The Fashion Police (18 page)

‘Well, I went to flick my hair like this, and it got stuck.’ She whipped her head around, flicking her long mane of golden hair, and I heard a loud cracking sound.

I scrunched up my face. That didn’t sound good.

‘Hey! How strange is that?’ She twisted her neck from side to side, up and down, and rotated it in a circle. ‘You fixed it.’ She gave me a huge beaming smile. ‘Thanks a lot.’ She stood up. ‘I hope you don’t have to wait too long. Bye.’ And she teetered out on the highest shoes known to womankind.

‘Dr. Kildare, eat your heart out,’ Brad said.

The young guy held his deformed finger up at me. ‘Can you do anything with this?’

Eventually, it was my turn. A nurse cleaned up the tiny scratch, stuck a sterile pad on it, and fixed it with surgical tape. I was just waiting for the doctor to give me a tetanus shot when Romeo called back.

‘Hi, babe,’ he said.

‘Hi. Where are you?’ I asked. ‘Oh, hang on a sec.’

The doctor waltzed in with a syringe in his hand. ‘OK, you’ll just feel a small prick,’ he said.

I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Romeo said. ‘And who’s giving you a small prick?’

‘I’m at the hospital.’ I opened my eyes and realized the doctor was gone. ‘I just got a tetanus shot.’

‘God, what have you done now?’

The exasperation in his voice bit at me. It wasn’t like I’d got hurt on purpose. With a firm grip on my temper, I responded. ‘Nothing much, I just stood on a nail. What are you up to?’

He hesitated. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he whispered.

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t.’

‘Is Janice Skipper listening?’ I said.

‘Yes. What are you up to?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Wow, this is the most déjà vu conversation I’ve ever had. Have I been beamed up into a parallel universe?’

Romeo sighed. ‘Sorry, darling, but I can’t tell you anything right now. Are you sure you’re OK? You sound a bit weird. Well, weirder than normal anyway.’ He laughed.

My eyes narrowed, and the grip on my tempers slipped a little. ‘I’m fine, really. Brad drove me to the hospital.’

That produced a long silence from the other end of the phone, and I imagined Romeo doing some deep breathing before he allowed himself to speak again.

‘How much longer are you going to be on this operation?’ I said.

‘Maybe a week,’ he said, his voice tense.

‘How’s Janice Skipper getting on with her investigation into the Fandango case?’

‘She knows we’re seeing each other, so she’s careful not to give me any leads that might get back to you. The Chief Constable is on her back about it. He wants it solved ASAP.’

I grinned, hoping that I’d made more headway than she had. Then I heard Janice Skipper yelling his name in the background. I felt my blood pressure rise and scowled down the phone at her.

‘Listen, I’ve got to go. And be careful,’ he said.

‘I’m not that good at being careful.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ And he disconnected.

After another small prick to administer an antibiotic shot, we eventually got back to my apartment three boring hours later.

‘I’m starving. With all this excitement, I haven’t even had any lunch yet.’ I limped inside. The throbbing had subsided to a dull ache. At least I had all my limbs intact, and none of them had turned into pieces of poultry.

‘I’ll cook. I’ve tasted your attempts at cooking, and it’s not one of your greatest attributes.’ Brad peered into the fridge.

I looked over his shoulder. I had one onion, a moldy packet of grapes, which I bought when I was having a health kick day, one lonely egg, which looked like it was about to hatch, and two cartons of milk. Not even Gordon Ramsey could make something with that lot. He closed the fridge door and searched the rest of the kitchen.

‘Don’t you ever go food shopping?’ Brad banged around, opening and closing cupboard doors.

‘Yes, when I have time. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been very busy working on your cases.’

‘There’s more to life than work.’ He gave me a suggestive grin.

‘Ha! That’s good, coming from you. You’re always working, too.’

‘Have you managed to catch out Paul Clark yet?’

‘No, but I will this week, even if it kills me.’

‘How about a strawberry omelet?’ Brad said when all he’d discovered was a few bottles of red wine, a can of baked beans, and a jar of strawberry jam.

I pulled a selection of takeaway menus out of the drawer, waving them at him. ‘Or not. How about a nice, greasy takeaway instead?’

‘I’m going shopping. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’ Brad picked up his keys.

‘Keep an eye out for Paul Clark,’ I shouted after him.

When Brad returned, he had all the ingredients to make a roast with all the trimmings, and a bottle of wine.

‘You wouldn’t be trying to get me drunk, would you?’ I asked as he prepared the vegetables.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ He opened the oven door to put the chicken in.

‘Because it won’t work, you know.’

‘What’s this?’ He peered inside the oven and pointed to a plastic, blobby mess on the bottom.

‘Er…slight accident. The one and only time I ever actually used my oven was to cook a pizza, and I forgot to remove the plastic tray it came in, so I cooked that, too.’

When he finished scraping off the plastic goo with a knife, he gave me a glass of wine and a smile. ‘You really are incredible.’

I didn’t know if that was a compliment or not, and I wasn’t about to ask.

‘Did you know that Enzo Fetuccini is on his last legs?’ he said, changing the subject.

‘No.’ I adjusted myself on the sofa, making room for Brad.

‘He’s got lung cancer. My sources tell me that there’s some new guy who’s taken over as head of the Fetuccini family, and no one knows who it is.’

I took a sip of wine. ‘Someone must know who he is.’

‘Apparently, this guy has never even been seen or photographed before, by either the FBI or the organized crime squad in America.’

I tapped my glass, wondering about this. ‘You don’t think – no, it’s a ridiculous idea.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t think that Fandango has disappeared because he’s this new Godfather, do you?’

‘The thought has crossed my mind. We know that he already had some kind of connection to Fetuccini.’

‘So, six months ago, Fetuccini starts making large payments to Fandango. What if it wasn’t about money laundering or blackmail? What if Fetuccini was paying him for future services, like taking over as the head of the family?’

‘But if that’s the case, why would the mob be looking for him?’ Brad said.

I let this sink in while the nerve impulses in my brain flickered to life. ‘When I was in Heather’s apartment, the mob goons asked me where ‘it’ was, not where ‘he’ was. Maybe they’re not looking for Fandango because they already know where he is. I think they’re looking for something else. If Fandango is this new secret Fetuccini Godfather, I can understand why he suddenly appeared nineteen and a half years ago with an assumed identity, but it doesn’t explain all this stuff about Tia and Samantha or the fashion collection.’

Brad steepled his fingers as he considered this. ‘I think Fandango married Samantha to become a British citizen. What better cover could there be for a secret, American Godfather? No one would suspect a British citizen.’

‘I need to find out if Tia remembers anything about her mother, because either there’s a frantic woman out there somewhere who’s been looking for her daughter for the last twenty years, or her mother must be dead. If you were Fandango, would you have taken Tia away to an assumed life?’

‘My moral code isn’t very extensive, but I’d stop short of kidnapping a baby from her mother. Unfortunately, I don’t think the mob have much of a moral code about anything. But we only have Samantha’s word to corroborate that Tia is Fandango’s real daughter, anyway. Hacker can’t find any actual proof.’

‘No, I think Samantha was telling the truth about that part.’ I downed the last dregs of my wine. ‘But I don’t think I buy this business about Fandango being a secret mob boss. It seems a little far-fetched. Did you hear about Heather’s spending habits?’

‘She’s withdrawn seventy-five thousand pounds from her account in the last nine months. Seems to me, she’s got some sort of problem. I’m guessing drugs or gambling.’

‘It’s also a possible motive. People who are desperate for money do desperate things. Maybe she thinks with Fandango out of the way, she can take over his empire and embezzle a bit of petty cash.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ he said.

 ‘I don’t think we’re looking at this from the right angle. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, something new gets thrown into the mix. And the disappearance of the fashion collection doesn’t seem to fit in with any theory I come up with.’

Brad paused, glancing at the floor. ‘I didn’t just offer you this job because you and I had unfinished business, you know.’

I should’ve told him that we didn’t have any unfinished business. I should’ve told him that, as far as I was concerned, our business was definitely, one hundred percent finito. But the wine was going to my head on an empty stomach, and to be honest, a little light flirtation was on my mind.
There’s nothing wrong with that
, I told myself, feeling in a playful mood.
As long as I don’t actually do anything, flirtation is fine, isn’t it
?

‘Oh, tell me more.’ I smiled, elbowing him in the ribs.

He looked me square in the eyes. ‘I offered it to you because you really are a great investigator, and I hope you stay with Hi-Tec. Not just for my own personal, selfish reasons, but because I know you’ll be a great asset.’

I threw my arms around his hard neck and hugged him. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.’

He turned his head to face me, and I could sense that this might be the point of no return. I heard him take a deep breath, and the room turned very quiet. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and it was one of those strange moments when your senses are heightened and the colors around you seem brighter. One of those moments when you know that if you take that next step, nothing will ever be the same again. And although it would take one tiny moment for me to kiss him, I knew the dangers of giving in to one of those moments. I’d done it before, when I shot Janice Skipper, and the consequences had been dire. Suddenly, I couldn’t stare into his penetrating eyes any longer. I quickly detached myself from him and pulled back, mentally kicking myself.

Leaping up from the sofa, I retreated into the safety of the kitchen on shaky legs, astonished at the magnitude of my feelings. Pressing both hands to my cheeks, I stared out the window. What the hell was I doing? Maybe it wasn’t Brad who was dangerous.  Maybe I was a danger to myself. It wasn’t him that I didn’t trust, it was me that I didn’t trust. I tried to slow my breathing. If I just concentrated on breathing, I could forget about these crazy feelings that I thought I’d finally gotten rid of, couldn’t I? Yes, of course it would work because I’d promised myself a long time ago that this would never happen again. And besides, I had Romeo now. I loved Romeo. There was no way I would ever betray him. I clutched the worktop until my knuckles turned white.