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

curtsying as they minced their way through a gavotte or quadrille; now there’d be another ghost dancing in the ballroom. At least, I hoped he’d be dancing.
    I turned away, fighting back tears again. Maybe Danielle was right and I hadn’t been completely over Rafe. Wanting to distract myself from my incessant tears, I hurried into the studio, which the police had not put off limits, and turned on the stereo, not caring what music was cued up. A song from Wicked came on. I warmed up with some pliés and relèvés and then flung myself around the room in a whirling dance with no precision and little grace, intent on wringing the pent-up tension out of my muscles.
    “You bitch.”
    The venomous words caught me midleap and I half turned in the air, stumbling as I landed. Solange stood in the doorway, fury in every stiff line of her body. Even her red hair seemed to bristle with electric anger. She aimed the remote at the stereo, cutting Kristin Chenoweth off midsyllable.
    “How did you get in here?”
    She flung a key at me and it bounced off my cheek. “You killed him!”
    “I did not!”
    She stalked toward me, clearly intent on beating a confession out of me. I squared up to her but held up my hands placatingly. Heaven knows there’d been a time when nothing would have given me more pleasure than scratching Solange’s smug face or pulling her hair out of her scalp, but I didn’t think a catfight was a dignified way of grieving for Rafe. “How did you find out?” I asked.
    “The police were on my doorstep first thing this morning,” she said, slitting her eyes. “They told me Rafe was dead, that he’d been shot! How do you think it felt to hear my fiancé had been killed?” She managed a little sob.
    Fiancé! I saw her lying face through a red haze. “About like it felt to find him in bed with a morals-free trollop.” Whoops. That comment wasn’t going to do much to head off a catfight. But, damn, it felt good to say it.
    Solange stopped dead for a moment, then resumed pacing toward me, looking for an opening. I figured I could take her: She was fit, with killer abs bared by a crop top and skintight jeans that just cleared her pubic bone, but I was taller, with a longer reach, and I wasn’t wearing gladiator sandals with four-inch heels. I wasn’t recovering from an ankle injury, either.
    “Let’s not do this, Solange,” I said. “I’m sorry for what I said.”
    “I’ll make you sorrier.”
    Without warning, she kicked at my knee. Her stiletto heel grazed the side of my leg. “Ow!” Before she could pull her leg back, I grabbed her ankle with both my hands. Her eyes widened as she hopped on one foot.
    The temptation to upend her was almost overwhelming. Instead, I backed up a step and watched her teeter precariously as she was forced to hop toward me. “I didn’t shoot Rafe.”
    “Liar. Lying bi—”
    I jerked her foot an inch higher, almost to my shoulder, and she didn’t even wince. Ballroom dancers have to be darn flexible. “Stop saying that. I didn’t kill Rafe. And I don’t know who did. Although—” The key she’d thrown glinted as a sunbeam stroked it. “How long have you had that key?”
    “Rafe gave it to me a few months back so I could use the studio to practice when I needed to.”
    Great. How many other people had Rafe given keys to? I was having the locks changed today.
    “ Would you let me go? You’re going to hurt my ankle.” Exasperation beat out anger in her voice and I could see she’d calmed down. I dropped her foot. She bent to fuss with her sandal strap.
    “I don’t see a ring,” I said, my gaze on her left hand.
    She knew immediately what I was saying. She straightened and her face was rosy, either from bending over or from my question. “We were more, like, engaged to be engaged. We were going ring shopping this weekend.”
    Sure they were. Talk about being a liar. I felt better knowing Rafe hadn’t proposed to her. I don’t know why it made a