the plastic top came popping off—inevitably—spilling a river of tan along the pastel dhurrie rug she’d bought for her office only days before—of course. All this after it had sloshed a nice long estuary across the lower portion of her previously butter-yellow suit first.
She really, really hated days like this.
She tugged her foot free from the door and slammed it down with confidence—it was not petulance—something that made the heel snap off and go flying toward her other calf, leaving a long scrape. Not sure whether she should focus her immediate attention on the shoe, the calf or the rug, she hobbled to her desk and was reaching for a tissue when the intercom buzzed with enough volume to make her squeal.
“Marnie, I need to see you right away,” her boss Hildy’s voice boomed ominously into the room. Not that Hildy Emerson wasn’t ominous and booming every day, but today, she sounded even more urgent than usual.
Not a good sign, Marnie thought. But then, considering how her day had been so far, not exactly surprising, either.
She pushed the button on her intercom. “I’ll be right there, Hildy.” To herself, she added, Just as soon as I’m presentable. Which should be sometime in September.
As if reading her thoughts, Hildy immediately replied, “I need you now.”
With a wistful look at the rapidly spreading coffee stain, Marnie scooped up her now-empty cup and still-broken heel and made her way to the door. She dropped the cup in the trash on her way out, then staggered as well as she could to Hildy’s office on the other side of the reception area. Phoebe smiled perkily at her as she went, as oblivious to Marnie’s plight as she was to anything that wasn’t, well, perky. Inhaling a deep, fortifying breath, Marnie turned the knob to Hildy’s door and stepped inside.
“Marnie, I—” Her boss stopped cold when she glanced up from the papers on her desk to look at Marnie full on. She assessed Marnie critically from the hair bomb to the stained suit to the broken heel and back again. “My God, what happened to you?”
Marnie sighed, knowing they’d be there all day if she started listing. So she only said, “It does, too, rain in Southern California.”
Hildy studied Marnie through narrowed gray eyes. She opened her mouth as if she intended to ask something else, evidently thought better of it, and gestured toward one of two leather chairs on the other side of her desk. “Have a seat.”
Marnie hobbled across the room and folded herself gratefully into the chair, trying not to notice that Hildy’s silver-streaked black hair was perfectly coiffed and her plum-colored suit flawless. Hildy was always perfectly coiffed and flawless. That was why she was the employer and Marnie was a coffee-stained employee. As she sat in the chair indicated, she toed off her broken shoe and began trying to work the heel back on.
“You need to drop every account you have right now,” Hildy told her, “and focus on a new assignment.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Marnie objected immediately, her broken heel forgotten. “I’m juggling more than a dozen clients right now, on three continents. I can’t just blow them all off. They’ll—”
“Someone else can handle them,” Hildy interrupted. “I need you for something big.”
“Oh, bigger than Prince Torquil?” Marnie asked indignantly, citing the assignment that Hildy had previously told her should take precedence over everything else.
“This is much worse than Prince Torquil,” Hildy said evenly.
“I don’t see how it could be,” Marnie replied. “I mean, the Tortugan officials won’t even let King Bardo and Queen Ingeborg bring Torquil a minibar or personal chef to the jail. From all accounts, it’s been ugly.”
Now Hildy made a face. “Torquil will survive. We’ll let Jerry Turner handle it. He has a winter home down there somewhere. It’ll be like a paid vacation for him.”
Marnie started to object again, but was halted by Hildy’s raised hand.
“Louisa Fairchild has shot someone,” her boss told her.
Marnie’s mouth fell open and the forgotten shoe heel tumbled completely from her hand. Though, honestly, she didn’t know why she should be surprised. Louisa Fairchild was one of Division’s most crotchety clients, even living half a world away in Australia. One of their newer clients, she’d zoomed straight to the top of their list of High Maintenance Accounts. Even Prince Torquil’s martini deprivation paled in comparison. But then, Louisa Fairchild’s level of difficulty was pretty legendary, extending beyond the Thoroughbred industry in which she was practically an icon. Marnie had heard tales of the grand dame when she was a child, riding dressage herself.
“What happened?” Marnie asked.
Hildy sighed and leaned back in her chair. “It’s going to be a mess. Although Louisa claims it was self-defense, there are a number of extenuating circumstances and enough he said–she said to make your brain explode. Still,” she added thoughtfully, “the man she shot…Sam somebody…it’s all in the file…was in Louisa’s house when it happened, purportedly uninvited. Unfortunately, no one can prove he wasn’t there by invitation.”
“There were no witnesses?” Marnie asked.
Hildy shook her head. “None.”
Marnie groaned. “Great. And the annual Fairchild Gala is how far off?”
Hildy’s smile was brittle. “Less than two weeks.”
Marnie nodded. Hildy was right. Prince Torquil’s snafu had nothing on a Louisa Fairchild shooting.
“You’re going to have a lot of damage control to do,” Hildy told her. “Louisa Fairchild is our first Australian client, and we’re working hard to make inroads into that country to broaden our base. And that gala she has is nationally recognized for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for kids with special needs. If you handle this correctly, the gala will still go off without a hitch. And if Louisa comes out of this looking like the wounded party I’m confident she is, it could be just the ticket we need to expand our clientele.”
Oh, hey, no pressure there, Marnie thought. She just wished she was as confident of Louisa’s innocence as Hildy was.
Then again, Louisa was an eighty-year-old woman. What kind of man went after an eighty-year-old woman, even a cantankerous one? Of course Louisa Fairchild was the victim in this. Of course she was.
Hildy slid a manila file folder across the desk, which Marnie was confident would have all the information she needed for the case, and quickly began covering the basics. As her boss spoke, Marnie began to flip idly through the pages in the folder, realizing there was too much information to absorb casually. But, hey, that was okay—she’d have plenty of time to study it in depth on the trans-Pacific flight she would doubtless be taking within hours.
As if reading her mind—again—Hildy concluded, “Go home and pack a bag, Marnie. You’re on a three o’clock flight to Sydney.”
This was the part of the job Marnie hated most. The sudden switching of gears, the travel for which she had no time to prepare. It wasn’t unusual in public relations to experience both. Especially for a company like Division International, whose client list was overwhelmingly wealthy, pampered and used to getting their way. Of course, there
