A Dress to Die For Read online

  Laura lingered in the entryway. “Mom, it’s late.”

  The man turned around—Detective Cangemi.

  Laura tried to look nonplussed, but she may have smiled a little. “I thought you were homicide.”

  “I am,” he said. “But since, oh, I don’t know, two cases with you, I’m now the fashion police because I know all about pre-production samples and cotton permacore.”

  She wondered if he was going to rib her again about the first time they met, when she’d solved the Gracie Pomerantz murder an hour and a half after he did, a ninety minutes that had almost gotten her killed. She smiled at him and got a scowl in return. He usually cracked four or five jokes in the first few minutes after a greeting, but he seemed too subdued to bother.

  “Well, nice to see you again,” she said.

  “Wish the feeling was mutual.”

  If she thought he was sour the last time they’d met, when she’d caught Thomasina Wente’s killer and he’d let the supermodel’s sociopathic brother, Rolf, slip away for another murder, she had been mistaken. That was lemonade. At the moment, he was a fully puckered mouthful of white vinegar.

  Mom put out her hand and showed Laura the inside of the dress. “Look at this. Five thread overlock, right here. I mean, come on. I didn’t use an overlock machine until 2010. And these beads are acrylic. I can’t believe no one noticed. Look at the boning.” Mom pulled back a seam to reveal cheap plastic boning.

  “Okay. Well, I’ll just give the detective the curator’s number, and he can take care of it.”

  “Look at this edging,” Mom said, ignoring Laura’s remark. “It was cut with a steak knife, but I use pinking shears to trim this. And don’t get me started on the cuff buttons.”

  “Mom? Can you just make a list and pass it over?”

  “I mean who lays a seam like that?” Mom asked, as if she hadn’t heard.

  Cangemi interjected, “Mrs. Carnegie.” He snapped his fingers. “Wake up. Lightning strikes twice. Pigs are flying. The Mets win the series. Your daughter’s making sense.”

  That was kind of a joke, wasn’t it? At her expense, of course, but she’d take it in a pinch. When Laura looked up at him, she saw him checking the clock.

  Mom took the pencil and paper from Cangemi and wrote a numbered list of everything wrong with the dress, but her face had a faraway expression. Laura wondered if that was the look Jeremy had seen right before he started worrying.

  **

  At that late hour, the workplace was empty and dark, except for one room—Laura and Jeremy’s office. With its two desks, one sloppy—Laura’s—and one neat—Jeremy’s—its corner of modernist couches and drawers of things to inspire, surprise, and bore, it was the scene of most of their late nights.

  Jeremy sat on one of the couches, rubbing his eye with one knuckle. “That was quick.” Stacks of paper were piled on the table. He’d been marking things with a highlighter.

  “She was impossible to get out of there,” Laura said. “She started going on about how it was fit differently than any dress she’d ever worked on, and I’m just too tired.”

  He held out his hand. “You know I have faith in you.”

  She took his hand and sat next to him. “And you’re happy to use sex to show it?”

  “A guy can’t get away with anything around here.”

  “You get away with plenty.” She peered at his papers.

  He pulled a stapled stack of cost sheets from the pile, handling the corner with his fingertips. “Maybe you can talk to your sister about this? I think she used real glitter on it.”

  The cost sheets were meant to describe how much a garment cost to make, trim, and ship. Ruby’s cost sheets for the few pieces Sartorial did overseas were color-coded in pinks and yellows with stickers and ribbons.

  “I think that was considered normal at Tollridge.”

  “Can you tell her my spreadsheets are black, white, and red? And I don’t like too much red. Okay?” He coughed. That meant it was time for his physiotherapy and a warm bed.

  She took the bright cost sheets from him, put them behind her, and wove her arms around his waist. “I sent Mom home in the last cab in Manhattan.”

  “Well,” he said, “you’ll have to stay at my place then.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  **

  The first time she had seen Jeremy’s loft, she’d been so overwhelmed that almost no memory of anything besides him, his body, and his soft whispers stuck in her memory. The second time had been a week later, after he’d offered her simultaneous financial backing, a job, and a relationship. She’d spent that time deciding if that made her a prostitute and then whether she was okay with that or not. On the day she was ready to talk to him, the sky opened, and she’d come to him through a torrential downpour without an umbrella.

  “It’s been a week,” she’d said when he opened the door.

  He was unshaven and wore it well, with dark hair sticking out at all angles. He was dressed in sweats and a white T-shirt that fit poorly enough to stretch across his chest. She would have fixed it in a fitting, but it was flattering enough to stop her heart for a second.

  “A week and half a day,” he replied, letting her in.

  She dripped on the hardwood. The sleek new nylon cast on her arm was waterproof and barely discernible under a jacket. She’d earned it only a week before, while chasing the man she thought had killed Thomasina Wente down a stairwell and smashing her humerus into a fire alarm box. With the humming of the ventilation system in the background, the reasons for her broken arm seemed a million miles away.

  She saw the loft as if for the first time. Last time, she’d been so busy being with the man she’d longed for for six years, she didn’t notice the floor-to-ceiling industrial windows and little patio, but she was sure the dress form with fabrics draped all over it hadn’t been pulled into the middle of his living room. “You’re working,” she said.

  He carried a towel out of the bathroom and held it out to her, but she didn’t take it. She put her head forward and let him rub her hair dry.

  “You knew you were going to have your way,” she said from under the towel.

  He rubbed her hair briskly. “Yep.”

  “Because I can’t disappoint Ruby, and I want to do my own thing. And yeah, I know I’m going to end up working with you anyway. But you should have slept with me after you made the offer to back us. Doing it the way you did was wrong.”

  He snapped the towel away and looked at her. “If I’d offered you backing first, I never would’ve gotten you into bed. Never. I know you at least that well.”

  She couldn’t get her eyes off him. The admission was so bald, so coldly vulnerable that she couldn’t believe he’d made it. Yet, he didn’t seem uncomfortable with the confession, only slightly bemused at her frozen stare.

  “Yes, I’m a manipulative asshole. If you’re bothered by what I’d do to be with you, you can go. I’d like you to stay.”

  “I’m bothered.”

  “Enough to walk out?”

  “Do you think you can talk me into forgetting it?”

  “No.” He’d put his arms around her waist. “Of all the women who didn’t deserve that, you’re at the top of the list. But you’re the only one worth the trouble.”

  She looked up at him and wanted to kiss him so badly, despite everything he said. Her judgment was extremely poor when it came to him. “Even if I forgive you, you’re still down credits with me.”

  “I understand. So before I drag you into bed again, I need to tell you the hundred other reasons you should walk out. Are you ready?”

  “Do you want to kiss me first?”

  “No. I need those credits.” He put his arm around her and led her to a kitchen counter bar that faced into the loft. Barstools with red leather lined the living room side.

  She sat, and he set about making coffee.

  “Do you take milk in this? You always change.”

  “Black’s fine.”<
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  He put two cups on the counter and slid onto the stool next to her. “Okay, so. Ah...” He took her face in his hands and brushed her lips with his thumb, as if to draw her refusal out sooner rather than later. But the touch only made her want to kiss him more. “You know I have this thing. It’s genetic, so you can’t get it, and I can’t get rid of it.”

  “Okay, stop. There’s this thing called the Internet.”

  “So you know all about cystic fibrosis.”

  “You can live a long time.”

  He sipped his coffee. “Sure, and I intend to. But I’ll be sick sometimes, and I have to maintain a routine.” He slid a chrome box from a hiding spot in the corner and popped it open. He looked inside, then at her. “This is very attractive. Drives the girls crazy.” He pulled out a clear plastic container with pill-filled compartments. “Morning, right here. Night, right here. Three kinds of antibiotics.” He fished around inside the chrome box and came out with a tube that had an opening at the bottom. “This is DNase, a nebulizer that breaks down the mucus in my lungs. The CF makes it very sticky, and if I leave it, I can’t breathe. Without this, it’s really hard to open my lungs, and I lose capacity, get infections, all kinds of fun stuff. One day, I’ll suffocate on my own fluids.” He shook the chrome box. “The rest are vitamins. Twice a day, I have to do physical therapy to clear my lungs. That means I spit out a gut-load of mucus, which you will never see if I have my way, which I will. And I must, must exercise, or I feel crappy. Twice a year in the hospital for infections and… what else?” He looked away as if his mind had really gone blank on something super important.

  “You can’t have children,” she said.

  “That.”

  “Okay, I don’t think we have to solve that right this very minute.”

  He nodded and pushed away his coffee. “I’m going to stop being controlling for thirty seconds. That’s how long you have to walk out, and I won’t hold it against you. We can do our business arrangement any way you like. After thirty seconds, I go back to having everything my way.”

  “Wait. I have demands.”

  “Speak.”

  “One, you are not my boss. I’ll work with you because I love working with you, but if this is a boss-employee thing, we’re over before we start.”

  “I always said work with me. But it’s my company.”

  “How thin are you going to slice that?”

  “Can we try it before we dismiss it?”

  “Fine. Two. And this is long. A week ago, while you were doing your show, I was behind the tents catching Thomasina Wente’s killer, which by the way, I’m very proud of. But meanwhile, her brother, Rolf, had gotten three girls into the country by saying they worked for Sartorial. They’re getting deported unless I can give them a job. But Sartorial doesn’t have the cash flow to do that.”

  “So I’m employing them?”

  “We are.”

  He thought for a second, then said, “I reserve the right to fire anyone who steals from me or stabs me in the back. And they need to pull their weight, whatever they’re doing.”

  “Agreed. Third. Are you ready? Because this is the most important.”

  “Okay.”

  “Third, all my jokes are funny.”

  He laughed and put his arms around her. His smile was different from the ones he gave in the office, taking up his whole face. “Do you want your thirty seconds back?” he asked, but he was kissing her, so it was hard to remember what the deal with the thirty seconds had been at all.

  “Do you? You know what I’m going to say.” She was engulfed in the salty smell of his skin, a smell she’d fallen in love with when they met and a symptom of his disease.

  “Yes. I know what you’re going to say. Here’s how it’s going to be. What I have, it’s ugly. It’s messy. I’m going to protect you from it. You’ll see as little of it as possible. You’ll have the best of me.”

  “You have an unbelievably huge ego.”

  He laughed again but didn’t deny it. “I just need to talk you out of being with me one more time.”

  “This is really turning me on.”

  “I just wanted you. It was all I could think about. You weren’t with that Stu character, and I was backing you in two days. I panicked. Usually, I think things through a little better. This week, something occurred to me.” His face expressed a genuine sadness and regret, and even as she slid away from him to sit back on the stool, she couldn’t help but slip her hand into his.

  He squeezed it and continued. “If you’re working with me, and I’m backing you, and we’re sleeping together, I think, as two people, you and me, it’ll be fantastic. But for the rest of the world… well, you’re going to get shredded.”

  “By whom?”

  “The media, for one. Gracie worked them like children. They adored her. So you have her, my last backer and lover, murdered six months ago. And now you’re partnering with me, and I’m backing you, and you’re my lover.” He shook his head. “I don’t know the solution. Because I’m not willing to decide which to give up.”

  “So you want me to choose? Which is the exact reason for this whole conversation?”

  “We have to choose. Something has to go.”

  Then, at that moment, she realized she’d been given everything she ever wanted, nearly unconditionally, and that she was happy. Yes, she’d groused endlessly all week about his deceit and manipulation, but she’d only been manipulated into taking everything she wanted because she would have been too staunch to accept it all for herself. “What if we don’t tell anyone? About us, I mean,” she suggested.

  He arched one eyebrow. “You haven’t told Ruby yet?”

  “Well, yes, Ruby knows, and yes, I know she has a big fat mouth, but let’s keep it under wraps, generally. Like just a little close to the vest. And they’ll find out, but in the time it takes for that to happen, maybe they’ll take me seriously as a designer.”

  He contemplated her hand in his. “You’re giving me everything, but you’re a lousy liar, and they’re going to find out. I don’t think you realize what it’ll be like.”

  “Let me be ignorant and happy then. Please.”

  He put his hands on her cheeks. “Happy, I can try, but your ignorance won’t last.”

  **

  Jeremy ran at least five miles every day. When she’d been his patternmaker and they met at seven-thirty every morning for coffee, he woke up at five-thirty, did his physio and medication routine, ran, showered, bought coffee, and sat with her, talking about the business as if it were a badly behaved mutual friend.

  Once they were together and his loft became their almost nightly meeting place, another routine took its place. He got up before her and did his physio routine to clear his airways. Though he tried to shield her from it, the sounds coming from the second bathroom were disturbing, loud, and guttural. If it was a workday, which was usually, she left while he was on his run and met him in the office. If they decided to take a weekend day off or go in late, she lounged around the loft and waited for him, while making breakfast, flipping through a book, or napping. She wasn’t good at biding time, so sometimes she answered emails or had a conference call with their people in Hong Kong, because even though she officially didn’t work on Jeremy’s import stuff, Sartorial was expanding, and she needed to learn that side of the business.

  The morning after the Brunico Saffron Gown had been discovered with a drooping cuff button, Laura, wearing only a shirt, was sprawled on the rug, sketching for Sartorial Sandwich. Jeremy came in coated with sweat and coughing. He had newspapers tucked under his arm, real paper, made from trees. While everyone else checked the news on the Internet, Jeremy still read the paper.

  He coughed a lot after his runs. “You’re killing me,” he said between hacks. “You know what happens when you don’t put clothes on.”

  “I get cold,” she muttered, even though it wasn’t true. The ventilation system kept the temperature at a solid seventy-six degrees no matter what the
season. What made her grumble were the twisted-up figures in her sketchbook. She couldn’t draw. She could drape and sew, but a pencil and paper weren’t her friends. She wound up with stick figures in clothes that didn’t at all represent what she wanted to make with little patterns next to them, which she understood. Ruby, however, was like most people and couldn’t infer what something looked like from a mini-pattern, and Ruby was the one she had to sell the ideas to.

  “I have to go.” He pointed to the back bathroom, where he did his physio, and held up a finger. “Stay here,” his twice-daily admonition to keep away so she wouldn’t hear him.

  “Your vanity’s going to kill you one of these days,” she said, but he was already in the bathroom, door closed and locked.

  She pulled the open paper close. The third page displayed a picture of Philomena of Brunico, alive, well, and in the saffron dress, posed to within an inch of her life. The headline read, “Stolen.” In the corner, Jeremy and Barry looked thrilled to be there.

  Jeremy returned from the bathroom twenty minutes later, showered, shaved, teeth brushed, breathing easier, and looking like a god in jeans and a T-shirt.

  She held up the paper. “Oh, look. According to the New York Post, it’s your fault for not cross-checking provenance.”

  “Bernard Nestor’s taking a beating. The insurance company’s threatening not to bond his next show.”

  “You need to read the Times.” She handed him the paper, revealing what had been under it.

  He pointed at her spastic sketches. “What the hell is that?”

  “Leave me alone. You know I can’t draw.” She threw down her pencil and rolled onto her back. “Come down here.”

  But he didn’t, which was unexpected. Instead, he went to his little office in the corner.

  She heard him rummaging around and sat up. “What are you doing?”