Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

“Don’t you talk about how much you love Taryn when you treat her like this.” Sawyer hugged Taryn to his side with one arm. “I love Taryn and I’m going to take care of her and our baby whether you like it or not.”

Despite the strain on his face, his ripped clothes, and the way his voice cracked on the word “baby,” Sawyer had a certain dignity about him. I caught a glimpse of the man he was going to be and I thought Taryn could do far worse. Apparently, her father didn’t agree.

“You’re not good enough for my daughter, you lying sack of crap,” Hall growled, his words muffled from having his face mashed into the ground by one of his captors. “Don’t tell me I don’t love her-I’d do anything for her.”

“Like kill Rafe Acosta because you thought he was the baby’s father? Like try to kill me? Like tell her she can’t dance anymore? Yeah, you’d do anything for her except respect her choices.”

From the sudden silence in the room, I suspected everyone had tuned in after Sawyer accused Hall of killing Rafe.

“He wouldn’t-” Taryn began, eyeing her father with heartbreaking doubt.

Hall saw it and let out a groan, going still beneath his captors. I felt some sympathy for him, but it was all mixed up with my disgust at his ugly prejudices and my fear of the way his anger and frustrations immediately fizzed into assault and battery.

“He would,” Sawyer said implacably. The bruise on his cheek and the livid marks on his neck bore him out.

Uniformed police officers burst through the ballroom doors then, and one of them drew his gun at the sight of the huge dog now standing over Hall, snuffling at his pockets.

“Shoot him,” Hall urged. “He attacked me! He’s dangerous.”

“Don’t you shoot my baby,” Mildred warned, imposing her plump form between the officers and the hapless Great Dane. I was closer to the dog, so I grabbed his collar and pulled him toward me. “He’s a hero,” I told the confused-looking officers.

“He saved the boy,” someone in the crowd called out, and a smattering of applause turned into a torrent. “Hooray for Hoover!” another voice called. Someone poured champagne into a shallow bowl and set it down where Hoover could reach it. He lapped at it thirstily, looking like he enjoyed it, and I hoped Mildred’s budget ran to magnums of Dom Pérignon if Hoover turned up his nose at tap water in the future.

The police, apparently convinced Hoover wasn’t a threat, cuffed Hall, and led Taryn and Sawyer away to interview. Onlookers faded away, unwilling to get caught up in answering police questions. I told a polite officer only what I’d seen and heard, keeping my thoughts to myself. Was it possible that Hall had killed Rafe and then shown up the next day, ranting and raving, in an effort to divert suspicion from himself? I didn’t know if he was that wily; he seemed like a man who operated under the emotion of the moment, not planning things out in advance. I just couldn’t see him sneaking into my bedroom to steal my gun, even assuming that Taryn happened to have mentioned that I had one. It didn’t strike me as being standard teen-father dinner-table chitchat. I imagined the conversation:

“So, Dad, in dance class today I found out that Stacy Graysin has a gun.”

“That’s nice, honey. How did your geometry test go?” The imaginary exchange just didn’t work for me, but I couldn’t completely discount the possibility that Hall knew about my gun. I wanted to talk to Taryn, find out exactly when she’d told him that Rafe was the baby’s father, but she and Sawyer were nowhere to be found. Maybe the police had hauled them off to the station to sign statements or something.

Tired and bedraggled, I took the elevator up to my room, wanting a brief respite before the evening’s competition, which was postponed until seven thirty because of the “unscheduled incident,” as the announcer called it. Slumped against the back wall of the elevator, I noticed three broken fingernails, probably from trying to cling to Hall’s jeans. Damn. I wouldn’t have time to fix them before the evening’s competition began… I’d have to rely on a little transparent tape. Most people didn’t realize it, but ballroom dance judges had eagle eyes and would spot the smallest out-of-place detail, such as a broken nail or poorly applied lipstick.

The elevator doors shush ed open and I found myself at my floor, facing the denim-clad woman I’d noticed earlier. Up close, she was older than I’d first thought-in her early thirties-and pretty, with dark eyes fringed by long lashes, strong brows, and black hair falling to her shoulders. Her eyes opened wide when she saw me and the penny dropped. This was the woman in the strip of photos I’d found at Rafe’s condo. My brain made another leap and I blurted out, “Victoria!”

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.”