by Amy Vansant
Mo turned her attention to Broch. “And who’s this? He looks a lot like—”
“A young Sean. I know. Broch is Sean’s son by blood, and the primary accent in my life at the moment.”
“Enchante,” said Mo, holding out a hand.
Broch took it and kissed the back of it.
“Tis lovely tae mak yer acquaintance.”
Mo pretended to shiver with delight. “Oh, he sounds like Sean Connery, only even manlier, if that’s possible.”
Catriona shrugged.
“He makes me wish I designed men’s clothing. I could dress and undress him all day. I missed out on the old stag, maybe I should set my sights on the young buck?” Mo giggled and slapped Catriona lightly on the shoulder. “So what’s up, sweetheart? I assume you didn’t come here just to bring me him?”
“No. I need a favor.”
“Anything. What can I do for you?”
“I need you to go back to Alain.”
Mo’s expression darkened, her smile disappearing as if her facial muscles had been shot with Botox. “Go back to that little hunk of moldy camembert? Forget it. He’s embarrassed me for the last time.”
“What did he do?”
“I spotted him with a woman wearing one of my dresses before it was available for sale. He gave it to her. I know he did. She was just his type.”
Catriona shook her head. “Oh come on. Alain worships you. He’d never do that.” Catriona had no idea if that was true, but it sounded good.
Mo lifted her nose into the air. “That’s what he said. But who else could have given her the dress?” She wrapped her arms around her chest and stared off into the warehouse as if she were standing in a stiff breeze atop the bluffs, awaiting her sailor’s return. Catriona could almost hear the music swelling. After a moment posing, her attention snapped back to them. “Did I tell you she was just his type?”
Catriona nodded. “You did. What if I could prove Alain didn’t do it?”
Mo lifted her hands into the air. “Why? What do you care about my relationship with Alain?”
“He’s got one of our actors on a poker debt. He wants you back in exchange for our boy.”
“Like I’m property?”
Whoops. Catriona winced. Probably shouldn’t have told her that.
“Not like property, like you’re more important than money. He wouldn’t take my check. He said only you could make him happy again.”
Mo scoffed. “Make him happier than money? Now I know you’re lying.” Mo looked away, but Catriona could see the idea of Alain preferring her over cash had softened her resolve.
“I’m not lying. I swear. He only wants you back.”
“Oh. Well...” Somehow, Mo raised her chin another notch to peer down her nose at Catriona. “So he wants a favor in exchange for what you want?”
Oh no. Catriona sensed Mo’s gears churning. She tried to steamroller forward.
“Right, so if you could go back to him, even if it’s just long enough for me to get Tyler—”
“I want a favor.”
Other shoe dropped.
Catriona felt her shoulders slump. She spoke her next words as if she’d carried them strapped to her back, all the way to the conversation. “What do you need?”
Mo strolled to the glass window and tapped a pen against it. “Someone’s selling my clothes.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Last year’s clothes. The ones that should be burned.”
“Burned? Don’t be so hard on yourself—”
Mo scowled. “Not burned because they’re bad, burned because I need to create demand. The stores send me back what they haven’t sold and I burn them rather than let them be sold discount. It creates a sense of scarcity and drives up my prices.”
Catriona gasped. “Oh my god, that’s terrible. What a waste.”
Mo shrugged. “It’s a necessarily evil. All the big labels do it.”
“So you’re saying someone is stealing the clothes earmarked for burning and selling them?”
“Yes. I need it stopped.”
Catriona realized she hadn’t seen Broch in a bit and glanced behind her. He’d wandered to a table in the back of the office to wrap a plaid scarf around his neck. His left arm stuck through the armhole of a ladies’ sequined vest. He contorted, trying to poke the other arm through the opposite side without ripping the fabric.
He noticed her watching him and smiled.
“Ah think ah need a larger size. Ah lik’ the sparkles.”
Catriona sighed and turned her attention back to Mo. “It can’t be hard to figure out who’s stealing the clothes, can it? I mean, who’s doing the collecting and the burning?”
Without batting an eye, Mo pulled a larger vest off the rack behind her and tossed it to Broch. “That’s just it. I thought I could solve the problem by changing shipping companies, but it happened again this year. They’re robbing the trucks…paying off the workers…I don’t know. That’s what I need you to figure out. My clothes show up in these underground pop-up stores but they’ve always packed up and left before I hear about them.”
Catriona looked at her watch. She was running out of time to return Tyler for his first day of shooting. “What if I promised to solve your problem, but you go back to Alain now?”
“I need this problem solved now. They’re flooding the market as we speak.”
“But I need Tyler back on the set by Monday. That only gives me one weekend to solve this for you.”
“Then you’d better hurry.”
“That’s what your husband said to me.”
Mo sniffed. “I said he was a cheat. I never said he was stupid.”
Catriona took a deep breath and exhaled. “Where should I start? Who collects the clothes and where are they sent to be burned?”
Mo motioned to her assistant, who’d been hovering just outside the office space since her banishment. “Honey can get you that information. Honey!” Mo bellowed at the glass and the girl came scurrying into the room.
“Yes?”
“Get zees people ze eenfahrmahtion on who cahllects lahst year’s clahthes ahnd where zey ahre sent to be burned.”
“Right.” She turned to Catriona. “I’ll text it to you. Give me your phone.”
Catriona fished her phone from her pocket and handed it to Honey, who sent herself a text. “Expect it within the next twenty minutes.”
Catriona nodded and motioned to Broch that it was time to leave. He put down a swatch of cloth he’d been rubbing against his cheek and nodded to Mo, pointing at his vest and scarf ensemble.
“Can I keep these?”
“Sure. Is your mother a curvy lady?”
Broch stared at her.
“Em... Aye?”
Mo nodded and dismissed them with a wave.
Broch motioned to the cloth he’d left behind. “That was soft. Ah lik’ it. It wid make a nice neckerchief.”
Mo’s eyebrow’s raised and she glanced at the fabric.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
Chapter Twelve
Leaving the warehouse, Catriona stopped so suddenly Broch bumped into the back of her.
“Och, ye cannae stoap in the middle o’ the door.”
“Sorry. Our car is gone.” Catriona pulled down the sunglasses she’d just dropped from their perch atop her head and scanned the parking lot for signs of their taxi. “That’s not good.”
“We kin call another, eh?”
“Yes, but that was a real taxi, not like the cars you call back in Los Angeles. He hadn’t been paid yet. Why would he leave?”
“Maybe his wife is having a baby and the child is breach.”
Catriona squinted at him. “That seems wildly specific.”
Broch shrugged. “Maybe his boy accidentally cut himself on an axe while chopping firewood.”
Catriona shook her head as she pulled her phone from her pocket. “Life in old timey Scotland sure sounds fun. I’m glad I don’t remembe
r it. Next you’re going to tell me his mother came down with the plague.”
“It’s possible.”
“No it’s not, that’s my point—”
Catriona’s phone rang in her hand before she could call for a new car. Answering, she heard Alain’s accent on the opposite end.
“Hello, beautiful.”
She scowled. “Don’t hello beauteeful me, Alain. Thanks to you, I have to solve all of your wife’s problems now too. I need you to let Tyler—”
“I’m going to let him go.”
Catriona paused. “You are?”
“Oui. I did. Dez ees taking him to ze airport as we speak.”
“I brought the studio’s jet here to pick him up.”
“Oh. Well, too late. He has a ticket now. He ees going home.”
Catriona nodded, feeling the weight on her shoulders grow a little lighter. “Okay. That works. Thanks, Alain. How much do I owe you again? I’ll bring the check right now.”
Alain’s tone shifted to dismissive. She could almost hear him waving her away from his side of the phone. “Don’t worry about eet. I’m going to consider ziss a learning experience for ze boy. He can pay me back over time. I’m not in any hurry.” Alain sniffed. “I’m rich.”
The feeling that began as relief, sprouted hairy legs and crawled up Catriona’s neck as suspicion.
Something isn’t right.
The taxi left without being paid. Alain—who’d been so determined to teach Tyler a lesson he’d carved a word on the boy’s thigh—now happily let him go and bought him a plane ticket home.
It was as if while they were inside talking to Mo, the whole world had been rotated one hundred and eighty degrees on its lazy-Susan.
Deep in thought, Catriona slowly dragged the scarf off Broch’s neck and twisted her wrist, working the long thin fabric like lazy cowboy’s limp lasso. “Do you mind if I ask what changed your mind?”
“I realized he’s terrible at poker. I should keep him around, no?”
“Mm hm. Good logic. Though I wish you’d come to that conclusion before you carved him up.”
“Ah pardon, pardon. My bad.”
Broch tried to reclaim his scarf and Catriona tugged it away, pacing.
“Right. Well, it’s been nice doing business with you.” Catriona was about to hang up when she heard Alain’s voice again. She put the phone back to her ear.
“—and you don’t have to run ze errand my wife has asked of you.”
“Mo says so? You guys are reconciled already?”
“Oui.”
Something about his oui didn’t sound convincing. “Alain, I’m standing right outside Mo’s studio door. All I need to do is poke my head back inside and confirm with her.”
“Ah, no, you just don’t have to do eet. I will win her back on my own. I will root out the thief.”
“I appreciate that, but how did you know it was about a thief?”
“Er... She’s been complaining a long time about zat.”
“Hm. Well, I gave her my word I’d figure it out for her.”
“But I’ve let ze boy go.”
“I understand that, but this is between me and Mo now. I mean, I guess I could ask her if it’s okay if I let you handle it—”
“No.” Alain barked his answer into the phone. “Don’t bother. I will handle eet. Go home. Tell Sean I said hello.”
“But—”
“Go home.”
“Okay—”
Alain hung up and Catriona lowered the phone from her ear. She looked at Broch, who had ducked back to press himself against the building, hiding from the sun beneath the insufficient awning spanning the length of the industrial park. The glittery vest draped over his arm still sparkled.
The heat had inspired him to remove the vest, and for that Catriona was grateful.
“That was weird.” She wandered to him to take the vest and hand him the scarf. He used it to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Whit?”
“Alain sent Tyler home.”
“Oan our plane?”
“On a commercial flight.”
“Oh.”
Broch seemed disappointed.
“You thought if the plane left without us, we’d have to drive home.”
“Aye.”
“Sorry.”
She stood staring at Mo’s door, running through her conversation with Alain in her head. Opening the door, she caught the eye of a worker and threw the vest to them.
“Och—That wis mine.”
“It was a woman’s vest.”
Broch pushed past her and plucked the vest from the startled worker’s hands before returning outside.
He glowered at Catriona. “Ah ken it’s a wummin’s vest. Ah wis goan tae give it tae Jeanie.”
Catriona smiled. “Oh. That’s so sweet.”
“Ah ken. Ah’m as sweet as shortbread.”
She chuckled as he folded the vest and scarf against his chest. When he was done, he eyed her.
“How come dinnae ye keek happy? Tyler goan home is guid, richt?”
She nodded. “Yes. But Alain told me not to help Mo either.”
“That’s double guid.”
“It should be, but something about the way he said it. Something’s up. I don’t know if he’s hiding something from Mo or—”
Catriona spotted movement and turned her head towards the parking lot. A man in a white t-shirt and a long duster jacket leaned against a car there, smoking. She couldn’t see past his sunglasses to tell if he was looking at them, but he seemed out of place in the otherwise empty parking lot. She didn’t remember him there a moment before.
She turned to Broch. “Don’t be obvious about it, but see the man behind me? Is it me, or is he watching us?”
Broch’s gaze shifted from her face to over her shoulder.
“Ye mean the laddie walking towards us?”
“Is he? White tee, weird long jacket?”
Broch nodded. “Aye.”
Catriona turned as casually as she could, pretending to be looking at her phone. Broch was right, the man had finished his cigarette and was walking towards them.
The man reached inside his coat.
“He’s reaching for something.” Catriona grabbed Broch’s arm and pushed him ahead of her down the walkway. She continued to prod him until they were power walking along the edge of the strip mall.
The man glanced in their direction, and she spotted a piece of paper in his hand.
Not a gun.
He looked away and entered a building next to Mo’s.
Exhaling, Catriona put her hand on her chest. She took two steps into the parking lot to get a better view of the building into which the man had disappeared with his loaded paper. As soon as she saw the name on it, she knew what the man had held in his hand.
A dry cleaning ticket.
“False alarm. I guess he got his collection of duster jackets cleaned last week. Weirdo.”
Broch clucked his tongue. “Yer a wee jumpy.”
She nodded. “Sorry. It’s Alain’s tone, the taxi being gone...”
“Somethin’ doesnae feel right.”
“Right. It’s more of a feeling than—”
A black Mercedes pulled into the parking lot, screeching on two wheels as it pulled off the main road. It rocketed towards Mo’s studio and parked diagonally across two spots. All four doors opened at once and men with guns in their hands stepped out.
Catriona put a hand on Broch’s chest. “Not good.”
Broch took two strides forward and pushed open the first door on his left.
“In here.”
They ducked inside a Chinese restaurant. Though empty, they could hear cooking noises clanking from the back.
Catriona raised her phone. “I have to warn Mo.”
Broch stared out the window. “Na ye don’t.”
“What?”
“They’re all comin’ this way.”
“Crap.”
Catriona
wove through the tables and chairs towards the back of the restaurant and entered the kitchen through a hundred dangling, beaded strings. Two men looked up at her. One had been chopping vegetables, the other stood over a steaming cooktop. Neither were Asian.
“Get out, go, run.” Catriona said to them, shooing at them with the back of her hand.
They stared back at her.
“¿Quién eres?” asked the one with the chopping knife.
She made a gun with her fingers. “Men are coming. Uh, hombres con pistolas.”
She shot them with her finger gun and then hung her tongue out of her mouth, pretending to be dying. Jogging behind the metal countertop, she ushered them towards the back door.
“¡Ándale! Rapido!”
They looked at each other, shrugged, and sauntered out the back door.
“Mebbe we should gae out the door tae.”
“Good idea.”
Catriona followed the cooks to find the door opened to a thin alley. She watched as one of the workers skinnied past a man with a drawn gun. Having seen the weapon, the cooks’ gait had increased accordingly and they soon disappeared around the corner of the building.
The man with the gun had no interest in the kitchen staff. He continued forward, eyes locked on Catriona.
“Change of plans,” she said, closing and locking the door. “Stay away from the door. They’re coming that way.”
With a rustling of plastic beads, another man appeared at the doorway leading into the kitchen from the dining room.
He raised a gun.
Before Catriona could duck, something flashed by her head and a knife handle seemed to magically appear, sticking from the gunman’s shoulder. The man yelped and dropped his weapon to the floor as he spun back behind the curtain of beads and out of view.
Catriona turned in time to see Broch pulling a kitchen knife from a block.
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “You threw a knife?”
“Aye, but thare ur ainlie three mair. We can’t keep this up a’ day,” he muttered. “Where’s yer pistol?”
“Back at the damn hotel in my bag. I didn’t think I’d need to shoot Alain—”
“Catriona...” a voice called from beyond the beads.
“Why does that guy know who I am?”
Broch shrugged. “He doesn’t ken me. Ah kin donder richt oot o’ ‘ere.”