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important, anyway.”
    I smiled. “That was a pretty cool trick, Syd,” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the showroom. “Sending Akinyi out there to distract the camera.”
    Syd chuckled, looking a little embarrassed to be caught. “You like that, huh?” she asked. “Vic taught me that. He actually tried to use it the other night, at the—um—bachelor party.” She flashed an uncomfortable look at Pandora. “When—you know—when the photo was snapped, he tried to send Dragon out to climb the flagpole and distract the camera crew.” Her smile faded. “Of course, that didn’t work.”
    He tried to send Dragon out …I gasped. So that explained why Dragon wasn’t in the photo! He hadn’t taken it or sent it…he had simply been sent outside by Vic to distract the crew.
    I glanced at George, but she was looking at Syd, smiling encouragingly. “I guess you’ve perfected it,” she said, and Syd smiled again.
    “Yeah,” she said with a little chuckle, “if you’ve got camera crews following you around twenty-four/seven, it’s good to have an escape plan!”
    At that moment, Akinyi strode back into the dressing room, followed closely by Hans and the cameraman. “Oh, never mind,” she said breezily, winking at Syd before the cameraman could catch up. “I didn’t see anything I liked. You win this round, Syd.”
    Hans trailed into the room, and took notice of Syd wearing her street clothes again. “So that was a no?” he asked. “You decided not to go with the last dress?”
    Syd shook her head.
    “What will you wear?” Hans asked, as the cameraman trained his camera on Syd.
    Syd shrugged, looking totally unconcerned. “I’ll find something,” she promised. “Even if I have to wear sweatpants.”
    Hans nodded. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to do that. Julie? ” He raised his voice, calling back into the showroom. “ Julie? Do you have something to say to our blushing bride?”
    A petite Latina stepped into the dressing room, almost dwarfed by the huge, billowing dress she carried in her hands. Immediately the cameraman focused on her.
    “Sydney,” she announced, smiling at our bride, “our store, Julie’s Ultimate Bridal, would like to donate this beautiful Hilda Reynolds dress to you for your wedding.”
    Bess gasped. “Hilda Reynolds!” she whispered to me. “Her dresses go for up to ten thousand dollars!”
    Syd looked very touched, and as she touched the dress, which she called “perfect,” she broke down and began to cry. “Oh, thank you,” she said, hugging Julie. “This is my dream dress! I never would have thought I’d find something so beautiful on such short notice!”
    Everyone crowded around to examine the dress—which really was gorgeous—congratulate Syd, and thank Julie. After a few minutes Hans announced that Syd would have to stay at the store for a last-minute fitting, but everyone else would be taking the limo back to the hotel.
    It took a few minutes to get everything together, and as we filed out, I noticed Hans talking on a cell phone just inside the front door of the store.
    “Oh, it went perfectly,” he said with a chuckle. “She even squeezed out some tears! You were right about keeping her out and busy all day—I think that frustration really got us an amazing reaction. It will look great on film.”
    My mouth dropped open and I turned to find Bess and George, but they were already climbing in to the limo. I’d realized over the course of the day that “reality TV” was a bit of a misnomer—clearly the producers manipulated peoples’ reactions a bit, and set up the action as they saw fit. But this entire day had been a setup to get the perfect shot of Syd crying over her dress? All of our time had been wasted—and all of our emotions toyed with? I felt a little sick.
    Then a crazy thought occurred to me: could Hans be the wedding saboteur? Was it possible that the producers of Daredevils were sabotaging the wedding themselves,