Daloia got behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out. “He give you anything good, Doc? Anything new?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“Tull would have known if he said anything new.”
Even though that annoyed me, I knew the Uber driver was right. “I should have brought Tull with me, I guess.”
Daloia laughed. “Maybe next time, huh? Meantime, where to?”
“Head toward Boston,” I said, picking up my phone and looking in my notes for a 617 area code number. I found it and called.
“Boston Homicide,” a man growled.
“I’m looking for Detective Jane Hale.”
“Good luck—she’s on her honeymoon in Australia. Be back in three weeks.”
Before I could say anything, the line went dead.
In the front seat, Daloia said, “No go on Hale? She would have been good. But you would probably have needed Tull there too.”
“Right again,” I said. “So I think I’m done here. Take me to Logan, please.”
“Really?” the driver said, sounding disappointed. “Nowhere else?”
“Just the airport,” I said. “I’m going to catch a late flight to Charleston.”
Daloia waved one finger in the air as we pulled onto Route 128 heading north. “Doctor’s Orders, am I right?”
“Can’t get a thing past you, Vic,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled. “Another crazy case courtesy of Thomas T., but you know I Googled you while you were in with Foster. You’re no slouch yourself, Doc. Very impressive. And you’re on those Family Man murders, so I figure that’s why Tull’s down in DC and why you’re up here checking on him. Right?”
I had to admit that he was making substantive leaps with relative ease. “You missed your calling in life,” I said.
That seemed to upset him. “I tell my girlfriend, Leigh, that all the—”
His phone rang. He glanced at it. “There she is, like she’s clairvoyant.” Daloia answered. He had a Bluetooth in his ear. “Leigh, what do you know?”
His girlfriend evidently knew a lot because he listened for quite a while as we drove toward the Massachusetts Turn-pike. When we were within a half a mile, he said, “Hold on, pumpkin.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You sure you got nothing else to do here?”
Before I could answer, my phone rang. Paladin.
“Dr. Cross, how are you?” Ryan Malcomb said.
“Excellent, and you?”
“Excellent as always,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that the search is going on as we speak.”
“Even better. Any commonalities come up?”
“Several.”
I glanced at my watch, saw I had nearly five hours before my flight.
“I’m not thirty miles from you,” I said. “Can I come see for myself?”
After a pause, Malcomb said, “It would be wonderful to meet you, and what we do is better explained in person anyway.”
CHAPTER 40
Manhattan
WHEN BREE WALKED THROUGH the front door of Tess Jackson’s store on Lexington Avenue, she was startled.
Just two days before and three blocks away in Frances Duchaine’s flagship store, she’d seen few shoppers and fewer customers waiting to pay for purchases. But here there were scores of eager shoppers jamming the aisles and the checkout queues of Tess Jackson’s new flagship store, which was remarkably designed.
The interior lines of the store were simple, almost industrial, but overhead hung a colorful and whimsical depiction of hundreds of small fairies with gossamer wings flying among treetops laced in fog. Bree could not help grinning as she looked up, seeing how each of the fairies was unique, almost magical.
Remembering something she’d heard two evenings before, Bree climbed the stairs to a mezzanine, where shoes and accessories were on display, and then continued up a third flight.
At the top, behind a desk, Ella Martin, a female security guard with linebacker shoulders, said, “The store stops down on the second floor, ma’am. These are corporate and design offices.”
“I know,” Bree replied. “I’m looking for a friend who works behind those double doors. I wanted to surprise him.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Phillip Henry Luster,” Bree said.
That changed the guard’s attitude. “And how do you know Mr. Luster?”
“We had dinner together the other night at a fundraiser at Frances Duchaine’s home in Greenwich.”
“Okay,” Martin said, picking up her phone. “Who should I say is here?”
“Evelyn Carlisle,” Bree said. “From Newport Beach.”
The security guard made a call. A few minutes later, the doors opened and Luster emerged, giving her a look that mixed amusement with disappointment.
“My dear Evelyn,” Luster said, taking her hands. “Wherever did you get to the other night? Paula said you had terrible news and had to leave but she wouldn’t be specific.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t,” Bree said. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private? Where I can explain what really happened?”
“What really happened? Oh God, you had me at hello. As I told you, I love mysteries and secrets.”
“I remember,” Bree said. “And I’m full of both.”
The fashion designer seemed to take great pleasure in that and asked the security guard to open the doors. Martin winked at her as she followed Luster through the doors into a short hallway that ended in a large open room surrounded by smaller rooms with glass walls.
The center room housed the design team of one of the top fashion brands in the world. Artists, designers, cutters, and seamstresses all created a happy buzz of creativity; Bree and Luster walked through to a small office in the corner with a workbench, a drafting table, and a mannequin wearing a flowing lavender dress.
“It’s gorgeous,” Bree said as he closed the door.
“Do you think so?” Luster said, pleased, and gestured her to a couch.
“I love it,” Bree said, sitting. “Whose idea was it to have the fairies downstairs?”
“That was Tess’s four-year-old granddaughter, Eliza.”
“I think it’s enchanting. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’ll tell Eliza that the next time she’s in,” Luster said, taking a seat at the other end of the couch and shifting to face her. “So? What’s the dish?”
Bree said, “The main dish is that I am not Evelyn Carlisle, newly widowed gazillionaire from Newport Beach. My name is Bree Stone. Until quite recently, I was chief of detectives for the DC Metro Police.”
CHAPTER 41
LUSTER ACTED TAKEN ABACK and then fascinated. “My, my, you are like an onion, aren’t you? What’s the next layer you’ll peel back?”
“I currently work for an international security and investigations firm in Virginia called the Bluestone Group.”
“You’re some high-dollar private investigator?”
“I am,” Bree said.
The fashion designer’s eyes shifted left and down slightly before returning to Bree. “You’re investigating Frances Duchaine.”