Button Holed (13 page)

“But you’re going to help me get out of it, right? I mean, it’s what you do. Good ol’ Josie, reliable, dependable—”

“Don’t you get it, Hugh? I’m not going to lie for you. You just admitted it; you were crazy jealous. And you were angry. Were you angry enough to kill Kate?”

His jaw slack, he stepped back. “Do you . . . You mean you think . . . Come on, Josie, you know me better than that.”

I shouldn’t have had to point it out, but hey, Hugh couldn’t see past his cosmetically altered nose. I yanked open the door and stepped out into the hallway. “That’s just it, Hugh,” I told him. “I don’t really know you at all. Not anymore.”

Chapter Eight

HAVING WORKED ON
TROLLS
WITH HUGH, I AM NOT SOME wide-eyed, easily awed, mouth-hanging-open-to-see-a-movie-set type.

At least I never had been before.

Until that next Monday, that is, when I left Stan in charge of the Button Box and went to the grand old lakefront brownstone where
Charlie
was being filmed.

What with the Victorian-era building’s original stained-glass windows, the gorgeous wood moldings, and the fireplaces (I counted seven, but then, I never did have a chance to see the entire place), I was more than impressed. Maybe Hugh had every right to be uppity and self-centered. He’d definitely come up in the world. No more cardboard backdrops, discount-store costumes, or half-baked actors. Not like we’d had with
Trolls
. This was the real deal, and even before I was no farther than the foyer, with its marble inlay floor and a chandelier that sparkled in the morning sun, my eyes were wide and my jaw, gaping.

That is, until a security guard stopped me.

“The set is closed. No press,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“No gawkers.”

“I’m not that, either.” Not true. Not technically, anyway, since gawking was exactly what I was doing. I snapped my mouth shut. But only until I told the man, “I have an appointment with Margot, Kate Franciscus’s assistant. That’s why the guard outside . . .” I poked a thumb over my shoulder toward the twelve-foot-tall oak doors that led out to the front stoop. “He said it was OK for me to come in. Kate had some of my buttons. She was going to show them to her designer and now . . . well . . .” I didn’t need to explain. “I’m here to pick them up.”

Was it obvious that I was telling the truth, but not the whole truth and nothing but? I had an ulterior motive, see. When it came to the mystery button I’d found in the shop, I’d struck out with Hugh, but I wasn’t ready to give up. The way I figured it, nobody knew Kate better than her assistants, whether they wanted to or not. They were the next logical step in my investigation. Lucky for me, there were those buttons Kate had taken with her when she visited me the week before. The ones she hadn’t brought with her to the shop the night she was killed. Those buttons provided me the perfect excuse to dig a little deeper.

While I was thinking these things, the security guard was busy edging to the side, the better to check me out from every angle. His eyes lit with recognition. “Hey, you are that button lady,” he crooned. “Your picture was in the paper. I recognized your—”

I was grateful when the door swung open and interrupted the man. Not so grateful to see we’d been joined by—

“Kaz?” I rubbed my eyes. I must be hallucinating.

No such luck.

In spite of temperatures outside that were quickly skyrocketing from hot and sticky to hotter and unbearable, Kaz looked as fresh as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. He was dressed in his usual jeans and a polo shirt that looked familiar. It should. I’d bought it for him for his birthday two years before. The chocolaty color of the shirt perfectly matched his eyes. No surprise. That’s why I’d bought it in the first place.

Like he belonged there, he strolled over, gave me a peck on the cheek, and shook the security guard’s hand. He introduced himself and added, “I’m Ms. Giancola’s assistant.”

I nearly choked. “You’re—”

“Late? Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” I knew something was up the moment that last word was out of his mouth. Or maybe it just sounded weird because it was a word I’d never heard Kaz use before.

“You can both go on up,” the security guard told us. “Fourth floor. They weren’t using any of those rooms up there for the filming, so they gave them to Ms. Franciscus. You know, for like an office and a dressing room.”

I was too stunned by Kaz’s sudden appearance to do anything else but what I was told, so I went the way the security guard directed. Kaz walked along at my side. We’d already climbed the elegant winding staircase and were on the second-floor landing before I trusted myself to speak.

“I don’t like getting blindsided,” I told Kaz, refusing to look at him. I did a hairpin left turn to the next staircase—less ornate than the one that led up from the first floor. “What are you doing here? And how did you know where I was in the first place?”

“That’s a no-brainer. All I had to do is follow that crowd of paparazzi that’s been tailing you.”

I grumbled. The reporters and photographers had been waiting outside my apartment building when I left there that morning—again. I would have thought that by now, they’d be tired of trying to get me to talk, and me saying nothing. I’d seen a couple of them hop into cabs and follow me when I headed to the movie set. “All I want is to be left alone,” I grumbled. “I’m starting to feel like a zoo animal.”

“You could always come stay with me for a while.”

My right foot on the step ahead of me, my left on the one below, I froze and looked over my shoulder at Kaz.

“What?” Mr. Wide-Eyed-and-Innocent had the nerve to look . . . well, wide-eyed and innocent. “I’m just saying, if you need a place to crash—”

“I’ll drag a cardboard box under the North Wabash Avenue Bridge and hope I don’t roll over in my sleep and land in the river.”

“If you say so. I only thought that if you came to my place—”

“What?” I steadied myself, my fingers in a death grip around the banister, and I made sure my glare was searing—and as no-nonsense as it was possible to get. “What did you think was going to happen if I came to stay with you? We’re not married anymore, in case you forgot.”

“Like I could.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at. I was sure I didn’t want to know.

I turned around and clomped up another few steps.

“I thought if I followed you I could . . . you know . . . protect you from those reporters and photographers who are after you.”

For all his faults—and believe me when I say there are many—I could never accuse Kaz of not being chivalrous. It was one of the things that made me fall in love with him in the first place and, ironically, one of the things that doomed our marriage. Nobody dreamed the impossible dream quite like Kaz. Especially when that dream involved scoring big on his next sure bet.

Which wasn’t what we were talking about.

Which meant my jaw shouldn’t be tight and my stomach shouldn’t be lurching into my throat.

I forced myself to relax, and at the third landing, I stopped and turned to face him. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the offer. But I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Except that those guys won’t leave you alone. Who knows what they might do to get at you.” This landing ended in a blank wall, and knowing what I know about history (a natural offshoot of learning about buttons, who wore them, and the times in which they were made), I wasn’t surprised. Like so many others of its vintage, a house this grand was sure to have a servants’ stairway at the back of the building.

I was already heading that way when Kaz snatched my hand. “Jo, if you won’t come stay at my place for a while, at least let me stay with you at your apartment. You know, just to make sure you’re all right. Once I walk out of the building with you a couple times and tell those jerks where to get off, they’ll stop bothering you.”

Warning! Danger!

Oh yeah, I recognized that voice inside my head. It was the one that cautioned against getting tempted by the heady feel of my hand in Kaz’s.

It was also the one that told me there was more to his offer than met the eye.

I shook away my chocolate-induced fantasies, narrowed my eyes, and gave Kaz a careful once-over. “You knew I’d never agree to stay at your place with you. Admit it, Kaz. You threw that out just to make yourself look good. As for you staying with me . . . You’re trying to dodge somebody, and my guess is it’s somebody you owe money to. Who’s looking for you? And what is it this time? They’re going to bug you until you pay? Or have they graduated to the break-your-legs stage?”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. But then, I didn’t really care what his answer was. I stomped down the hallway, searching for the servants’ stairs, and when I found them, I took the steps two at a time. No easy thing considering my heart was already pounding and my breaths were coming fast.

I honestly didn’t care if Kaz followed me or not, and frankly, now that I’d seen through his lie about caring about my well-being, I figured he wouldn’t. I reminded myself that I had more important things to think about than Kaz’s bad habits, and I stepped out of the narrow stairwell into a room that ran the length of the building. Through the oriel window at the front of the brownstone, there was a killer view of the lake. Through the windows at the back, a look at the third-floor roof garden. At this time of the year, the place was alive with color and blooms. A fountain trickled at its center.

Although the rest of the building had been carefully nurtured to be true to its Victorian roots, this entire level was different. The floors were bleached oak. The furniture was black leather, accented with stainless steel. The walls were painted a color that reminded me of sterling.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Kate had demanded the fourth floor be remodeled and turned over to her before she ever agreed to do the movie, nor would I have been shocked to find that Hugh had caved in to her demands and begged the building’s owner to comply. No doubt there was a construction crew in here the very next day.

Kate always got what she wanted.

Except she never wanted to get murdered.

The thought settled inside me like a rock, and I reminded myself not to forget it. That was exactly the same moment Margot and Sloan came bustling out of a room over on my right. Between them, they were carrying a cardboard box the size of an easy chair. Margot had her back to me. Sloan saw me, gurgled out a noise of surprise, and stopped.

“Forgot you were coming.” With a grunt and a glance over her shoulder, Margot dropped her end of the box on the floor. Sloan followed suit. I heard a dull, clinking sound like breaking glass. Neither young woman seemed concerned.

Margot brushed her hands together. “You’re here for your buttons.”

I’d hoped not to be dismissed so quickly, so I glanced around the room and tried to make small talk. “It’s beautiful here, so different from the first three floors, but just as spectacular in its own way.”

Margot’s shrug was designed to show me just how much she didn’t care. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been perfectly turned out in a trim, black business suit and pumps. Today she was wearing skinny jeans and a purple T-shirt, and her blonde hair was pushed back and held off her face by a green headband. Sloan was similarly dressed, in jeans and a flamingo-pink tank. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail. One blindingly pink fingernail was broken to the quick, and Sloan looked at it and moaned, “It will all look a hell of a lot better once we’re standing outside waving good-bye to this place.”

I glanced past them and toward the room they’d just come out of. From where I was standing, I could see a couple of rolling clothing racks. One was packed to the gills with designer outfits in a very small size. The other was filled with costumes so incredible, they took my breath away. Back in college, where I majored in theater with the hope of someday doing the costumes for movies or plays, I would have given my right arm to work with garments so authentic looking and so fabulous. Blouses with leg-of-mutton sleeves, ball gowns with deep-veed bodices and nipped waists. Skirts designed to hug hips, then flare out just above the knee. Above-the-elbow kid gloves in white and ivory and black.

I thought about the mystery button—the one that didn’t have any fingerprints on it—and swiveled my gaze from the costumes to the assistants. “Have any of the costumes gone missing? Like the gloves?”

“Gloves?” Sloan made a face. “You’re kidding, right? Who in their right mind would want them?”

“Of course.” There was no use tipping my hand. Instead, I glanced at the box Margot and Sloan had brought in from the other room. “There must be a lot of details to take care of,” I said. “All Kate’s things. You’re packing them to go to—”

“Paris,” Sloan said, at the same time Margot said, “Maui.” Maybe Margot was right. Or maybe since she was on top of the assistant totem pole, she always won out. “Maui, of course,” Sloan mumbled.

No way I was getting in the middle of that. Hoping that the farther I was from the doorway, the longer I could get away with hanging around, I edged toward the sofa and the glossy metal table next to it. “There must be buttons, too, of course. I don’t mean mine. I mean—”