Lucky and the Banged-up Ballerina

by Emmy Grace

  “Ooookay.” He’s skeptical, but listening.

  “We’ve been asked to do a short performance of the last scene from the movie Dirty Dancing. Have you seen it?”

  He snorts. “Of course, I’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it.”

  I think back to last night, to Liam watching it, and nearly laugh out loud. Yeah, now everyone’s seen it.

  “I know it’s not what you’re used to these days, but it’s for a good cause.”

  “This information you got, was it helpful?”

  “Very.”

  He nods. “Do I get to meet this person, or know who it is?”

  “No one really knows who she is. Not that I know of anyway. She’s a hacker. Her whole job necessitates that she remain anonymous.”

  “When are we supposed to do this…performance?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  He laughs, waving me off. “There won’t even be time for publicity.”

  “That’s not the point. We just have to do it. That’s all. Even if the theater is empty.”

  The theater had better be empty!

  “What would be the point in that?”

  Figures that he would only care about doing things to be seen.

  Peacock.

  “Just think of it as paying a debt. Nothing more.”

  “But it’s not my debt.”

  “No, but it’s helping you nonetheless.” I pause dramatically. “Unless there’s a reason you don’t want her killer found.”

  His expression shows that he’s offended, but he is an actor. I’m not sure I can trust what I see. He makes a living being deceptive. On purpose. And doing it well.

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  Did I see him swallow? Or was it just the movement of a tiny bit of light in the shadowy room?

  “Good. Then we’ll do this tomorrow night. Seven o’clock at the theater. You know where that is.”

  “We’ll need to practice. Do you even know how to dance?”

  I jack up my chin. “Of course, I do. Do you?”

  Dumb question. He’s Latin. He was born to dance. He probably Mamboed his way out of his mother’s uterus.

  His arm snakes out and wraps around my waist so fast, I don’t even have time to react before he yanks me up against his front and spins me into a dip. My lower half is plastered to his while my upper half is bent over his arm. He’s staring down into my face.

  For about fifteen point two seconds, I am Baby.

  And I’m a little smitten.

  “I can dance. I can sing. I can do whatever you ask me to do. And I can do it well, chica caliente.”

  Hot girl, if I remember any Spanish at all, which would be a miracle at the moment. I’m not sure my brain is working at all.

  “G-good.” I twitch so he’ll lean me up, which he does, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, I remain snugged up against every hard ridge and plane of his body.

  And there are many.

  Many!

  “Let’s meet tonight. To practice.”

  The way he says “practice” along with the kind of smile that curves his lips, it makes it seem like he’s inviting me to a weekend of hedonism. Which I think he might be.

  Why can’t Felonious have asked Regina to do this? She’d be in hog heaven.

  “Okay. I’ll bring the director, too.”

  “There’s no need. We won’t need anyone else. I can already tell that our chemistry is flawless.”

  I laugh again. It’s about as natural as blond hair on Conan O’Brien. “Ha-ha. Well, it’ll take more than chemistry to do that jump at the end.”

  “My arms are strong,” he says, flexing said arms around me. Muscles bunch and tighten.

  “Okie dokie.” I push against his chest until he releases me. “I guess I’ll see you tonight then.”

  “Nine PM?”

  “Let’s do seven instead.”

  “Whatever you say, Lucky.”

  He remembered my name.

  Down, girl.

  12

  When I get back home, Regina is in my house, sitting on the sofa, flipping through a home and garden magazine.

  “Where have you been at this hour?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s so early.”

  “It’s closer to lunch than breakfast,” I say in my defense.

  “Which is still early for you, lazy bones. What’s got you out and about?”

  I flop down beside her, letting my head drop back onto the back of the cushion. “Felonious is making me do the last scene from Dirty Dancing at the theater with Cruz DiSpirito.”

  That magazine falls to her lap just as her mouth falls open. “What?”

  I repeat myself.

  Regina scoots to the edge of her seat and turns toward me. Her expression is filled with so much excitement you’d think I told her she had to do it. Of course, we are best friends. To a certain extent, if it happens to me, it happens to her and vice versa.

  Only this I wish was actually happening to her.

  “Can I come? Just to watch? I mean… oh my God!”

  “Sure.”

  “I get to see Cruz DiSpirito. Up close and personal.” She melts back. I think there might be literal stars in her eyes. Something is sparkling.

  “Not as up close and personal as I have to.”

  “You make it sound like a drudgery. Do your ovaries even work?” She leans up and pecks at my stomach. “Hello? Are these things on?”

  I swat her hand away. “Stop it. This is serious. I’m trying to catch a killer.”

  “You don’t think Cruz did it, do you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t think so, but he’s an actor by trade. I’m not sure I’d be able to tell. It’s not like I’m a professional law enforcement person. Trained and all.”

  “Man, it would suck if he turned out to be a murderer.”

  “Yeah, especially since I’ll be wallowing all over him tonight. And again tomorrow night.”

  “Poor you.” She reaches for a box I hadn’t seen at her feet. “Speaking of poor you, I have your next assignment.”

  She hands me the box. In big red letters on the outside it says MELT AWAY.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s supposed to help you lose weight. Five pounds in two days is the claim. Something about dissolving fat internally and passing it into the digestive tract or something like that. You know how I get when I try to read all that scientific stuff.” She lets her head drop forward and pretends to snore. “Snoozefest.”

  “And you wonder why I don’t read the instructions half the time.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the one doing the testing. I’d probably read the inserts more carefully if I had to use them.”

  “I told you I read the eyebrow one, and you see how well that worked out.” I point to my missing brow, which can’t be seen very well right now. I was careful not to wash off Regina’s brow job from last night. “Speaking of, you’ll need to come back and fix this thing before tonight.”

  “I can do that. I’ll come along, too, just in case it should run or smear.” She gives me an exaggerated wink.

  “Or you could just come because you’re a shameless fan of Cruz DiSpirito.”

  “Yeah, or that.”

  We grin at each other. “Want to come over for dinner? I made soup last night and I have leftovers.”

  My best friend actually pales a little underneath her rich skin. “Uh, no. I’ll grab a bite at home and come by just before.”

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  I walk her to the door. “Don’t forget your new product. Read the instructions, Lucky.”

  “Okay, Mom, I will.”

  I roll my eyes.

  After she leaves, I do as instructed and read the insert for the weight loss supplements. I don’t understand all the chemistry and scientific parts, but the actual ingredients are just various plants and herbs and extracts. They all seem harmless enough. And the instructions themselves are straightforward�
�take two pills before each meal, three times daily, and drink lots of water. I can do that, no problem.

  I weight myself and then take the first two right away and then grab a bowl of soup for my breakfast slash lunch. Per the precautions, I wait for an hour to see if I have any adverse side effects—headache, dry mouth, diarrhea, sweating, dizziness, nausea—but I feel fine, so just after noon, I decide to go back to Vilma’s to ask some more questions.

  I start to go without Liam, but something tells me to let him know. It’s probably always a good idea that someone knows where I am when I could possibly be talking to a murderer all by my lonesome.

  Within two seconds of my text, he responds that he’s on his way over. I debate telling him not to come, but I know it won’t make a difference. He’ll just come anyway. Or follow me.

  He arrives eleven minutes later. He’s in dusty jeans, dusty boots, and a dusty flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off. It’s unbuttoned all the way to the waist.

  I look him up and down. “Did I interrupt practice for Footloose, Millard?”

  “What?” he asks in confusion. “Who?”

  I wave him off. “Never mind. I’m realizing that all pop culture references are completely lost on you.”

  “I’m heartbroken,” he says acerbically.

  “What were you doing? Wrangling cattle? Or were you accosted?”

  “I was actually building an addition to the east barn, thank you very much. I didn’t have time to dress for the occasion. Sorry.”

  He’s not sorry.

  Not one bit.

  Of their own accord, my eyes trail down his broad chest with its light and attractive smattering of hair, to the ridges of his abdomen. Talk about your stairway to heaven, the muscular steps on Liam’s belly disappear into the waistband of his jeans in a way that has me jerking my gaze back up to his.

  He’s staring at me, not even blinking.

  My stomach feels like mushed up hot potatoes. And butterflies. Lots of butterflies.

  “You, uh, might at least want to button your shirt. Don’t want to scare the children.”

  “It’s ninety degrees,” he says in his defense, but at least he starts buttoning.

  In my head, I’m singing with Nelly. It’s getting hot in here.

  I plod out to his truck, feeling a little swervy on my feet as I go. I pull open the door and stand staring up at the seat that is exactly seventeen miles away. Just the thought of all the effort it’ll take to get up there makes me feel exhausted.

  I yelp when hands wrap around my waist and lift me up to the seat. I glance down at Liam, who’s gazing up at me in exasperation. “Am I gonna have to get you a ladder?”

  “Just get a smaller truck. A normal sized truck.”

  He shrugs one big shoulder and deadpans, “I like big trucks and I cannot lie.”

  My mouth drops open and I’m inhaling to make a comment when he slams the door in my face. I hold it in, breath and all, until he opens his door and slides in behind the wheel.

  “Mr. Grouchy Pants just made a joke. A pop culture one no less.”

  I’m aghast.

  “So?” he asks as he starts the engine.

  “I’m…I’m…I’m speechless.”

  He looks over at me and grins. Like a real, actual grin. Almost with teeth. “That’s good enough for me.”

  He peels out of the driveway before I can reply, turning up the music as he does. A country song is playing, something about a tractor being sexy. In my head, I’m replacing tractor with truck. The truck and the driver.

  What in the world is Liam Dunning doing to me?

  The drive to Vilma’s is calm. Liam basically ignores me and sings softly along to the music, which has cast a sort of trance over me. His voice is a smooth and velvety baritone, and it’s doing something strange and unsettling to my knees. I want to ask him to stop, but I can’t think of a good reason to give. Telling him that his voice is making my knees weak will hardly do. I’d never hear the end of it. So, I put up with it until he parks in front of the glass shop.

  As soon as he stops, I reach for the handle. I hop out as fast as I can, an action that makes my head swim a little.

  I hold onto the door handle for an extra second before closing it, just to get my bearings. Then, like a drunk trying to walk the line, I head straight for the Sparkling Glass Worx front door.

  I push through not even waiting for Liam. This time Vilma is in the shop, arranging some new figurines on the shelves.

  “Nice to see you again,” she says amicably. Not at all like a stalker-killer, in my opinion. Not that a stalker-killer would probably be that easy to identify, hence the problem catching them.

  “Thanks, Ms. Chance. Do you have time for a few more questions?”

  She nods, turning to face me more fully. “Fire away.”

  “The orders that were placed for the figurines originated here, at your store.” I watch her face closely and carefully. This woman is no actress. Surely she won’t be as adept at concealing a reaction if she’s guilty. “Do you know why that would be?”

  She looks genuinely shocked. “I have no idea. That’s…that’s not possible. I received the notice through my email, just like I always do.”

  “Does anyone else have access to your computer?”

  She shakes her head. “Nope. Not a soul. Just me, myself, and I.”

  “Do you know anyone who could set up something like this, to make you look guilty?”

  She issues a soft snort. “Honey, it took me weeks to remember how to get into my email. If I knew someone who was good with those contraptions, I’d hire them in a heartbeat so I’d never have to turn one on again.”

  I take out my phone and wake it, pulling up a couple of the Internet searches I’ve done recently. If the FBI ever gets a warrant to get my search history, I’ll probably be jailed for terrorism or serial killing. Just in the last weeks, among other things, I’ve searched for how a ten-thousand-foot drop would affect the human body, smuggling, the depth an axe would have to be buried into a human being in order to cause death, and the stalking of Serena Flowers.

  It doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

  I use my fingertips to enlarge the first of two pictures. “Do you recognize this man?”

  It’s a picture of Cruz DiSpirito. I figured I’d start with him since he’s more famous, but Vilma’s response proves that she really takes this life in the middle of nowhere seriously. I wonder if she even has a television.

  She squints at the screen. “No, I sure don’t.”

  “How about this one?” I isolate Trenton Gibb’s face and enlarge it.

  She squints again, this time leaning in closer. “You know, if he was wearing glasses and a hat, he could be the man I saw in here some time back.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Could be.”

  “But you’re not absolutely positive?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure.”

  I’m not a cop, so pretty sure is good enough for me.

  “Do you remember how long ago he was here?”

  “A couple of months maybe.”

  “Do you happen to remember if he bought anything while he was here?”

  “You know, now that I think about it, he didn’t buy anything. Not one thing. And that doesn’t happen very often. I’m not exactly on the beaten path. People usually come here wanting something, even if it’s a cheap figurine or trinket.”

  “But he didn’t buy anything?”

  “No siree. He just looked around and left.”

  I glance back at Liam who is perusing the shelf nearest him. He’s so big and he looks even bigger standing beside such tiny, delicate things. Something tells me, though, that if he were to pick one up, he wouldn’t make a single crack. When he puts me in the truck, his touch is gentle. Strong, but gentle.

  I don’t say anything to him, just turn back to Vilma. I’m not fool enough to think he isn’t listening.

  “Thanks for your time, Ms. Chance.”


  “Vilma. Call me Vilma.”

  I nod. “All right, Vilma. Hopefully we won’t have to come back again.”

  “Come back any time, but maybe just for pleasure at least once.”

  She smiles at me, and I smile back. She’s a very pleasant lady.

  I’m still a little wobbly on my feet when Liam puts me back in the truck like he’s setting a doll on a high ledge.

  “Do you believe her?” I ask.

  “Never had any doubt.”

  “You didn’t?”

  He shakes his head and slams the door, forcing me to hold my next question until he gets in. Next time he comes to my house, I’m going to slam the front door in his face a time or two, just to even us up. See how he likes it.

  I bite my tongue until he’s tucked in behind the wheel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you have listened?” When I don’t answer, he adds, “That’s why.”

  Evidently he knows me better than I thought.

  I’m in a snit the whole way home.

  13

  I’m silently pondering how easy it would’ve been for Trenton to kill Serena. He could’ve excused himself for a minute and probably not have been missed by the crowd. Then he could’ve crept around the building to that secret entrance, which he could’ve made sure was open before Serena even arrived in Salty Springs.

  Sneak in and do the deed.

  Sneak out and return to the after party.

  Bing bang boom, done.

  It’s as I’m thinking of the layout of the theater that I remember my Felonious-inspired plans for the evening.

  “Could you swing me by the theater? I need to check with…whoever runs the place to see if I can get in there for practice tonight.”

  Liam frowns over at me, but keeps quiet. Rather than steering his mammoth vehicle to my house, he sidetracks to the Salty Springs Municipal Theater. When he pulls to a stop, I pause before getting out. I’m still feeling a touch off.

  “Need help?”

  “No, I’m fine. Any idea who I should look for in here? Surely there’s someone on site during the day.”

  “There is. One-legged Jack.”

  “What’s a one-legged Jack?”

  “It’s a he, and he’s the person you need to talk to. He’s run the theater for longer than I’ve even been alive.”