Quickstep to Murder by Ella Barrick Read Free Book Online Page A

shoulder. Was it my imagination, or had the detectives inched farther into the room? Their faces were impassive as they stared at me in my nest of lingerie.
    My mouth felt dry, like I’d been eating baby powder, and I used my tongue to moisten my lips. “It’s not here.”
     
    “I know the police think I killed Rafe,” I told Mark Downey Thursday morning at seven o’clock. We’d had a dance practice set up and I’d been too distracted by the night’s events to cancel, although I’d called the instructors and put a sign on the door saying classes were canceled for the day. Mark had arrived for our practice session, had seen the crime scene tape strung across the doors to the ballroom, and had sought me out in my office.
    “My God, Stacy,” he’d said, rushing in without even knocking and jolting to a stop at the sight of me behind my desk. “I thought—I saw the tape and thought that you—” His light brown eyes glowed with concern and relief.
    “Not me. Rafe,” I said, thrusting my fingers through the unwashed hair I had scraped back into a utilitarian ponytail. I knew my eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep, and I frankly was surprised Mark didn’t run screaming from the room at the sight of me. I could’ve had a walk-on part in the latest zombie movie without needing special effects makeup. Instead, he pulled me up into a comforting hug. I clung to him for a second—he smelled like deodorant soap—but broke away as I started to sniffle again.
    “Sorry,” I said, reaching for a tissue. I felt like I’d been crying nonstop since detectives Lissy and Troy finally left me alone at around two this morning. They’d pokered up and exchanged a meaningful glance when I discovered my gun was missing, and the questions had gotten a lot more pointed. They’d swabbed my hands with little towelette thingies, had taken my fingerprints—for elimination purposes, they said—and had asked if I knew if Rafe had a will. I gave them a copy. I could only be grateful they hadn’t hauled me off to jail.
    “Rafe! What in the name of God happened?” Mark straddled the straight-backed chair facing my desk and rested his chin on its back.
    Normally, I wouldn’t have considered Mark a confidante—he was a client more than a friend—but nothing about this morning qualified as “normal.” I slumped into my chair and told him what I knew about Rafe’s death—murder—which wasn’t much, and finished with my conviction that the cops considered me the prime suspect.
    “Of course they don’t,” Mark said. “No one could possibly think you had it in you to kill someone.”
    “That’s sweet of you,” I said. Deluded on at least two counts—the cops clearly thought I was more than capable of shooting my ex-fiancé, and pretty much everyone is able to kill under the right circumstances—but sweet. “I’m sorry, but I’m not up to—”
    “Of course you’re not,” he said, rising immediately. “Just give me a call when you’re ready to practice. If there’s anything I can do . . . I know you and Rafe were close, that is, that you used to be—Oh, hell.”
    He looked young and confused and earnest and I gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Mark. I appreciate it. I’ll call you later in the week.” If I wasn’t being fitted for a lurid orange prison jumpsuit.
    He left and I rose to make sure the door had closed after him. I felt less secure than usual in the studio—big surprise—and gave into nerves by turning the dead bolt. Returning to my office, my gaze fell on the crisscrossed crime scene tape that barred the way into the ballroom where I’d found Rafe’s body. As if compelled, I walked to the open door and stood on the threshold, wondering how I’d ever dance in there again. Except for a stain—smaller than it had seemed last night—where Rafe had lain under the window, the room looked like it always did: sunny and serene. I frequently imagined ghostly Colonial-era dancers bowing and