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personnel file.
    “Wait a minute, Mac,” Trujillo said. “France is still there, still the capital of the fashion world, right? Corsets are still hot, even if the source got iced. But just because the old lady’s dead, Mac, you’re pulling the trip? I don’t get it. Or do I? If you are pulling it, then the story’s not tied up with fashion, it’s tied up with the old lady. Am I right?”
    Mac was silent. Lacey saw her opening. “I’m going, Mac, even if I have to take my annual leave to do it,” Lacey said. “I’ve got the tickets, I’ve got the story. You’ve got Tony. I’ll send you both postcards from Paris.” She stood to leave. “See ya.”
    Tony jumped up and blocked her escape. “Spill it, Supergirl, what’s going on?”
    Mac chewed his mustache. He didn’t want everyone in the
    newsroom badgering him for foreign travel budgets. And Trujillo could be a world-class badger. “Sit down, both of you. What’s said in this room stays here. Got it?”
    “Anything you say, boss.” Trujillo looked like a cat with a stolen bowl of cream. Lacey threw a newspaper at him, which he caught in midair.
    Mac turned to Lacey. “If she’s dead because of this wild-goose chase you two were on, you’re not going anywhere. It’s too dangerous.”
    “Maybe she was kidding about the poisoning,” Lacey said.
    “Maybe there’s no connection; maybe she was killed in a botched robbery or something. We won’t know unless I do the story, Mac. Is this a newspaper or what? Stories are what we try to find, right?”
    “What’s the story? What wild-goose chase?” Trujillo demanded.
    “It’s a wild-fashion-goose chase to find something that was lost a long time ago,” Mac said. “Probably lost forever. Or never existed.”
    “What?” Trujillo pressed.
    “A piece of clothing,” Lacey said. “An unusual piece. A museum or two would be interested. And Magda Rousseau is still our source for this story, alive or dead.”
    “A murder, a mystery, and a scavenger hunt all in one? My favorite kind of story.” Trujillo grinned. “I’m with Lacey here, let’s give it a shot, Mac.”
    “Hey, hotshot, a woman is dead,” Lacey growled. “Show some respect.”
    “We can’t save her now; let’s at least tell her story.” Trujillo shrugged. “If she’s got a story. I still don’t get the big mystery.”
    Mac was clearly fed up with this tap dance. He gave Trujillo a brief summary of Magda’s tale of the fabulous lost corset of the Romanovs. And he cautioned everyone in his office that if this story leaked out before it saw newsprint in The Eye Street Observer , Claudia Darnell would have all three of their heads on one platter.
    “ Madre de Dios. A bloodstained corset full of Romanov jewels?” Trujillo’s eyes lit up. “What would that be worth on the open market?”
    “It’s anyone’s guess,” Lacey said, remembering that Magda was sure she would be rolling in millions one day, with plenty of time on her hands instead of handfuls of fabric and pins. “And it’s my story.”
    “Even if it’s a fool’s errand, it’s a hell of a story.” Trujillo turned to Lacey. “What about Donovan? He’s going to let you go off on a story like this on your own? Or do you have him tucked away in a little love nest in Paris?”
    She looked away, feeling a quick pang of regret at hearing Vic Donovan’s name. “We’re not seeing each other at the moment, so he’s not a concern.”
    “Whoa! What happened?” Tony’s eyes opened wide. “You guys were just about to —”
    “To what?” She flashed him a look that just dared him to continue.
    “Nothing.” He looked away. “I just thought things were going so well.”
    “They were. It’s complicated,” she said. It was almost inexpli-cable, even to her. Finally, after months of a stalled relationship, it looked like she and Vic were on the expressway to love, or at least something like it, perhaps with love just down the road. Then Vic slammed on the