Dancing With Danger in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds like a great business idea for someone who’s well connected.”

  Ian nodded. “Ronan’s rich, and he’s kind of famous in some circles.”

  I turned to Fiona. “Ella was working with this guy?”

  “No,” said Fiona. “Ronan was being sued by a stripper, Carly Lane, who claimed that he hired her for a bachelor party where she got raped. She’s blaming him for being an accessory to the crime, and facilitating it, sort of. Anyway, she was up against Ronan, and he wasn’t pleased about it.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. “So, you’re saying that this Ronan guy didn’t appreciate her presence?”

  “One day after court, he came after Ella and told her to drop the case. Said it was ridiculous, and he was innocent and she needed to back down.”

  My brows knit together. I don’t appreciate being threatened or being told to back down from a case, and I didn’t like a man who went around threatening other women.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” said Ian. “Why would Ronan threaten Ella if he wanted the case to be dismissed? Even if Ella stopped working on the case, another lawyer from her firm would work on it. Or the stripper would just hire a different law firm.”

  Fiona shrugged. “I’m just telling you what Ella told me. She got along with everyone, but this Ronan guy… he clearly didn’t like her.”

  “I have to admit that I agree with Ian,” I said slowly. “It doesn’t make sense for Ronan to threaten Ella.”

  “And yet he did,” said Fiona. “And the cops barely even talked to him.”

  “Oh, we’ll definitely talk to him,” I said quickly. “No doubt about that.”

  “Besides,” said Fiona, “a few days before she died, Ella told me that she’d found out some damaging information. When I asked her what, she said she wanted to look into it a little more before telling anyone.”

  “And you think it was info about Ronan?”

  “What else could it be?” said Fiona. “Ronan must’ve found out that Ella knew whatever his secret was.”

  I bit my lip thoughtfully and glanced over at Snowflake, who’d fallen asleep.

  Ian said, “It still doesn’t make sense, but it sounds like something Ronan might do. The profile I read said that he’s a hot-tempered person who likes partying and drinking too much.”

  “Well, I guess we won’t know for sure until we go talk to him,” I said steadily. And the fact was, if Ella really had discovered a secret of Ronan’s, then Ronan would try his best to keep us from discovering it.

  “What about any other enemies?” said Ian. “If Ella was a lawyer, maybe she’d angered other people, too.”

  “She didn’t mention anyone to me,” said Fiona. “No one would’ve gotten angry with Ella personally. I mean, even if you don’t like a lawyer, you realize that it’s business, not personal.”

  Ian nodded. “Which is why Ronan’s behavior doesn’t make sense. Unless Ella discovered his secret, of course.”

  “There could be something else,” I reminded Ian. “Maybe he’d had a little too much to drink, or maybe he was just in a bad mood and wanted to take it out on someone nearby.”

  Fiona turned to me, looking shocked. “I can’t believe you’re defending him!”

  “I’m not,” I said. “It’s just that we need to be open to possibilities. We can’t start out an investigation by assuming one person’s guilty.”

  “Of course,” said Fiona. “But nobody else had threatened Ella.”

  “And she wasn’t behaving unusually in recent days?”

  “No, everything seemed normal.”

  I chewed my lip thoughtfully and glanced at Ian, wondering if he could think of any other questions, but he just shrugged. Finally, I said, “Is there anything else we should know?”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’ve told you everything I know, and I told the cops the same thing, too.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Ronan’s behavior was odd, but other than that, it seemed like Ella didn’t know anyone who might want to kill her. I could see why the police had written off Ella’s death as a mugging gone wrong, and I wondered if I’d have to do the same thing.

  4

  Six hours later, I woke up from my nap, took a quick shower, and headed over to the living room, where Ian and Snowflake had set up camp.

  After saying goodbye to Fiona, I’d logged Ian in to my PI database and told him to look up Fiona, Ella, Ella’s friend Felicity, and Ronan Hastings.

  Ian was still working on my laptop when I emerged from my bedroom, ready to face the rest of the day.

  “Find anything interesting?”

  Ian shook his head no. “Nothing that jumps out.”

  I sighed. It was just as I’d expected, and I was sure that Ian had been too thorough to overlook anything. I glanced at my fridge and noticed that Snowflake was still fast asleep. “Don’t tell me she’s been sleeping this entire time?”

  “So were you,” said Ian, sounding a bit defensive. “And she’s a cat, she needs to sleep.”

  I smiled. Snowflake made a pretty cute addition to my kitchen, and I wished I could keep her. “So, what did you find on Ella and Fiona?”

  Ian shrugged. “They’re both upstanding citizens, three speeding tickets between the two of them, but nothing else. Ella moved to Vegas two years ago and Fiona moved a year ago, just like she told us. I even looked up the law firm where Ella worked—they’re a full-service Vegas firm and they’ve got a great reputation. Employees tend to stay there a long time, so I’m assuming the work environment and pay are pretty good.”

  “And what about Ella’s friend, Felicity?”

  “She moved to Vegas four years ago, no priors, not even a speeding ticket.”

  I nodded glumly. I hadn’t expected the database search to reveal much, but I’d still been hoping for a glimmer of something unusual. “And Ronan Hastings?”

  “Partygoer and host extraordinaire. He earns a living connecting those who want to party and those who want to perform at rich people’s parties, but before that, he was pretty visible on the celebrity party circuit. He even dated a few models and singers and appeared in the tabloids a fair amount—there’s interesting gossip about him, but nothing that says he could be a killer.”

  I sighed. “Even then, I guess we should start off by talking to Ronan. It seems like Ella had no real enemies, and nothing’s jumping out in this case—except for Ronan’s behavior toward her.”

  “And the fact that Ella said she’d discovered a secret,” Ian reminded me. “If we can uncover Ronan’s secret, maybe we could make some quick progress in the case.”

  I made a face. Ronan sounded like a frivolous, superficial young man, not someone who could be a stone-cold killer. Of course, I might be wrong, and maybe Ronan had had something to do with Ella’s death after all.

  “We need to shelve all this for now,” Ian reminded me, “or we’ll be late for lunch at your parents’.”

  My parents live up in a northern Vegas suburb, a new one full of large, cheap houses. They moved here after Nanna got married; there’s an in-law’s suite that offers Nanna and her husband, Wes, privacy and comfort when they’re living in Vegas.

  Nanna opened the door before Ian and I could knock. Her white hair was curled, her blue eyes as bright as ever, and she peered at me disapprovingly. “No Ryan?”

  I stifled my sigh of discontent. “I told you guys already, he’s working on an important case and couldn’t make the time.”

  Nanna tut-tutted disapprovingly. “Your mother doesn’t think he exists. He didn’t come the last few lunches or dinners either.”

  “He does exist,” I said. “We’ve been dating for a while now.”

  “A cop,” Nanna said as the three of us headed toward the kitchen. “I’d never thought you’d date a cop, what with you being a PI and all. Don’t PIs and cops hate each other?”

  “Tiffany gets along with most cops,” Ian said. “These days.”

  The kit
chen in my parents’ new place is a modern white affair, with gleaming white cabinets, white countertops, and modern appliances. A large window looks out onto the desertscaped backyard, and my mother had hung oversized wooden cutlery on one wall.

  Mom was adding the finishing touches to the salad, and she gave Ian and me quick hugs. “What’s this?” she said, looking at the Tupperware box Ian had brought along.

  “Cupcakes,” he said. “I made some last night.”

  My mother beamed at him and gave me a disappointed look. “Now, if only my daughter could learn to bake and cook like that.”

  “I can bake,” I protested. “And I could probably cook if I tried. I just don’t have the time.”

  “You can make time,” my mother insisted. “Just like you could make time to be in a real relationship.”

  I looked at Nanna and sighed.

  She shrugged back at me. “Told you. Your mom doesn’t believe Ryan exists.”

  “He does exist,” Ian said. “I’ve met him a couple of times.”

  “Well,” said my mother lightly.

  She left it at that, which surprised me. I’d expected a long lecture on how time was running out, nobody wanted to marry a woman over a certain age, let alone a headstrong inept cook, and when was I going to give her grandchildren? But none of that came out of her mouth, which was a relief. I decided to accept her silence on the topic as an unexpected blessing.

  “The food’ll be ready in a few minutes,” my mom said, and the three of us headed over to the den.

  Loud exclamations and greetings broke out as soon as Ian and I entered the den. As always, the den was ten degrees cooler than the rest of the house and was slightly dark thanks to the heavy window drapes. Comfy armchairs and sofas were arranged around a TV, and my dad, Karma, Glenn and Wes were sitting and chatting with each other. Although we’d seen everyone in the room within the last few days, it was good to see them again.

  “How come you’re not watching sports?” I asked my dad as soon as the greetings were over. Dad is a sports fiend, but today there was some kind of dance show playing on the TV.

  “It’s Dance Party USA,” said Wes, Nanna’s husband. He was a tall, lanky man with a shock of white hair who was usually very quiet. “Your nanna’s gotten quite addicted to it.”

  “I like it, too,” said Ian.

  “It does look like fun,” said Glenn, Wes’s older brother. “I’ve never seen it before, though.”

  “I have,” said Karma, Glenn’s girlfriend. She was a slim gray-haired woman in her fifties who believed in New Age mysticism, Zen teachings, and “clean” eating. “The show has great vibes for something so commercial.”

  Ian, Nanna and I settled in to watch the show. On the screen, a tall, graceful woman performed an exotic dance routine with her handsome partner.

  “Wow,” I said when the routine was over. “That was amazing!”

  “She’s a great dancer,” said Nanna. “But the judges will roast her. Just watch.”

  The camera panned over to three judges who were staring ahead of themselves, looking bored. Two men, one woman. As soon as they realized the camera was on them, they looked all bright-eyed and alert.

  The woman judge went first. “That wasn’t bad,” she said. “But it could do with more… je ne sais quoi.”

  “That’s Francine Pearson,” Nanna said. “She’s pretty nice.”

  “It was terrible,” said the gray-haired male judge sitting next to her. “We need sparkle.”

  “That’s Carlos,” said Ian. “He can be nice or mean, it depends.”

  The pudgy bald judge went last. “Absolutely horrendous,” he said in a pompous voice. “You’ve put me to sleep and you’ll put anyone who watches you to sleep. Bo-oring.”

  “Scott Landrum,” said Ian. “Big old meanie.”

  The screen cut to a shot of the woman wiping a tear away, and then the next dancers came onstage.

  “Wow,” I said. “That was pretty harsh.”

  “I take back what I said about good vibes,” said Karma. “This show’s just like all the others.”

  “It’s great!” Nanna insisted. “So much fun.”

  “It is fun,” Ian agreed. “I’ve always wanted to be a dancer.”

  “Really?” said Nanna, turning to Ian with intense eyes. “Because I’ve been thinking, I’d like to enter this show and see how I do. I bet I could give those other dancers a run for their money.”

  My jaw dropped. This was just the kind of crazy plan Nanna would hatch, and I had no doubt she meant it. How a geriatric woman would compete with lithe semiprofessional dancers was beyond the scope of my imagination, but if anyone could pull this off, it would be Nanna.

  Judging from the silence in the room, everyone else was just as surprised by Nanna’s idea as I was.

  Before I could tell Nanna that maybe she should consider another hobby, there was a loud knock on the front door.

  My mother jumped up, her face shining with delight. “I’ll get that.”

  As soon as she left the room, I looked at Nanna with a grimace. I could just tell that it’d turn out to be another of those horrible men my mother kept trying to set me up with.

  Nanna shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Ryan does exist!”

  “Maybe,” said Nanna noncommittally. “But your mother doesn’t believe that.”

  I was about to go on a rant about cops. The LVMPD has some fine detectives and some not-so-fine ones, and the good guys like Ryan have to pick up the slack caused by the inept. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault that he’d been called away on an emergency case. I opened my mouth and was just about to get started when my mother walked back into the room. I closed my mouth wordlessly, like a fish.

  My mother beamed at the room in general. “Everyone, this is Gavin.”

  It was then that I noticed the man standing next to her. Just as I’d expected, it was another one of my mother’s matchmaking attempts.

  Gavin looked youngish, in his mid-twenties or so. Tall, lanky, with straight red hair that fell past his ears. Watery eyes. Skin that looked like the “before” image for an anti-acne face wash.

  Introductions were made all around. My mother said, “Gavin is my friend Hugo’s son.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Nanna but said nothing. Until my mother had made it her mission in life to see me settled down with a nice young man, I’d never known that she had so many friends with eligible sons.

  Gavin said he worked as a stagehand at a local media production company. “It’s not that much money,” he said, “but it’s fun working on the Vegas episodes of popular TV shows.”

  “That sounds exciting!” Nanna said. “I could use some more excitement in my life.”

  I groaned.

  My mother said, “You’re always chasing excitement. When are you going to settle down?”

  “Never, if I can help it. I keep telling Tiff I can help out on her cases, but she hardly ever lets me.”

  “No cases,” my mother and I said simultaneously. For once, we were in agreement. The last time Nanna had insisted on helping out on a case, she’d managed to get a murderer quite annoyed at us.

  “Well,” said Nanna, “if you don’t want me helping out on murder cases, what’s a girl to do?”

  “Working on cases isn’t all that exciting,” said Ian. “I could use some more excitement in my life, too. Especially now that I’m avoiding women.”

  Ian has a disastrous track record with women—mostly thanks to his own cluelessness, and the fact that all the women he attracts seem to be gold diggers who are well aware of his trust fund.

  “We could enter Dance Party USA together!” Nanna said gleefully. She turned to look at Gavin. “Isn’t Dance Party USA going to hold auditions in Vegas soon?”

  Gavin looked at her apologetically. “I don’t really know, I’m not working on that show.”

  “They are,” said Karma. “I just heard them talking about it when Gavin w
alked in.”

  “There you go!” said Nanna. “It’s a sign. Ian and I have to enter.”

  “I don’t think signs work like that,” said Karma. “They’re much more subtle. I’m not getting a good vibe about you two entering the show.”

  I frowned. While I find Karma a little too New Age-y, her “vibes” have often turned out to be true.

  “Nonsense!” said Nanna. “I need some excitement in my life, and this seems perfect.”

  “I wouldn’t mind entering,” said Ian. “I’m good at reality TV shows and auditions and stuff. Tiffany and I entered a singing show once, and we got through the audition.”

  “You froze when you got onstage,” I reminded Ian.

  “So did you,” he countered.

  “Well… I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “We both froze. We only got through because of our investigation with one of the judges.”

  “Still,” said Ian, “the point is, I’ve got experience. And I’d like to audition again! It’ll be fun.”

  “Lunch is getting cold,” my mother said suddenly. She frowned, glancing at Gavin, who was sitting quietly in one corner, and then gave me a pointed look. Clearly, the two of us should be getting to know each other already. “Let’s go sit down.”

  We headed to the dining room, where the large table was already laden with food—my mother must’ve set it while we’d all been chatting about Dance Party USA.

  Unsurprisingly, Gavin and I wound up sitting next to each other. Nanna sat on my other side, and Ian sat opposite her.

  We helped ourselves to the food, and I dug in as soon as politely possible. My mother had outdone herself—the roast lamb was tender and succulent, the mashed potatoes were creamy and smooth, and even the roast veggies were delicious.

  As I concentrated on my food, Nanna leaned across me and said to Gavin, “You must have contacts in all the Vegas production companies. I’m sure you’ll know when they start auditioning.”