.
Another dead end. And another chance to prove I wasn’t going to give up. I sat down, the better to send the message that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “So if Kate didn’t drop that button, maybe one of you did the day you were at the Button Box.”
“A button?” Blake appeared out of the back room, her short-cropped hair a mess and smudges of dirt across her cheek. Clearly, as third in line, she’d been given the less tasteful of the cleanup and packing tasks. I could only imagine what poor little Wynona would be left to deal with. “You’re not serious, are you?” Blake dragged a garbage bag behind her. She plopped it down in the middle of the living room floor. “Buttons aren’t exactly our thing.”
“But one of you might have lost it off a piece of clothing.” I was prepared; I had a photo of the button with me, and I slipped it out of my purse and showed it all around. “It’s an unusual button, probably handcrafted. If it was on one of your suit coats or purses or—”
Margot leaned over for a better look.
So did Sloan, who sneered. “It looks like somebody made it out of some old tree.” She didn’t need to elaborate. Clearly, handmade was akin to so-not cool.
“Like any of us would buy anything like that.” Blake rolled her eyes.
“If it doesn’t belong to one of you . . .” I glanced at the assistants gathered around me. “Maybe you’ve seen it someplace? Maybe someone else would know? How about Wynona?”
“Wynona!” I didn’t realize names could be associated with tastes until I heard the sour twist Margot gave this one. She answered me, sure, but she was looking hard at Blake when she did. “Wynona isn’t with us anymore. Is she, Blake?”
“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Blake threw up her hands. “How was I supposed to know the girl wasn’t on the up-and-up?”
“She wasn’t?” I sat up. Sure, it had nothing to do with buttons, or more specifically, with the button I nee
ded to learn more about, but this was definitely interesting. I leaned forward, and because I knew Margot would take the lead, I looked her way. “What happened?”
The smile she threw at Blake was scorching. “Blake didn’t do a background check like she was supposed to.”
Blake flopped down on the chair opposite mine and crossed her arms over her chest. “When Shawna got sick, we needed another assistant fast. You didn’t expect me to do the things we had Shawna doing, did you?”
“And look where trying to dodge a little work got you,” Sloan crooned. “Sweet little Wynona wasn’t all that sweet after all. She had a taste for jewelry.”
“Pearls, specifically. Antique and valuable,” Margot said. “Too bad they were Kate’s.”
The day I’d met her, Wynona was painfully shy. The thought of her as a thief . . .
It didn’t jibe. “Are you sure?”
“Kate was.” This from Margot, who nodded. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have fired the little twit.”
Another spot of news. “When?” I asked.
While Margot was still thinking about it, Blake piped up. “The day after we came to see the buttons.”
“The day before Kate was killed,” I mumbled.
Margot, Sloan, and Blake exchanged glances, but they left it to Margot to speak. “You’re not saying—”
“A single thing.” I made that clear by getting to my feet. “I don’t know anything about pearls, and I sure don’t know anything about murder. Buttons are my business.”
“She was hopping mad,” Sloan threw in.
“Kate?” I asked.
“Wynona.” As if reliving the scene, Sloan narrowed her eyes. “Wynona looked innocent enough, all right, but after Kate called her in for a meeting . . .” She shivered. “I was here when Wynona walked out of the back room Kate used as an office. She had tears streaming down her cheeks, and she was so damned mad, her face was on fire.”
