High-Heeler Wonder (Killer Style 1)

The air whooshed out of Sylvie’s lungs. Pippa Worthington could have ambled over on her four-inch heels and sat her bony butt down in Sylvie’s lap and she wouldn’t have noticed.

Sure, addicts backslid. It happened all the time, but Ivy had been so determined not to, Sylvie had never considered it a possibility. Dates and times flashed in her mind. Missed phone calls. Unreturned text messages. Late nights out with new friends—and some very old ones. Tired blue eyes that begged for what her mouth would never ask for. And Sylvie had been too busy to put it all together. Everything had been so crazy six months ago with High-Heeled Wonder hitting it big that she’d missed all the signs. Some friend.

“God. I should have noticed. I should—”

Another roll of Ivy’s proud shoulders. “I’m well versed at hiding things. Remember that accident I told you about involving my mom?”

Sylvie nodded, recalling how shaken Ivy had been a year ago after her mom accidentally hit a two-year-old while backing out of her driveway.

“Well, what I didn’t tell you was that before the accident, my mom had been sucking down martinis per usual. I figured I was just going to end up like her anyway, so I might as well have a little fun doing it. That’s how I ended up coming out of retirement to walk in Anders Bloom’s last show high as a kite and looking like some kind of slutted-up Miss Piggy. When I finally realized what I was doing, I couldn’t face myself in the mirror, let alone you and Drea. That left all of my old friends, like Anders, who always had plenty of cocaine.”

“I’m sorry.” Reaching across the table, Sylvie curled her fingers around Ivy’s ice-cold hands. “We should have helped you.”

“That’s the thing. I had to help myself.” Ivy straightened her shoulders. “But you’re right about one thing. I did sell you out.”

Chapter Seven

“Fashion goes ’round in circles.”

—Siobhan Fahey

“Out of everyone Ivy said she told, I’d put Anders Bloom at the top of the list.” With a sigh, Sylvie turned the key in her apartment door until it clicked. “However much he hates my guts right now, I really don’t see him being nuts enough to try to run me over. Figuratively, yes, but not literally.”

The door swung inward. She took three steps into her apartment, Tony on her heels, then her internal warning bells clanged.

Anya had a cast-iron stomach, but Sylvie, at the barest hint of trouble, went sprinting for the antacids. The ice dancing down her spine told her they’d bypassed subtle signs of chaos and gone straight into all-caps screaming about it.

“Something’s wrong,” she murmured.

Tony’s eyes narrowed. Without a word, he pushed her behind him into the hallway.

Contorting her body so she could see around his solid frame, she peeked inside the apartment. Everything looked right. The ever-present leaning tower of magazines stood proudly on the side table. Her desk, as usual, looked as though a paper tornado had touched down. Even the mountain of shoes by her front door remained intact.

And yet, she couldn’t shake the little itch of…something…curdling her stomach’s contents.

Tony leaned in close to whisper, “Stay here. I’m gonna take a look around.”

“It’s probably nothing.” Her belly flipped in disagreement.

“You trusted your instincts at the restaurant with Ivy. It was the right call.” His fingers squeezed hers. “Always listen to your gut.”

With a catlike stealth unexpected in a man his size, he slipped inside and disappeared around the corner.

Pressed up against the smooth wall, Sylvie traced an imaginary triangle with her worried gaze—from the end of the hallway with the fake potted plant to the other end of the hallway with a window overlooking the street to the open door directly in front of her. Then around again. And again. As the lion in her belly resumed gnawing on her stomach lining. For her part, she tried to ignore the dampness at the back of her neck by chewing her bottom lip until a metallic tang burst onto her tongue.

Pull it together, girly. It’s probably nothing.

Yay for logic. Except the attempt to pep herself up did nothing for the dark little part of her brain that had never quite let go of her early life’s constant upheaval. Surrendering to base survival instincts, she dug her phone out of her ostrich-skin tote and punched in 911. Her thumb hovered over the call button, ready to summon help.

She was humming the second verse of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen when Tony’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. Even with the obnoxious rent she paid, her apartment was the size of a shoebox, so his sweep hadn’t taken long.

“It seems pretty much the same as it did before we left, but you’d better take a look to be sure.”

She followed him in, skirting around the foyer table heavy with unopened mail. Quiet as models on the runway, they went from the living room to the kitchen, circled back to the bathroom, and finished their trek in her bedroom with its unmade bed and rumpled purple leopard-print pajamas on the floor.

Nothing seemed out of place. And yet—

Her laptop.