Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

The thought tickled the flesh on my arms and I rubbed them, stopping when the friction made a slight sound. Waiting another ten minutes by my watch, I realized I desperately had to pee. This was getting ridiculous. I hadn’t heard a thing since the door opened and closed. Very cautiously, I straightened and stepped out of the tub, wincing as I brushed the shower curtain, and the metal rings clinked against the rod. I froze, listening again-still nothing. I crept into the bedroom. No one lurked there, ready to jump me. I headed down the hall, moving a bit more freely as I became convinced that whoever had come in had already gone. I ducked into the kitchen, a tiny, galleylike affair with no place for an intruder to hide, unless they were blender-sized and could fit into a cabinet.

Stepping into the living room, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. No one. Whoever had come in hadn’t needed to search for what they wanted. What had I missed? What was here in plain sight that someone needed? My gaze drifted slowly around the room, lighting on a remote with enough buttons to operate the Enterprise , a camera lens on the wide windowsill-Rafe was an avid photographer and liked photographing birds-a paper bag full of old clothes he might’ve been taking to Goodwill, and the laptop. Could there be something on the laptop that an intruder would want? If so, why not steal the whole computer? I approached it, and stared down at the monitor, which had gone black again. It told me nothing.

I reached toward it, unsure if I wanted to invade Rafe’s privacy by cruising through his e-mail and files, and my hand brushed the mug, jolting drops of old coffee onto my wrist. I jerked back as if it had come alive and licked me. The liquid was still warm. My gaze darted to the entryway. The coat closet door was an inch ajar, not closed as when I’d come in. Understanding crashed down on me like an avalanche, leaving me cold and gasping for a breath. No one had come in while I’d been in the bedroom. Someone had left .

Carmelo whickered at me and snuffled at the pockets of my patio dress for the carrots he was sure I carried. Mom pushed his head away, saying, “Get away, greedy.”

I took a deep breath of the barn air, taking in the scents of hay and clean water and horse dung, and felt my shoulders relax. I hadn’t known where to go after leaving Rafe’s condo. The realization that someone had been there when I arrived, hidden in the closet, gave me the creeps. I couldn’t leave fast enough. On the quiet street in front of the building, I looked both ways, nervously searching for signs that anyone was paying attention to me. A guy in a Dodge Charger pulling out of the condo garage gave me an appreciative once-over, but that didn’t count-it happens all the time if you’re tall, blond, and stacked. I didn’t see anyone who looked like a cop, or anyone lurking behind a tree. A black woman sat at a bus stop, reading a romance novel. A pair of young mothers walked past briskly, pushing strollers. A man ran a leaf blower, spraying trash and dust off the sidewalk into the street.

I hurried to my yellow Volkswagen Beetle and got in, locked the doors and sat there a moment, unsure where to go. If I went home, the cops might show up and arrest me. I had to go home eventually, but I wanted to delay it as long as possible. Danielle was working, so I couldn’t meet her someplace. I could go to Dad’s or to Mom’s. After some thought, Mom won out, primarily because her last name was different than mine since she and Dad divorced, and I didn’t think it would be as easy for the police to track me to her place.

“I can’t believe Rafe was murdered,” Mom said for the third time since I’d arrived fifteen minutes ago. “I never thought he was the man for you, dear, but murdered!” She bent to lift Carmelo’s hoof and work out some pebbles with a hoof pick.

Mom does horses. Horses and basketball. That’s why the three current inmates of her six-stall barn outside Albie, Virginia, were Carmelo, Kobe (a mare), and Bird, the twenty-two-year-old bay gelding I’d learned to ride on. I patted his neck, watching Mom work. She moved with economy of motion, and her slim, angular body still looked great in form-fitting riding breeches. From behind, with her graying red hair covered by a riding helmet, you’d think she was thirty instead of fifty-four. Riding might be good for her figure, but it had sabotaged my folks’ marriage. My father got tired of the vast sums of money spent on horsey well-being and dressage training, and Mom’s frequent absences that left him working full time and taking care of three kids as well.

When he’d said “It’s me or the nags,” she went with the horses and didn’t even try for custody of me and Danielle and Nick. I’d been upset with that as a teenager, but I’d gotten over it. Mostly. Danielle still had issues with Mom, but I sort of understood about passion trumping all else. When I fell in love with ballroom dancing, Mom was the one who persuaded Dad to let me keep at it-he wanted me to take up a scholarship sport like volleyball-despite the steep competition bills. She said it was important to follow one’s passion. She even fronted the money for coaching and dresses with her dressage winnings, and came to watch me dance when she could. At prom time, I might have wished she’d been hovering in the foyer like other moms, snapping photos of me and my date, instead of in Brussels or Germany at an international equestrian event, or that she’d been around to take me to the ER when I broke my arm falling out of a lift, but she was around when she could be.

Picking up a curry comb, I began brushing Bird, who enjoyed being groomed. If he’d been a cat, he’d have been purring. “I’m afraid the police are going to arrest me, Mom.”

“You didn’t shoot him, did you?” she asked, with no more angst in the question than if she’d asked, “Do you want syrup for your pancakes?”

“Of course not!” I said so loudly that Bird sidled away.

“Then we should call my brother, Nico,” she said decisively, “although I think he’s in Barcelona. He’s good at this sort of thing.”

I didn’t ask “What sort of thing?” Some questions you just don’t want answered.

“Are you okay?” She straightened and brushed dust and horse hair from her jeans, her blue eyes fixed on mine.

I saw real concern in her expression and smiled to reassure her. “About being arrested or about Rafe?”

“Rafe,” she said.

“Not really,” I admitted, trying to still my lower lip, which wanted to tremble. “I thought I hated him, but-And he was killed in my house! Well, in the studio, but it’s part of my house. And-” And now I’d have to run Graysin Motion by myself and I hated the money end of the studio, and I didn’t have a dance partner, and I might get arrested and spend the rest of my life in prison, teaching the cha-cha to a gaggle of hard women doing time for stabbing their pimps or dismembering abusive spouses.

Mom seemed to understand all that without my having to spell it out. She patted my hand-a rare gesture of physical affection for her-and gave me her generalpurpose prescription for all ills, physical or mental: “Let’s go for a ride.”

I picked up a fold of my patio dress and waved it at her. “In this?”

“You can borrow my old jodhpurs, and a pair of boots. Luckily, our feet are the same size.”

Yes, but I was four inches taller than she was. However, I obediently followed her into the house to change.

It was late afternoon before I finally drove home, weary from the ride and knowing my legs and ass would punish me the next day, but feeling more relaxed than I had since finding Rafe. Horses are simple creatures-big, beautiful, and brave, but blissfully simple-and I’d enjoyed rebonding with Bird. And Mom. She, too, was easy to be with because the only things she was interested in were horses and international dressage competition and related topics. She had no interest in politics-she probably couldn’t name the governor and would be interested in foreign relations only if it impacted her ability to compete overseas-and even less in popular culture.