Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

“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.

I have never been so happy to see my house as I was Sunday night when I got home from the competition. The usual euphoria I had after competing had leaked out of me like helium from a three-day-old party balloon. The dancing itself, combined with the sprint and grapple with Hall, had left my body worn out, my feet throbbing. I was mentally worn out, too, from the emotional ups and downs of the weekend, including Victoria’s appearing/disappearing act, the brouhaha with Taryn and Sawyer, dancing with a new partner-Vitaly and I hadn’t won an overall title, but we’d won some of the individual dances, which was good enough for our first competition together-and Mark Downey’s tantrum. After his blow-up Saturday, Mark had returned to dance his International Standard heats with me, but he was cold and uncommunicative and we didn’t do nearly as well. If anything else had been needed to convince me not even to consider him as a professional partner, that did it. A pro’s got to be able to divorce his or her personal life from the dancing. You’ve got to be able to smile and look like you’re enjoying yourself, or be tender and romantic-whatever suits the character of the dance-even if you recently caught your lying son-of-a-bitch partner cheating on you.

Despite my weariness, I forced myself to lug all my costumes into the house; I couldn’t afford to have them stolen-they each cost upward of $2,500. Holding the hangers high above my head to keep the garment bags from dragging on the ground, I plodded from my car to the back door and fumbled with my key in the lock. As the door eased open with a squeak, an impression of motion to my left had me half turning in that direction. Before I could spot anything, a hard forearm pressed against my throat and the man’s other hand clamped over my mouth and nose.

“Quietly,” a gruff voice whispered into my ear. “Let’s go inside quietly.” He bumped me forward with a rude knee to the back of my thigh.

For a split second, I was most worried about the dresses, still gripped awkwardly in my upraised hand, their weight making my arm go numb. Then common sense reordered my priorities and my mind seized up with images from news stories of horrific home invasions where whole families were beaten and/or shot; the serial rapist who was supposed to be operating on jogging routes in Arlington, but who might have changed his hunting grounds; and of Rafe, bloody and dead, in the ballroom upstairs. The man pulled his arm painfully tight against my throat, cutting off my airway, and I reluctantly stepped into the house. I automatically reached for the light switch with the hand not holding the dresses, but the man knocked my arm down with his elbow. “No lights.”

Once inside, the arm across my throat eased up and he nudged me toward a chair. “Sit.”

My arm trembling with fatigue, I asked in a disgustingly shaky voice, “May I put the dresses down?” Some part of me hoped that with two free hands, I might be able to escape my attacker. My gaze flitted to where I knew my knives sat in a block on the counter, even though I couldn’t see them in the dark. And on the end of the counter nearest me was Great-aunt Laurinda’s ugly ceramic rooster that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to trash or donate; given the opportunity, I could grab it and smash it into my assailant’s skull.

“On the table.”

I laid the dresses gently across the kitchen table and wondered if I should lunge for the knives. As if reading my mind, my assailant, dressed entirely in black I realized now that my eyes were adjusting, stepped between the counter and me. “Sit.”

I sat. Every muscle tensed. I would go down fighting. Instead of ripping my clothes off, though, or demanding that I hand over my valuables, the man turned away. I heard a faint click, then the whirr of the vent fan, a muffled “Damn,” and then the light in the stove vent came on.

“Just a little light so I can see if you’re lying to me,” Héctor Bazán said, moving back toward the table. “But not enough to attract attention from your neighbors.” He prodded a chair away from the table with his foot and sat adjacent to me, crossing his legs with one ankle on his knee.