Catriona nodded. “You did. What if I could prove Alain didn’t do it?”
Mo lifted her hands into the air. “Why? What do you care about my relationship with Alain?”
“He’s got one of our actors on a poker debt. He wants you back in exchange for our boy.”
“Like I’m property?”
Whoops. Catriona winced. Probably shouldn’t have told her that.
“Not like property, like you’re more important than money. He wouldn’t take my check. He said only you could make him happy again.”
Mo scoffed. “Make him happier than money? Now I know you’re lying.” Mo looked away, but Catriona could see the idea of Alain preferring her over cash had softened her resolve.
“I’m not lying. I swear. He only wants you back.”
“Oh. Well...” Somehow, Mo raised her chin another notch to peer down her nose at Catriona. “So he wants a favor in exchange for what you want?”
Oh no. Catriona sensed Mo’s gears churning. She tried to steamroller forward.
“Right, so if you could go back to him, even if it’s just long enough for me to get Tyler—”
“I want a favor.”
Other shoe dropped.
Catriona felt her shoulders slump. She spoke her next words as if she’d carried them strapped to her back, all the way to the conversation. “What do you need?”
Mo strolled to the glass window and tapped a pen against it. “Someone’s selling my clothes.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Last year’s clothes. The ones that should be burned.”
“Burned? Don’t be so hard on yourself—”
Mo scowled. “Not burned because they’re bad, burned because I need to create demand. The stores send me back what they haven’t sold and I burn them rather than let them be sold discount. It creates a sense of scarcity and drives up my prices.”
Catriona gasped. “Oh my god, that’s terrible. What a waste.”
Mo shrugged. “It’s a necessarily evil. All the big labels do it.”
“So you’re saying someone is stealing the clothes earmarked for burning and selling them?”
“Yes. I need it stopped.”
Catriona realized she hadn’t seen Broch in a bit and glanced behind her. He’d wandered to a table in the back of the office to wrap a plaid scarf around his neck. His left arm stuck through the armhole of a ladies’ sequined vest. He contorted, trying to poke the other arm through the opposite side without ripping the fabric.
He noticed her watching him and smiled.
“Ah think ah need a larger size. Ah lik’ the sparkles.”
Catriona sighed and turned her attention back to Mo. “It can’t be hard to figure out who’s stealing the clothes, can it? I mean, who’s doing the collecting and the burning?”
Without batting an eye, Mo pulled a larger vest off the rack behind her and tossed it to Broch. “That’s just it. I thought I could solve the problem by changing shipping companies, but it happened again this year. They’re robbing the trucks…paying off the workers…I don’t know. That’s what I need you to figure out. My clothes show up in these underground pop-up stores but they’ve always packed up and left before I hear about them.”
Catriona looked at her watch. She was running out of time to return Tyler for his first day of shooting. “What if I promised to solve your problem, but you go back to Alain now?”
“I need this problem solved now. They’re flooding the market as we speak.”
“But I need Tyler back on the set by Monday. That only gives me one weekend to solve this for you.”
“Then you’d better hurry.”
“That’s what your husband said to me.”
Mo sniffed. “I said he was a cheat. I never said he was stupid.”
Catriona took a deep breath and exhaled. “Where should I start? Who collects the clothes and where are they sent to be burned?”
Mo motioned to her assistant, who’d been hovering just outside the office space since her banishment. “Honey can get you that information. Honey!” Mo bellowed at the glass and the girl came scurrying into the room.
“Yes?”
“Get zees people ze eenfahrmahtion on who cahllects lahst year’s clahthes ahnd where zey ahre sent to be burned.”
“Right.” She turned to Catriona. “I’ll text it to you. Give me your phone.”
Catriona fished her phone from her pocket and handed it to Honey, who sent herself a text. “Expect it within the next twenty minutes.”
Catriona nodded and motioned to Broch that it was time to leave. He put down a swatch of cloth he’d been rubbing against his cheek and nodded to Mo, pointing at his vest and scarf ensemble.
“Can I keep these?”
“Sure. Is your mother a curvy lady?”
Broch stared at her.
“Em... Aye?”
Mo nodded and dismissed them with a wave.
Broch motioned to the cloth he’d left behind. “That was soft. Ah lik’ it. It wid make a nice neckerchief.”
Mo’s eyebrow’s raised and she glanced at the fabric.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
Chapter Twelve
Leaving the warehouse, Catriona stopped so suddenly Broch bumped into the back of her.
“Och, ye cannae stoap in the middle o’ the door.”
“Sorry. Our car is gone.” Catriona pulled down the sunglasses she’d just dropped from their perch atop her head and scanned the parking lot for signs of their taxi. “That’s not good.”
“We kin call another, eh?”
“Yes, but that was a real taxi, not like the cars you call back in Los Angeles. He hadn’t been paid yet. Why would he leave?”
“Maybe his wife
