No Ordinary Day (33 page)

And the body that most of the top designers in the fashion world used to display their designs.

For a long moment Bryson stared at the face in the photo: the smoldering gray eyes on either side of a thin, smooth nose, the sensuous mouth with a top lip shaped like a long bow, the rest of it curling into a famously crooked smile that seemed at once humorous and sad, as if hiding a secret. Luminous skin that covered perfect cheekbones, glowing with light. Erik shook his head and looked at the publisher once more.

“Why do you want
me
to fetch her? Can’t you send a limousine for her? I drive a crummy old Corolla that gets parked on the street in Brooklyn.”

“No, I can’t—we don’t know where she is.”

“Can’t you just call Doce Cheiro and
ask
where she is?”

Katherine Bruce shook her head. “They just launched a contest to find the new face of Doce Cheiro.”

Erik took a deep breath, then exhaled. “What happened to the old one?”

“No one knows. Briony has disappeared.”

“Have you contacted her management?”

“Daily.”

“What do they say?”

“That she’s retired, and they have no other comment.”

Erik exhaled again, this time with a little more annoyance.

“Well, that’s your answer, then,” he said testily. “She’s retired. End of story. Thanks for a fun morning. I’ll be going now.” He began to rise.

“Sit,”
said Katherine Bruce again in a voice that sounded like it came from a military commander. “That is most certainly
not
the end of the story.”

Erik was struggling to keep from exploding. “What in the world do you want from me? I’m an investigative journalist—my specialties are political corruption and war zones. I cannot imagine something I’m less qualified to cover—and less interested in—than high fashion.”

“That doesn’t matter. I pulled some strings at the
Times
, asking for their best investigative reporter who was on stringer status. They recommended you.”

“That’s very nice, but—”

“Sit.”

Reluctantly Bryson sat down again, glowering, feeling four years old and hating it.

“For a relatively famous young hot-shot journalist, you have an appalling lack of curiosity,” Katherine Bruce said. “I want Briony back, but I’m not getting anywhere with the search. There’s got to be a story here, and whatever it is, I want it first.”

“I think you got the story,” said Erik. “Headline:
Supermodel Retires.
Ta da. End of story.” He looked out the arched window. “I can’t believe I’m still here.”

“The rumor mill is rife with other suggestions. Maybe she’s pregnant. Maybe she is hidden away with a married man, carrying on a sordid affair. She was spotted a while back in the company of an eastern European prince—”

“Maybe she’s pregnant with a married eastern European prince’s octuplets?” Bryson suggested snidely. “Can’t you just make up something more interesting than that? Isn’t that what you scandal sheets do anyway? The sheep you write for can’t tell the difference anyway.”

Katherine Bruce drew herself up taller, and her face took on a hard expression.

“We don’t write for the sheep, Mr. Bryson,” she said seriously. “We write for the shepherds.
In-2-It
is a serious fashion magazine.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

“No. We are not the tabloid you pick up in the beauty salon. We are the magazine for the buyers, the producers, not the consumer. That’s not to say consumers don’t pick us up and get a secret thrill that they’re learning insider information—and frankly, that’s a large percentage of our circulation. We are the innovators, the leaders. We tell the fashion industry—especially the buyers and the stores—what’s hot. And Briony is hot. I want the story before the private dicks hired by the other fashion rags get it.”

“Private
dicks
?” Bryson said, trying to keep from laughing. “Where do you think you are, Ms. Bruce, in a 1930s Raymond Chandler movie? Those were made long before we were born.” His captivating eyes took on an evil gleam. “Well, at least before
I
was born.” He struggled to keep from laughing at the ugly look that came over the elegant woman’s face. “Come into the 21
^st
century, Ms. Bruce. Why don’t
you
just hire a private investigator?”

“Those bastards would sell me out to the highest bidder once they locate her,” Katherine Bruce said bitterly. “And they have no respect for the integrity of the story. There is undoubtedly a story here, and I want that story, unembellished. You can find the story, Mr. Bryson.”

“Why me? Why in the world did you hire
me
for this nonsense? This is a waste of my time
and
yours. A private eye—”

“The
Times
hired you,” Katherine Bruce corrected. “You aren’t a private eye, you’re an investigative
reporter
; you can ferret out the truth
and
understand the value of the story.”

The fashion maven sighed wearily, looking suddenly older.

“You and I, Mr. Bryson, we are both in the same profession, we want to sell magazines, or newspapers, or whatever’s left of the print world—even if that world is about to go solely digital. A shame—great photography and the beauty it captures will be lost with the death of the last fashion magazine, the last coffee table book. Whether it’s beautiful women and men in beautiful clothes, or African vistas, high-end clothing or endangered animals, we, Erik, we are the last protectors of a dying art form. When you and I are gone, everything we have worked for will vanish into digital glare full of typos and harsh fonts. You have kids?”

“Not that I know of.”

The publisher opened her mouth to continue, then lapsed into silence. Erik exhaled.

“Sorry for being a smartass. The correct answer would be no.”

“Well, your children, assuming you have some one day, may never even know what a magazine was, let alone a newspaper.”

Erik Bryson rose again slowly, hoping if he took his time she wouldn’t notice.

“I admire your commitment to the art of the printed word, Ms. Bruce, to your shepherds and your sheep. But I know absolutely nothing about the fashion world—
nothing
. Even if I wanted to help you—and even in the very smallest of ways, I don’t think I do—I am unqualified to do so. I am a war correspondent. The runways that are part of my world have planes full of bullet holes landing on them. I’m very sorry for you if Briony has decided to get out of the fashion world and have a normal life, but I can’t say I blame her for that. Thank you for a most entertaining conversation, but I think I will take my leave now. Good luck with your story.”

He turned and started toward the door.

The ice in the words that came next almost froze the pleats in the back of his shirt.

“So, Mr. War Correspondent, you don’t cover damsels in distress? Because no one knows if Briony disappeared on purpose or not—or even if she is still alive.”

‡

B
ryson stopped in
his tracks. He turned slowly and shifted his camera case to the other side, then rolled his shoulders, loosening the heavy muscles that had suddenly cramped at her words, to see the magazine publisher watching him cagily.

“Meaning what?”

Katherine Bruce’s face lost its cat-and-mouse expression, and she shrugged silently.

“Are you suggesting foul play was involved?” Erik pressed.

“Well, I certainly hope not. But if there’s not a sexy answer to the question ‘what made Briony disappear?’ I hope there is a juicy scandal or a murder mystery involved.”

“So if the story’s not sexy, you hope she’s disgracing herself, or dead?”

Katherine Bruce said nothing, just stared at him unblinkingly.

Against his will Erik Bryson blinked, then shook his head.

“I’ve spoken with some cold people in my day, Ms. Bruce,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “War lords, corporate raiders,
politicians
—but you can hold your ice with any one of them.”

“Thank you,” said Katherine Bruce stoically. “You may think the fashion industry is a fluffy joke, Mr. Bryson, but I can assure you, it is a deadly serious business. There is more than half a trillion dollars involved in the farthest reaches of all the economies that it touches. Briony by herself represents companies with a net annual income in the tens of billions of dollars. This is no place for lightweights; those who underestimate the seriousness of fashion do so at their own peril. There are a number of sad examples of people in the fashion industry being kidnapped or killed. The longer Briony remains unable to be found—”

Erik Bryson exhaled.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“I’ll give you one magazine cycle, about six weeks, to find Briony and, more importantly, find out why she dropped out of sight.”

“Did you ever consider that you already
know
the story? Maybe Briony just got sick of the life and decided to retire? What if the story’s no more interesting than that?”

“Then that’s the story we’ll tell. You may not think much of the fashion world, Mr. Bryson, but while it is a cutthroat place, it’s a reputable one—for the most part. The public hasn’t truly figured out that she’s gone, but when they do—the blowback may threaten both the industry and her life, depending on what has happened to her. Neither of us would want that, would we?”

Erik Bryson stared at her in silence.

Katherine Bruce leaned back in her chair.

“Six weeks, at three times your hourly, plus expenses, no matter what happens. Bring me Briony, and you can have editorial oversight of the breaking story. Two questions that need to be answered in that story, and only two—where is she, and why did she drop out of sight? But if after six weeks you come up with nothing, I’ll hire a detective and kiss off the chance to tell the story without sensationalism. If there’s a skeleton in her closet, a sinful tryst, a scandal or some other character-destroying story, I will not hesitate to tell it—I’ll need to pay for your time, and that of the private detective, somehow.”

Erik Bryson looked at her for a long moment, then came back to his chair and took out his tablet with a sigh. “Tell me everything you know about her. Every stupid little detail. I will try to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head.”

The magazine maven leaned back in her ridiculously expensive chair.

“When she first showed up she was just a kid, and
really
rough—had never even put on a pair of high heels, had no sense of fashion or understanding of the industry. But the best of them usually don’t—those things can be easily learned. What Briony was born with, you can’t teach. Perfect biometrics, my
lord
—I’ve never seen a better face for makeup or perfume lines. Her management auctioned her, and Doce Cheiro set a new record price for her exclusive cosmetics work.

“Her hair is amazing; in daylight it’s a fabulous shade of dirty blond, but in the right illumination it can look silver, or gold, or white, or even a gorgeous shade of ash, without dyeing it. It also holds color beautifully. The camera loves her, but light loves her even more—and that girl knows her light. Totally a natural. She can do print or film, runway, swimsuit, bridal, negligee, body paint, fine art, street-punk, high fashion, ready-to-wear—she’s a dream. But she’s missing in action—has been for more than a year. We need her back—‘we’ meaning the entire fashion industry.”

“Anything you can tell me about her that won’t make me gag—er, that isn’t about her work?”

“She is a reader, a voracious one,” Katherine Bruce said after a moment’s thought. “The first day she came to this office she was fresh off the plane from wherever the hell she came from, a school backpack full of doorstop-thick history books and a copy of
Paddington Bear
.”

Erik’s brow wrinkled. “Paddington Bear? The kid’s book?”

“Yes.”

“How old was she?”

“Sixteen—just barely. She seemed intelligent and pleasant, though she didn’t say a word. Her manager, Brian Hanoway, is a total pain in the ass; he has both a business and a law degree, and
the
A-list of names for every type of industry—writers, models, actors, athletes, musicians, you name it—the people who are so famous that they can buck the major agencies and who need a shark like Hanoway to keep the problems that come with mega-celebrity at bay. It’s a small, select office; he hasn’t had a new employee in decades.”

“How do you know that?”

Katherine Bruce looked surprised. “We always try to pay off someone on a manager’s staff,” she said, looking as if what she was saying was obvious. “The easiest and best way to get inside data. But no one at Hanoway Ltd. is ever biting. The bastard pays them too well.”

“Truly, you are turning my stomach,” said Erik, not looking up from his tablet. “What else can you tell me?”

“Not much. We were given exactly zero information about her, other than her measurements. I have no idea what her last name is, if she even has one. Her management built a brick wall around her. That putz Hanoway laid the law down clearly, as he did each time she has entered into a major contract with anyone—
leave the kid alone
. ‘She will work full-out for you on shoot, but her personal life is off limits,’ he said. ‘If you can’t abide by the terms, we’re done talking.’ Hmmpf. That jerk had an office in the Times Square area on the 27
^th
floor
before
he signed her; I can’t even imagine what his setup is now.”