Free 10 Lethal Black Dress by Ellen Byerrum

the rules. I couldn’t invite you. I had to bring a
source. I would love to have taken you.”
    “I could be your source. I’ll make up all the news you can
use.”
    She waggled her fingers at him. “Conflict of interest, my
dear.”
    “That’s what you used to say when I asked you out, back in
Sagebrush.”
    “Huge conflict of interest. You had a wife. I’m not the one
with a previous marriage.”
    Lacey had caught his eye when he was still married to, though
separated from, his now ex-wife Montana. Lacey was a rookie reporter, fresh out
of journalism school. He was an almost-as-green chief of police. Vic Donovan,
dark-haired and green-eyed, towered over her, and she found him almost
ridiculously handsome.
    Montana tried her best to win Vic back, even though she had
gone through a number of other men and other husbands, both her own and other
women’s. Lacey thought she was either completely ruthless, or an eternal
optimist.
    “I was getting a divorce. As I told you at the time. Besides,
I’m not sure a Las Vegas marriage really ought to be considered legal. It’s a
gray area.”
    “Legal but tacky,” she said. “Our wedding won’t be tacky.
I’ll make sure of that.”
    “When?” he pressed.
    “When? Not for a while.” The waiter appeared at their table.
“I’ll have the crab cakes, please.”
    “Sounds good. Make it two.” The server scooted off. Lacey
rubbed her forehead.
    “This thing with Courtney. It’s bugging me, Vic.”
    “Especially with some screwy fashion aspect to the
proceedings that only Lacey Smithsonian could possibly decode.”
    “It’s a gift.”
    “Which keeps on giving.”
    “Why there?” Lacey took his hand. “Don’t you think it’s weird
that Courtney’s slide toward the Grim Reaper happened at the Correspondents’
Dinner, of all places? Secret Service everywhere, all those metal detectors,
cameras all over the place, wall-to-wall media? It’s the most secure place in
town. Maybe the world. Nobody gets in who’s not on the List. Everyone has to
submit personal information ahead of time, everyone gets checked, everyone gets
screened at the security gates, all those guys with guns and earpieces. And
yet—”
    “It’s not weird if it was an accident. You think it was
deliberate?”
    “Not exactly. Not yet. But if it was copper arsenate
poisoning from Paris Green dye— And you can take that skeptical cop look off
your face, mister. Just go with me here.”
    He smirked at her. “What cop look?”
    “That one, and you know it.” She imitated him, scrunching her
eyebrows.
    He smirked back at her. “Okay. You said it was an accident
when the waiter with the drinks spilled his tray.”
    “That’s the way it seemed. The waiter looked horrified. I
didn’t see anyone trip him or shove him, but the place was packed. I could have
missed it. But why did he trip? Why was Courtney in his path at that exact
moment? Why did she wear that dress when she could have worn any vintage
dress?”
    “Why do trees crash onto cars on the highway in a storm? That
tree, that car, that exact moment?”
    “Unanswerable questions, I guess.”
    Courtney’s series of stories on vintage clothing on Channel
One would be a place to start. Could the series have been some sort of
punishment? An exile from hard news?
    Fashion was not a beat that garnered respect. Lacey had
discovered that firsthand. She started her career in news, not fashion. She was
on her way to being a hard news reporter in Washington when she caught Mac’s
eye at the exact wrong moment. She was thrown into the fashion beat because the
previous fashion editor, Mariah “the Pariah” Morgan, died at her desk, in her
old-fashioned, oak desk chair. She’d been sitting there for hours and was in
full rigor mortis by the time anyone noticed, and then only because she’d
missed her deadline for a story. If not for that deadline, she might have sat
there dead at her desk for days.
    That was the kind of respect fashion got