Like a woman possessed, Tracy leaped for the phone and disconnected the call. “You imbecile! The last thing I want is my name in the paper!”

Sheepishly, Alfred handed her the receiver. She slammed it down and lowered her face to his. “If my name gets out as being one of your brides, I will ruin you! You understand that? I will ruin you. I don’t need for the whole world to find out I was dumped! It’s bad enough everyone at the club will figure it out. I will sue you for pain and suffering, invasion of privacy, loss of ability to lead a decent life…”

She must have a good lawyer, Regan thought.

The phone started ringing again just as the doorbell buzzed. This time it was Charisse’s turn to make an escape. “That must be a delivery,” she muttered to herself as she ran to the door, checkbook in hand. “How could they have gotten in downstairs?”

This place is not exactly Fort Knox, Regan wanted to respond. But she kept the thought to herself.

As the phone rang insistently, Charisse pulled open the large metal door. A young female reporter and a cameraman were in the hallway. The bright light above the camera shone into the room as the cameraman aimed his equipment in the direction of the assembled group.

Tracy dove behind the couch. “Trapped like rats!” she wailed.

“We heard about what happened and we’d just love to do a story-” the reporter began.

“This isn’t a good time,” Charisse insisted as she stepped out into the hallway and started to pull the door closed behind her.

“But we’d just like to help…” the reporter was saying as the door shut.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Tracy took a deep breath and slowly pulled herself up from behind the couch. “Now I’m stuck here! I just want to go home.”

“Charisse will get rid of them,” Alfred promised. “She’s good at that kind of thing, but she does it in a sweet way. Then we’ll sneak you down the stairwell to your car so no one will see you.”

Adele smiled. “Movie-star treatment, Tracy! That’s cool.”

“I am not a movie star!” Tracy scowled.

“When they get dumped in public, it’s really bad,” Adele commented. “Everybody in the world starts talking about it. Look at-”

“Mother would you please tell her to stop!”

“Hush, Adele,” Ellen said stiffly. “I know you mean well.”

“Why would Jeffrey do this to me? Why?” Tracy cried.

“Why is right,” Regan echoed.

Tracy looked at Regan, shocked at the show of sympathy.

Regan continued, “ Tracy, I’m going to be talking to all the brides whose dresses are gone to see if we can figure out who might have wanted to do this. It could have been a random act, but it could have been done by someone who wanted to hurt one of us. You just never know. You joked about having me investigate your former fiancé but I really would like to check him out.”

Tracy started laughing hysterically. “That’s wonderful! I’d love to find each and every skeleton he has in his pathologically orderly walk-in closet!”

“Well, I’d just like to see if he could possibly have had anything to do with this. Has he had any trouble with the law before?” Regan asked.

“The only thing he’s guilty of is being incredibly boring,” Adele retorted.

“Adele!” Tracy snapped. She looked at Regan. “No, he’s never been arrested if that’s what you mean. He’s always so worried about what people think of him. Be my guest in checking him out. I’d love it if you dug up some dirt. I’d kick it in his face!” For the first time since Regan had laid eyes on her, Tracy looked almost happy. “If he did this, then it would be okay if people found out I was dumped. Because I would have been dumped by a nutcase.”

“You could become a role model,” Adele suggested.

“For what?”

“For being a shining example of ‘Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.’ But you’ll be the one who dodged the bullet at the last minute.”

Tracy wasn’t quite sure what to make of this statement. She blinked her eyes and turned to Alfred. “For now, I absolutely don’t want people to know my name. Because if he turns out to be innocent, then I’m just the girl who got dumped.”

Alfred nodded.

“Or I’ll sue you,” she added.

Alfred nodded again.

Fifteen minutes later Ellen and Adele pulled around to the front of the building. Regan and Alfred accompanied Tracy down the stairwell. She had on one of Charisse’s raincoats, the hood pulled up over her head. Regan was glad it was actually raining. Tracy leaped into the backseat of her mother’s Lexus, the door was shut, and they sped off to the leafy suburbs of Connecticut.

“I wouldn’t want to be a passenger in that car,” Alfred commented.

“The poor thing,” Regan said. “She was crying again.”

“She’ll get over it. If you find any dirt on her ex, she’ll really get over it.”

“What a responsibility,” Regan muttered.

“Revenge is sweet,” Alfred said in a tone that implied experience.

“But isn’t it a dish best served cold?”

“Regan, it’s good any way you can get it.”

When they got back upstairs, it was three o’clock. The two other April Brides had not returned Alfred’s calls. Charisse had all five brides’ files out and was arranging to order fabric for the four dresses Alfred planned to replace.

“ Tracy ’s situation is very sad, but at least that’s one less dress we have to worry about,” Charisse said cheerfully.

“What if they make up?” Alfred asked.

“She shouldn’t take him back,” Kit commented.

“No, she shouldn’t,” Nora agreed with a look of concern. “Alfred and Charisse, do you think you’ll be able to replace Regan’s dress in one week? If not we’ve really got to start thinking about…”

“Absolutely!” Alfred cried. “Regan will have her dress no matter what. We’ll get started on it right away. No thieves or threats are going to keep Alfred and Charisse from their business!”

“Call a locksmith, would you Charisse?” Regan suggested. “I don’t want you two in here tonight not knowing if some stranger has a set of your keys.”

“Right away, Regan.”

“Where do the two remaining brides live?” Regan asked.

“They’re both in Manhattan.”

“I think I’d better pay them both a visit and deliver the news to them in person. If they’re not there, I’ll leave a note explaining the situation. Written by you, of course. That way they can’t accuse you of not trying in every way possible to contact them. After this experience with Tracy, you’d better be concerned about their privacy. Who knows what their secrets are?”

Charisse sighed. “Anything’s possible. They are both a little different…”

Brianne and her mother had gone to Kleinfeld and been greeted cordially.

“Your wedding’s next week!” the saleswoman cried in dismay. “Did you get engaged five minutes ago?”

Teresa explained the unfortunate situation.

“You’re one of the victims of the bridal heist! One of the April Brides!” the saleswoman boomed. “Oh, my God, what a mess. What a mess! Can you imagine if they stole all the dresses we have hanging around here? I can’t imagine. Well, you picked our busiest day to stop by without an appointment.”

Another saleswoman had wandered over. “Didn’t I wait on you two once before?”

Teresa looked guilty. “As a matter of fact you did. But Charisse and Alfred had a design that Brianne just loved. So we went with them,” she explained.

Both saleswomen nodded mournfully. “It isn’t our policy to work without an appointment, but given your hard luck, we will try and do our best for you,” the first one said. “We have sample dresses…”

“We appreciate any help you can give us,” Teresa said with great relief.

The two saleswomen started pulling dresses off the rack but they couldn’t find anything that worked for Brianne. They clucked, frowned, tsk-tsked, and implied that if they had chosen a dress from there in the first place…well, then she’d have her dress, wouldn’t she?