Stacey and the Fashion Victim Read online

  Boring? That’s an understatement.

  I couldn’t understand what was taking so long, until I watched the shoot before mine. Then it all became clear. The thing was, for every finished shot, the photographer probably used three rolls of film. And before he could even take a single picture, he had to reposition the lights (or rather, his assistant had to), load the camera (or tell his assistant to load it), and take some Polaroids to see whether the setup was correct (and give them to his assistant to hold).

  It may sound as if Roger Bellair, the assistant, ended up doing all the work. Not true. He had Claudia to order around, remember? Both of them scurried here and there, ignoring everything but Jamie’s commands.

  Actually, Jamie was working just as hard as anyone else. His job as photographer also included talking to the models, putting them into position, and flattering them just enough so that they’d perform the way he needed them to.

  I watched him as he set up a group shot with Cynthia, Harmony, and Cokie. First, he and Julio conferred quietly about what they wanted for a finished product. Then he talked to the girls, telling Cynthia to put her hand on her hip, Harmony to smile and toss her head — “Yes! Just like that!” — and Cokie to relax and try to look natural. Once he had posed them, he took some Polaroids, and he and Julio conferred again. Then he moved the girls around some more, changed the lighting one more time, and checked everything with his light meter. At the last minute, Julio insisted on changing Harmony’s nail polish from hot pink to dusty rose. Then, finally, Jamie was ready to shoot.

  Me? I was ready for a nap.

  Twenty minutes later, Jamie told Cynthia, Harmony, and Cokie that he was done. “Okay, McGill and Rowlands, you’re up next!” said Julio, checking his clipboard.

  I turned around and saw Cynthia run back in, dressed in an outfit similar to mine. “I didn’t know we were doing this together,” I said.

  “Neither did I,” she said, smiling. “But I’m glad. It’ll be more fun that way.”

  I couldn’t help liking her when she said that. But I also couldn’t forget that she was, like every other girl there, a suspect in the poisoning of Harmony.

  She and I traipsed out into the lights. “Stace?” I heard Claudia call uncertainly. It was as if she didn’t recognize me — and who could blame her? I shaded my eyes with one hand to cut the glare and waved when I caught sight of Claudia standing behind one of the light towers.

  Julio and Jamie looked us over, conferred, and looked us over one more time. Then Jamie snapped out some instructions, and Claudia and Roger ran around moving equipment.

  “Okay, girls, let’s see you act like long-lost sisters who are thrilled to see each other again,” said Jamie. “Smile, jump up and down, whatever,” he added. His instructions were a little vague, but Cynthia and I tried to obey while he took a bunch of Polaroids. Then we let the smiles drop while he and Julio looked them over and conferred some more.

  “Great, great,” said Jamie finally. “Terrific, McGill. And you, Rowlands, you’re a natural. The camera loves you.”

  I felt a twinge of jealousy when he said that about Cynthia, but when I looked at the Polaroids afterward, I had to admit it was true. I looked okay, but Cynthia looked great.

  By the time we’d finished, I was feeling exhausted. And I still had three more outfits to model! I ducked into the bathroom and did a quick blood test to find out whether I needed some insulin, but my numbers came up okay. As long as I could grab a quick bite, I’d be fine.

  I headed back into the dressing room to find my backpack, which held a snack I’d prepared at home. As I passed the shooting stage, Julio was calling for the “pajama party shoot.” I knew that was one of the group shots, with Sydney, Harmony, and Blaine.

  “Oh, no!” I heard someone cry as I rounded the corner. “This is so creepy! Who would do a thing like this?”

  It was Blaine. She was holding up a piece of clothing that looked as if it once had been a pajama top: It was white cotton with pink roses.

  It also happened to be shredded.

  It hung in tatters, looking as if someone had gone at it with a very sharp pair of scissors. Someone mean, someone angry. Someone, I thought with a shiver, who might be out to hurt one of us.

  Sydney’s red-and-white-checked flannel robe was shredded, too, and so was Harmony’s tie-dyed baby-doll nightie.

  And the three pairs of bunny slippers the girls were supposed to wear? You don’t even want to hear about what was done to those poor things.

  “Gross!” said Blaine, looking at one of her slippers. “Somebody around here has a really weird sense of humor.”

  “I’m not laughing,” said Sydney.

  Harmony wasn’t laughing, either. Nor was she talking. She was just sitting there, white as a sheet. Looking at her, I had the peculiar feeling that she might actually know who had cut up her clothes — and that it was the same person who had poisoned her.

  Then I shook my head and told myself I was being silly. If she knew, she’d tell security, or Mrs. Maslin, wouldn’t she?

  Speaking of Mrs. Maslin, she appeared on the scene just as Blaine and Sydney were starting to panic about what they were going to wear for the pajama party shoot, now that their clothes had been ruined.

  “I mean, look at these!” Sydney was saying as she held up her pajamas. “Could they be any more useless?”

  “Jamie is waiting for us,” wailed Blaine. “What are we going to do?” She glanced around desperately, as if she hoped another nightgown might fall from the heavens.

  “Don’t worry, girls,” Mrs. Maslin said soothingly, although I’d seen the shock in her eyes when she first glimpsed the shredded clothes. “The manufacturer sent plenty of samples. We’re having more brought down right away. Go ahead and change now.” She turned and saw Harmony sitting there as still as a mouse. “You, too, Harmony,” she said, shooing her along. “And don’t look so frightened. It’s just somebody’s idea of a silly joke.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” Somebody behind me was laughing a diabolical laugh — quietly, and right into my ear. I whirled around.

  “Claudia!” I cried. “That’s not funny. You scared me.”

  “Sorry,” she said, grinning. “I couldn’t resist.” She was standing there with her arms full of pajamas and nightgowns. “Julio told me to bring these in here. I guess somebody didn’t think the first set was quite their look, huh?” She nodded at Mrs. Maslin, who was holding up each piece of clothing in turn and clucking her tongue.

  I tried to laugh, but somehow I couldn’t. The shredded clothing gave me the creeps in a big way.

  Claudia must have sensed what I was feeling. She handed over the clothes to Mrs. Maslin and then pulled me aside, behind a rack full of summer dresses. “Don’t let it scare you,” she told me.

  “I’m trying not to,” I said. “But it’s sure beginning to look as if somebody doesn’t like models very much.”

  Claudia glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “Okay, I think I have another suspect for our list,” she began.

  Just then, Mal and Mary Anne showed up. They were breathing hard as they rounded the corner, as if they’d run all the way from the Kid Center.

  “Mal!” I whispered, grabbing her arm and pulling her into our hideaway. “What are you guys doing here?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on duty?”

  “We’re on a break,” she answered. “We just heard what happened. This is really serious.”

  “Wow! News sure travels fast around here,” I said.

  Mary Anne whipped out the mystery notebook. “I brought this along today,” she said. “I had a feeling we might want it.” She started to make a few notes about the shredded clothes.

  “Claudia was just going to tell me about a new suspect,” I said.

  “Who?” Mary Anne asked eagerly, forgetting about the notebook.

  “His name’s Dylan Trueheart,” said Claudia.

  Why did that name ring a bell?

  “He’s some kind
of agent,” she continued.

  Then I remembered. “He’s the guy who discovered Cokie!” I said.

  Claudia gave a little snort. “Figures,” she said. “From what I hear, he’s desperate for clients.”

  “So why is he a suspect?” I asked.

  “I can’t say, exactly,” Claudia admitted. “It’s just that there’s something suspicious about him. He’s always lurking around. You’ve probably seen him. He’s that guy with the black ponytail and the mirrored sunglasses? And he seems to know everything about all the models.”

  Now that she described him, I knew I’d seen him around. He was kind of shady looking. “But why would he poison Harmony?” I asked.

  “Or shred clothes?” added Mal.

  Claudia shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to make the other models look bad, so Cokie — his client — looks good in comparison.”

  I rolled my eyes. “If he thinks anything he does could make Cokie into a supermodel, he’s seriously out to lunch.”

  “Still,” said Mary Anne thoughtfully, “Claudia has a point.” She made a few notes in the mystery notebook. “We’ll definitely have to keep an eye on him.”

  “What else can we do?” I asked.

  “We should try to find the weapon,” Mal said.

  “Weapon?” asked Claudia.

  “The scissors,” Mal said. “The ones somebody used to cut up those clothes. I mean, on the detective shows they always look for the weapon. And when they find it, sometimes they solve the crime.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t convinced. “We’ll look for the scissors. What else?”

  Just then, we were interrupted by a shout. “McGill!” Somebody with a clipboard walked by, calling my name. It was time for me to prepare for my next pose. It was a bathing suit shot, so it wouldn’t take me long to dress, but I knew I’d better start.

  “Talk to you guys later,” I whispered. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  “You, too,” said Claudia.

  “And — be careful,” Mal added.

  I felt a shiver run down my spine. “I will,” I promised. I said good-bye to my friends and headed for the bathroom, feeling shaky. I tried to calm myself. Was there really anything to be afraid of? Maybe I was nervous over nothing. I took a few deep breaths and felt a lot better.

  Then I saw the note on the mirror.

  It was scrawled in bright red lipstick. MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL, it said. WHO WILL BE THE NEXT TO FALL?

  It wasn’t addressed to me. It was just there, threatening anyone who happened to look at it.

  I felt a little faint.

  “Who is doing this?” someone asked, and I looked up to see Cokie staring at the note. A couple of other girls had come in, too. For once, there was no talking and giggling. Just a subdued murmuring and some nervous laughter.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “But I’m going to find out.” I hate feeling scared. I promised myself to fight that feeling, to concentrate instead on catching the person who was trying to frighten me and every other model at Bellair’s.

  I had to work fast. First of all, there were only four days left in Fashion Week. That didn’t leave much time. Second, if my mom found out what was going on, she’d probably make me quit modeling. Finally, I knew that if my friends and I didn’t solve the mystery soon, somebody could get seriously hurt.

  The pranks continued all that day and into the next.

  That afternoon, Jamie discovered that somebody had been into one of his camera bags. Eight rolls of film had been exposed — which meant that half a day’s work was wasted.

  One of the models I didn’t know nearly threw a fit when she discovered a huge spider in one of her shoes.

  Blaine was somehow locked in the freight elevator. Nobody knew where she was until one of the lighting guys finally heard her pounding and yelling for help.

  During Wednesday’s fashion show, Harmony took a bad fall off the catwalk when a bright light flashed into her eyes. (She wasn’t hurt, and she insisted she had fallen because she was wearing high heels — but I’d seen the flash of light.)

  Another model broke out into a terrible, stinging rash after she applied some foundation from a jar she’d found on her dressing table.

  And then there were the notes.

  PRETTY IS AS PRETTY DOES, UNTIL PRETTY DIES! said the one written in eyebrow pencil on the schedule posted on the dressing room door. BEAUTY KILLS, said another, traced in some spilled face powder on one of the dressing tables. And finally, in lip liner on one of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom, MODEL BEHAVIOR CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

  Finally, Mrs. Maslin couldn’t pretend it was a joke anymore. She gathered the models together after Wednesday’s show, and told us she would do everything she could to make sure we were safe. She sounded very reassuring. But she also asked us to stay alert, and to be sure to report any suspicious behavior to her.

  That night, I had a hard time hiding my fears from my mother. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard about what was going on. After all, she works at Bellair’s. But this was her busiest season, and I knew she had barely a moment to herself.

  For a second, over our dinner of takeout Chinese food, I had the impulse to tell her I wanted to quit. Modeling was fun, but it wasn’t worth dying for.

  But then I opened my fortune cookie. YOU WILL KNOW THE ANSWER SOON, it said. How could I resist sticking with the mystery after that message?

  “Rock.”

  “That’s right! It’s a nice rock, too.” Kristy smiled at Emily Michelle and turned the pebble over in her hand. “Where did you find it?”

  Emily pointed to the big planters by their front door, which are filled with about ten million identical “rocks.”

  “Good for you,” said Kristy, giving her little sister a squeeze. “What else can you find for me?”

  It was Tuesday afternoon, and while I was dealing with the fashion show sabotage, Kristy was enjoying the sun while she baby-sat for her younger siblings and stepsiblings. They were all hanging out in the huge Thomas/Brewer yard. Kristy was lying in the fresh new grass under the apple tree, which happened to be in bloom, feeling, she told me later, as if the spring day had been made just for her. Birds were chirping, bees were buzzing, lilacs were scenting the soft air.

  David Michael, who’s seven and a half, was playing three-way catch with Karen, who’s seven, and Andrew, who’s four. They tossed a softball back and forth, working on their throwing and catching. Kristy kept an eye on their technique and gave them pointers once in awhile, but mainly she let them just fool around. After all, this wasn’t an official Krushers practice session. Even though all three kids are on her softball team, Kristy knows when to act like a coach and when not to.

  Meanwhile, Emily Michelle, who’s two and a half, was keeping herself busy. She was exploring the yard thoroughly, and every time she made a new discovery she toddled back to tell Kristy about it or show her something she’d found.

  Emily was born in Vietnam, and I don’t know much about her life as an orphan before she came to live with Kristy’s family. She’s had a hard time learning to talk, partly because she only heard Vietnamese for the first couple of years of her life. Kristy and her family have worked hard with her, though, and word by word she’s learning to speak English.

  “Fower,” said Emily Michelle, handing a dandelion to Kristy.

  “Flower,” Kristy corrected. “Can you say flower?”

  “Fower,” Emily repeated, grinning. “Pitty.”

  Kristy laughed. “You’re right,” she said, giving up on the language lesson. “It is a pretty flower.”

  Satisfied, Emily toddled off. Kristy leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the white apple blossoms and the blue sky. She knew it was too early to start thinking about all the things she wanted to do over summer vacation, but she couldn’t help dreaming about barbecues and pool parties and —

  “Uck,” said Emily Michelle.

  “Uck?” asked Kristy, snapping ou
t of her dream. “What do you mean, ‘uck’?”

  Emily slowly opened her hand. Lying in her palm was something that was most definitely not a flower or a rock. “Uck,” she repeated.

  Kristy took a closer look and realized what it was. “Oh, yuck!” she cried.

  Emily nodded. “Uck,” she agreed happily.

  “Put that down,” said Kristy. “It’s one of Watson’s disgusting old smelly cigar butts. Oh, ew!”

  Emily dropped it, startled by Kristy’s reaction. For a second she screwed up her face and looked as if she were going to cry.

  “Oh, it’s okay,” said Kristy, giving her a quick hug. “It’s not your fault.”

  “What’s not her fault?” asked David Michael. He and Karen and Andrew had gathered around, curious about what could be grossing out Kristy.

  “This disgusting thing.” Kristy nudged the cigar butt with the toe of her sneaker.

  “Oh, ew, ew, triple ew!” cried Karen.

  “Why does Daddy have to smoke those gross things?” asked Andrew. “I hate when he does that.”

  “Mom hates it, too,” said David Michael. “Luckily, he doesn’t smoke them that often. She won’t let him smoke them inside, especially in the winter, when it’s too cold to open the windows.”

  “So this butt was probably lying on the patio under the snow all winter,” said Kristy. “Gross.”

  “I keep asking Daddy to quit cigars,” said Karen sadly. “But he just won’t. Doesn’t he know smoking is bad for him? He already had a heart attack.”

  “He knows,” said Kristy, putting an arm around Karen’s shoulders. “But sometimes that’s not enough. Some grown-ups have a hard time giving up smoking.”

  “Like Mr. DeWitt,” put in David Michael. News had traveled fast about Buddy’s and Lindsey’s brush with cigarettes. “Lindsey says he’s tried to stop, but he can’t.”

  “Same with Mr. Milton,” said Karen. “He works at my school. I always tell him he shouldn’t smoke, and he tells me he wishes he had never started.”

  “That’s a good thing for you guys to remember,” Kristy said, unable to resist the chance to give them a lecture. “You know, most people start smoking when they’re young. Then they wish they hadn’t.”