Dead is the New Black by Christine DeMaio-Rice

lost on the lawyer.
    “An audit is this completely legal process whereby I bury you people.”
    Mom, who knew the rules and who was never one to allow her daughter to be bullied, stepped between her and Sheldon. “You can talk after the fitting. Now, shoo .”
    Everyone knew who Sheldon was. Everyone knew he could close them down with a wave of his hand, and everyone knew he’d just lost his wife in the last twenty-four hours. Except Mom.
    Mom and Sheldon looked at each other. Noë turned around to see what was happening, Laura and Carmella had no idea what to do, and two giraffes stopped smoking in mid-drag.
    “Shoo?” Sheldon asked.
    Mom took his wrists. Holding them while she looked into his face, she repeated, “ Shoo .”
    He waved his arm. “Everyone, out! Shoo .”
    They paused further. Laura did a quick calculation. The fitting was pretty much done. There hadn’t been enough ready to go the full eight hours, plus Sheldon needed to win something, or he was going to get more dangerous. She had more pictures than she could show Jeremy in the half an hour she would have the next morning.
    She gathered her things, and the giraffes, Carmella, the interns, and Tiffany all made haste from the room. Sheldon spun on his heel and left. A rustle of bags and clothes descended after he left. As Laura wheeled out her rack, she saw Noë’s jacket rolled up and tossed on top of her bag. It was a faux denim velveteen that Jeremy had run last Holiday, and what had caught her eye was the nap, the direction of the velvet knotting. It pointed in a direction, up or down. You couldn’t cut some pieces nap up and some nap down, or the sleeves would look like a different color because of the way the light refracted against the fibers. And even if they were all cut in the same direction, nap up was better because it made the fabric look richer. No one would notice it unless they were either looking for it, or if the jacket cost a couple of thousand and something didn’t look exactly right. All Jeremy’s pile fabrics were cut nap up.
    Noë’s jacket was cut nap down.
    That was wrong.
    Laura glanced at Noë, who was staring at her cell phone and tapping the glass as if she were writing a book, and then back at the jacket. Which was fake.
    Fakefakefake.

CHAPTER 12.

    Laura hovered until Noë was off the phone. “I think Thomasina spilled something on your jacket.” She pointed to the nap-down monstrosity. Noë glanced at it and shrugged.
    Laura picked it up by the collar and shook it out. “This is one of ours?” She peeked at the label—totally authentic.
    “Yes, last season I think?”
    “Was it a sample?” A sample might have been cut wrong and corrected in bulk production, and Noë, being a model, would have gotten it for free, even though she could have bought a correct one from Bendel’s with the change in her Porsche’s ashtray.
    Their eyes met, and Noë’s lips puckered slightly. “I don’t remember,” she said before changing the subject. “Do you need me again before Friday?”
    “Can we call you?”
    Noë agreed and left just as another herd of giraffes exited behind her.
    As soon as Laura got back to her table, André was on her like a fly pouncing on a hot turd, and what she thought was the second counterfeit garment she’d seen in a week got filed in her brain as an incorrect sample she lost track of last season.
    “I need to get into the closet.” He said it as he passed her table, as if she should just follow him.
    “Why?”
    He looked her as though the question were an offense to his very sense of self. “Our boss asked me to get something for him.”
    “What?” Her hand rested on the keypad. “What use is a pattern in Rikers?” She wasn’t pressing one digit until she got an answer from him.
    “I’m only answering because I know you’re trying to be loyal.”
    “I’m not trying .”
    “Federated has some buttons in the wrong color on the Rachel pant, and we’re giving them our sample