2 Sisters Detective Agency(46)

I waited for more. There was none. Baby nodded like someone accepting condolences at a funeral.

“Matte,” Baby said. “Can we?”

“Please.” Penny gestured to the racks. Baby went and shifted items of clothing along the nearest rail. Some pieces were so thin—mere strips of fabric—I assumed they were men’s ties.

“Who’s Matt?” I whispered, coming alongside her and pretending to sift through the clothes.

“My fashion name. Not Matt, like the man’s name. Matte. With an e at the end. Like the finish.”

“That’s hilarious,” I murmured.

“Don’t touch the clothes. Just the hangers.”

“Where are the prices?”

“There are no prices.” Baby rolled her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff,” I said. I gestured to the filthy denim cutoffs Baby wore. “Those shorts look like you got them off a three-year-old hobo.”

“They’re supposed to look like that.” Baby huffed. She turned and strolled over to Penny and her brother with one of the men’s ties. Some kind of approval was given, and Baby slipped off her T-shirt, exposing her tiny upturned breasts to the entire room. There was no dressing area to speak of. Once she had it on, it appeared that the garment was not a men’s tie but a strip of black fabric meant to cover her breasts horizontally like the censorship bar in a nude photograph. Baby pouted at herself in a mirror along the wall, posing in the top. Penny seemed to be on the edge of bursting out with words, holding herself back with difficulty. Finally, she gave in.

“I have to ask. Who are you repped by?”

“I’m independent,” Baby said.

“Oh.” Penny fanned herself like a Southern belle. “Wow. Wow. Sean? She’s independent.”

Sean looked up again, squinted at Baby, sighed and shuffled in his chair, tapping on his phone again.

He seemed to think for a moment, then gave a bored sigh. “Hire a time machine, because you’re at least a year too old.”





Chapter 58



“Well, those were just about the worst people I’ve ever met,” I said when we were outside again. “But I think she clocked you, if that helps.”

“That was Sean and Penny Hanley,” Baby said.

“Yes, you said.” I tried to keep up as she all but jogged away from the store. “They own the fashion label, do they?”

“No, they just work there,” Baby said.

“They’re store clerks?” I said. “Where do they get off having that kind of attitude?”

“They have very influential opinions in the fashion sphere,” Baby said. “They only work at the store because their parents have, like, ideas about them holding real jobs for a while, I guess. That’s what I heard. I don’t know. Their dad’s Michael Hanley, the lawyer.”

“So they don’t even have a background in fashion?” I dragged her to a stop.

“Why do you hate them so much?” Baby said. “Penny is beautiful, isn’t she? Much more beautiful than she is online.”

“They were a couple of stuck-up idiots,” I said. “And I don’t hate them. I don’t even know them. But I hate this side of you. They looked at me like I was a walking ball of bacteria, yet here you are talking about them like they’re royalty. They couldn’t have been eighteen years old. You don’t need to listen to people like that even if they are very important in the fashion world.” My fists were clenched. I couldn’t grasp what was making me so angry about Baby and her fawning over the Hanley twins. “Is that what you’re into? Fashion? You want to be a model?”

“Obviously,” she said. “And those two are royalty. They’ve made people’s careers with a single Instagram post. Penny took a selfie with some girl she met in an elevator in London. Said she was cute. That girl is with IMG in New York now. If Sean says I look too old, believe me: it’s a problem.”

“Baby.” I drew a long breath. “If you want to be a model, fine. That’s great. But it’s obvious to me that you have a talent for criminal investigation. You’re observant and smart. You know how to act, how to plan. You’d make a crack private investigator or a lawyer or a cop or—”

“Oh, come on.” She flipped her sunglasses down, the wall coming between us again. “You don’t even know me.”

“That moron in there didn’t know you!” I gestured back to the store.

“He knows what he’s talking about.”

“And I don’t?” I rubbed my eyes. “Urgh. This is so stupid. Why did you even subject me to that whole miserable experience?”

“Because Sean and Penny are another link between Ashton Willisee and Derek Benstein.” She showed me her phone. I looked at pictures of the kids together. “The Hanleys used to check in regularly with Derek and Ashton all over town. Them and Vera Petrov.”

“That’s the girl from the school?” I pointed to a picture. “Miss Go Fuck Yourself? The one who has some dirt on you that you won’t tell me about.”

“That’s her,” Baby said cautiously.

“Okay. So the Hanley twins are friends with our guys,” I said. “And?”