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seemed like a good idea at the time. She loved that chair.” Mac sighed and looked weary. “When are you going to let that go?”
    “And then you tried to stick me with her damn chair! The chair of doom!” Lacey was surprised that detail could still rile her.
    “That is a perfectly good chair. And Mariah died of natural causes.”
    “So you say. She probably died just to escape this beat — it seems to be the only way out of it.” Mariah’s chair was still floating around the newsroom, like Lincoln’s ghost train. It was a favorite joke among the reporters to hand it off to interns, casually mentioning the connection to the dead former fashion editor only when the fledgling was firmly glued to his or her seat in Mariah’s Death Chair under crushing deadline pressure.
    Mac grunted. Lacey took a deep cleansing breath. It didn’t work. “We both know fashion is a dangerous job, Mac. But I don’t want to argue.”
    “There’s a relief.” He leaned back in his own chair, clasping his hands behind his head. “So what were you just doing if not arguing?”
    She ignored this. “I want you to know I’ll be on that plane to Paris this week.” Please Mac, whatever you do, don’t take Paris away from me. “It’s still my story.”
    He shook his head. “No way. There is no story. Your source is dead. Maybe there’s a murder story now, but that’s Trujillo’s beat, not yours.”
    “Look, if she was killed because of the corset —”
    “Are you telling me she was murdered because of this mythical nonexistent bullet-riddled corset?” He and his chair snapped forward to full attention.
    “Not exactly. I don’t know why yet. But there’s still a story in France and the tickets are already bought and paid for.” She leaned toward him, placing her hands flat on his desk. “They’re nonre-fundable. Like my dreams, Mac.”
    “Don’t start with me, Smithsonian. Your life is also not refundable.” He rose from his seat. “No trip! If she was a murder target because of this crazy story, then you’d be a target, too. Besides, you need the Rousseau woman as a guide. And I cannot be responsible for what havoc you might wreak unchaperoned on foreign soil. Even though we don’t officially like France.”
    “The story is still out there, Mac.” She stood up and towered over him in her heels. “Think about The Eye bringing back the lost corset of the Romanovs. Imagine the headlines: EYE STREET REPORTER MAKES HISTORY! DISCOVERS PRICELESS REMNANT OF RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FAMILY, LOST FOR A CENTURY.”
    Mac rolled his eyes. “How about this one: EYE STREET REPORTER CREATES INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT. FRANCE CUTS OFF OUR CHEESE.”
    “But what if some other reporter’s onto it?”
    “Onto what ? Even you don’t believe there’s a corset full of jewels, Smithsonian.” He stared at her. “This is just a tall tale on steroids. It’s got pathos. It’s got dreams and heartache and history and human interest. And it would sell papers. But nobody believes there’s a corset.”
    That’s what he wanted to believe. Unfortunately for Mac, The Eye ’s glamorous publisher, Claudia Darnell, took a special interest in the fashion beat and in Lacey, and she loved the whole idea of chasing the lost Romanov corset. Claudia had enthusiastically okayed the story (and the minuscule budget), agreeing that it would have to remain a secret from the other Eye Street Observer reporters until Lacey broke it. The secrecy would also keep expectations down if the story turned out to be a wild goose chase or a humiliating disaster. In that event, the story would detail the strange journey of an eccentric immigrant woman and her lost dreams of glory, and Lacey could cram it full of pathos, adjectives, and a literary gloss. And a possible sidebar on the corset renaissance on the Paris fashion runways.
    “Why can’t you just write about dresses and shoes?” Mac opened the bottle of Maalox and took a big slug. “I thought women were obsessed