Ella Barrick: Dead Man Waltzing

“Quite the ritzy lunch,” I observed.

“She wanted to celebrate. She’d signed a contract for her book on very favorable terms, and she wanted to celebrate.”

“What book?”

“A memoir. I believe she was calling it Step by Step .”

“So what happened then?”

“I kissed her and sat and we had some champagne.”

“Both of you?”

He nodded.

Scratch the champagne as the poison source, I thought.

Without further cue from me, Maurice continued. “We talked for a while before ordering-and then I ordered the ginger-squash soup and the portabella-spinach ravioli. Corinne had a salad and an asparagus-goat cheese quiche, if I recall correctly. We shared a slice of a flourless chocolate torte for dessert.”

Sharing a dessert… It sounded like Maurice had been considerably more intimate with Corinne Blakely than I realized. How interesting. I left that thought for the moment. “And she ate some of everything before she… she had her attack?”

“Yes.” He set his glass in the sink. “I really can’t believe she was murdered, Anastasia, much less poisoned. Maybe the police have simply got it wrong?”

I didn’t figure Detective Lissy would waste his time looking for a murderer unless he had unambiguous evidence that a murder had been committed. “Did Corinne leave the table at any time?”

“She left to visit the ladies’ room before dessert.”

“How long was she gone?”

“Good grief, Anastasia, I wasn’t timing her.”

“Long enough to bump into someone and chat?” I persisted.

“Maybe ten or twelve minutes?”

Maurice smoothed a weary hand over his hair and I realized he must be exhausted. “Let’s sleep on it,” I said, handing him the extra pillow and a blanket I’d taken from the linen closet. The air-conditioning kept it chilly. “I even changed the bed for you.”

That got a small smile before worry cloaked his face again. “Perhaps I should visit the police station now and get this straightened out.”

“In the morning,” I said. “When you’re sober. With a lawyer.”

I wanted to accompany Maurice to the police station in the morning, but he refused.

“I’ll be in and out in under half an hour,” he said with a confidence brought on by a good night’s sleep, a handful of painkillers with an oatmeal breakfast, a washed and ironed shirt (I’d tossed his shirt in the wash after he’d gone to sleep), and his white hair slicked back as usual, with a handful of my mousse. He complained the vanilla scent wasn’t manly, but lodgers at the Graysin Motel can’t be too choosy about their complimentary toiletries.

“Don’t go without a lawyer,” I said, already dressed in my dance clothes to teach my Ballroom Aerobics class. It was the only class at Graysin Motion that didn’t teach competition-type or social ballroom dancing and, wouldn’t you know it, it was our most popular class. I had a full studio every Wednesday and Friday at seven a.m., and on Tuesday and Thursday over lunch.

“That won’t be necessary,” Maurice said with a wave of his hand. “I’m innocent.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “That’s not enough for Detective Lissy.” I handed him the business card I’d dug up earlier. “Here. Take this. Drake is a high-powered criminal defense lawyer. He’ll-”

“I am not a criminal!”

“He’ll help you.” My uncle Nico had sent Phineas Drake to rescue me when the police thought I killed Rafe. Drake made me nervous-he’d hinted that he could set up anyone I wanted as Rafe’s murderer-but he got results. “He’s expensive, though.”

“Money isn’t an issue.” Maurice waved the card away and I jammed it into the key pocket of my spandex shorts.

I wished I could say, “Money isn’t an issue.” Could be that cruise lines paid more than I realized. “Good, then. Call me as soon as you’re finished with the police, okay?”

Maurice smiled and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, Anastasia.”

“Sure.” I shrugged it off, embarrassed by his gratitude. “What are friends for?”

An hour and a half later, sweaty from the high-voltage class, I walked into my office to find Tav sitting at his desk. I smiled involuntarily at the sight of his dark head bent in concentration over a spreadsheet. Octavio Acosta, Rafe’s half brother, had inherited Rafe’s share of the business. Instead of selling out, he had elected to stay on as my partner, for a while at least, and he handled the numbers end of the business that I hated. In his “real” life, he owned an import-export company in Argentina and was spending a year in the States to set up an outlet or branch or outpost in the northern Virginia area. It kept him busy, and he didn’t spend much time at his desk here.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked.

He looked up with a smile. His lean face with its strong nose and brows, dark eyes glinting with humor, and sensuous mouth was disturbingly attractive. His black hair was a bit longer than it had been when he arrived almost two months ago, curling halfway down his collar; maybe he hadn’t found a good barber yet.

“Stacy. I looked into the ballroom, but you did not see me. You were leading the ladies around the room in a circle, doing a leg exercise of some sort.”

His sexy Argentinean accent, so like Rafe’s, made me tingle. “Tango lunges,” I said. Nodding at the papers spread on his desk, I asked. “So, are we solvent?”

“Barely.” His brows twitched closer together. “The trip to Blackpool took a big bite out of our cash on hand.”

The Blackpool Dance Festival in England was the most prestigious international professional dance competition of the year. Couples competed by invitation only, and wins at Blackpool could significantly boost ballroom dancers’ reputations and, thus, their bottom line via increasing numbers of students, endorsement deals, invitations to perform on Ballroom with the B-Listers , and the like. When Rafe got killed, I’d had to find a new partner quickly. I’d been lucky that Vitaly Voloshin had left his dance partner in Russia when he moved to nearby Baltimore to be with his life partner. We’d paired up, practiced like demons, and won trophies for our waltzing and quickstepping. Given that we’d had only a few weeks together, I was happy with the outcome and looking forward to next year’s festival.

“We had to go,” I told Tav.

“I know. But some belt-tightening measures are in order now.”

I wasn’t fond of belt tightening. I liked buying new competition dresses, bling, and accessories. I plopped onto the love seat by the window, idly watching tourists crowding the sidewalks of Old Town.

“Possibly you could share a hotel room with someone at the Virginia DanceSport competition.”

I wrinkled my nose with distaste. Rafe and I had shared a room when we went to competitions. Vitaly and I didn’t bunk together, of course, so the studio’s hotel bill for competitions had doubled. I sighed. “If I have to.”

“There is a huge bridal show coming up,” Tav said.

“Thinking of getting married?”

“ Por Dios , no!”

His expression was comical, and I laughed. I realized I didn’t know whether Tav had ever been married. We’d met under intense circumstances and gotten to know each other on some levels pretty quickly, but once we became coowners of Graysin Motion, a certain awkwardness had come in. Having learned my lesson about being involved with a business partner from the difficulties that resulted when Rafe and I broke up but still had the studio to run together, I was reluctant to become too close to Tav. Dating was out of the question, although something about him-his scent, his intensity-made me far too aware of him. Not that he’d ever asked me out, I thought with irrational pique.