THIRTY-ONE

Tex had told me they’d found evidence of someone living in the factory. It was information I shouldn’t have had. He’d compromised his investigation to warn me so I’d leave. And I hadn’t. And now here I was, hiding in an inventory cage full of vintage pajamas while a killer or gun runner—or both—approached. And worse than my terror, my fear over what was about to happen to me, was my fear for Rocky. To everybody else, he was just a dog. To me, he was family.

I’d been so sure that the presence of the key in the flower bed meant whoever might have gotten in was elsewhere, but my back had been turned away from the door when I found the key. Someone could have slipped into the factory just like I had when I’d stepped inside to get away from the noise of the traffic out front. And if they had, they would have hidden.

Had I told Tex why I was there? I couldn’t think; I couldn’t remember. If I’d mentioned the pajama inventory, then whoever was in the building could have waited me out. I’ll be gone in thirty seconds. I said that, right? Why couldn’t I think straight?

Rocky looked up at me and yipped. Another bark, fainter than the last, sounded from the door to the right. I scooped up Rocky and clamped my hand over his mouth. And listened. More sounds, coming from—where? Was another animal trapped inside the closet?

What were my options? Run for the front door with Rocky and leave another animal behind? I couldn’t do that. My eyes fell on the pile of guns that had been hidden in the cubby with the conversation heart PJs. I’d be a fool to think the other person in the factory wasn’t armed.

I held Rocky to my chest and backed away from the sliding doors until I was up against the desk. Slowly, I shuffled to my right. I reached out for the doorknob to the closet in the corner. If we could duck in there and lock it from the inside, we might be able to go unnoticed long enough for me to figure out a better plan.

The footsteps overhead had stopped. I could picture someone listening to see if they’d imagined Rocky’s bark. But the front door was open. My car was outside. It wasn’t difficult to place me right here where I was. Add in the doggy sounds and there would be no mystery to my identity. If only the opposite were true.

And then, the footsteps resumed. This time on the stairs.

The knob turned easily. I ducked inside, realizing too late I hadn’t entered a closet. I’d opened the door that led down to fixture storage. I pulled the door shut behind me. My jacket caught. I stumbled for footing. Rocky squealed. I set him down on the steps and quickly opened and shut the door to free the corner of my jacket. I scampered down the stairs and crouched behind a rolling rod filled with samples of mint green and butter yellow nylon tricot peignoir sets.

The footsteps were directly over my head. Whoever was up there was headed my way. I wished I knew who it was. Who’d been behind everything? How could someone have gotten away with so much without leaving evidence behind?

Rocky ran into the corner and made happy snorting sounds. Another face, that of a small, scared Chihuahua took two steps out of the darkness. I was so surprised by the presence of a second dog that I froze. I had heard a bark.

Rocky had recently been enamored with a Chihuahua at Mad for Mod. It didn’t seem likely that so small of a dog could have traveled from Greenville Avenue to Deep Ellum on her own, though it was possible. But how would she have gotten into the basement of Sweet Dreams? Was there a broken window or another way in and out?

Or was someone keeping her here in the basement of the pajama factory? Someone who had been to Mad for Mod?

I closed my eyes and tried to remember the past few days. I pictured a sea of faces, all the people I’d talked to over the past week: Nasty, security company owner; Clara, sister of the victim who’d died at Sweet Dreams; Frannie, cleaning woman; Erin, wannabe actress; Rachel, storage-facility assistant manager; Sid, John’s husband and Truther; Dax, historical building preservationist; Richard, theater manager. Of all the people I could remember, only one had been to Mad for Mod.

But that didn’t mean anything. The Chihuahua had been alone. No tags. No leash. No owner. Anyone could have been lurking around my place of business—if indeed that’s what happened. I needed something more than what I was coming up with.

I pulled my phone out a third time, but couldn’t get a signal. I was in the basement of the factory, hiding amongst mannequin parts and racks of sherbet-shaded jammies. A middle-aged woman and two small dogs.

Things could have been better.

I picked Rocky up and held him in front of my face. “You have to trust me, okay?”

I spun around and searched for a place I could hide him, where he’d be safe. A large canvas bin like the ones that had held fabric on the factory floor sat alongside the far wall. I carried him to the bin and set him in the bottom. Piles of vintage fabric—satin and gingham and flannel and lace—filled the cart. Rocky quickly burrowed his way under the fabric swatches like he knew how important it was for him to stay hidden. I bent down and called out for the Chihuahua, finally cornering her. She was shaking. I scooped her up and put her in the fabric bin with Rocky. Their companionship would leave them less lonely if anything happened to me.

I turned around the small basement, scanning racks of pajamas, boxes of broken mannequin forms, and file cabinets labeled for purchase orders, sleepwear designs, and pay stubs for employees who hadn’t graced the property for decades. I pulled a file out and looked inside. It was a preservationist’s dream: detailed records from the operation of the pajama factory kept in pristine condition by the sheer fact of having been abandoned under an unfortunate cloud of scandal.

I thumbed through the B files and came to Clara. She’d worked at the factory for over a decade, receiving a modest increase to what looked like a paltry hourly wage each year. She’d told me the job supported her family, along with the wages of her sisters, but that they’d all agreed that Suzy was the one who had a chance to do more with her life than factory work. Maybe that’s why the file on Suzy Bixby, still in the file cabinet, caught my eye.

I slid Clara’s file back into place and pulled out Suzy’s. Had Clara been lying about Suzy working at Sweet Dreams?

I lost all track of the footsteps over my head and the rustling sounds of the two dogs nesting in the sample bin and flipped Suzy’s file open.

The first sheet of paper was a standard report from an insurance company. It detailed the malfunction of the steamer that had killed Suzy Bixby, signed by a representative from the equipment manufacturer. Behind it, clippings from newspapers both local and national wrote articles about the accident and the tragic death of the young model. Suzy’s face smiled out from the images in the paper. Behind the articles was a letter from George to the press that refused release of the recent ad campaign photos for use in articles about Suzy’s death. In his own words: This accident has led to tragedy and for Sweet Dreams to benefit from the use of a company publicity photo in reports of a local model’s death would be wrong.

The last thing in Suzy Bixby’s file was a job application to work at Sweet Dreams. The word Rejected was stamped along the upper right-hand edge of the paper and initialed A. S. in the same cursive I’d seen on Alice’s original letter that I’d found lying on her kitchen table. The application was dated only a few days before Suzy had died. She’d applied for a job at Sweet Dreams, and Alice had been the one to reject her application.

Suzy had no business operating the steamer at Sweet Dreams. So why had she? Was she playing around unsupervised or using the equipment for her personal needs? Had her sister Clara told her to use the steamer when no one was looking? And by doing so had she enabled and then witnessed the ensuing accident that took her sister’s life?

There was no doubt to me that the courts had ruled the steamer malfunction accidental and that Sweet Dreams held no liability for the model’s death. George’s decision to close the factory had been his alone.

Though I’d never know what he’d been thinking, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been caught in a cage of his own guilt, having been the father figure for so many of the young women who found employment at his factory and losing one in such a horrible way.

The floor over my head creaked, and I froze.

While my remaining questions about Suzy Bixby’s death had been answered, my situation hadn’t improved. I was still trapped with no way out. And no matter who it was that was upstairs, I could assume they were armed. There had been more than enough guns in the pajama cubby to riddle my body with bullets. I had mannequin parts and satin nightgowns. Not exactly a fair fight with whoever was behind this.

The police should have found those guns when they’d searched the place for evidence after finding John’s body. That they hadn’t indicated that someone had been coming and going, using the factory as a temporary holding location.

I stood as still as I could and listened for sounds to indicate what the other person in the factory was doing. A door shut. A key activated tumblers in a lock. The footsteps receded and then returned.

Receded and returned.

Receded and returned.

Someone was moving back and forth from above my head to the factory door.

Someone was moving the guns.

I could bide my time and let them get away with it. With who knows how many guns that would be sold illegally and cause more destruction than a hundred malfunctioning cast-iron steamers.

I couldn’t let them get away with it.

I had no idea how the night was going to end for me, but I wouldn’t leave Rocky’s safety up to chance.

I turned my phone to silent and texted Tex: Rocky in fabric bin in basement of Sweet Dreams with another dog. Save them. No signal.

I grabbed a broken white mannequin arm from a box next to the staircase and climbed on top of a cabinet along the north side of the building. The fingers on the mannequin arm barely reached the window positioned at ground level. I tried, unsuccessfully, to reach the window’s handle and undo it.

Out of desperation, I swatted the white limb against the glass several times until finally, the glass shattered. Now, relying on my high school softball pitching experience, I chucked the phone at the hole in the window, and it sailed outside.

I climbed down and carried the mannequin arm like a club up the staircase. The door to the basement opened just as I reached for the knob.