No Quest For The Wicked

“I meant my personal personal shopper,” I said haughtily. “He’s my new private wardrobe consultant, and I was supposed to meet him here.”

Fortunately, Rod was quick enough to play along. “You’re Natalie?” he asked.

“I’m Natalie!” the real Natalie protested.

“I’m afraid there’s been a big mix-up,” Rod said to Cecile. “I got the wrong Natalie. I’m so sorry.” He took my arm and ushered me away, saying, “Now, darling, it looks like we have a lot of work to do with you. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.

“Just playing my part. That was quick thinking.” We rounded the corner, then joined Owen behind a concealing clothing rack. “She can’t be our woman,” Rod reported. “I don’t think she’s ever owned a sapphire in her life. Apparently, no one had ever told her she’d look good in blue. That must have been a new color of contact lens for her. If that was her real eye color, they’d have been putting her in blue from birth.”

“And also, Gemma says that real billionaires’ fiancées don’t shop in department stores,” I added.

He groaned and said, “I should have known that. I guess we forget how different they are from the rest of us.”

“We’d better get out of here in case Cecile is still suspicious enough to call security,” Owen said, tugging at both of us.

We’d barely stepped back into the aisle when a plaintive cry of “André? Where are you? I need you!” echoed across the floor. We leapt back into cover and headed for another aisle, crouching to keep our heads below the tops of the clothing racks.

“I guess I overestimated how much power to use on her,” Rod said as Natalie’s calls continued. “I must be out of practice.”

We crept out from behind a rack when the coast seemed clear, only to run into something thin and blond. “André, you shouldn’t have listened to Cecile!” Natalie cried. “She’s just jealous because she didn’t think to tell me to wear blue. I need you.”

He took her hand and stared directly into her eyes, and I started to scold him before he said softly, “Natalie, it’s okay. You don’t need me. Now, go let Cecile pick out some clothes for you.”

“Yes, yes, I should do that,” she said, nodding. Her eyes looked vague and unfocused. She swayed ever so slightly, and Rod steadied her, only releasing her when she seemed stable. She blinked out of it, stared quizzically at Rod, then nodded more decisively. “Yes, I have a personal shopper appointment.”

“You do,” Rod agreed, releasing her hand. “Have a nice day.” As she walked away, he added under his breath, “And a nice life. Sorry.” He turned to us and said, “Now, Owen is right. We ought to get out of here in case that real personal shopper didn’t buy your story and has called security—or the police.”

We’d nearly made it to the escalators when I realized that we were missing someone. “Hey, where are Granny and Thor?” I asked.

The guys glanced around. “I haven’t seen them in a while,” Owen said.

“Your grandmother mentioned needing a girdle,” Rod said. “Do you think she was serious?”

“There’s no telling. I think lingerie is on one of the higher floors. We could go check. At least it would get us off this floor.”

We got on an up escalator. On the next level, as we stepped off and headed for the next escalator heading up, a woman dressed in black like the store employees gave us a startled look and then moved toward us. “Uh oh, looks like someone alerted security,” I said. We’d be sitting ducks on an escalator, so we did an abrupt reversal and plunged into a jungle of clothing racks. The woman stayed on our tail, and when I looked back over my shoulder, I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a store employee name tag. Either she was an undercover security officer or she was following us for some reason other than Rod’s attempt to impersonate a personal shopper.

“The elevators,” Owen suggested. None of us knew the store layout well enough to find them, so we wove our way around the floor, simultaneously looking out for our pursuer and for the elevators.

“There they are!” called Rod, just as a hand reached out from behind a rack and grabbed me.

Chapter Six

I didn’t get a chance to scream before a hand went over my mouth and I was pulled deeper into the clothing racks. I heard Owen and Rod calling for me nearby and struggled against my captor while screaming my lungs out from behind the muffling hand.