Dead on the Dance Floor

by Heather Graham

  “I see.” He paused thoughtfully. “No, I don’t see at all. Why did you decide to take dance lessons?”

  Doug grinned sheepishly. “Randy Torres is getting married. I agreed to be his best man. He and his fiancée, Sheila, started taking lessons for the wedding. I figured, what the hell? I’d go with him a few times and be a good best man. There aren’t nearly as many guys taking lessons as females. The place seemed to be a gold mine of really great looking women. The studio is on South Beach, right above one of the hottest salsa clubs out there. Nice place to go after classes and make use of what you’ve learned. So I started taking lessons.”

  “And wound up…dating an older diva?”

  “That’s the way it went. She wasn’t actually a teacher there—she got paid big bucks to come in and coach now and then. So she wasn’t really in on the teacher rules.”

  “What are the teacher rules?”

  “Teachers aren’t supposed to fraternize with students. A loose rule there, because everyone goes down to the salsa club now and then. Let me tell you, Moonlight Sonata has the best location in history for a dance studio. Sometimes couples come in, and they can dance with each other. But for singles…well, they’re still nervous at first. So if you can go to a club and have a few drinks and have a teacher there to dance with you, make you look good—well, it’s a nice setup. And hey, South Beach, you know. It’s one of those places where rockers and movie stars stop in sometimes.”

  “So there are a lot of players hanging around. And, I imagine, drugs up the wazoo. What’s the name of the club?”

  “Suede.”

  Quinn arched a brow. “I know the name, and I never hang out on South Beach. I hate South Beach,” he added. And he meant it. The place was plastic, at best. People never doing anything—just coming out to be seen. Trying to make the society pages by being in the right club when Madonna came by. Proving their worth by getting a doorman to let them into one of the new hot spots when the line was down the street.

  The only good thing in his opinion was Lincoln Road, where some good foreign and independent films occasionally made it to the theater, a few of the restaurants were authentic and reasonable, and every canine maniac in the city felt free to walk a dog.

  “Come on, the beach isn’t really that bad. Okay, it’s not as laid-back as your precious Keys, but still…And as for Suede, there was an investigation not long ago. A runaway-turned-prostitute was found about a block away, just lying on the sidewalk. Heroin overdose. So Narcotics did a sweep, but Suede came out clean. Hell, maybe the girl did get her drugs from someone at the bar. You know as well as I do that dealers don’t have to look like bums. And there’s money on the beach. Big money people pop in at Suede. But as for the management and the club itself, everything came out squeaky clean. In fact, they’re known for enforcing the twenty-one-and-over law on drinking, and there was a big thing in the paper a few months ago when one of the bartenders threw out a rock star, said he wasn’t serving him any more alcohol. It’s a good club, and like I said, students and teachers see one another and dance, maybe have a drink or two—it gives the school a real edge, because people can use what they learn. But outside of that, teachers and students really aren’t supposed to hang around together.”

  “Why?”

  Doug sighed as if his brother had gotten old and dense. “Favoritism. Dance classes are expensive. Someone could get pissed if their teacher was seeing someone outside the studio and maybe giving that student extra attention. Still, it’s a rule that gets broken. You need to come down there, Quinn. Could it really hurt you to take a few lessons, ask a few questions, make a few inquiries—get into it in a way I can’t?” Doug asked.

  Quinn winced. “Doug, one day, I’d like to take up skydiving. I’d like to up my scuba certification to a higher level. I’d like to speak Spanish better, and I kind of always wanted to go on safari in Africa. Never in my life have I wanted to take dance lessons.”

  “You might be surprised,” Doug said. “Quinn, please.”

  Quinn looked down at his hands. He’d thought he would clean up the boat and head out to the Bahamas. Spend two weeks with nothing but fish, sea, sun and sand. Listening to calypso music and maybe some reggae. Listening to it. Not dancing to it.

  But this seemed to matter to Doug. Really matter. And maybe something had been going on. Doug wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have a real feeling about it. Better he find it out before the police, because Doug would be a natural suspect.

  He looked up at Doug, ready to agree that it wouldn’t kill him just to check the place out and ask a few questions. Then he hesitated. “I need a break,” he said honestly. “I’m not even sure you want me handling a case that means so much to you.”

  Doug shook his head angrily. “Quinn, you know better than to blame yourself for anything that’s happened—lately. You do your best with what you’ve learned and what you know. And sometimes knowledge and laws work, and sometimes they don’t. I still have faith in you—even if you’ve lost it in yourself.”

  “I haven’t lost faith in myself,” Quinn said. Shit. Beyond a doubt, he was sounding defensive.

  “No?” Doug asked. “Good. Because I’ve got some news for you that I think will change your mind about this case—among other things.”

  Quinn looked at him questioningly.

  “Your girl took lessons at the Moonlight Sonata studios. Right up until last November.”

  Quinn frowned. “My girl? My girl who?”

  “Nell Durken. I managed to sneak a look in the file cabinet at Moonlight Sonata, and Nell Durken’s name is there, right in the record books.”

  Quinn hadn’t known a damn thing about Nell Durken’s dance lessons. But then again, he hadn’t known all that much about her, really. She had just hired him to find out what her husband spent his time doing.

  So he had found out.

  And the bastard had killed her.

  “Actually,” Doug continued, “Nell was one of their advanced students. Then, last November, she just quit going. Never mentioned it to you, I guess. Curious, though. The records indicate that she was gung ho—and then just gone. Makes you wonder, huh?”

  “Fine,” Quinn said flatly. “I’ll do some checking. I’ll take a few fucking dance lessons.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  Ella Rodriguez tapped on Shannon’s half-open door, then walked the few feet to the desk and perched on the corner of it. Shannon sat back in her desk chair, contemplating a reply to her receptionist.

  “I don’t know. How do you think it’s going? Personally, I think we should have shut down for the week,” Shannon said.

  “We shut down for three days,” Ella reminded her. “That’s about what most corporations are willing to give for members of the immediate family when someone has passed away.”

  “Her pictures are all over the walls,” Shannon reminded Ella.

  “Right. And teachers and really serious students are going to miss her—one way or another—for a long time. But you have some students who aren’t all that serious, who never want to see a competition floor, and who are getting married in a matter of weeks, left feet and all. They need the studio open, Shannon.” Ella had short, almost platinum hair, cut stylishly. She had a gamine’s face, with incredible dark eyes and one of the world’s best smiles. She considered herself the least talented employee in the studio, but whether she was right about that or not, her warmth and easy charm surely accounted for many of their students.

  Except that now Ella made a face that was hardly warm or charming. “Shannon, I’m well aware you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But truth be told, I didn’t like Lara. And I’m not the only one. There are even people who think that her dropping dead on the dance floor was a piece of poetic justice.”

  “Ella!”

  “I know that sounds terrible, and I’m really sorry. I certainly didn’t want anything to happen to her,” Ella said. She stared at Shannon. “Come
on, you’ve got admit it—she couldn’t possibly have been your favorite person.”

  “Whether she was or wasn’t, she was a dynamic force in our industry, and she started here. So this was her home, so to speak,” Shannon said.

  “We’re all sorry, we know she was a professional wonder, and I don’t think there’s a soul out there who didn’t respect her talent.” Ella met Shannon’s eyes. “Hey, I even said all that when the detective talked to me.”

  “You told him that you hadn’t liked Lara?” Shannon asked.

  “I was dead honest. Sorry, no pun intended. Oh, come on, he was just questioning us because he had to. You know—when someone dies that way, they have to do an autopsy, and they had to question a bunch of people, too, but hell, everyone saw what happened.” Ella arched a brow. “Did you tell them you had adored her?”

  “I was dead honest, as well—no pun intended,” Shannon said dryly. “Well, for all of the four and a half minutes he questioned me.”

  Ella shook her head. “What did you expect? There’s no trick here. Her dance is on tape—her death is on tape.” Ella shivered. “Creepy. Except Lara probably would have loved it. Even her demise was as dramatic as possible, captured on film for all eternity. She got carried away, and she died. A foolish waste. There’s nothing anyone can do now. But you closed the studio in her honor. Now we’re open again. And you’ve got a new student arriving in fifteen minutes.”

  “I have a new student?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  Shannon frowned and said, “Wait, wait, wait, I’m not taking on any of the new students. Me being the studio manager and all? I have too much paperwork and too many administration duties, plus planning for the Gator Gala. Remember what we decided at the last meeting?”

  “Of course I remember. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Jane isn’t in yet. She has a dental appointment—which she announced at the same meeting. Rhianna couldn’t change her weekly two-o’clock, because we don’t open until then and her guy works nights. And this new guy is coming in because Doug bought him a guest pass. Actually, it’s Doug’s brother. Personally, I can’t wait to see him.”

  “I keep telling you that you should go ahead and get your certification to teach,” Shannon said. Ella had the natural ability to become an excellent teacher. But she had come to the studio two years ago looking for a clerical position and still shied away from anything else.

  As for herself, at this particular time, Shannon just didn’t want to teach, which was odd, because watching the growth of a student was something she truly enjoyed.

  Everything, however, had seemed off-kilter since Lara had dropped dead. Naturally it had shaken the entire dance world. Sudden death was always traumatic.

  But it was true as well that Lara Trudeau hadn’t been her favorite person.

  Championships—no matter how many—didn’t guarantee a decent living, not in the States. Lara had coached to supplement her income. Gordon Henson had been her first ballroom instructor. He had maintained his pride in his prize student, and, to her credit, Lara had come to the Moonlight Sonata studio whenever he asked her, within reason. But after he had begun to groom Shannon to take over management of the studio, he had left the hiring of coaches to her.

  And because Lara was excellent and a real draw for the students, Shannon had continued to bring her in. But unlike a number of the other coaches they hired, Lara was not averse to making fun of the students—or the teachers—after a coaching session.

  Shannon also had other, more personal, reasons for disliking Lara. Even so, it still bothered her deeply that Lara had died. It might have been the simple fact that no one so young should perish. Or perhaps it was impossible to see anyone who was so much a part of one’s life—liked or disliked—go so abruptly from it without feeling a sense of mourning and loss. Part of it was a sense of confusion, or of disbelief, that remained. Whatever the reasons, Shannon simply felt off, and it was difficult enough to maintain a working mentality to deal with the needs of the upcoming Gator Gala, much less consider teaching a beginner with a smile and the enthusiasm necessary to bring them into the family fold of the studio.

  “She hasn’t even been dead a week yet,” Shannon said. “She hasn’t even been buried yet.” Because Lara’s death had to be investigated, she had been taken to the county morgue until her body could be released by the medical examiner. But once his findings had been complete, Ben, Lara’s ex, along with Gordon, had gotten together to make the arrangements. Lara had come to Miami for college almost twenty years ago, and sometime during the next few years, her parents had passed away. She’d never had children, and if she had any close relatives, they hadn’t appeared in all the years. Because she was a celebrity, even after her death had officially been declared accidental, the two men had opted for a Saturday morning funeral.

  “Shannon, she breezed through here to dance now and then, and yes, we knew her. She wasn’t like a sister. We need to get past this,” Ella insisted. “Honestly, if anyone really knew her, it was Gordon, and he’s moving on.”

  Yes, their boss was definitely moving on, Shannon thought. He had spent yesterday in his office, giving great concern to swatches of fabric he had acquired, trying to determine which he liked best for the new drapes he was putting in his living room.

  “I don’t know about you,” Ella said, shaking her head. “You were all upset when Nell Durken died, and she hadn’t been in here in a year.”

  “Nell Durken didn’t just die. Her husband killed her. He probably realized he was about to lose his meal ticket,” Shannon said bitterly. Nell Durken had been one of the most amazing students to come through the door. Bubbly, beautiful and always full of life, she had been a ray of sunshine. She’d been friendly with all the students, wry about the fact that she couldn’t drag her husband in, but determined to learn on her own. Hearing that the man had killed her had been horribly distressing.

  “Jeez,” Shannon breathed suddenly.

  “What?” Ella said.

  “It’s just strange…isn’t it?”

  “What’s strange?” Ella asked, shaking her head.

  “Nell Durken died because her husband forced an overdose of sleeping pills down her throat.”

  “Yes? The guy was a bastard—we all thought that,” Ella said. “No one realized he was a lethal bastard, but…anyway, the cops got him. He was having an affair, but Nell was the one with the trust fund. He probably thought he’d get away with forcing all those pills down her throat. It would look like an accident, and he’d get to keep the money,” Ella said. “But they’ve got him. He could even get the death penalty—his motive was evident and his fingerprints were all over the bottle of pills.”

  “Have you been watching too many cop shows?” came a query from the open door. A look of amusement on his face, Gordon was staring in at the two women.

  “No, Gordon,” Ella said. “I’m just pointing out what happened to Nell Durken. And hoping the bastard will fry.”

  “Fry?” Gordon said.

  “Okay, so now it’s usually lethal injection. He was so mean to her, long before he killed her,” Ella said, shaking her head.

  Gordon frowned. “What brought up Nell Durken?”

  “Talking about Lara,” Ella said.

  Gordon didn’t seem to see the correlation. “We’ve lost Lara. That’s that. She was kind of like Icarus, I guess, trying to fly too high. As to Nell…hell, we all knew she needed to leave that bastard. It’s too bad she didn’t. I wish she’d kept dancing.”

  “She stopped coming in when he planned that Caribbean vacation for her, remember?” Shannon said thoughtfully. “They were going on a second honeymoon. He was going to make everything up to her.”

  “And we all figured they got on great and things were lovey-dovey again, because she called in afterward saying that she wasn’t going to schedule any more lessons for a while because they were going to be traveling. And, of course,” Ella added pointedly, since Gordon was staring at her, his mouth ope
n as if he were about to speak, “like a good receptionist, I followed up with calls, but I always got her answering machine, and then, I guess, after about six months, she kind of slipped off the ‘things to do’ list.”

  “It’s horrible, though, isn’t it?” Shannon murmured. “I hope we’re not bad luck. I mean, an ex-student is murdered by her husband, and then…then Lara drops dead.”

  “You think we’re jinxed?”

  Shannon looked past Gordon’s shoulder. Sam Railey was right behind Gordon, staring in.

  “Jinxed?” Gordon protested. “Don’t even suggest such a thing. Nell was long gone from here when she was murdered. And Lara…Lara is simply a tragedy.” He held up three fingers. “The Broward studio lost two students and an instructor last year.”

  Shannon hid a smile, her brow quirking upward. “Gordon, the students were Mr. and Mrs. Hallsly, ninety and ninety three, respectively. It wasn’t such a shock that they died with a few months of one another. And,” she added softly, since she had been very fond of Dick Graft, the instructor who had died, “Dick had an aneurism.”

  “I’m pointing out the fact that people die and we’re not jinxed,” Gordon said.

  “Man, I hope not,” Sam said. “Because that would be two for us. And you know, things happen in threes.”

  “Sam!” Gordon said.

  “Oh, man, sorry. Hey, don’t worry, I’d never say anything like that in front of the students.”

  “I should hope not,” Gordon admonished.

  Gordon might have given the management over to Shannon, but if he were to decide that an instructor was detrimental to the studio, that teacher would be out in seconds flat.

  “Hey,” another voice chimed in. Justin Garcia, five-eight tops, slim, with an ability to move with perfect rhythm, was on his toes, trying to look over the shoulders of the others gathered at Shannon’s door. “Psst.” He stared at Ella, still perched on the desk. “New student out front. I’d try to start the lesson myself, but he’s one big guy, and I think he’d cream me if I gave it a try.”