She took a deep breath. Then she pulled out her phone and dialed.

She slipped inside. The main hall was a ghost of itself. Where a stunning 1920s beaded flapper dress had once spun on a pedestal, there was only a dusty square on the floor. Where her award-winning installation of deconstructed denim— The Blue Rebellion —had hung from the ceiling, there were now naked wires.

The archive was untouched. A small, climate-controlled room filled with rolling racks. And on those racks hung the most precious things she owned: not the expensive loaned pieces from Paris or Milan, but the stories .

There was a long silence. Then Leo’s gruff voice: “What’s the angle?”