Lauren pressed a hand to her chest. “My heart is pounding. I can’t believe we’ve found her.”
“Don’t believe it until you see it. There could be a catch yet.”
But Lauren was shaking her head. “Ann said she’d spoken to her just last week. Oh, she’s here all right. I canfeelit.”
Slinging an arm around her shoulder, Matt tugged her close. “My eternal optimist.” He popped a kiss on her nose. “So. What will it be? Tonight, or tomorrow morning?”
Lauren pondered the choice. “If we go tonight, it’ll have to be to her apartment. Ann said it’s a nice place, which means there will be security guards—”
“Who call up to announce your arrival and get permission to let you in. Susan doesn’t know us. She’ll never allow it. No, I think we’ll have to take her by surprise. Any advance announcement of our presence will put her on guard and, in turn, put us at an immediate disadvantage.”
“On the one hand,” Lauren mused, “I hate to wait. The sooner we get to her, the sooner we’ll all breathe freely. But another twelve hours, after all this time … it can’t hurt.”
Matt nodded his agreement. “We know where she works. If we surprise her there tomorrow, she won’t have a chance to turn us away sight unseen. And if she gets scared and tries to run, we can stop her.”
“But we need time with her, time to explain what we’re about.” Lauren ran her tongue back and forth over her lower lip, then expressed her thoughts aloud. “She’s a beauty consultant, Ann said. That figures. From what we’ve learned, she has a way with makeup and color and style. What if I call first thing in the morning and make an appointment? If we just drop in, she’s apt to be with a client. On the other hand, if I can guarantee us a piece of her time …”
A slow grin spread over Matt’s face. “Smart girl. Iknewthere was a reason why I brought you along.”
Lauren grabbed his ears, tugged him down and kissed his yelp away. She lingered to savor his returning kiss, her fingers tangling in his sun-kissed hair. At last she dropped her arms to his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest.
They were silent for a time, enjoying the closeness. But Lauren’s thoughts of the day to come refused to stay in abeyance for long. “Poor Susan. If she only knew tonight what was in store for her tomorrow.”
“Save your sympathy, sweetheart,” Matt murmured. “Susan Miles may still put us through an ordeal. Confronting her is one thing, convincing her that we’re on the level is another, but selling her on the idea of going to the police may be a different can of worms entirely.”
Michele Sloane, as Susan now called herself, had set up her business in fashionable Georgetown. Lauren got the phone number from directory assistance and started calling at eight-thirty in the morning on the chance that the shop opened early for the prework set. It wasn’t until nine that she got through.
Luck was with her. Michele had a cancellation and could see her at eleven-thirty.
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness as Lauren and Matt pushed their breakfasts around their plates in the hotel dining room. Then, to expend nervous energy, they went out for a walk. But while the White House, the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial should have inspired awe, they were too preoccupied in anticipation of the coming meeting to award these sights their due.
Ten o’clock came and went, then ten-thirty. Back in their hotel room, Lauren began to pace the floor. By eleven she was ready to jump out of her skin, but it wasn’t until eleven-ten that she and Matt left the room, rode the elevator in silence, walked calmly through the hotel lobby and climbed into the cab that the doorman had whistled up. They’d calculated well for the traffic. It was eleven-thirty on the dot when the cabbie pulled up at the address they’d given him.
For a minute Matt and Lauren stood before the stately brownstone on the ground floor of which was Susan’s shop. The sign on the front window, a contemporary logo in burgundy, read “Elegance, Inc.” Smaller letters, far below, advertised fashion advice and salon services.
Taking a collective breath for courage, they crossed the sidewalk, descended three steps to the door and entered the shop. An aura of quiet dignity surrounded them instantly. The reception area was done in shades of a soothing pale gray and peach. Soft pop music hummed in the background, low enough to create a modern mood yet be unobtrusive.
A woman sat in a chair reading a magazine, apparently awaiting her appointment. Lauren and Matt made their way directly to the receptionist.
“May I help you?” she asked politely.
“Yes. My name is Lauren Stevenson. I have an eleventhirty appointment with Michele Sloane.”
The receptionist consulted the large book open before her, put a tiny dot next to Lauren’s name, then smiled up at her. “Why don’t you have a seat? Michele is just finishing up with another client. She’ll be with you in a minute.”
Lauren thanked her and settled into one of a pair of chairs farthest from the receptionist. She crossed her legs, folded her hands in her lap and leaned closer to Matt, who’d taken the chair immediately on her left.
“When was the last time you were in a place like this?” she whispered in an attempt at levity.
His soft grunt was the only answer she got, the only thing that betrayed his mood. He looked self-confident and composed. Taking her cue from him, she breathed deeply and straightened her shoulders. They were so close, so close….
Moments later another woman entered the shop, checked in with the receptionist and was sent directly through to one of the back rooms. Lauren stared after her, noting a long hallway sporting two doors on the side she could see. She assumed another two doors were on the opposite side.
Just then, from that blind side came the soft murmur of conversation. It was immediately followed by the appearance of two women, but Lauren’s eyes homed in on only one of them.
Susan Miles was everything she’d been built up to be. She was indeed stunning. Very much Lauren’s own height and build, she wore a pale yellow dress whose shoulder pads gave a breadth that narrowed, past a hip belt, into a pencil-slim skirt. Chunky beads hung around her neck. A coordinated bracelet ringed her wrist. Whether she wore earrings was not immediately apparent, for her chin-length hair was a mass of thick waves that framed her face in haphazard tumble.
The entire look was chic without being ostentatious. Lauren, who mere moments before had felt sufficiently confident in her own stylish tunic and slacks, was envious.
