Quinn nodded. “She’s down in the Keys right now, but I’ll have her up here with a crew, the whole bit, by Friday night.”
“I need you to speak to the catering company, just to make sure everyone has what they need. And I’m hiring a trio to play—we’ll need space for them.”
“She’ll be just what you need,” Quinn assured him. “You can do a walk-through Friday night.”
“Great.” Gordon threw his napkin down at last. “We need to open up the studio. Are you two ready?”
“I’ll get the check,” Quinn said.
“Hell, no. I’ll get the check. You can put your money toward your entry into the Gator Gala,” Gordon told him.
“He’s not really entering,” Shannon said.
Quinn stared at her, his look suddenly hard and stubborn. “Yes, he really is entering. And I brought you here so I can get the check.”
“No, I’ve got it,” Gordon insisted.
Shannon stood. “I’ll get the check. Let’s just go.”
It was a very busy day. Wednesdays always were. The studio’s weekly “party” didn’t start until late, but students came all day to brush up and be ready.
Katarina, the designer from next door, was busy, too, making adjustments to costumes for the gala. Gabriel Lopez took a lesson first with Shannon, then one with Jane, and later, he told Quinn, he would be taking a lesson with Rhianna, as well.
“I think it’s important,” he said. “I run a club, and I ask lots of women to dance to keep the floor moving, keep the wallflowers happy. So I learn from all of them. And the lessons,” he said with a grin, “are tax-deductible. It’s a deal.”
The doctors Long were in, taking a lesson with Justin Garcia as a couple, to work on their salsa, then separating to take individual lessons.
Quinn lounged around, drinking coffee, speaking with the others as they either waited for or finished their sessions. At last it was his turn.
And Shannon was more aloof than ever.
“Gordon is really angry with me,” she said, green eyes flashing as she led him through a fox-trot by rote. “He hasn’t actually said anything, but I know. I’ve hurt him really badly.”
“I think I’m supposed to be leading,” Quinn said.
“You don’t know how to lead.”
“Right. But you’re supposed to be teaching me how.”
“Why?” she demanded. “This whole thing is just a joke to you. You think that we’re all a bunch of silly prima donnas.”
“That’s not true,” he said, forcefully taking the lead. “I admit, I thought I would hate it. But I don’t. And if Gordon is mad, that’s the way it goes. What happened to you needed to be checked out. And besides,” he added firmly, “who knows? Maybe Gordon is the best actor on earth.”
“You think he was lying? That’s ridiculous,” Shannon protested.
“No, I don’t actually think he was lying. I’m just saying it’s still a possibility. I wish it wasn’t. I wish someone could be eliminated.”
“I suppose you haven’t even eliminated me yet?” she said coolly.
He shrugged. “I don’t think you’re guilty of anything. Either that, or you really are deserving of an Academy Award.”
“Right. And you should have a stack of them,” she said. “Left foot. Left.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the foot you’re supposed to be on.”
“No, dammit.” He stopped dancing. “Why do I deserve that stack of awards?”
“FBI? You might have mentioned that.”
“Does it matter? I left the Bureau. I work down here now.”
“You should have told me.”
“We’ve never really had an opportunity to talk about our lives, you know. Either one of us.”
“What on earth don’t you know about me?” she demanded.
“Why you won’t compete,” he said.
“Oh, God!” she groaned. “That again. I told you. I like to teach. I had an injury.”
“You had an injury once.”
He stopped speaking, turning to see that Gunter and Helga were doing a fantastic lift. “I don’t want to fox-trot. I want to do that.”
“You can’t even dance.”
“I can do that.”
She was about to tell him about his left foot again. He didn’t give her the chance. Before she could protest, he lifted her, repeating the motion he had just seen, swinging her around his back before he set her on the floor again.
She was flushed, startled, angry—and maybe a little awed.
“Okay, what did I mess up?”
“You didn’t give your partner a clue as to what was happening,” she snapped.
“But I’m leading. You’re supposed to follow. Men lead, women follow. That’s the way it is in ballroom dance. No bra burning here.”
“That’s a cabaret move. People practice it,” she muttered.
“Well, there you go. I’m trying to practice my…what? Does it have a name?”
She sighed. “Here in the studio, we call it the pooper-scooper.”
“Pooper-scooper?” he said, his brows shooting up. “How…elegant.”
“Pooper-scooper just came to mind when we did it the first time. I don’t even remember who named it,” she said impatiently.
“When we did it the first time?”
“I did it in a piece with Sam for a dinner we had once,” she explained impatiently.
“I want to do it for Gator Gala,” he insisted.
“You’re a beginner. You need to do beginner steps in a long roster of dances. Later—”
“I’ll do that. But there are individual routines, right? I want to do a waltz, with a pooper-scooper in it. Look, you know I can do it.”
“I know you have the strength. What you need are the skill, balance and coordination.”
“Then start teaching me, because I’m going to do it.”
“This is really going to cost you.”
“Yes.” He looked at his watch. “And you’re wasting my class time right now.”
She stared at him indignantly. “You…asshole!”
“What a way with words. Pooper-scooper. Asshole. Can we work, please?”
For a moment she looked as if she would explode. Then she started in on a waltz, which he thought he knew.
But there was so much he didn’t know, he discovered.
And yet, by the end of his forty-five minutes, he actually looked good. Because his partner looked good. And when they choreographed the pooper-scooper into the end of the short routine she planned as they went, there was a spurt of applause.
Quinn looked around to see that the others in the room had stopped to watch them. His brother had arrived, having picked up Marnie, as he had asked him earlier in the day to do. Bobby and Giselle were there, as well, along with a number of the others Quinn was coming to know as regulars.
Gordon walked over to them, laughing. “Hell, you really can teach anyone to dance,” he said to Shannon, his tone teasing. He shook Quinn’s hand. “Not bad.”
“Tell him that he still needs to learn a lot of basics,” Shannon said.
“I can tell him anything you want. Doesn’t mean it will work with this guy.” Gordon seemed to have forgotten the morning. “I see you had Doug bring that girl in again. I understand she’s a street kid but over eighteen, an adult. A broke adult.”
“Right. I bought her a guest pass that gives her a few lessons,” Quinn said.
Gordon nodded. “I’m going to give her a few more. The kid is good—better than you.”
“What a surprise,” Quinn said dryly.
“I’d thought of that,” Shannon said, as she looked at Gordon. “But I was afraid, with the cost of things, that the other students would get mad.”
“I can explain it as a community service award,” he said. “Not bad, O’Casey. Shannon, Richard Long has signed up for another lesson. He’s looking a little irritated over there. Nice guy, but he does like to be a star.”
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Gordon walked away, and Shannon turned to join Richard. Quinn started off the floor to feel a hand land hard on his back. He turned. Doug was grinning at him. “That was great. You slimy liar. You’re good.”
“At least I can waltz, thanks to Mom. Listen, let’s get out of here. We need to talk.”
Ella called to them as they started out of the studio. “Hey, you guys going to be back for the party?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Doug assured her.
Quinn took his brother to the café across the street and chose the front table he’d opted for before. From there, they could see everyone coming and going. Once they had ordered, Quinn filled Doug in on what Shannon had told him, how he’d found Manuel Taylor and had him confront Gordon.
“And Gordon said it was just to get Shannon competing again?” Doug said.
Quinn nodded. “And he was convincing. Thing is, he’d been looking me up, as well. Knew everything about me. My work, at any rate.”
“Interesting, but not startling,” Doug said. “He’s one of those people who really knows his way around the Net. He checks out all the students.”
“I wonder why.”
“Curiosity, I think. He never tells one student about another, though.”
“So how do you know he’s into checking up on people?”
“I was in his office talking to him one day. He doesn’t hide anything. I happened to see his computer screen, and he’d pulled up the info on Richard Long’s practice. He saw me looking and said you could find out practically anything about anybody on the Net.”
Quinn sat back. He’d quit smoking a long time ago, but at that moment he really wanted a cigarette. He saw their waitress and ordered another espresso.
“Marnie thinks that a gray or beige car has been cruising by Shannon’s house at night,” he said.
“Who has a beige or gray car?”
“Everyone in the place, I think.”
“I’ll get tags tonight, and pull up the owners, makes and models,” Doug said.
“Good idea. How’s Jane doing?”
“Shaky. She’s as convinced as Shannon is that someone killed Lara. Have you heard anything more about the woman they found on the beach?”
“No, but I’ll check with Jake later.”
“I thought he was taking some time off?” Doug said.
“He is, but I guarantee you, he’s still on the phone a few times a day, and if he can’t give me anything, he’ll direct me to someone who can.”
“Like Dixon?” Doug almost spat out the name.
Quinn lifted his hands. “When you hit a guy like Dixon, you just work around him.” He leaned forward. “Did you see Gordon hanging around Lara that day? Buying her a drink? Anything?”
“No, the one person I didn’t personally see anywhere near her was Gordon. Why?”
“I don’t know. Something is still bothering me. It’s something Manuel Taylor said, but I can’t put my finger on it right now. I’m hoping it will come to me later.”
“You done?” Doug said. “I’ve got my class in about fifteen minutes. Have to put my Latin shoes on.”
“You bought special shoes?”
“Of course. You better buy some shoes yourself, bro.”
“Right.”
“Your pooper-scooper will be even better.”
Doug was laughing at him. Quinn shook his head. “Murder, Doug. Come on, we’re here to solve a murder.”
By party time, Shannon was exhausted, even though she had to admit she’d had a decent night’s sleep because of Quinn.
But it had been one hell of a long day.
They started by playing music that ran the gamut of everything they taught. The teachers all danced with the students at first; even Gordon came out on the floor. Then students danced with students, which was usually a time she really enjoyed, watching the more advanced students help out the beginners. Men asked women to dance, and women asked men. Old studio friends chatted, and the more advanced students quizzed the newcomers, making them feel welcome.
In the past, Shannon was aware, many people had considered studios like theirs to be something of a lonely hearts club. She had spent her years as manager trying to make sure that the place wasn’t that but that it was instead a warm and hospitable environment where people came to have fun, and where, even if they already had busy and active lives, they met new friends. She thought she had done well. She was, in fact, incredibly proud of the studio. And heartsick that it now seemed to be a place encased in fear and shadow.
After the first set of dances, they had the students sit. Then either she, Gordon or Ben would give a speech about dance. Tonight, she spoke about the awkwardness of first learning to dance. Sam and Jane played a couple coming to their first lesson, with Jane pulling Sam in by the ear. They stepped on one another’s feet, argued with each other. Then they improved a little, a little more, and then a little more, until they were whirling around and the room was applauding.
Gordon came and took over the microphone. “Now’s the part where a newcomer asks to see a dance.”
“Bolero!” Mina Long called out.
“I said a newcomer,” Gordon said, laughing.
Shannon was startled when Quinn O’Casey called out, “A waltz. I’d like to see Shannon do a waltz.”
“Yeah, Shannon, go, Shannon!” his brother said.
Then an echo went up, as if they were at a football game.
The next thing she knew, Ben was in front of her, reaching out a hand to her, a slight smile on his face.
She accepted his hand, having little other choice.
After all these years, she knew him so well. Knew his lead, every tick of his body. She forgot the audience and was only aware of the music, of how it made her feel, and move.
She was almost startled when it came to an end and she was posed as they had finished their last competition, arched over his knee, her head just above the floor, one leg extended parallel with the length of his body.
The room was alive with applause. She nodded to Ben, rose and went to steal the microphone back from Gordon.
“Let’s change pace. Anyone?”
Marnie shouted out, “Samba!”
“Hey, can I be guest teacher?” Gunter called.
“Sure,” Shannon told him.
He went to Jane, whirling her out to the floor. Gordon had found the music, and when it started up, Gunter stepped forward, Jane in his arms.
Shannon started clapping, inviting audience participation. The samba was fast, and the pair were well matched, spinning across the floor with perfect motion and speed. Then the music ended and Gunter spun Jane out so she could take an elegant bow.
Then she straightened, and for a minute, pain tensed her features.
Then she doubled over.
“What…?” someone said.
Jane screamed, clutching her abdomen, doubling over, then literally falling to the floor.
“Oh, God! Oh, God, the pain!” she shrieked.
She wasn’t acting.
The entire room went still, frozen.
“Ella, call nine-one-one!” Shannon ordered, springing to life, flying over to land on her knees by Jane’s side. “What is it? What hurts?”
Gunter was down on his knees, too. Gordon was there, while Ben made sure that the others didn’t rush in too close around her.
Jane let out another screech, tightening her hold around her belly. Her dark blond hair spilling on the floor, she turned her huge dark eyes to Shannon.
“Oh, God, help me. Help me. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! Oh, God, I don’t want to die like Lara!”
CHAPTER 18
Once he’d ascertained that something was seriously wrong, Quinn was on his feet. Ben Trudeau was doing a good job of holding the others back, but he knew that both Doug and Bobby were behind him, and they were both trained in CPR.
“Let me get to her,” Quinn told Shannon, who looked up at him, eyes dazed, features frozen into a mask of
concern.
A hand fell on his shoulder. He turned to see that Mina Long was behind him, and her husband was behind her.
“We’re actually physicians,” she reminded him quietly.
He stepped back. Richard was already down on his knees. He might have been a plastic surgeon, but he obviously remembered the medical basics, as well. His voice was firm but reassuring as he spoke to Jane, and his hands moved with amazing expertise over her abdomen. “It’s your stomach, right? And the pain just started?”
Jane seemed to choke on her answer at first, but then she managed to speak past the pain. “There were a few twinges…before. Then…it’s like a knife. I’m in agony. It’s like I’ve been…poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” The whisper echoed through the crowd like the chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy.
“No, no,” Richard told her, his lips twitching in a smile. He looked at his wife, across Jane’s body. “Do you think we agree on the possibility of an acute attack of appendicitis?”
Mina smiled at Jane and touched her gently.
Jane moaned. “Appendicitis?” she said.
“I’d say it looks like surgery for you tonight, but we’re just minutes from the hospital. You’ll be all right,” Mina said. She looked up, searching the sea of faces around them. “Ella, you called emergency, right?”
“Yes, the second Shannon told me to,” Ella said.
Jane was reaching out, groping. She wanted Shannon. Shannon curled her fingers around Jane’s hand.
“You’ll come with me? To the hospital, right?” Jane asked breathily.
“Absolutely.”
They could already hear the sirens. Within a minute or two, emergency med techs were coming up the front stairs. Questions were asked; vital statistics were taken. Gabe Lopez opened the doors and led the way so that a stretcher could be brought up, and Jane, still moaning, was lifted and brought down the stairs.
Shannon crawled into the back of the ambulance with Jane.
“I’ll follow in the car,” Quinn told her.
The door was shut, and the sirens blared again.
Quinn realized that not only had everyone in the dance party come down, but people had spilled out from the club. The line waiting for admittance to Suede was also out on the sidewalk. People were talking.
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