The dark-haired woman’s chin jerked up at the sound of her name and she hesitated, on the brink of flight. Then her haunted eyes fixed on my face and she asked, “Is it true?”
The elevator doors started to close and I stopped them with my arm thrust through the opening. I hopped out before they could close again and confronted the shorter woman. “Is what true?”
“Rafe. Is he-?”
“Dead.” I nodded, feeling a pang when her face crumpled. Where had she been for the last five days that the news hadn’t reached her? On a Crusoe-esque island? In a cave?
“Oh, God,” she breathed. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t until I arrived here today and heard people talking… What happened?”
She looked small and vulnerable huddled in her denim jacket, her shoulders braced against the pain, ringless fingers twisting around the strap of her purse. Her voice was lightly accented, exotic, and sexy, and I understood completely why Rafe had fallen for her.
A family of five trooped toward us and pushed the down button, the tween-age girl staring at my dress curiously. “Let’s go to my room,” I suggested.
Victoria Bazán nodded. “Yes. I came up here looking for you.”
She followed me down the hall and stood silently as I inserted the key card into the lock and pushed open my door. “Excuse the mess,” I said, ushering her into the room with its two double beds, one of which was buried under costume jewelry, hair accessories, and backup costumes spread carefully on the coverlet. The bathroom counter held a litter of lipsticks, eyeliners, glue-on beauty patches and rhinestones, foundation, blush, false eyelashes, black mascara, and enough hair spray to tame the locks of a roomful of beauty contestants. People don’t realize how logistically difficult professional ballroom dance is and how much stuff pros-women, mainly-have to cart around.
My dress for tonight’s professional competition hung on a padded hanger in the closet, swathed in plastic. I motioned Victoria to the only chair in the room not covered with clothes and pulled the dress from the closet. “I hope you don’t mind,” I said, “but I’ve got to change while we talk. I’m dancing again in twenty-five minutes.” I ducked into the bathroom and left the door ajar.
“Sure,” Victoria said. “Can you tell me what happened to Rafe?”
Swallowing, I recounted my tale of finding Rafe shot to death in the ballroom.
“Oh, God,” Victoria said. “When he didn’t come back when he said he would, I was afraid of something like this.”
“Come back?”
“To the cabin.”
She must have meant Rafe’s hunting cabin in West Virginia. I’d never been there, despite his invitation. It sounded too primitive for my tastes. It had an outhouse, for God’s sake.
“He said I’d be safe there, that no one knew about it, but it didn’t have a television or computer and he made me give him my cell phone in case Héctor could use it to track me down.”
I popped my head out of the bathroom to stare at her. “You can do that?”
“Apparently.” She shrugged. “Héctor has many, many resources-all that money and intimidation can buy.”
I returned to working on my face.
“He said he’d come back for me by Wednesday, that he had a way to get the money I’d need, but then he didn’t come. I waited a couple of days, not knowing what to do, and then I walked to the nearest big road, about six miles away, and hitchhiked to the city. I was afraid to go to Rafe’s condo or the studio for fear Héctor might have had them watched, so I came here. Rafe had told me about the competition and I thought I’d find him here.” Her voice held more than grief; it ached with despair.
“You loved him?” I asked, glad she couldn’t see my face.
“Once. And I could have loved him again, but that’s not what was going on. He was helping me.”
“With what?”
“Escape my husband.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept quiet, slipping my Latin costume off and draping the wisps of mesh and red satin on a hanger hooked over the shower curtain rail. I wasn’t quite sure why she needed Rafe-wouldn’t a good divorce lawyer have been a better bet?
“A woman does not just leave or divorce Héctor,” she said as if reading my thoughts. “He is possessive. And I had knowledge of certain of his… activities. He would never let me go. But I couldn’t bear it any longer-his secrecy and cruelty. I had to leave!” The last was a passionate cry.
“Cruelty?” It wasn’t a word that came up in conversation often.
Suddenly, she was in the doorway, T-shirt lifted to just below her breasts, exposing an expanse of trim midsection marred with ugly bruises. I gasped. “He hits you?”
“Among other things.” She rolled the shirt down and disappeared from the doorway, her tone making it clear she didn’t want to discuss what “other things” meant.
“So Rafe was helping you… what? Get together enough money to go back to Argentina? Find a job here?” After outlining my lips with a red pencil, I filled them in with a dramatic garnet red. I felt superficial applying makeup and worrying about the placement of my hairclips while the woman in the other room revealed her pain and marital secrets, but I had to get ready. A glance at my watch told me I had only nine more minutes to get downstairs.
“He was helping me buy a new identity and get together enough money to hide.”
That sounded a bit extreme to me. Surely a shelter could help, or she must have relatives to turn to. My silence prompted another outburst, the Argentinean accent more noticeable. “You don’t believe me! Disappearing was the only way. Do you think I want to start over again? Work as a waitress or some such to support myself? Never see my mother again? No! But Héctor will kill me if he catches up with me and he won’t hesitate to hurt anyone he thinks is protecting me. Rafe said he knew where he could get me a gun, but then he was killed. Staying hidden is my only protection.”
Wait a minute… “Rafe said he’d get you a gun?” I stepped out of the bathroom in my bra and undies, wanting to read her face.
She nodded, puzzled. “Yes.” She sat in the uncomfortable straight chair, hands clenching and unclenching on the wooden arms. That revelation opened up all sorts of thoughts, but I didn’t have time to question her further right now. With mere minutes to go before I missed the call for our first heat, I freed tonight’s gown from its plastic wrapping, dropped it over my head, and wriggled it down over my hips. Turning with a swish of fabric, I was gratified by the look on Victoria’s face.
“You look beautiful,” she said.
Since Vitaly and I hadn’t had time to have matching costumes made, he was going with a basic black tux and I was wearing this white gown with black flowers splashed across the fabric and accented with jet stones that gave the dress a certain heft that weighed on me, but in a good way. A few years back, chiffon and feathers had been all the rage for smooth competitions, but feathers were out now and stones were in, which I appreciated. Cap sleeves showed off my toned arms, and a scooped neck and back displayed cleavage and creamy skin. My blond hair was still in the updo, but I’d decorated it with black-beaded combs to match the dress. Faux diamonds dangled from my ears and flashed from the choker at the base of my neck. It’s basically impossible to pile on too much bling in the ballroom dancing world.
“Thanks,” I said. I eyed her with concern, feeling somehow as if I’d inherited her from Rafe, like I needed to help her because he had been going to. A tightness inside of me that I hadn’t been consciously aware of eased with the realization that Rafe hadn’t been trying to raise money to run off with another man’s wife, buy drugs, or pay off a gambling debt. It had hurt to think badly of him and I was relieved to find out he’d been scraping together money to help a friend. “Look, I’ve got to go down now and I won’t be done until around eleven. There’s so much more we need to talk about. Can you wait?”
“I have nowhere else to go,” Victoria said simply.
“Order some room service,” I said, wondering if she even had enough money to eat, “and charge it to the room. Watch a movie or something. Your husband has no reason to suspect you’re here, and we can talk about what to do after I’m done dancing.”
“Rafe talked about how kind you were,” Victoria said with a small smile.
“Did he?” For some reason, the thought made me very sad.
Downstairs, Vitaly waited for me, his skin practically twitching with impatience. “You are being very late,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the ballroom. He peered at me sideways as we hustled into the room, now filled with a full gallery of spectators. “But you are looking completely satisfactory.”
Wow… satisfactory. “I was aiming for beautiful,” I said with mock disappointment, “or maybe elegant and sophisticated.”
He grinned, displaying his perfect teeth. “You are accrediting Vitaly.”
Did that mean I was a credit to him? Or that I owed my appearance to him? I decided it didn’t matter as we stepped onto the dance floor and that indefinable change came over him, an electric charge that made him snap with energy and charm. A healthy round of applause greeted all of us and the announcer called out, “Quickstep.” As the music started, I focused on the dancing, forcing all thoughts of Victoria’s situation and Rafe’s murder from my mind. Dancing with Vitaly was a pleasure, with none of the tension that had spoiled things between me and Rafe. I let myself flow with the music, responding to Vitaly’s lead almost effortlessly, and was happy with how we performed.
When the evening’s heats came to a close, however, I gave Vitaly a kiss on the cheek, turned down his and John’s offer of a drink in the bar, and hurried upstairs to continue my conversation with Victoria. Slipping my shoes off in the elevator, I wiggled my toes, which sighed with relief. Competitions are murder on the feet. I traipsed barefoot down the hall to my room. The murmur of the television reached me as I fumbled for my key card. Pushing open the door, I called softly, “I’m back.”
No response other than the annoying sales pitch of an infomercial. It took me mere seconds to check the room and bathroom. Victoria was gone. And so was my wallet.
I seethed for the better part of an hour, wanting to call someone and vent. I couldn’t call Danielle because it was too late. She was meeting me for breakfast, though-she liked to watch me “do that dance thing,” as she called it, when I was competing close to home-and I went over and over my encounter with Victoria in my mind so I could lay it all out for Danielle. Scrubbing off my makeup, I ordered a bowl of soup and a salad from room service-I was famished-and watched reruns of Gilligan’s Island with my feet in a bowl of Epsom salts until I calmed down enough to fall asleep.
My alarm went off way too early and it took several layers of concealer to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. The gold pro-am heats were this morning-“gold” being the division for advanced students, some of whom were good enough to turn pro-and I donned the limegreen Latin costume with the fringe, for competing with Mark Downey. After calling my credit card company to report the stolen card and to arrange for a replacement, I scuffed into my slippers, tucked my shoes under my arm, and went down to breakfast, grateful I could charge it to my room since I had no money.
Usually, I can spot Danielle’s red mop across a crowded room. In the dining room full of flamboyant dance costumes and hairstyles, however, it was her taupe sweater and charcoal pants that stood out. Over a bowl of oatmeal (me) and a plate of eggs Benedict with hash browns (definitely not me), Danielle exclaimed over yesterday’s events.
“So this Taryn girl’s dad tried to kill her dance partner?”
“Looked like it to me,” I said.
“And then you met this Victoria person and she told you Rafe was helping her escape from her husband?”
I nodded, pouring skim milk over my oatmeal and mixing in a spoonful of raisins. On a Saturday morning, the hotel didn’t have much in the way of business clientele, so almost everyone in the dining room was involved with the competition in one way or another. I scanned for Mark Downey but didn’t see him yet.
“Did you believe her?”
“About what?”
“Any of it.” Danielle gestured impatiently with her fork. “Doesn’t it seem a bit unlikely that she hadn’t heard about Rafe’s death? I mean, come on. No one’s that out of touch in this day and age.”
“She seemed surprised and upset.” Was I a gullible idiot for buying her story about no TV, no phone? No, I’d heard Rafe talk about the cabin-it was primitive with a capital P.
“Yeah, just like she seemed helpless and confused… right up until she stole your wallet and disappeared on you.”
I shrugged slightly, conceding the point. “I still think she was genuinely scared of her husband.”
“Yeah, well, from what you’ve told me, he sounds like a nasty guy. But killing her because she wants to leave him? Doesn’t the guy have any pride? He needs to man up and pretend he doesn’t care. Have you considered the possibility that this chick killed Rafe?” Danielle gave me a serious look over a forkful of dripping eggs Benedict.
I’d considered every possible contender for Rafe’s murder during my sleepless hours last night, from Victoria to Héctor to a time-traveling assassin from the future. “I considered it,” I said, “but I don’t know why she would. He was helping her.”
“So she says,” Danielle said significantly. “Maybe he was going to tell Bazán where she was.”
“Why would he do that?” I frowned at her. “That wouldn’t be like Rafe. And it doesn’t mesh with him scrounging around for money.” And selling Sherry Indrebo’s flash drive to her opponent, I thought. “Listen to this, though: Victoria told me that Rafe knew a place to get her a gun.”
Danielle’s blue eyes opened wide. “You think he meant your gun?”
I nodded. “Yup. I think Rafe took my gun, planning to give it to Danielle. The jerk. I’d have loaned it to him, if he’d asked. Anyway, I think it’s possible that he had it with him the night he was killed.”
“So the murderer got the gun away from Rafe and used it on him? Cold.”
“Uh-huh. But the important thing is that it means whoever killed him didn’t have to know I had a gun, and didn’t have to sneak into my place to steal it.”
“That must make you feel better,” Danielle said.
“Marginally. But it also means that anyone could’ve killed Rafe, even people I assumed couldn’t have because they wouldn’t have known about the gun. Like Leon Hall.”
“So the killer really could have been a thief that Rafe walked in on,” Danielle said, “and not someone he knew at all.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” I said slowly. She’d hit on the one possibility I hadn’t thought of last night. “But it doesn’t seem likely. What thief would want to rob a dance studio? There’s nothing worth stealing. He’d be better off knocking over a convenience store or even a fast-food joint. No, I still think it was someone Rafe knew, someone he planned to meet, or someone who knew he’d turn up at the studio eventually.”
“You need to tell that Detective Lissy about Rafe having the gun,” Danielle urged. She pushed aside her empty plate and drew her coffee cup closer. “Maybe then he’ll stop considering you Public Enemy Number One.”
“Good idea,” I said. “As soon as-”
“Hey, Stacy, are you ready to rumba?” Alert and smiling, Mark Downey approached with a cup of coffee, seating himself at our table without asking. His form-fitting Latin costume had lime green accents to match my dress and his sandy hair flopped rakishly across his forehead. “Hi, Danielle,” he added. “Good to see you again.”
“Hi, Mark. Good luck today.”
“Thanks. I’m thinking this may be my last competition as an amateur.”
I smiled at him. Amateurs who won out in the gold division frequently made the jump to professional status, assuming they wanted a career of teaching and competing. “Let’s do it,” I said, giving Danielle a look that said we’d continue our conversation later. She accompanied us to the ballroom and took a seat at the studio table, chatting with a tense-looking Sherry Indrebo. She was husbandless this morning. She and Vitaly would be competing against Mark and me, and I knew that regardless of who won, we’d have a very unhappy loser on our hands.
I found myself looking at the older woman with her wiry muscles and tight body, clad now in an orange costume, wondering if she had it in her to shoot Rafe. She’d told me politics was her life; if she knew Rafe had sold her out to her opponent in the House race, just how mad would she have been? Livid, I imagined. If she and Rafe had met that night and Rafe had told her what he’d done, she could have snapped. Before I could work out the scenario any further, the announcer called us onto the floor and Sherry rose with a flutter of feathers and took Vitaly’s arm with a practiced smile. Mark offered his arm to me and the competition got under way.
Mark and I won. Which is to say, we won the “Overall” title for the Pro/Am Scholarship-International Latin-Gold Division. The uninitiated would need the Rosetta stone or a code-breaking book to read ballroom dancing score sheets; suffice it to say that Mark and I were ranked number one in three of the five dances and no lower than third in any of them. Sherry and Vitaly took a second and a third and landed as low as fifth in the cha-cha. That really wasn’t surprising considering they’d had only a couple of practices while Mark and I and several of the other pro-am couples had danced together for years. At any rate, Mark was ecstatic and I was pleased; our success might (hopefully!) attract more students to Graysin Motion.
Mark grabbed me around the waist and twirled me around, pressing a fast kiss onto my lips. “We did it!” He set me down and accepted congratulations from various other dancers, including Sherry, who looked like her cheeks ached from the effort of maintaining her smile. She disappeared immediately after congratulating Mark, not staying for the celebratory bottle of champagne Vitaly graciously purchased.
After a few minutes, Mark bounded over to where I sat at the studio’s table, watching the Pro/Am Scholarship Open Nite-Club competition in which Graysin Motion had no entries. As couples demonstrated their West Coast Swing, Mark leaned close. “I won out in gold,” he exulted.
“I guess you’ll be competing against me next year,” I said, smiling.
The excitement drained slowly from his face. “Against you?”
“Why, yes. Didn’t you say you were going to compete as a pro if you won out? I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a partner… You’re really good, Mark. It must have been because you had such a good teacher.” I smiled again, although Mark’s reaction didn’t feel right.
“I thought that you… that you and I-I figured that when I was good enough, we would team up, be partners.” His expression mixed disbelief and pleading.
Ouch. I should have forced myself to have that talk about boundaries earlier. I silently apologized to Danielle for getting on her about not confronting her boss when I hadn’t even had the gumption to have a similar talk with a student. Vitaly, sensing something was wrong, discreetly led the others at the table away under the pretext of watching the dancers from another angle. I was liking him more every minute. Even though his English was iffy, he could read gestures and expressions in a way that let him understand more than some people who’d been speaking English since the cradle. Mark for instance. He reclaimed my attention by grabbing my wrist where it lay on the table.
“Stacy! I knew that while you and Rafe were dancing together there was no hope for me. You’d built a professional reputation together-I understood that. But with Rafe out of the picture-”
“He’s dead!” I said, pulling my wrist away.
“I know. I didn’t mean to disrespect your grief or imply that his murder wasn’t a terrible thing. I’m not doing this well.” He looked miserable.
“Mark, I don’t want to take anything away from your achievement today, but you need to look for someone at your level to partner with.”
“You’re too good for me, is that it?” Anger was replacing his hangdog look.
“I’ve got several years’ experience as a professional,” I said as diplomatically as possible. “I’m at a different place in my career. I own a studio. I’ve got to dance with someone who can bring students into the studio, who I can win important competitions with to boost the studio’s reputation. That’s Vitaly.”
“But you just started with him! It’s not like you’ve had years, or even months, of training together. He’d understand if you wanted to give me a tryout-”
“No.” I spoke the word forcefully.
Mark scraped his chair back, rocking the table as he jumped up. I grabbed for the champagne bottle before it could fall. People at the tables on either side watched us with open curiosity and the nearest judge turned around to glare at us. With an obvious effort, Mark controlled his temper. “I could work at Graysin Motion, then, and we could see how it goes. Maybe in a couple months-”
“No.” I tried to soften the harsh word. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Mark. Look, this is your big day. Let’s get back to celebrating-”
“Screw you, Stacy,” he spat, turning on his heel and hurrying out of the ballroom.
I let out a long breath. Mark’s anger, his lack of control, the way he said Rafe was out of the picture… I wondered if Mark could’ve had a hand in Rafe’s death. Was his obsession with me, his fantasy that we would be professional partners, strong enough to lead to murder? If Mark had come to the studio that night, maybe looking for me, and run into Rafe and they’d had words… I almost jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Vitaly, tracking Mark as he banged out the door. “He is one gigantic prickle,” Vitaly announced, squeezing my shoulder.
“That’s one way to put it,” I agreed.