Private Paris (Private 10)

The designer smiled. “I hope so.”

“A Saudi princess?” Louis asked.

“Who else can afford haute couture these days?” Fleurs said. “There are fewer than two hundred customers in the world for one-of-a-kind Parisian dresses, and ninety percent of them are Saudi royalty.”

“This is true?” Louis said, astonished. “Where do they wear them?”

The designer laughed. “At women-only parties in Riyadh, where even their husbands don’t get to see their hundred thousand dollar dresses. And they wear them when they visit Paris. They wear their robes and veil until they clear Saudi airspace, and then poof! The veils and robes come off and—”

“I have them here, Millie,” said Alexandre, who held a sheaf of paper.

“Let them look,” she said.

The assistant handed Louis the papers, and he scanned them and said, “Have you shown these to the police?”

Fleurs looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t because the rumor is that Noulan is sick, perhaps with early dementia. I figured these e-mails were due to that.”

“She’s too kind in some ways,” Alexandre told me.

That made the designer harden. “He was my mentor once, Laurent. I still admire his genius. Maybe he deserves it, but I thought it would be a crime to run his reputation through the mud if all that was going on was senility and spite.”

“Three people dead,” her assistant replied, and then looked at us in alarm, as if he had just realized something. “Do you think Millie is in danger?”

“You are still a member of Les Académies?” Louis asked.

“Election is for life,” Fleurs replied.

“Then I suggest you take every precaution,” I said. “At least until the police have a suspect in hand.”

“Perhaps you should finish the last dress at home,” Alexandre said.

“Nonsense,” the designer snapped. “This is my atelier. No one is scaring me away from it, at least until the princess is pleased and a check has been written. There’s too much riding on this. You of all people should know that.”

Her assistant nodded, but he wasn’t happy. “You are the boss, Millie. As you wish.”

Chapter 51

MY CELL PHONE rang me awake after a much needed nap back in my suite at the Plaza. Groping for the phone on the nightstand, I knocked it to the floor and had to turn on the light. By the time I had the phone in hand, the ringing had stopped. When I checked caller ID, it said, “Michele Herbert.”

Before calling her back, I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. My cell rang again, and I answered, “How’s my favorite art professor?”

“I wouldn’t know, Jack,” Justine said.

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

“I got that,” Justine said coolly. “Anyway, I’m just leaving UCLA Medical Center. Sherman Wilkerson has come out of the coma.”

“Thank God,” I replied. “How is he?”

“The doctors say he could be a lot worse.”

That made my heart sink. “That bad?”

“He’s disoriented and had no idea who I was, even after I identified myself for the fourth time,” Justine replied. “But he knows who you are, and he remembers that you are protecting his granddaughter.”

“You didn’t tell him we lost her, did you?”

“No, I figured it would upset him too much,” she replied, and then paused. “The problem is he thinks Kim is twenty, and taking a junior year in Paris.”