Page 77 of When Fashion Turns Deadly

Cole retrieved the security feed he had captured on his phone, rewound it, and pulled up the woman’s image. No doubt about it. He’d found the thief.

Cole stepped past three stylists and stopped behind the woman in the yellow blouse. The stylist capped the lipstick and looked up at him. “You can’t be in this area.”

“I’ll leave as soon as she returns the bag she stole.”

The model looked up at the reflection of Cole in the mirror in front of them. “I didn’t steal anything.”

“I saw you take Marit Jansen’s bag from the cubby a minute ago.”

“Are you talking about the oversized white Molenaar purse?”

Cole wouldn’t have known about the brand had Marit and Isabelle not already pointed it out to him. “That’s the one.”

“That wasn’t Marit’s. It belonged to one of the models from the Valentino show.”

“Who told you that?” Cole asked.

“Felicia.”

“Where is she?”

This time the stylist answered. “Over there. Eight chairs down on the right. She’s wearing a pink apron.”

“Thanks.” Cole headed the way the stylist pointed. He counted off the chairs and found the woman with crinkly brown hair and a pink apron. “Are you Felicia?”

“Oui.” She turned, a curling iron gripped in her hand.

“Where’s the purse?” Cole asked. “The white one the model gave you.”

Felicia jutted her chin toward the main backstage entrance. “A guard asked for it. He said one of the Valentino models left it but that she wasn’t allowed backstage after the show ended.”

Cole spotted the guard by the curtain. “Was it him?”

“No. The man I spoke to was shorter. And his hair was blond, not brown.”

“Thanks.” Cole pulled up the app on his phone to determine the location of the purse. The blue circle that identified the tracking device flashed, moving slightly one way and then the other. Not able to determine the exact location, Cole backtracked past the stylist chairs and made his way to the guard by the curtain. “Do you know where the other guard went? The blond one? He’s a bit shorter than you?”

“He left a minute ago,” he said in a thick French accent. “He was returning a lost item.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. I’d never met him before.”

Cole pulled out his phone and called Lars. “Lars, keep an eye out for a blond security guard, under six feet tall, carrying Marit’s bag.”

“He got past you?” Lars asked incredulously.

Cole looked down at the app on his phone, the blue dot simply indicating that the purse was somewhere in the Louvre. “Yeah.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “He got past me.”

***

Lars scanned the crowded room. Those who’d come to Valentino’s show had already exited, but the incoming crowd was causing congestion at the doors. Although many people had claimed seats, more of them had not. The aisles were full of people, and far too many of them were blond-haired men around six feet tall.

Barely resisting the temptation to stand on the nearest chair so that he could see over the heads of those milling around the room, Lars hurried to the nearest aisle and started for the door. If the thief had already escaped the backstage area, the first thing he’d do was make for the exit.

Navigating around several tripods and camera cases, Lars made it only two meters before a large woman wearing an enormous, floppy hat blocked his path.

“Excusez-moi.” He shifted half a pace to the left. She didn’t move. He tried going right. She still didn’t move.

---