“Damn. That’s done.”
She could hear him thinking while she cleaned tiny bits of glue off her nose.
“I’ll have them make another prosthetic for you and deliver it before anyone else sees you without the nose.”
“Markus, I can’t stay in the bathroom all morning.” Fran would have a conniption. Kramer would fire her. “We might be okay. Kramer already saw me. He didn’t seem to notice.”
“Ugh,” he groaned. “What about everyone else?”
She didn’t have an answer.
“Okay, I’m sending a message to the prosthetics people. We’ll see how long it’ll take.”
Even driving it over would take half an hour, and that was without remaking it. There was no way.
“What about the guest list?” Markus asked.
“Sergei Orlov’s on the list.” Thinking aloud, Gabby said, “Is he flying in all the way from Russia?” What kind of party did a person fly halfway across the world for?
“This is big, Gabby.”
“So what, you’re going to catch him red-handed racketeering?” Racketeering—it still sounded like an obscure Olympic event to her, like they would need a special location and racketeering equipment, including kneepads and a helmet.
“It’s just like everything else. The real business happens over cocktails. This party is a big break.”
She’d never arranged a corporate party before. She hadn’t even attended one in recent memory. Early on in her marriage, she would do her hair, put on a cocktail dress, and play the part of a wife. It had been a while.
So many questions: How many mini-quiches? What about the vegans? Were as many adults allergic to nuts as kids? Was this a Costco or a catering situation? If a guy was flying in from Russia, probably catering.
The only parties she’d been to recently were kids’ birthday parties. Sheet cakes and pizza in the Sky Zone party room. In fact, she’d thrown so many Sky Zone birthdays that she had a freebie coming up.
Markus jogged her back to the present. “This is our chance for hard proof of money laundering.”
How the hell was she going to throw a party for adults? And she only had a week and a half to do it. This is what the Sky Zone party package was for—moments like this when you didn’t want to take care of the details on your own.
“Gabby, just take—” Markus fizzed out before he could finish his sentence. She wiggled a finger in her ear.
“Markus, I can’t hear you,” she said.
It was the bathroom. The reception was so much worse in here than it was at her desk, not that she could talk at her desk privately.
“I said—” Markus said before going out again.
“Markus,” she said, wiggling a finger in her ear again. Before she had time to freak out even more, the door to the bathroom opened. Gabby jumped liked she’d just been caught tweezing chin hairs, not that she had any. Instinctively she went to waveat Fran, all “hey, nothing to see here, girl” complete with a big fake smile.
When she pulled her finger out of her ear to wave, she snagged the earpiece. In slow motion, she watched her lifeline to Markus sail through the air toward the sink, skitter around the edge and…
She stepped toward the bowl and stared down the drain.
“Camille?” Fran said.
Frantically, she felt around the sink, even though she could see it wasn’t there. The earpiece was gone. Markus was down the drain. She was alone.
“Camille, I’ve been looking for you.”
“What?” Gabby managed to pull her attention from the drain toward Fran. “What do you need?”
“Do you need some help? It seems like you’re having a little trouble this morning.”
