Page 55 of When Fashion Turns Deadly

“Monsieur Molenaar is another kind person,” Isabelle said.

“Yes. And I know Mademoiselle Allard is grateful to him. They’ll always be competitors, you know, but underneath it all, they maintain a friendship and respect for each other’s work.” She shook her head ruefully. “You don’t see that among many of the designers.”

“No, you don’t,” Marit agreed.

“Places, ladies.” The woman with the clipboard began directing all the models into the line.

“We’d better go,” Marit said.

“Of course.” Ellie stepped back. “Sophie and I will wait here for your return.”

Marit and Isabelle moved to take their positions in line.

“Thank you,” Marit whispered to Isabelle. “Ellie was exactly who we needed.”

“And who Sophie needed.”

“Yes.” Marit smiled. She’d had the same thought. “That too.”

Chapter 19

Isabelle leaned back against theheadboard of Cole’s bed, a napkin and a boxed salad on her lap, or rather a plastic container filled with lettuce and cucumber. It could hardly be considered a salad when it didn’t include any toppings or salad dressing. Lars and Marit had once again opted to sit at the little table beside her, and Cole currently paced at the far end of the room, his open laptop in one hand. He was in work mode at the moment, his focus unbreakable. Why she should find him so attractive when he got like this, she couldn’t say, but at the moment, she was having a hard time keeping her eyes off him.

“Cole, it will be a lot easier to look at your screen if you stop pacing,” she said.

Cole simply made another turn at the edge of the room, the laptop still balanced on his hand.

Isabelle took a bite of salad. “When all this is over, I say we go out for a nice Italian dinner with lots of pasta and creamy sauces.”

Marit held up her fork, which currently had a wedge of tomato attached to the end of it. “That sounds so wonderful.”

“As hard as you two have been working, you deserve a little spoiling,” Lars said.

Cole’s focus remained on his laptop screen as he strode to the door and then back to the foot of the bed again. “From what Ralph said, we can eliminate half a dozen designers from suspicion, including Li Du and Kyle Adams. Neither of them has any sort of production abilities here in Europe, not even on a small scale.”

“And if we’re right about Camille Allard, she would be too grateful to Ralph for helping her out previously to ever try to sabotage him,” Marit said.

“Ralph indicated the same thing to me.”

“That leaves Henri LaRue and Peter Wade as our top suspects.” Isabelle slid off her shoes and let them fall to the floor before pointing her toes in an effort to work out the stiffness in her arches.

Cole set the laptop down and sat at the edge of the bed, just beyond Isabelle’s bare feet. “Peter’s name has come up twice now as possibly being involved in thefts before.” Cole nudged the laptop toward the center of the bed and took her foot in his hands. He pressed his thumb against the bottom of her foot, right in the spot where it ached the most.

Isabelle dropped her plastic fork into her salad box and sighed. “Oh, that feels good.”

“It’s supposed to.” He continued massaging her foot. “Maybe it’s time we take a closer look at Peter Wade’s operation.”

“What did you have in mind?” Lars asked.

Isabelle suspected she knew exactly what he had in mind. “Does Wade have offices here in Paris?”

“Yes.” Marit pushed the remains of her salad back onto the table. “Including a small production studio.”

Cole’s gaze lifted to meet Isabelle’s. He cocked both eyebrows as though asking her opinion of him breaking in without a government order behind him.

“If you do this, you’d better not get caught,” she said.

“Do what?” Lars asked.

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