Nightingale (28 page)

The changer revolved, and a single, intact disc appeared—John Denver’s greatest hits. The CD I’d played at Talon’s request. A wave of longing hit me. If only I could rewind time to that one perfect moment.

“Are you ready, Abby?” Piper called out from the doorway.
 

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

I slipped the CD in my coat pocket, and we left.

#

By the time we got to Piper’s office at Fiona Fine Fashions, it was after ten. We went through the front of the store. Racks of designer dresses crowded into the white space, each one more brightly colored and boldly embellished than the last. Classical music trilled in the background, while models flounced up and down a catwalk, showing off a variety of wedding gowns. Piper moved off to talk to one of the clerks at the front desk. I stood off to the side.

A group of women perched in overstuffed chairs at the end of the catwalk, sipping champagne and eating gourmet chocolates. Octavia and Olivia O’Hara were among them, along with Paul Potter. I waved at Olivia. She smiled, waved back, and started to get up. Then, her eyes fell on Rascal. Olivia froze, half in, half out of her chair. Paul’s gaze slid over to me, and he frowned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a happy expression on his face, not even during the engagement party.
 

Octavia also turned her head at her sister’s movement. Spotting me, Octavia’s mouth flattened into a hard line. Not the most pleasant of expressions.
 

Paul leaned over and whispered something to Octavia. She nodded and put her hand on Olivia’s arm, pushing her sister back down in her chair. Octavia got to her feet and walked over to me. Today, she wore a dark green suit with round, white buttons.

“Abby.”

“Hi, Octavia. Is Olivia shopping for wedding dresses already?”

“Yes. She and Paul are so in love, they plan to get married on Valentine’s Day.”

That was less than a month away. “Well, give me a call, and we’ll set up a time to talk about the ceremony.”

A dark emotion flashed in Octavia’s eyes. “We’re going to let Katie Connors plan the wedding.”

“Katie Connors?” I said in disbelief. “You’re going to trust your sister’s wedding to Katie Connors? You know, she can barely plan a kid’s birthday party and have it turn out well.”

“I’m sorry, Abby,” Octavia said, her voice cool.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why? Did she offer you a better price?”

“No. We’ve just decided to go in a different direction.”

“But why? You liked what I did for the engagement party, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Octavia said. “But it’s come to my attention you’re planning an event for Wesley Weston, where he’ll announce his acquisition of Gelled. I don’t appreciate people who stab me in the back, Abby. In under a week, no less. You will not be planning anything else for me—ever again.”

Octavia turned on her stiletto and stalked to her chair. Paul stared at his nails, like he could manicure them with his eyes. Olivia gave me a weak smile and returned her gaze to the models, as though ivory lace was the most interesting thing in the world.

“What was that about?” Piper asked, coming to stand beside me.

I shook my head. “Just what I thought would happen. Octavia found out about the Weston party and banned me from planning any more of her events.”

“I’m sorry, Abby.”

I shrugged. The loss of a customer didn’t bother me as much as usual. Maybe it was because it was Octavia, the woman who had dated Wesley and sneered at Rascal.

We walked on. Piper punched in a code on a door, and we stepped into the back of the building. Workers huddled at stations, sewing sequins, feathers, glass beads, and more on clothing, handbags, and other accessories. Piper stopped to chat with some folks before heading to her office.
 

We also got waylaid by more than a few people who just had to tell me what a cute puppy Rascal was. Rascal, of course, was more than happy to prance around and strut his stuff. I eyed the puppy. Maybe Tycoon’s radioactive drugs had made him supercute. That was the only explanation I could come up with for the way people reacted to the corgi—everyone except Octavia.

We reached Piper’s office. It was just as neat as her apartment, with everything sorted by size, color, and height. Only a couple of Swifte sticky pads broke up the sterile, professional space. Piper kept her superhero obsession and massive collection of fangirl items mostly at home.

“Piper! There you are!”
 

Fiona Fine struck a pose in the doorway. The fashion designer was known throughout Bigtime for her outrageous designs, and today was no different. Fiona wore a crimson miniskirt paired with a top covered with black and white geometric patterns. Red go-go boots crawled up to her knees, while matching, white, plastic hoop earrings dangled from her ears. On anyone else, the outfit would have looked ridiculous, but Fiona pulled it off—with plenty of style to spare.

“I was starting to worry,” she said. “It’s not like you to be late.”
 

“I had to help Abby with something,” Piper said in a breezy tone.

Fiona sniffed and tossed her blond hair over her shoulder. “Well, you should have called.”

“But if I’d called I wouldn’t have had time to get these.”

Piper held out a paper bag full of cream cheese-filled doughnuts. She’d insisted we stop by Bryn’s Bakery on the way here, even though it made us ten minutes later. She’d wanted to bring Fiona a bribe to help smooth things over.

“Is that a problem?” Piper asked. “If you don’t want any, I’m sure Abby and I can take care of them—”

No!” Fiona said, snatching the bag out of Piper’s hands and digging into it with the enthusiasm of a true sugar addict. “Not when you bring me doughnuts to make up for it.”

Piper gave me a smug, knowing look, before scooting around her desk and flipping on her computer. I leaned against one of the file cabinets and watched Fiona shove a doughnut in her mouth, and then proceed to eat the other dozen in under three minutes—without asking us if we wanted a single one. Rascal yipped in protest, but Fiona ignored him, too intent on her food to notice the puppy.

“Actually, I was hoping you could help us with something,” Piper said.

“What?” Fiona mumbled through a mouthful of cream cheese.

“Abby’s been having some computer problems. I was wondering if you could give me the number for your friend, Lulu. I remembered how she fixed our computers a couple of months ago. I was wondering if she might help Abby.”

It might have been my imagination, but Fiona’s blue eyes seemed to sharpen at Piper’s words. It was sort of hard to tell when she was stuffing food into her mouth at the speed of light.

Fiona swallowed the last doughnut, then licked a few crumbs off her fingers. “What do you need Lulu’s help with?”
 

Piper opened her mouth, but I cut her off. I didn’t want her to get into trouble with Fiona over this. I pulled Talon’s flash drive out of my pocket and showed it to the fashion designer. “I put some files on here and used the password protection feature. Now, I can’t get to them. I don’t know what’s wrong with the drive, and I need the files. They’re for an event I’m planning.”

“The Wesley Weston party?” Fiona asked.

I nodded. That lie was just as good as any other.

“I got my invitation this morning. Johnny did too. We’ll be there. So I suppose I
should
help you make it as fabulous as possible,” Fiona said. “Let me see if I can find Lulu’s cell phone number.”

She sashayed next door to her office. I followed her, with Piper behind me.
 

Where Piper’s desk was neat-freak clean, Fiona’s was a slob’s paradise with crumpled papers, uncapped pens, half-used legal pads, crushed soda cans, and empty takeout containers. Fiona hunted through the haphazard mess on her desk, while Piper paced back and forth outside the door, growing more and more agitated. Fiona’s lack of proper desk maintenance aggravated Piper to no end.

“If Lulu’s your friend, shouldn’t you have her number in your cell phone?” I asked, trying to speed the process along. “That’s where I keep my important contacts.”

“I did, but my phone got fried last night,” Fiona said.

“That happens quite a bit to you, doesn’t it?” Piper asked. “If something’s not getting overheated, it’s snapping in two.”

Fiona put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, it does. Now, do you want Lulu’s number or not?”

I looked at Piper. She shrugged, and we both shut up.

“I know I have it here somewhere,” Fiona muttered, shoving a pile of papers off the desk. They hit the reams already carpeting the floor.

Piper closed her eyes and let out a whimper. She looked like she was going to faint.

Fiona wasn’t making much progress, so Piper decided to motivate her. She went into her office and brought back another bag she’d gotten at the bakery. Thick, round bagels bulged out of the top of the sack.
 

“Are those bagels?” Fiona asked, her eyes brightening.

“Blueberry, your favorite,” Piper said. “With extra cream cheese.”

Fiona leapt into action then, shoving just about everything on her desk off into the floor as she searched for Lulu’s number. Unable to watch the trash piles multiply exponentially, Piper handed me the bag of bagels and went back to her office.

“A-ha!” Fiona cried, holding up a wrinkled business card. “Here it is!”

She handed me the card, and I gave her the bagels. Fiona tore into the bag before I turned to leave. Rascal wandered over to the fashion designer in hopes of scoring a treat. His tail thumped against her boots as he stared at the bag, as if it would magically split in two and shower him with bagels.

Fiona eyed him. “Sorry, dog. No thumbs, no bagels.”

“Come on, Rascal,” I said. “You had plenty of puppy chow this morning.”

Rascal let out a pitiful whine, but I picked him up and carried him back to Piper’s office, making sure the door shut behind me.
 

“I can’t believe she eats like that!” I whispered to Piper.
 

She shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. Although I need to get some more pamphlets about that eating disorder clinic for her. I think if Fiona would just admit she has a problem, that would go a long way toward solving it.”

Rascal barked his agreement.

 
#

Piper called Fiona’s friend, Lulu Lo, and told her about my problem. Lulu agreed to meet us at lunchtime at the coffee bar in the Bigtime Public Library. We dropped Rascal off at my office with Chloe and headed over to the library.

I checked my watch for the fifth time. Lulu Lo was five minutes and forty-nine seconds late. “What does she look like?” I asked Piper. “Is she here? Or just late?”

“Believe me, you’ll know who she is when you see her. Lulu is hard to miss. At least, her hair is.”
 

Piper took another sip of her mocha latte and flipped through Confidante’s latest comic book. Evidently, Confidante had been lurking around during the library fundraiser, because this issue featured Fiera taking Milton Morris to jail.

My gaze flicked over the other folks slurping coffee, hot chocolate, and apple cider in the library’s coffee bar. Nobody met Piper’s description of a petite woman who used a cane to get around. All I saw were college students trudging back to the stacks, sad that their winter break was over. An older couple dozed in armchairs in the sunny spots inside the glassed-in garden. A floor above us, children laughed as a librarian read them a funny story. Up on the third floor, someone cursed the copy machine for jamming again.
 

A steady, solid
thump-thump-thumping
sounded above the hisses, gurgles, and burps of the espresso machine. I turned toward the entrance to the coffee bar.

“Let me guess. You hear her cane hitting the floor,” Piper said, not even bothering to look up from her comic book.

“Or something that sounds a lot like it.”

More
thumps
sounded, and a woman limped into the coffee bar. She was around our age—late twenties—and wore fitted jeans, sneakers, and a nice Bulluci pullover jacket. Piper was right. You really couldn’t miss seeing Lulu Lo. Because in addition to being very pretty, she sported neon blue streaks in her black hair. Lots of them. Lulu stepped through a patch of sunlight, which the metallic strands caught and threw back in my eyes. I squinted against the sudden glare.

“Hey, Piper,” Lulu said, coming over to our table. “How are you?”

“Good,” Piper said. “And you?”

Lulu shrugged. “Not bad, although I’m not loving being out in the cold and snow.”

“We wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. I’ll let Abby explain. Can I get you something to drink? On us, of course.”

Piper didn’t have to offer twice.
 

“I’ll have a triple espresso with three shots of raspberry syrup, one of vanilla, and whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles on top,” Lulu said.

Piper left to place her order. Lulu sat down in Piper’s seat and leaned her cane against the table. She shrugged a backpack off her shoulders, put it at her feet, and pulled a slim laptop out of it.