Forty-two.

It is all magical. I always look at nature and I think nature has the most beautiful colors. I always like to have colors in my designs, like the flowers and the sea, that make life.

-VIVIENNE TAM The Parasites had come to the fashion show, I realized as I stood up to begin. Even Chef Zander Pollock came, "for Dominique's sake," he said. He had prepared the canapes for before the show and the dessert, to be served afterward.

Once Nick's background check on Pollock revealed nothing incriminating or suspect, I accepted his offer.

"Before we officially begin the Dominique DeLong Memorial Vintage Fashion Show, I'd like to introduce Melody Seabright, founder of the Keep Me Foundation, which helps young, unwed mothers to keep their babies, and Kira G.o.ddard, a member of the family who founded St. Anthony's Home for Boys who need parents."

Vanessa, to the side, put her arm around Cort's leg and leaned into him. With her mother, Cort's daughter, being hospitalized indefinitely, Cort had become Vanessa's family. I imagine that she felt the sting of being without a mother, more or less.

Cort picked up his little one and cuddled her until her smile grew and her cares vanished.

Melody and Kira took center, er, foyer, and gave the attendees a brief overview of their respective charities, both mentioning how much Dominique had meant to them, and how deeply she would be missed.

They presented a short slide show in which Dominique interacted with the boys at St. Anthony's and with the Keep Me Foundation's teen mothers and their new babies.

The soundtrack for the slideshow was a recording of Dominique singing "Children Need a Helping Hand."

I gotta tell you, seeing my friend loving those kids, hearing her gentle, caring voice sure gave me a lump in my throat.

After the presentation, Dom's music continued while I gave Kyle a set of index cards. "I numbered them," I told him, "in case you fumble or drop them."

"I should be insulted, but I'm that nervous. I'd be less intimidated by a room full of stockholders out for blood, or even an angry board of directors."

I squeezed his arm. "As each girl comes down the stairs, read the name of the item at the top of the card. They'll do three poses here in the circle at the base of the stairs. Read the descriptions in order, one description for each pose."

"Got it," he said. "And what will you be doing?"

"Coordinating the models as they change their outfits."

"Can we switch jobs?" he asked as I walked away and grabbed little Vanessa by the hand.

I smiled as the elevator took us upstairs to the chaos I knew was waiting for me.

My models belonged to me and to Dominique: Phoebe Muir, Dom's girl Friday; Rainbow Joy, her hairdresser/ makeup artist; Galina Lockhart, a rival ingenue and actress, and mother of Dom's understudy; Ursula, the understudy herself; Quinny Veneble, Dom's catty best friend, mother of Phoebe; Dolly Sweet, centenarian; Eve, my BFF; Aunt Fiona, my mother's BFF; oh, and me.

I was the only one not dressed in my first outfit. Theirs I had marked with their names and #1 on the temporary paper shrouds I'd slipped over each outfit. "Okay, Vanessa," I told Cort's granddaughter. "Go down and tell Kyle we're ready to begin."

This, I knew, would be my last moment of sanity. Changing into the second go-round of outfits on the run would cause chaos to the max.

"Phoebe? Need any adjustments? You're first."

"Nope. I'm all set."

"Okay, then, the music has been turned down, so it makes a fine background for the show and people will be able to hear the outfits' descriptions. Go."

Galina came to me looking for a repair on an Elsa Schiaparelli linen jacket with an embroidered motif of a woman with gold sequined curls flowing down her right arm, done after a motif by Jean Cocteau, circa 1937. "Just half a snap missing," I said. "Hold it closed."

When she did, I saw her hand. "That's a gorgeous ring," I said.

Galina preened. "It's a diamond and gold cigar band initial ring. Someone I care about very much gave it to me."

I tried to sew quickly, but my stomach flipped, and I had trouble keeping my balance. Suddenly, I was Dominique wearing the Schiaparelli jacket, and I heard several people, on the opposite side of a dressing room door, talking in hushed tones about "the diamonds," speaking at the same time, but somehow between them, repeating, almost word for word, the proposition Victor had made about stealing them. Oy, I was, of course in Dominique's s.p.a.ce, again.

I, I mean Dom, began to panic. How could they do that? Would I be wearing the diamonds when they tried to steal them? The show diamonds were either locked up or in my possession. There was no in between.

Only one thing to do, I-no, Dominique thought. Hide the diamonds.

"She's okay," Eve said, helping me up. "Have you been too busy to eat again today, Mad?"

"'Fraid so, Eve. Galina?" I asked. "Does the jacket snap now?"

"Yes." Galina looked satisfied. "I guess it's nearly my turn."

I watched Galina take the stairs as Eve shoved a cup of juice to my lips. "What did you see?" she whispered furiously.

I took the cup from her hand and drank the juice. "What did I see?" I asked myself. "The beginning of the end, I think."

"Scary," Eve said.

"You have no idea."

Forty-three.

The dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. When a woman smiles the dress must smile with her.

-MADELEINE VIONNET I took my seafoam gown out by the hanger and hoped beyond hope that I wouldn't get a vision and see Dom's painful and gruesome death or something, though how could that be if she died during the final act and my dress had not been a costume in the show?

I might be safe.

Figuring that out made me feel a little less shaky and a lot more confident. Maybe I wouldn't zone and fall down the stairs. Not that I'd ever played it safe.

My mother told me as much after I jumped off the Charles W. Morgan, Mystic Seaport's famous whaling ship, when I was in kindergarten, to retrieve the purse that matched my jumper.

I proved it when I called Werner a Wiener in third grade, then I really proved it in high school when I snuck Nick Jaconetti up the getaway tree outside Brandy's bedroom, so he could spend the night and leave via the tree before dawn.

d.a.m.n, I missed Nick.

I slipped over my head the sleeveless silk seafoam gown I'd designed and made so long ago when I was a fan hyperventilating over the adored Dominique DeLong, making sure not to catch my hair, or a fingernail, in any of the rows of gems aligned with the neck and sleeves.

As I expected, since the dress was cut on the bias, it made love to my curves and adapted itself to mine in the same way it had adapted itself to Dom's.

I had never expected to wear this dress, but Dom asked in her instructions that I model it. Yes, I was chancing a vision, but I was doing this for her.

When Quinny exited the elevator wearing a black Claire McCardell "baby doll" dress, circa 1946, I knew it was my turn.

As I walked down the Vancortland stairs while Kyle described the dress, naming me as the designer and creator, exclusively for Dominique DeLong, I got a pretty good collective "ah" from the audience, people who knew me, I expected.

But then I got a flashback to Dom's gut-wrenching fear as she replaced the cubic zirconias with rhinestones. I gasped, grabbed the stair rail with one hand, and slapped my other hand to my heart.

That's when it happened.

Half the rhinestones fell like a waterfall down the stairs, tinkling all the way.

My first thought: Great, they'll think I'm a slipshod dressmaker.

My second thought: Why were Ian DeLong and Lance Taggart on the stairs scrambling over each other to collect the rhinestones?

Another flashback and an answer from Dom: "Because they think they're the missing diamonds and they don't want to lose a one."

There was more than my psychometric ability at work here. Dom was trying to help me find her killer. I'd never missed her more.

As for the gems, I knew diamonds, but I hadn't looked that closely at any point in time, not after I got the news that Dom died, certainly, and not after I saw Dom put the rhinestones in. But suppose I missed a gem switch along the way?

Had I just let loose a rain of diamonds?

For me, the fashion show was ruined. "Gentlemen," I said to the greedy miscreants, or murderers, at my feet, "you're hampering the proceedings. This is a fashion show. Last I knew, being adored isn't part of the script."

The women in the audience chuckled.

These men thought they knew something I didn't. I knew now that Dom led her murderers on a merry chase, and she wasn't finished with them yet, not even from the grave.

I picked up a gem myself. Yep, a wild-goose chase, more fool them. This was not a diamond.

"I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for the interruption. I shouldn't have included the dress in the show, once I knew that Dominique, an outstanding Broadway actress but a shoddy seamstress, replaced the stones herself. Thank you for your patience."

I motioned Werner over and led him from the room so the fashion show could continue. "Detective, would you please relieve the gentlemen of their diamonds."

Yes, I'd described them as diamonds on purpose. It was called bait.

I counted the empty settings on my dress. "Werner, between them, they should have fifty."

I watched until Werner did a count and gave me a nod.

I opened my hand for the diamonds, closed my fingers over them, and watched Lance and Ian stare at my hand as I did.

"Mad," Werner said, "I'd like to detain these characters, if you don't mind, just long enough to have the guys at the station run a check on them."

"Be my guest," I said, unable to hide my smile.

I made a spectacle of myself getting into the elevator in front of everyone, and halfway up, in the dark behind an ornately gilded elevator gate, I heard the crowd burst into applause.

I sighed. Not such a catastrophe after all. That made me feel a bit better. Knowing that Ian and Lance thought I had the diamonds, however, scared the h.e.l.l out of me. Because they were likely Dom's murderers and they knew that I saw through their thoughtless greed.

I misled them on purpose saying the rhinestones were diamonds. I hope the gamble I just took with my life was worth the risk. I prayed that because of it, I found Dom's killers, plural, because I was beginning to think there had to be more than one.

Cort came up and gave me a leather case for the rhinestones and let me lock them up in a bedroom safe, bless him. But I couldn't tell even him the truth. Not yet.

I didn't have to walk the stairs/runway for another half hour, in Coco Chanel's very own little black dress, to end the show. So for now, I could breath easy.

Dolly modeled a fitted, long-sleeved gray pinstripe Givenchy wool dress with a full front placket and four self-bows. "Dolly, that makes you look seventy- five again."

"Can you find an outfit that will take another thirty years off? I'd wear it to your shop."

Her giggle entertained Cort and he laughed, too. "Go and strut your stuff, you cheeky babe," I said. She positively glowed as she went down the stairs on Cort's arm, and she did it with style.

When I heard the guests applaud, I peeked around the corner and saw that she'd gotten a standing ovation. Even Cort stepped aside to applaud her.

I was still smiling when I took off the seafoam gown and hung it up. Then I grabbed the black robe over one of the stuffed chairs, slipped it on, sat in the chair, lay my head back, and closed my eyes for a rejuvenating minute.

In less than a second, I knew that rejuvenation was not to be.

I stood looking down at the top of a round oak table. Near a quarter-moon-shaped scratch, I saw a large jar, not of a skin- tightening gel. This jar had a name: Samson's Body Glue. The labeled container sat surrounded by half a dozen small empty jars exactly like the jars Dom switched in her dressing room.

Clear gel. Body glue. Diamond glue.

Beside the large jar sat a diamond-shaped early American pressed-gla.s.s salt cellar with a tiny green gla.s.s ladle to match.

Inside the salt cellar: four peanuts.

Forty-four.

Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie, and apply subtle pressure while their wearer is speaking frankly and straightforwardly of other matters.

-ANNE HOLLANDER I had zoned, but I didn't know why, didn't know who I was. I saw my hands, small, bony, with scratched pink polished fingernails chewed to the quick. My knuckles went white as I grasped the edge of the oak table because my neck hurt so badly.

Someone was pushing my head forward with a vengeful grasp on my neck, so I couldn't look anywhere but down, at the table, at the jars, and ladle, at the sleeve of my black robe.

"This is no time to change your mind," someone whispered furiously. "You're not alone in this. Just do it."

I did it. I picked up the tiny green gla.s.s ladle, scooped up a peanut from the salt cellar and dropped it in the large jar of body glue . . . the glue that would adhere Pierpont's diamonds to Dominique's face tomorrow night for the last time.

When I finished and put the tiny ladle down, I thought I might throw up.