“A handsome British jewel thief? Intriguing. And you say shallow like it’s a bad thing. Something Griffin, you said?”
“Nigel Griffin. He wants to get his hands on the corset. He wants me to help.”
“He knows about the corset?”
“No, actually he thinks it might be a Fabergé egg or something.”
“Fabergé egg? Interesting. Do you think this character is dangerous?” She held up a red sweater for Lacey to approve for Paris.
“Everyone is dangerous, and just how much do you intend to pack?” Lacey nixed the sweater—it was the wrong red for Brooke’s coloration. “We’ll only be there a week.”
“You’re right. Tell me about the KGB spy.”
“He’s an out-of-work hit man. Dangerous, according to Griffin, who’s probably a liar.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Gregor Kepelov. That’s all I know. Ring any bells?”
“No bells. And what kind of reporter are you?” Brooke held up a gray sweater for approval. “Haven’t you Googled him yet? Or checked DeadFed?”
“No, you’re the Google queen here. After a day at work, I am sick of Googling. That’s all Griffin told me, and you don’t look your best in gray.” Lacey figured if the name Gregor Kepelov was known on the Web, Brooke would have picked up on it from her obsessive reading of the DeadFed Web site. “Griffin was just playing with me, a fishing expedition to see what I know. For all I know, he’s the ex-KGB guy himself.”
“Kepelov.” Brooke flew to her laptop, which was under a stack of jeans, turned it on and logged onto DeadFed dot com’s allegedly secure subscriber server. Brooke had full privileges. She typed for awhile, while Lacey took her ease on the chaise and admired Brooke’s new decor.
“There’s nothing on a Gregor Kepelov, as a name or a code name or a cover name. No known KGB guys with a name like it. There are several Gregors, but I think it’s a pretty common Russian name. Nothing on any Nigel Griffin, either. Maybe a phony name?”
“Maybe Kepelov is really good,” Lacey suggested. “Or maybe it’s all just a lie by Mr. Griffin calculated to, I don’t know, scare me into telling him everything I know.”
“We’ve got to send this Griffin character off in the wrong direction. It’ll be fun!”
“If I contact him now with some phony clue, it’ll be obvious that I’m trying to play him.”
Brooke turned from her computer. “I guess so. But if he can’t trust you, wouldn’t he have to go check it out anyway?”
“Trust me. It’s better to play dumb. And he may be smarter than he looks. Or acts.”
“Maybe you’re right. But he is a man. Men can be fooled. Therefore Griffin can be fooled. A syllogism.”
“We’ll be on the plane tomorrow. All we really have to do is get on without him. He can wander around town here looking for me. We’ll have a head start in France.” Lacey looked at what Brooke was packing and realized she would have to take her friend’s wardrobe choices into her own hands. She began a colorful “Pack” pile and a colorless “Leave” pile. “Please add some color, Brooke, we’re talking Paris here, not Washington! Remember: Woman does not impress by Burberry alone. And Brooke, it really could be dangerous. The trip, not your clothes.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring lots of money. If nothing else, we’ll buy our way out of trouble. And we can buy new wardrobes too. In Paris.”
Lacey grinned at her. “Funny, why didn’t I think of that?”
“And Daddy knows the U.S. ambassador there. He’s already in my cell phone. Now, what did you say I should pack? Subtle, right? Subdued and inconspicuous? Like a spy?”
“Well, Brooke, you may dress to disappear into the drizzle if you like. But not me. I plan to dress to make Paris sizzle.”
Lacey planned on dressing for an adventure. And dressing like an adventuress. When handsome jewel thieves follow you around and beg to buy you coffee and a Danish, she thought, it’s too late for anonymity. Might as well knock their eyes out.
Lacey Smithsonian’s
FASHION BITES
Bored With Dress for Success? Try for Adventuress Instead
You dressed for success, but where has it gotten you? Your own cubicle next to someone dressed just like you in a cubicle just like yours? You’ve got the same safe suit, the same knockoff bag, the same pair of pumps you both snagged at Filene’s Basement at the same sale. You call that success?
The working world is not exactly the fantasy we dreamed of in college, is it? Once upon a time we thought life would be an adventure, exciting, stimulating, fulfilling. Don’t forget fulfilling. Possibly even fun. Well, it can be, if you approach it the right way. As an adventure.
But perhaps you feel invisible. Your clothes are fading away and taking you with them. No one can see you, you’re so well hidden in your dress-for-success camouflage. Your shoes match the carpet, your skirt blends into the chair, your blouse copies the curtains. Where’s the real you concealed behind the corporate camo? Unless your secret ambition is to star in a remake of The Invisible Woman, you and your wardrobe need a shot of pure adrenaline.
Need a little adventure? My advice: Dress like an adventuress. An adventuress knows that the right clothes can change your attitude faster than your attitude can change your clothes. To find the adventure in life, sometimes all you need to do is dress for adventure and let it find you. Let’s look at three basics in every adventuress’s rolling suitcase.
A trench coat, of course. Well-worn and rakishly scruffy or brand-new, it should fit perfectly, whether you’re built like Ingrid Bergman or Sydney Greenstreet. These days it even comes in daring postmodern pinks and blues and greens, not just the traditional World War I khaki. Long or short, the trench coat is dashing, versatile, and ready for a trip to the office or around the world. Even to Casablanca. (“For the waters,” of course.)
Sunglasses. Every adventure calls for a sleek pair of sunglasses. They protect your eyes and keep your secrets. No secrets to keep? They’ll even keep that secret, too. Slip on your shades and voilà! A woman of mystery. Think Thelma and Louise or Kathleen Turner on the beach in Body Heat. Just try to stay out of trouble this time.
A scarf. A sophisticated adventuress needs a bright and colorful scarf, and she actually knows how to tie it cleverly. (Or she fakes it.) Not only does it liven up that same old suit, it blows in the wind as you speed away in your convertible up the hills of Monte Carlo like Grace Kelly with that handsome jewel thief Cary Grant at your side. Don’t have a Cary Grant type handy? Let your beautiful scarf fly; he may find you.
Adventure is, of course, whatever you want it to be. Living your life on your own terms and with your own style can be the biggest adventure of all. Just imagine looking the way you’ve always dreamed you’d look when you open the door to that big moment and say, “Come on in, I’m ready.” And imagine a confident, self-possessed woman striding down the street to meet that big moment, so intriguing that heads turn as she passes by. Who is that adventurous woman? It’s you!
Chapter 12
“Brooke, stop looking for spies! You look too much like a spy yourself.”
Lest they be followed to Europe by the mysterious Griffin or Kepelov or suspicious persons unknown, Lacey and Brooke had taken great care not to be tailed to the airport at Dulles. Lacey was now carefully assessing the other passengers as they stood in line to go through security. She had seen no one she knew aside from Brooke, whose excitement at joining this adventure was palpable. Nevertheless, Lacey was half afraid Damon Newhouse or one of his DeadFed operatives would appear out of nowhere. Brooke was still under attorney-client privilege as per Lacey’s stipulation. She swore she hadn’t told Damon a word about their real plan, but she warned Lacey that Damon might suspect there was more to this trip than just a Paris pleasure jaunt to heal Lacey’s heartbreak.
“I can’t be responsible for what he might actually think,” Brooke said. “This was rather a sudden decision, you know, you running off to Paris just to g
et over a man. It’s a stretch.”
“I still can’t believe you told Damon that I was heartbroken over Vic.”
“Oh, he does believe that part. I had to make it good enough to convince him.”
“But I’m not heartbroken. Exactly. I’m feeling more—liberated. That’s it. Liberated.”
“Whatever. Do you think there’s any chance we’re being followed?” Brooke looked furtively around over her dark glasses.
“Knock it off, spy girl. I want to get through security without a strip search.” Brooke was unloading her laptop and related electronics to pile them on the conveyor belt. Lacey had her ticket and passport ready and she removed her boots to have them irradiated by the X-ray machine, while the surly TSA screeners were no doubt being irradiated in the process. She hated this part of airline travel. She consoled herself that beyond this point their fellow travelers were unlikely to be armed with so much as a sharp pair of tweezers, though she was less confident the TSA could keep something like a rocket launcher off the plane.
Brooke and Lacey both wore black slacks and sweaters. Brooke, because black made her feel like a secret agent, and Lacey, because they were flattering and comfortable. At least half of their fellow passengers were dressed similarly, or else in the bland beige and gray D.C. uniform. Brooke carried her Burberry trench coat and tote bag with all her electronic toys. Lacey carried a smaller tote bag and a dark red leather jacket, purchased under duress on a recent shopping trip with Stella. Its sleek lines emphasized her small waist and the buttery smooth leather was pure luxury. The jacket was beautiful, but way too expensive. Lacey had decided she should never go shopping with Stella again. She had no idea how many times she’d promised herself that in the last few months following the baby-blue custom-made corset episode.
Ahead of Lacey in the security line, a large man stood out in the crowd, wearing a straw cowboy hat jammed down on his head and a turquoise-and-pink Hawaiian shirt, his fleece-lined jean jacket folded atop his briefcase, which bore a DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS bumper sticker. Lacey mentally dubbed him “Tex.” With his well-muscled rodeo cowboy body and his handlebar mustache, Tex looked like he broke broncos. Except for the shirt; the shirt didn’t go with the rest of the picture. She’d never seen a cowboy in a Hawaiian shirt. Maybe a cowboy on vacation? Lacey decided Tex, with his showy handlebar mustache, was just too flashy and obvious. He didn’t even try to blend in; bad form for a spy or a jewel thief. Probably a Washington lobbyist for Texas cattlemen, Lacey concluded, off on a taxpayer-supported spree in Paris.
Retrieving her bag and boots from the conveyor belt, Lacey grabbed Brooke and they finally made it to their gate. Brooke confided that Dulles was positively the most irritating airport on earth. They took their seats at the gate with a view of the ugly Dulles tarmac and waited.
A large blond woman sat down next to them. Brooke eyed her warily. The woman’s florid complexion clashed with her brassy hair in a puffy suburban mom style. Lacey named her “Madge.” She was dressed in jeans and white sneakers and a blue-and-white striped top, eschewing the conventional wisdom about weight and horizontal stripes not being a good mix. She pulled out a National Enquirer and started reading. Definitely not a spy, Lacey thought.
Several groggy barely-twenty-somethings with greasy black hair cut into outdated shags with a punky edge stood around complaining. They looked too young to be flying to Europe on their own. Lacey called them “Winken, Blinken, and Nod.” But they swore with real bravado, creating their own foulmouthed protective shield. Other travelers kept their distance. Probably not spies; probably never even heard of Fabergé eggs, Lacey mused. They’d think it was the breakfast special: You want those eggs scrambled, fried, or Fabergé? Lacey told herself to stop this nonsense. Simply sharing Brooke’s airspace, she decided, could really ratchet up the paranoia.
As they boarded, her attention was caught by a group of interchangeable middle-aged businessmen sauntering on to first class. These forgettable guys in their gray suits and white shirts were by far the most likely candidates to be secret agents, she thought, but they seemed to be together and they didn’t even toss a glance her way. But then, would a real spy wink and wave at his target? She sighed. Rounding off the group of passengers were several older women and men who looked like ordinary, everyday grade-A American tourists with their eye-popping neon Day-Glo running suits and gaudy tote bags. They were complaining loudly about the exchange rate of the euro. If these people are spies, Lacey thought, my mother is a spy.
Brooke darted suspicious glances at her fellow passengers, then she opened her laptop and settled down to a flurry of e-mailing until takeoff. Lacey reassured herself that Nigel Griffin wasn’t on the plane. And although she had no idea what Kepelov might look like, she didn’t have a good candidate for an ex-KGB agent on board.
Once the flight got underway, they each settled in for the seven-hour-plus journey across the Atlantic. Brooke devoured an autobiography by a former master of disguise for the CIA. Lacey listened to her French language instructional CDs until she fell asleep during the lesson on how to order a meal in a French brasserie. She dreamed she was in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and she was ordering the Fabergé eggs for breakfast, pleased that this would solve the whole mystery. They arrived at her table looking like hard-boiled eggs wearing little jeweled corsets, and then the orchestra began to play and the eggs all danced in a chorus line. When she woke up her back was stiff from the cramped airplane seat, and they were still hours away from Paris.
The green-and-white-shuttered Hotel Mouton Vert was located in a quiet neighborhood in Montparnasse in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris. It was a quaint little two-star hotel. Lacey thought it was adorable. Brooke sniffed. Two-star accommodations were beneath her status as a Washington lawyer, but she was willing to camp out there and rough it for the sake of the mission. She and Lacey had rooms across the hall from each other on the fifth floor, accessed by a narrow winding staircase or a minuscule elevator that barely held two people and their suitcases.
It was already early evening in Paris. They planned to settle into the hotel for the first night and sleep through their jet lag and stiff muscles before picking up the rental car the next day. Although Lacey was willing to take the bus to Mont-Saint-Michel, as Magda had planned to do, Brooke insisted on the car. She pointed out that the farmhouse they were looking for was unlikely to have a bus stop nearby. Lacey gave mass transit one last push as they rode up in the dark, creaky elevator.
“Wouldn’t the bus be easier? And safer? Driving here is suicidal.” They were to pick up the car at the rental office near the Arc de Triomphe, and Lacey had seen pictures of the traffic there. It looked completely insane.
“Do you know how many hours the bus takes to get to Mont-Saint-Michel? We’d be sitting ducks. And Paris traffic is really no worse than Washington. I’ve driven here before.”
“But won’t we be sitting ducks in a car?”
“Ha! Not the way I drive. I drive like a Frenchman. I take no prisoners. Off with their heads!”
“I’m keeping my eyes closed.”
“You’ll see. We’ll leave spies and jewel thieves and government agents in our dust.”
“You love making this stuff up, don’t you, Brooke? Helps the day go by in your gray-flannel offices, is that it? Thinking you’re at the mercy of some mad conspiracy? Not me. I like to think that I’m safe. That I live in a benevolent universe.” She leaned against the elevator wall.
“But we’re not safe. We don’t know how many people are involved in Magda Rousseau’s murder. We don’t know if they know what we know. Or more. They could be all around us.”
“Magda was not a foreign agent. She was a seamstress. Last month you were convinced a supermodel was killed by the ‘Government Repossessors.’ Logo the Grim Reaper, code name GR, government assassins on the prowl to repossess rogue agents and bionic women gone bad.”
“Just because Damon hasn’t proven it yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t so
.”
“You know not every single word on DeadFed is true,” Lacey insisted. “Don’t you?”
Slamming Damon’s pet Conspiracy Clearinghouse came dangerously close to fighting words, but Brooke took it in stride. “We’re going after the prize, Lacey. Imagine the headlines when we find the truth. MYSTERY HIDDEN FOR CENTURY UNCOVERED IN BLOODY CORSET OF ROMANOVS.”
“I’m imagining the headline in The Eye Street Observer.SMITH SONIAN FALLS ON FACE. AGAIN.”
The elevator door opened and they got out, bumping their suitcases together. A middle-aged woman burdened with a heavy-looking bag was trudging slowly toward them down the narrow hall. They made room for her and Brooke eyed the woman. As the older woman boarded the elevator and the doors closed behind her, Lacey whispered, “Don’t worry, I’m sure spies only stay at three-star hotels or higher. They have a union.”
Brooke rolled her eyes. She opened the door to her room and they both peered inside. “Lacey, my closet at home is bigger than this. So you’re probably right. No one could hide in here. I think we’re safe for now.” Brooke opened the closet wide and checked under the bed.
“I’ll see you at breakfast, then,” Lacey said.
“No, I preordered petit déjeuner delivered to my room. What the heck—it’s included in the price. Must account for the second star. Bonne nuit.” Brooke smiled and shut the door, and Lacey heard the locks click into place.
She opened the door to her own room and clicked on the light. The room, in shades of rose and burgundy, was adorable, though also quite small, with just enough space to walk around the bed. It had two great features, a bathroom with a decent-sized tub and shower, and tall windows with a southern exposure, letting her gaze down on the Montparnasse street scene below or into the quaint apartments across the road. She flung open the windows and leaned out.
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