The redhead had done both. She'd duped him easily and coldly. “How many of these do you sell?”
Melissa showed her shock. “I assumed you wanted an original. We have some styles in several sizes, but this dress is one of a kind. It will be fitted to the customer.”
He brought the dress to his nose. That was definitely a faint citrus odor. “So there's only one dress like this and it's this one?”
“Yes.”
This was the actual dress Scarlet had worn. If proof other than the sales clerk's assurances was needed, the scent provided it. Unless an orange aroma permeated all Jane's dresses.
“This has perfume in it.” He held it out to Melissa.
She sniffed. “It does, doesn't it? Perhaps a customer tried it on, or one of the models.” Another sniff, and she said, “I don't recognize this particular fragrance.”
“Nice scent.” Scarlet could have been a model. That would explain the eye-catching aura, the arrogance that demanded adulation. “You use models here?”
“On weekends we have college girls come in and wear different outfits. That lets customers see what's available. You'd be surprised how many clothes a pretty girl can sell.” She added hastily, “Not that Jane's designs need a hard sell.”
Scarlet was no college girl. He'd lay odds on that, but he'd check the lead out anyway.
He was about to ask about customers from Houston when Johanna reappeared, a vision in ivory satin and lace. “Come here, Cal,” she called imperiously. “I want your opinion.”
Cal turned. “Oh, so now I'm good for something?”
Johanna spotted the dress he still held. “Oh, jeez. You don't mean that for Claire.”
“You don't think she'd wear it?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Nothing skimpy or sexy. Definitely no slits. This is Claire you're buying for, not one of your fancy whores.”
“Johanna. Mother would have washed your mouth out.”
“Cal, look at my dress. Does it fit all right?”
“It's perfect. I never knew you could look so good. Jeremy'll faint when he sees you. I'll bet he never knew you could look so good either.”
Johanna posed in front of the mirror wall. “I thought I wanted a cutout back, but I feel indecent with the point all the way down at my waist.”
“You'll only be in it a few hours,” he said, anxious to send her away.
“True. How about the hem. Is it too short?”
“Let it down and you'd be stepping on it.”
“Does the long waist make me look fat? I loved it when I first—”
“No, not a bit. Looks great. What d'you mean by long waist?”
“Cal!”
“Why are you asking me all this stuff? What do I know about women's clothes?”
Johanna huffed and flounced away. “Obviously nothing. I should have made Claire come with me.”
Cal asked Melissa if someone might have bought the black dress and returned it.
“Returned it? We seldom have return items and when we do, they're marked as such.”
“But you do occasionally? Someone could have taken this dress and worn it, say to a dinner party where she got perfume on it, and brought it back without you knowing the difference?”
Melissa smile became strained. “No, no. Not this dress. Jane only finished this dress a week or so ago and it's been right here in the shop since then. In case you're concerned someone else wore it, set your mind at ease. No, that perfume came either from a customer trying it on or from one of our models.”
Unless Jane herself had lent it out to a favored customer. “Any chance of meeting the great lady herself?”
Melissa looked puzzled.
“Jane,” he clarified. “Maybe she loaned it to a friend.” Melissa was cute but a little slow. Callaway preferred a woman with a livelier mind and a touch of mystery about her, a woman who knew what was what. Like Scarlet Smith.
Not like Scarlet Smith, damn her.
Melissa's brow cleared. “I'm sure she didn't, but I'll check. Jane's with your sister right now. Maybe she can see you when they're finished.”
Depending on his impression of Jane, he might confide part of the truth, ask about her models. He pulled out a cigarette and was swiftly herded down the hall into an isolated smoking room where a comfortable sofa and chairs circled a coffee table filled with magazines. A television was tucked away to the side. A fan whirred above, pulling air outside.
“The smoke gets into the material and stays,” Melissa said. “Jane absolutely abhors cigarettes and cigars. Naturally we can't allow them in the sales or design area.”
From the sports magazines, this was where trapped husbands awaited their wives. Jane was prepared for everything.
Callaway curled his lip. He'd be damned if he'd ever be so docile as to hang around this cubbyhole while his wife tried on dresses. Poor suckers, hooked by sex but ending up gutted and spineless and tortured the rest of their lives. Not for him the marital ordeal. No way would he go through that again. He'd have his freedom to do as he liked and...
Wait patiently for Johanna to be finished.
He laughed at himself. All right. He was no better than ninety percent of the other men he knew. Now, if he could only get on Jane's good side—and there was no reason why he couldn't; he was always good with older women—maybe he could chase down Scarlet.
Johanna's voice from the sales room brought him out of the lounge. “I don't dare leave it to Cal. He's trying to buy something a Vegas showgirl would feel right at home in.”
Melissa said, “I'll be happy to pick out a few things,” before smiling at Cal. “I'm so sorry but Jane has an important phone call from one of our bead suppliers and can't talk to you right now. I did ask about the dress, but I was right. No one has borrowed it. It's been in the sales room since it was put out.”
“Thanks.” That dress had definitely been on Scarlet. Maybe an employee had sneaked it out without anyone knowing. He'd call his investigator and put him to work on Jane's staff as soon as he got rid of Johanna.
Johanna turned back to Melissa. “So Jane'll steam my dress whenever she brings it out Sunday morning, right?”
He'd have to drop Johanna off at home before he called the investigator. “Let's pick out a dress for Claire so we can go.”
Johanna exuded infinite patience. “Cal, I'm trying to make arrangements to get my wedding dress delivered.”
He looked around. “How about that green dress over there? Think she'd like that?”
“With pink paisleys all over it? I don’t think so.” Johanna took a deep breath, holding her temper in check. “Ignore him, Melissa. He's brain-impaired. Back to my wedding. Jane'll be there early Sunday, right?”
“Yes, eight-thirty or nine. We'll call the day before to finalize and get directions.”
“I think Claire will like that green dress,” Cal said.
Johanna threw up her hands. “No, she'll hate it. That burnt orange gauze is more her style.”
“Orange gauze it is, then. Wrap it up.”
“I’m sure we have Claire's measurements on file,” Melissa said. “Do you want to wait for it to be altered?”
“No.” He wanted to take Johanna home and get his investigator started looking at Jane’s employees and models.
“Let Jane bring it when she comes down for the wedding.” Johanna looked at her watch. “She won't mind, will she?”
“Of course not,” Melissa said.
Cal herded Johanna toward the door. He had a lot to do.
Chapter Six
Cal dropped Johanna off at Fair Meadows, but Claire had taken her twin boys on an overnight trip to Atlanta for a school project. He couldn’t relay his discovery to her.
He did talk to Tip, who recommended a private investigator in Atlanta. “He’ll be faster than the one in Texas. And he keeps his mouth shut.”
Pleading urgency, Cal got an appointment that afternoon. As he got into his car to drive into the city, his brother-in-law called.
The connection from Virginia was tenuous but Robert’s annoyance was plain. “Claire doesn’t answer her phone.”
“She's at that junior whatever thing with the boys. I'm sure they want cells turned off. Leave a message.”
“I did, but I want to make sure she gets it. I had to drive five miles to pick up a signal. Tell her we've hit a snag with the zoning so I can’t leave here till Saturday. I'll have to go straight from the airport to the rehearsal dinner. Tell her she needs to schedule me a ride from the airport to the restaurant. And tell her to bring my dinner clothes.”
Cal wanted to tell Robert a thing or two. “Why can't your secretary handle it?”
“She's off for a couple of days. Claire can call. It won’t take a minute. Four-thirty is when I get in. Remind her I hate waiting.”
Don't we all
. “I'll tell her.”
Robert wasn't through complaining. “I don't know why I can't depend on my wife to be home when I need her.”
Cal bit his tongue, but Robert went on. “If she insists on working, I wish to God she'd do her job.”
Okay. One barb too many. “As I understand it,” Cal drawled into his cell, “you won't assign her any specific duties. She can't do her job if she doesn't know what it is, can she?”
Silence.
Robert spoke first. “If you hear from her, have her call me tonight when I'm back at the hotel.” He broke the connection.
Cal pocketed the cell.
Christ, the man can be such an asshole
.
* * * *
“None of them can possibly be the woman.”
The Atlanta investigator recommended by Tip had been worth every cent. After less than twenty-four hours, Cal sat in the shabby offices looking at several photographs of Jane's employees, including models.
“You sure?” Hilliard, with his seamed mahogany face, looked like a balding workman with few smarts, but Tip had vouched for his integrity. “These are all the seamstresses, the salespeople, and the models they use.”
“None of them is the woman I'm looking for.” Cal lounged wearily back in the beat-up visitor's chair. Another dead end.
“Okay.” A larger picture slid across the desk. “Amanda Jane doesn't have any close female friends, but she has a sister. How about her?”
Cal bolted straight up. “I recognize her.”
“Awright.” White teeth grinned.
“She isn't the one I want though.” Cal picked up a wooden pencil and tapped the picture. The blonde simpering from the color photo had a pretty face partly hidden by a drooling baby.
When she’d sold him the emerald ring, the pretty face had been splotchy from crying.
Hilliard leaned forward. “Does it help then, your recognizing her?”
“Maybe. Is there another sister?”
“Just the two of 'em. No brothers. Parents both dead. This one's the youngest. Noelle Christina Parham
nee
Jane, aged twenty-four. Lives in Alabama, married to a pharmacist twelve years older who inherited money. They got one son, ten months old. She don't work, but she's got a full-time nanny and stays gone a lot. Neighbors say the marriage ain’t in great shape.”
An image of a woman's profile with short upper lip and slanting brow returned. “What about the older sister?”
This answer was as prompt as the other. “Amanda Lee Jane, thirty-three. Never married. Dropped out of college to purchase women’s dresses at Macy's. Three customers there—women ve-ery big in Atlanta society—encouraged her to go in business for herself seven, eight years ago. She paid off her loans last fall except for the long-term mortgage on her shop. She's been trying to borrow more to expand.”
“Has she?” Coldness swelled from his stomach. He turned the pencil over and over in his fingers.
Hilliard waited a moment. “You thinking maybe your diamonds'll cover her expansion costs?”
“That's about the size of it.”
“That's all I had time to find out. If you want more, I can get on it.”
“Yes, do. And I need to see a picture of her.”
“I think there’s one in here.” Wheeling in his chair, the man fiddled on his computer before rolling back to let Cal see the screen. “Can you tell anything?”
Cal got up to look.
The woman wore black-rimmed glasses with brown hair pulled back in a bun. He started to shake his head then looked closer.
That top bowed lip, that full lower lip, the slender neck...
He felt like he’d been punched. When he could speak, he said, “That’s her. Find out everything you can about her.”
The investigator picked up a pen. “The older sister?”
“Yeah. The older one.”
Scarlet Smith. Amanda Lee Jane, who was conveniently occupied when he asked for her yesterday; who was coming to Fair Meadows Sunday morning to dress Johanna for her wedding and deliver the dress for Claire.
Well, Scarlet-Amanda, you're in for a big surprise
.
“Uh, you broke my pencil,” the investigator said.
Surprised, Cal looked at the two halves he held.
Wait till he got hold of this Jane woman.