Chapter 8: The Fitting

"Then you signed off on the call that emptied a widow's bank account on Saturday night," I said.

Vanessa's hand stopped on her pocket.

"What widow?"

"Suite 908. Every April for twenty years. Dad sent her sherry."

Something moved behind my sister's eyes.

Then one of the planners coughed, and Vanessa remembered she had an audience.

"Damon will deal with it," she said, and walked her planners out to the terrace.

The next afternoon I took the stairs to the Rose Suite with my laptop under my arm.

Vanessa's wedding was in seven weeks, in the Harbor Ballroom, three hundred guests.

Her final fitting was today.

I knew because she'd posted the countdown.

The Rose Suite was all pink silk walls and gilt mirrors, the room Dad used to call the inside of a cake.

My sister stood on a little round platform in the middle of it, in ivory satin.

A seamstress knelt at her hem with pins in her mouth.

My mother sat on the settee with a glass of iced tea and a garment bag across her knees.

They both looked up when I came in.

"No," Vanessa said.

"Five minutes."

"You're not even supposed to see the dress."

"That's for grooms, Van."

The seamstress kept pinning, eyes down.

My mother set her glass on a coaster.

"Elise," she said. "Whatever this is, it can wait until after the wedding."

"It can't wait seven weeks."

I opened my laptop on the vanity and turned it toward the platform.

"This is the recording from the Palm Bar," I said.

"The man who bought the drive is a list broker in Houston. He sells card numbers to call centers in three countries."

I clicked to the second window.

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