Some Like It Haute: A Humorous Fashion Mystery (Style & Error Book 4)

by Diane Vallere

  Harper left in the direction of the other models. She bent down over her duffle bag and came up with a small makeup pouch. She pulled a bottle of eye drops and a compact from it and went to work on her red eyes and nose.

  A flashbulb went off. “Excuse me, who are you and why are you taking my picture?” I asked.

  “Clive Barrington.” He held out his hand and I shook it. “Freelance photojournalist. Amanda agreed to let me document her show. I’m taking background shots tonight to flesh out the-behind-the scenes aspect.”

  Santangelo Toma had been right. This was turning into a circus.

  Clive leaned against a cutting table. He was a moderately built man who I’d place in his forties. Longish golden blond hair was parted on the side and tucked behind his ears. His camera dangled from a black strap around his neck. He wore a T-shirt, plaid blazer, cuffed jeans, and green bucks. Those were nice. I wonder where you got a pair of green bucks these days? Wait. I was getting distracted. I looked back up at his face and he winked at me.

  “I think we might want to go talk to Tiny about the pictures you’re taking. I don't think she'd be too pleased with your presence here.”

  “Tiny left to get the shoes,” Amanda said, having materialized from out of nowhere. “But Samantha’s right. Maybe you’ve taken enough pictures for tonight.”

  Clive adjusted his lens. “A few more shots and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Keep it brief. The models are going to do a run through, and they don’t need any distractions.”

  He turned to face me. “I’m going to sit in front of the runway. Where are you going to be?”

  “I can’t see how that matters.”

  Amanda, who had started to walk away, stopped and turned to face us again. “Actually, Samantha, maybe it’s you who should head out for the night. I think we’ve got it from here.”

  I was tired and didn’t really mind the idea of going home and collapsing in bed. “What time should I be here tomorrow?”

  “You don’t need to come tomorrow. We’ve got it under control.”

  “But tomorrow is the show,” I said.

  “That’s right. And we don’t need you anymore. You can pick up your check at my studio on Monday.” Amanda spoke with a finality that cut me to the quick. With one hand, she tossed her shiny black hair behind her shoulder. The gesture allowed her to look down her nose at me. I wasn’t entirely sure that hadn’t been the desired goal.

  I felt like I’d been stung center mass by a swarm of angry bumblebees. It was bad enough to have spent the past four weeks pushing aside petty jealousy in order to work with Amanda, but worse yet, she was firing me. If my back and knees and feet and shoulders didn’t hurt so much, and if the pot of coffee I’d finished a few hours ago wasn’t starting to wear off, then maybe I would have tried to establish my role backstage. But, all things considered….

  “Fine. I’ll get my handbag and coat. Good luck,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. None of this had been easy. Nor appreciated, apparently.

  I weaved through the same labyrinth of rolling rods, mannequins, and fabric bolts that I’d worked around for the past few weeks and collected my belongings. I bundled up into a wool coat and hat and braced myself for the blast of cold from outside. Good riddance.

  The main portion of Warehouse Five, where Amanda was putting on her runway show, was connected to the front foyer and adjoining galleries of other artists by a hallway that ran the length of the building. I turned right and headed past the picked over food service table toward the exit. Closer to the door, the lights were out. I flicked the switch on the wall next to the lavatories a few times, but nothing happened. No worries, I thought, as I trudged toward the glowing Exit sign.

  And then I noticed a figure hovering in the parking lot. Fear folded around me like a blanket. Act natural, I coached myself. Just keep walking. Your car is right outside the door.

  I fumbled for my keys, mentally kicking myself for not having them in hand already. The figure slunk back into the shadow. Adrenaline replaced the numbness of being dismissed, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. My panic sensor was on red alert. I turned around to see if there was anybody else in the hallway with me. There wasn’t. I pushed forward and then out the exit doors, head down. I was almost to my car.

  And then a flicker of light caught my eye. I turned to look at the source, and quicker than you can say “supermodel” a trail of fire ignited a path from the edge of the parking lot to where I was standing. I jumped away, too slow. The flame licked my boot and climbed the hem of my pants. I swatted at the flame.

  A figure bundled up in a puffy down coat stepped out of the shadows. I couldn’t make out if it was a man or woman. They swung a lumpy bag that connected with my midsection and I doubled over. “Stay out of this,” said a distorted voice. The person swung the bag again. I fell to the ground and curled into a ball. I watched as the person ignited the bag with a match. The eerie orange light cast shadows over a face mostly hidden by a thick scarf.

  As I lay on the ground, the person swung the flaming bag at me again and again. The fire went out, but the beating continued. After several hits, the person opened the bag and dumped the contents on me. I rolled to the side, my face wet with the tears of pain.

  3

  “And that’s where I found you,” said Amanda from her seat next to the hospital bed. She wrung her hands as she spoke. She had just told us about finding me curled up in the parking lot, surrounded by burnt fruit, unable to stand or get help for myself.

  She’d done the right thing, calling 911 to get an ambulance for me, and not letting anyone else into the area. When the EMTs arrived, I’d been taken to the hospital, where I relayed what little I could remember to a police officer after being poked, prodded, and X-rayed. My own version had been told under the influence of painkillers, and may have included a few extra details, but the overall gist was the same. I’d been attacked in the parking lot between the Warehouse Five exit and my car. I’d been beaten with a bag of oranges and set on fire. I’d been left to die.

  And now, thanks to Amanda, I lay recovering from internal bruising and second degree burns. My left hand was wrapped in a gauze bandage and it hurt to take deep breaths.

  “What time did you find her?” Eddie asked.

  “It was a little after eleven. Tiny was late getting back with the shoes. I went out to the parking lot when some of the girls left. I wanted to see what was taking so long.”

  Eddie voiced my thoughts. “So nobody knows what happened.”

  “No.”

  I sat up and spoke in a raspy voice. “Somebody set me on fire and beat me. That’s what happened.”

  “That’s what you keep saying, but nobody saw anything. Tiny had to go meet Nick—” Amanda paused mid-sentence and looked at me. A tension-riddled pause ballooned into the small hospital room while every one of us wondered if I would react to the mention of Nick.

  For the past five weeks, the name “Nick” had been a largely unspoken four-letter-word. Our breakup had been unexpected; my ability to move on had been overestimated. The week I let it all sink in, I’d bought out the local grocery store’s supply of frozen chicken tenders and subsisted on them, vanilla ice cream, and waffles for a week. I gained seven pounds, dropped out of society, and spent the majority of my time with my cat.

  I love my cat, but there are some who might say my behavior was not entirely healthy. Still, there was no way I was going to let Amanda, Nick’s maybe-former girlfriend, know how I felt.

  Eddie took control of the conversation. “You said Tiny was gone a long time?” he asked.

  “It seemed like a long time, but that’s because we were at a standstill until she got back. I mean, there were little things for us to do like tack seams and steam samples and go over the order of the looks, but I was keeping the models there so we could do a walk through, and that was costing us money. We couldn’t do anything without the shoes.”

  “So the mode
ls were there late. Who else?” Eddie asked. In the background, the vital sign monitor beeped like the Atari videogame I’d gotten for Christmas 1981.

  “The interns and assistants, a few hair and makeup people.”

  “What about other artists who rent space in the building?” Eddie pressed.

  “They were gone for the night.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “The last one to leave was an artist. He complained to Tiny about the noise before he left.”

  I strained to speak. “What about the photographer, Clive Barrington. Was he still there?” The effort of speaking made me cough.

  Amanda averted her eyes. In that split second I recognized the look. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t appreciation. It wasn’t sympathy. It was pity.

  “Clive, Amanda. Was he there?” I asked again, this time with more conviction.

  “I don’t know if he was there or not. He said he wanted to get a few pictures of the models walking the runway, but I don’t think he knew we’d keep him waiting for hours.”

  “Who does he report to?” I asked.

  “Nobody. He comes and goes as he pleases. When he started, he made a point of telling us he needed unlimited access if he was going to capture my story. Tiny agreed to give him full access, as long as she got picture approval before anybody else saw them. That was her demand. That we see the photos before any of them went public.”

  “Was there anyone else that you remember?” Eddie asked Amanda. “Or you?” he asked me.

  I looked at Amanda, not knowing if she was going to return the eye contact. She didn’t. She stared at her hands in her lap and fidgeted with her jewelry. If I hadn’t noticed a slight movement at her temple, I might not have recognized that she was clenching and unclenching her teeth.

  “I would have to think about it,” I said. “Right now it seems like everyone I saw had some legitimate reason for being there. Do you agree, Amanda?”

  She nodded her head. Something buzzed in her red crocodile handbag. We all watched as she fished it out and looked at the display. She hit a button that stopped the sound and tossed it back inside, then looked up to find us all looking at her.

  “It’s not important,” she said.

  Her handbag buzzed again. She ignored it, but the buzzing continued. After several buzzes, text message alerts, and vibrations, Eddie stated the obvious.

  “Someone seems to disagree with you.”

  She stood and gathered her coat. “I need to get back to Warehouse Five. There’s a lot to do before the show.” She walked to the door and then stopped and turned back around. “I should have known something like this would happen.” Then she left.

  * * *

  Breakup Rule #2: Don’t be seen as a victim. I’d been hired to help Amanda at Nick’s request, and I’d gotten attacked. It was her runway debut, her big show, her production. I’d only shown up that first day to honor my commitment and make sure that nothing outside of positive things could be said about my character when she chose to speak about me to Nick. Now, I was unmade-up, with hospital hair and paper pajamas. There was no way she could keep this story from him. Seeing as how I was at the center of the drama—through no fault of my own—there was a good chance Nick would see things the way Amanda would paint them: with me at the epicenter. I’d become nothing more than an inconvenience to the designer’s carefully scheduled timetables.

  I waited for the door to shut and then turned to Eddie. “You have to get me out of here. It’s going to take me longer than usual to get ready but there’s no way I’m going to miss her show.”

  “Are you nuts?” he asked.

  “Don’t do this. We both know I’m going to her show. We both know you’re going to help me. Go get a nurse and find out how I get out of here.”

  “Dude, you can try to talk me into helping you, and there’s a chance you might be successful. That’s why I’m leaving you here in the hands of the professionals.”

  “Eddie, I don’t have insurance. I can’t afford to get a bill for whatever they might do if they keep me here.”

  “You’re not invincible. You were beat up with a bag of fruit. Who does that?”

  “It was a warning. Like a scene from The Grifters.” I hadn’t given much thought to the choice of fruit as weapon. But in that movie, a bag of oranges had been used to beat up Angelica Houston because it caused internal injuries with minimal external bruising. I held my hands out and traced the burns on the left hand with the fingers on my right. “I don’t get the fire, though. If somebody wanted to attack me without leaving evidence, why go with an open flame?”

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to distract me with movie references and words like ‘evidence.’ It’s not going to work. You’re in a hospital bed, suffering from internal injuries and second degree burns. For real. This isn’t a movie. I know you like danger, but this is probably the safest place you can be.”

  “I don’t like danger,” I said.

  Eddie raised one eyebrow. “I’m not going to help you get out of here before you’re ready.” He stood, collected his coat, and left.

  There was a tap on my door, and then a nurse entered. She took my blood pressure and asked if I needed anything.

  “Can I use the phone?”

  She carried the old desk set to the table next to my bed. “Privacy?”

  I nodded.

  She left and I dialed a number from memory. “Hello, Dante? It’s Samantha Kidd. Are you free tonight?”

  4

  Dante Lestes was a somewhat mysterious photographer from Philadelphia. I’d met him when a promotional contest in town inspired me to plan a heist. Dante had surprised me in the past by helping me when others wanted me to play it safe. He accepted that I ran head on into impossible situations, and he’d given me the tools to protect myself. He had experience working for a private investigator, and while I was far from being a detective, I paid attention when he shared his knowledge with me. I might never be Kinsey Milhone, but I was a quick study.

  Dante was everything Nick wasn’t: dangerous, tattooed, and accepting of my lifestyle choices. In the past, he’d hinted that he was interested in getting to know me better. I, being of post-breakup mental fragility, hadn’t followed up on those hints. But tonight, I figured a fashion show was a perfect place to set a new ball in motion. Keeping things on my turf, so to speak.

  The tests at the hospital showed nothing that wouldn’t heal in time. The doctor gave me the option of staying another night, an offer that came with pain medication and all the green Jell-O I could eat, or going home. Even though it hurt to breathe and some of my skin was blistered and red, I chose to leave. If I’d had insurance, I might have seen things differently, but that’s the glamorous life of a fashion industry professional with a recently spotty work history.

  My plan wasn’t completely foolproof, but I’d worked through the important issues. My car was still at Warehouse Five, but there wasn’t time to retrieve it now. I took a taxi back to my house, fed my cat Logan, showered, and thought about how I would gain entry to the show. Having spent considerate time working there, I planned to talk my way past whoever was working the door. No way would Amanda have thought to ban me.

  The shower, makeup, and hair drying process kept me preoccupied, but by the time I had to choose an outfit, I had second thoughts about leaving the house. The local cable channel would broadcast the show. I’d already set up a recording. Maybe that would be the smart, safe, sensible thing to do.

  I pulled on a loose-fitting, black jersey trapeze dress, thigh high stockings, and kitten-heeled boots. My ribs were still tender and I didn’t want to fuss with a waistband. I pulled my long hair up into a high ponytail and clipped a conical gold piece around the base of it, then added gold hoop earrings and an arm filled with bangles. My injuries were hidden. Only I knew they were there.

  Only I would know that someone had waited in the parking lot for me, lit me on fire, and pummeled me with a bag of fruit like some kind
of prison warning. I had to know why.

  Screw smart, safe, and sensible.

  By the time Dante arrived at my doorstep I was ready. I opened the door. Dante stood in front of me. His amber eyes locked onto mine, then slowly traveled down to my lips, then my body, where they lingered for a moment too long before he looked back into my eyes. I felt heat coming off him, heat coming off me. I held onto the door, taking shallow breaths, partly because it hurt to take bigger ones, and partially because being around Dante left me out of breath.

  I guess being alone with Dante wasn’t terribly smart, safe, or sensible either.

  “So, we’re going to your friend’s fashion show, right?”

  I didn’t bother explaining the nuanced relationship between me and the designer-slash-maybe-former girlfriend of my ex and simply nodded.

  Dante had traded his motorcycle for a late seventies Corvette Stingray with orange flames. Not only were we going, but we were going to arrive in style.

  I gave Dante directions to the warehouse district. It was in a stretch of five abandoned factories that had been bought out by a special interest group and subleased as gallery space to local artists. Quilters, painters, jewelry designers, and other creative types shared room in the converted building, occasionally banding together for open houses and community activities. Officially, the building was named after the investors, but locally they were referred to by the faded numbers that had long ago been painted on the exteriors. Warehouses one through four sat vacant.

  Dante wasn’t one to fill the air with chatter, but I’d learned that his silences didn’t mean he was bored. There were times when I’d seen him in action, and I wondered if he had the same need for excitement that I did. I didn’t ask. Tonight I thought it best to keep him in the dark about my recent attack. I didn’t want another lecture and I certainly didn’t want him to turn the car around.

  When we arrived at Warehouse Five, the parking lot was close to full. Dante handed the car keys to a valet attendant. I got out of the car. A cold wind snapped at my face and ankles. I pulled my coat around me and caught the door that was being held open from inside. The person holding the door was Nick.