Since I couldn’t figure out who the killer might be targeting next, I turned my attention to my only other clue—that bloody scrap of ice-blue fabric. At least, that’s what color I thought it was, although I couldn’t find an exact match in any of my information or the library’s database. Blue was a popular color among heroes and villains, varying from the bright cobalt that Talon wore to Wynter’s pale costume.
I was no detective, but Blue had said that I would know what to do. That I would know how to stop his killer. I hadn’t been able to save my friend, but maybe—just maybe—I could help bring his murderer to justice. I didn’t want Blue’s faith in me to be wasted. Otherwise, I would have failed him all over again.
So I stared and stared at the fabric. If I could just figure out whose costume it had come from, maybe I would know who was targeting the other heroes and villains and keep anyone else from getting hurt.
My eyes narrowed, and a smile curved my face. I didn’t need the library’s database to find the exact color of the fabric because I had access to something even better and far more precise—Fiona Fine.
Nobody knew their fabric colors and swatches like she did. And since she moonlighted as Fiera, she was familiar with all the city’s heroes and villains, including their costumes. Over the years, I had heard both Fiona and Fiera critiquing other heroes’ and villains’ outfits. In her book, Kyle, Swifte, was one of the worst offenders. Fiona had a very, very strong belief that no one should wear shiny, opalescent white from head to toe. As much as I loved Kyle and Swifte, I didn’t think she was completely wrong about that.
So if this scrap of fabric had indeed come from someone’s costume, then Fiona would know exactly whose, and she could pass the information on to Chief Newman and the rest of the Fearless Five. Then the police and the heroes could start homing in on Blue’s killer.
Satisfied with my plan, I shut down my laptop to finally take a shower and go to bed.
Chapter Six
My phone chiming with a text from Abby woke me up the next morning.
Help! Wesley keeps taking away my phone. He doesn’t understand how important it is for me to check my messages—
The text cut off, as though Wesley had plucked the phone out of Abby’s hand. I stared at my own phone, betting that I’d get another message. Sure enough, it chimed again a second later.
Abby wants to know how Rascal is. She is *not* turning her phone back on again today. W.
I smiled and texted them back. Rascal is fine. Enjoy your vacation! XOXO. P.
I waited again, but I didn’t get another text. Maybe Wesley really would get Abby to turn off her phone, at least for a few hours. I smiled again and got out of bed.
Rascal bounded out of his basket and chowed down on some puppy kibble, while I slipped his collar and leash on him, put on several layers of thick, warm clothes myself, and got ready for work. The fabric scrap was tucked away in my purse, and I bagged up some supplies for Rascal, including his favorite Swifte chew toy, since the puppy was coming to work with me.
My first stop was Bryn’s Bakery, where I bought four dozen assorted doughnuts, along with four dozen bagels, half blueberry and half cinnamon-raisin, and enough cream cheese to slather from here to Ashland. Fiona was always extra-hungry in the mornings, and I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to have several bags of food in hand to bribe her into identifying the mystery fabric for me.
It was ten o’clock by the time I made it to Fiona Fine Fashions, and the clerks had just opened up the storefront when I strolled inside, with Rascal trotting along beside me, eagerly sniffing the floor. Fiona didn’t believe in opening too early, since she almost always needed a couple more hours of sleep in the morning, given all her late nights moonlighting as Fiera.
The storefront’s floor and walls were white and completely bare of decoration, all the better to show off the racks of designer dresses, shelves full of shoes, and counters crammed full of jewelry, purses, and other accessories. Fiona didn’t believe in being subtle either, and all her designs from the dresses to the shoes to the bags were big, bold, and brightly colored. With polka dots, neon feathers, and flashing jewels to boot. Sometimes, all the bright colors, loud patterns, and glittering gemstones gave me a headache, but people loved Fiona’s daring designs, which kept me employed, so I couldn’t complain too much.
Rock music pulsed in the background, and a couple of models had already started strutting their stuff on the runway in the center of the store. This week, Fiona had decided to show off designs from her summer rock-glam collection, which meant lots of black and pink leather, lots of silver chains, and lots of musical accents, like silver guitars and white velvet music notes.
I stopped to talk to Jess, the clerk running the store today. She let out a squeal of delight and came around the checkout counter to pet Rascal before straightening up and eyeing the bulging bags of food I had slung over my shoulder.
“Did Fiona send you out for food already?” she asked.
“Fiona’s here?”
She nodded. “And not in a good mood. She’s been growling at everyone. But maybe the food will help. It always seems to.”
Jess kept staring at the bags of food. A couple of years ago, she’d jokingly remarked that Fiona must be a superhero to eat as much as she did and never gain a pound. Everyone in the storefront had heard her, clerks and customers alike, and I could almost see the wheels turning in their minds as they thought about Fiona being a superhero and who she might be masquerading as. Just the way that Jess was thinking about it again right now.
I didn’t want to blow my boss’s secret identity, and I’d been so desperate to get everyone talking about something else that I’d blurted out the first thing that came to mind—that Fiona had an eating disorder.
I felt terrible about it, since eating disorders were nothing to make light of. But to my surprise, my spur-of-the-moment lie had actually worked. Everyone’s faces had immediately softened with sympathy, and they had all started nodding their heads and murmuring to themselves. Of course she does. That explains so much. The poor thing. I hope that Fiona gets the help she needs…
So I had kept up the charade, even going so far as to make sure that all the clerks and workers knew that I put pamphlets about eating disorders and treatment clinics on Fiona’s desk from time to time. Fiona thought I was crazy, but she didn’t realize how close she came to blowing her secret identity every time she ordered a massive amount of food from Quicke’s or some other nearby restaurant. Which she did on a daily basis.
“Is she really going to eat all those doughnuts?” Jess whispered.
“Well, you know Fiona. She has a…strange relationship with food.”
Jess shook her head. “It’s so sad.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I’ve been talking to her about it, and I think Fiona is finally ready to admit that she has a problem.”
Jess’s face brightened. “That’s good.”
“Yeah. Good.”
I went over to the door set in the wall, punched in my code, and stepped into the back, with Rascal still trotting along by my side. This was the factory portion of the building, where all of Fiona’s flamboyant designs were produced. Workers sat at tables, sewing everything from evening gowns to sweaters to doggie tuxedoes, since Fiona was getting ready to launch her new petwear evening line this fall. I waved at everyone and put two boxes each of the doughnuts and bagels out for the workers to share. Then I took the remaining food to my office.
A desk, a laptop, some printers, several chairs, filing cabinets lining the walls. My office was your typical corporate space, except for my Karma Girl fountain pen and the Swifte note pads that were stuck to my monitor, reminding me about various deadlines and other things I needed to check on. But for the most part, I left the superheroes at home. Here, I was all business.
I put out some food and water for Rascal, along with a large pillow for him to sleep on and his Swifte chew toy. While the puppy was busy snif
fing every corner of my office, I fired up my laptop and checked my e-mail, taking care of a few pressing matters right off the bat. When I was caught up on everything that needed my immediate attention, I surfed over to the SNN website and pulled up all of Kelly Caleb’s reports about the recent hero-villain murders. But there was nothing on the site that Kelly hadn’t already told me, so I plucked the fabric scrap out of my purse, gathered up the boxes of doughnuts and bagels, and headed next door to Fiona’s office.
Fiona Fine was sitting in her chair, a sketch pad in hand and colored pencils scattered all over the top of her desk. Rolls of fabric covered the chairs in front of her desk, while mannequins draped with necklaces, hats, and billowing swaths of silk were stuffed into the corners of the room.
Fiona sat in the middle of the mess, her feet up on the desk, clutching a neon-pink pencil in her hand and tap-tap-tapping it against the sketch pad, as if waiting for inspiration to strike. She was gorgeous, with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a figure that was perfect for modeling all the outrageous designs she created. Fiona wore an electric-blue turtleneck sweater with black-and-white zebra-stripe leggings and black stiletto ankle boots, but the odd mix of colors and patterns looked as fabulous on her as everything else did.
She looked up at the sound of my footsteps, along with Rascal’s toenails click-click-clicking on the floor. The puppy went over and plopped down beside the desk, staring up at Fiona with wide eyes. Despite all the times he’d been in her office, Rascal always seemed surprised by how colorful she was. He wasn’t the only one.
“Good morning,” I chirped.
“Hmph.”
Fiona glowered at me, and an errant, red-hot spark shot out of her thumb, one that I pretended not to see, even though it landed on a stack of papers shoved off to one side of her desk and started to smolder. Fiona was so not a morning person.
So I put the boxes of doughnuts and bagels on top of her already messy desk. That made her perk right up. Without a word, Fiona opened one of the boxes, stuffed a chocolate-covered doughnut in her mouth, and practically swallowed it whole. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked my messages, waiting until she downed half a dozen doughnuts and several bagels before I shoved the fabric rolls off a chair in front of her desk and sat down in it.
“Good morning,” I repeated.
“Mmm-hmm,” Fiona echoed my greeting through a mouthful of blueberry bagel.
“I was wondering if you could take a look at something for me.”
Fiona raised her eyebrows, a powdered doughnut clutched in either hand. On the floor, Rascal whined, hoping that she would drop one of the sweet treats so he could gobble it up. Heh. Fat chance of that happening. Fiona never let food escape her grasp that easily.
“I did bring you doughnuts after all,” I said, my voice taking on a wheedling note. “With bagels and cream cheese. I think that officially makes me the best CFO ever. Not to mention a really good friend too.”
Fiona dusted the powdered sugar off her hands. “Well, I suppose that I could do you this one small favor.” She looked at the clock on the wall, and her stomach growled, despite all the food she’d just eaten. “When are you going to Quicke’s for lunch?”
“Soon,” I promised. “Now, about that favor…”
Fiona sighed, grabbed the final jelly-filled doughnut out of the box, and leaned back in her chair. “Hit me.”
I placed the fabric scrap on her desk. She crammed the doughnut into her mouth, then snatched up the fabric, holding it up to the light.
“Can you tell me what color that is?” I asked, hope rising in my chest.
Fiona scoffed. “That’s easy. Ice-blue forty-two.”
I blinked. “Ice-blue forty-two? As in, there are forty-one other colors of ice-blue?”
“Actually, there are fifty-seven distinctive colors of ice-blue,” Fiona said. “At least, those are the ones officially recognized by the Bigtime Fashion Designers Association. But then you have your rogue designers who are always coming up with their own crazy color combinations…”
And she was off and running, all that sugar in her system making her face light up as she started describing each and every one of the subtle differences between all fifty-seven shades of ice-blue. My eyes glazed over, and it was only a whine from Rascal that finally roused me enough to interrupt her.
“Do you know anyone who uses that particular color of ice-blue?” I asked, trying to figure out how to subtly ask her which villain might wear a costume that was that color.
Fiona wrinkled her nose. “Ice-blue? I would never, ever use ice-blue. It’s not nearly colorful enough, not nearly bold enough. You should make a statement with your clothes. Not dress up like a washed-out icicle.”
She gestured at her turtleneck sweater. “Now this? This is a color. It’s electric-blue twenty-two. Isn’t it fabulous?”
Fiona tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder so I could get a better look at her sweater, as if it weren’t searing my eyes with its intense hue.
“Yeah, fabulous,” I echoed in a faint voice.
“But even if I were suddenly going to lose my mind and design a collection that featured a pale color palette, I would never, ever use ice-blue forty-two.” Fiona sniffed.
“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”
She shrugged. “Because Frost always used that color for his costume.”
Frost.
My blood chilled at the ubervillain’s name. Frost was one of the worst of the worst, the kind of monster that even the other villains were afraid of. Frost fancied himself a scientist, and he was always conducting some sort of gruesome experiments on animals. People too, from the rumors I’d heard. If anyone was going around Bigtime murdering people and stealing their powers, Frost would be the perfect candidate. Not only did he have the scientific know-how to do it, but he was absolutely evil that way too.
I wet my lips. “But Frost is dead, right? Weren’t he and the other members of the Terrible Triad killed in that big explosion at the Snowdom Ice Cream Factory a while back?”
Fiona shrugged again. “That’s what the Fearless Five reported. But you know ubervillains. They’re harder to kill than cockroaches. They always seem to come back from the dead every few years.”
She looked at the swatch again. “But what’s this stain on the fabric? Is that…dried blood?”
“I think so,” I said. “I found the swatch in the alley beside the store when I was walking home last night. Along with Blue.”
Fiona frowned. “Blue? Has something happened to Blue?”
I didn’t know if she was playing dumb or if she just hadn’t heard the news yet. “He’s dead.”
I drew in a breath and told her about finding Blue last night. Fiona’s eyes narrowed, and several more red-hot sparks shot out of her thumbs before she curled her hands into fists to hide the errant sparks from me. I told her everything I knew, including the strange warnings that Blue had mentioned about wings and snowflakes and how I suspected that he might be talking about Swifte and Wynter being the killer’s next targets.
When I finished, Fiona picked up her pencil and started tap-tap-tapping it on her sketch pad again.
“If Frost is back and stealing powers from other heroes and villains…”
Her voice trailed off, but she didn’t have to finish her thought. We both knew how bad that would be. Frost was dangerous enough on his own. If he was collecting powers, he could quickly become unstoppable.
I cleared my throat, and Fiona focused on me again.
“Anyway, I was thinking that maybe you could call Chief Newman and tell him about all of this. I told him most of it last night, but I forgot about finding the fabric scrap. And of course I didn’t know about Frost using that color for his costume until you told me just now. But it wouldn’t hurt for the chief to hear it all again, especially from you.”
She frowned again, and a suspicious light flared in her blue eyes. “And why would you think that I should tell Chief Newman about this?”
Because he’s your father and superhero teammate!
That’s what I wanted to scream, since it was so freaking obvious and I had known it for so long now. But instead, I plastered a bland smile on my face the way I always did whenever I was playing dumb. “Oh, you know, because you’re such a prominent citizen. He’ll listen to you. And all the heroes and villains should be warned if Frost is back in Bigtime. Don’t you think?”
Fiona’s frown deepened, but she didn’t argue with my logic. Instead, she grabbed the last blueberry bagel out of the box and shoved it into her mouth.
“I guess you’re right,” she said, after chewing and swallowing the entire bagel in five seconds flat. “I’ll give him a call right now.”
I smiled again. “Great. I really appreciate it.”
Fiona waved her hand. “No problem.”
I grabbed the fabric swatch off her desk, took hold of Rascal’s leash, and went back to my office. I had just unhooked the puppy’s leash from his collar and sat down at my desk when I heard Fiona punch in some numbers on her phone. A minute later, she started talking in a not-so-quiet voice.
“Hey, Chief, it’s me. Listen, Piper was just in my office. She found something interesting at your crime scene last night…”
Fiona told him everything I’d asked her to. Our offices were off by themselves in the very back of the building, so I was the only one who could hear her. I shook my head. That was how I’d found out that Fiona was really Fiera in the first place. She was always calling one member of the Fearless Five about something or other, or asking Lulu Lo to come over and help with our computers.
I fired up my laptop again and tried to do some work. There were a hundred things I needed to accomplish today, just like there were every day at FFF. But instead, I found myself staring at that scrap of fabric again. I don’t know why, but the longer I looked at the fabric, the more worried I got about Swifte. He was the fastest hero in all of Bigtime, and if Frost somehow got his power…
Fandemic Page 6
