Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  "I have nothing to hide," Amanda said.

  Bex reached into her pocket and pulled out the check she'd borrowed from Igor's billfold. She turned it around so that Amanda could get a good look.

  Amanda got a good look.

  Going by clichés, Bex expected Amanda's eyes to grow bigger from the jolt. But, instead, it was her nostrils that actually expanded. She took a deep breath, as if trying to absorb massive amounts of nasal spray. The extra air forced her shoulders back and her chest forward until the bulk of her weight was balanced on her heels. A stiff wind might have knocked her over. Bex was sorely tempted to try it. Just to see if there was any truth in Warner Brothers cartoons.

  She almost got her wish.

  While Amanda struggled to regain her equilibrium, behind them the Russian girls were getting off the ice. From the sound of it, the entire Russian World Team had come to cheer the girls on at the end of their practice session. Bex recognized several of the male skaters and also the top pair and dance teams that she had worked with at previous competitions as they got out of their arena seats and tromped rink-side. Laughing and chattering in Russian, they blew by Bex and Amanda. Galina joined them. Brittany, Bex noted, did not.

  As the others gathered around the bubbly Junior World Champion, handing her a fresh bottle of water and a rag to wipe her blades, Brittany stayed on the ice, pretending not to notice that she was being ignored. Even her own coach, a Russian former world champion, left Brittany the second her practice ended, walking over to say a few words to Galina and Slavic company before heading inside the tunnel. Brittany pretended not to catch that particular slight, either. She simply skated to the barrier and slipped on her Russian team jacket. She leaned over to pick up a water bottle that had been knocked to the floor and took a lengthy sip. When one sip didn't provide ample time for her alleged teammates to clear out, Brittany took another. Only when they were all gone from the exit, did she skate over and plop down on a bench to begin taking off her skates.

  Watching Brittany, Bex couldn't help thinking about the years Igor Marchenko had spent as a member of the American team. Had his ostracism been as brutal? And had the bad feelings continued long after his competitive days were over?

  At any other time, Bex might have moseyed on over to ask Brittany for her take on the subject. But she had colder ice to melt at the moment.

  Amanda Reilly was still staring, presumably dumbfounded, at the cashier's check in Bex's hand. She waited until the Russians had rowdily blown by them before quietly telling Bex, "Yes. Maybe some privacy is a good idea."

  The question, of course, was: where?

  Not inside the arena, certainly. Thanks to the hollow acoustics, not only every note of program music and every scrape of blade, but also any word instantly ricocheted around the seats like water swirling down the drain. The only reason Bex had ever risked interviewing Valeri Konstantin in such a wide-open venue was because there had been less people in the arena then, and most of them were focused on the skaters. Now, however, not only had the occupying capacity doubled, with more and more skaters and television personnel filing in, but, with the girls off the ice, a bored passerby was much more likely to delegate a few moments to idle eavesdropping than before.

  Bex considered taking Amanda in the back to the production rooms. Surely, no one would be able to overhear

  anything in that cacophony of television-making. But, the problem there was, television-making was also very distracting. And Bex needed to be able to focus on every word Amanda said.

  Her other options were going back to the official hotel. Not optimal because it would give Amanda plenty of time to conjure up a lying excuse.

  She supposed they could duck into a cafe. But that was not optimal because Russian waiters were scary. When Bex asked for water with lunch, for example, they would point her to a rusty steel faucet sticking out from a far wall and tell her to get it herself.

  They could also probably step out onto the street.

  Moscow... in the winter... Nope. Not going to be doing that, either.

  And then, Bex had a combination flashback and brainstorm.

  Less than a year earlier, her very first foray into the (successful, she should add) sleuthing business had featured a murdered Italian judge. Electrocuted inside the San Francisco World Championship arena's refrigeration room. And one of the main reasons why Bex (and, to be fair, Gil) had instantly suspected the death wasn't on the up and up, was simply because, except for the random technician, no one— really, really no one—had any good reason to go into an ice rink's refrigeration room.

  Which, naturally, made it a very private meeting spot.

  Bex grabbed Amanda by the elbow.

  "I have an idea," she said. "Follow me."

  As Bex smugly gambled, there wasn't a red velvet rope line waiting to get into the refrigeration room ahead of them. The place was so apparently unpopular, it wasn't even locked. Bex simply turned the knob, threw her entire body weight against the door, pushed, groaned, hacked from the dust whittling her nostrils, put her proverbial back into it, and they were inside. Easy as red caviar blini. Honestly, it was as if the room wanted them to break in. Or such was Bex's story and she intended to stick to it should some of President Putin's henchmen burst in and demand to know what she was doing there.

  Although Bex could not imagine why anyone would make this even a pit stop on their regular itinerary. At least the room the Italian judge, Silvana Potenza, had died in was filled with extraneous arena material not quite important enough to keep in an easily accessible spot, but not quite useless enough to junk altogether, either. Material like old programs, souvenirs past their sell-by date, broken office furniture that someone honestly did intend to patch up someday

  This Russian counterpart had four pipes running from one wall to the next, one at ceiling level, the lowest barely clearing an inch over Bex's head. The only illumination came from three uncovered windows, each one overlooking a street more lifeless than the previous one. The room smelled like a sweaty pair of shoes soaked in urine and left inside a mousetrap. With the twitching mouse still in it. (The last part was less creative metaphor than an actual sight in the corner.) All of the pipes leaked in a different spot and formed a different Rorschach on the floor. As the floor had seemingly not been swept, dusted, or given any mind to since hemophilia was Russia's greatest health crisis, it meant that Bex and Amanda now treaded in about two inches of dense, black filth. To call the matter dirt or even mud would be to pay it an unwarranted compliment.

  Fortunately for their mutual eeew factor, both women had more on their minds than tidiness. Also, neither was really into shoe fetishes. Bex had long ago surrendered fashion for comfort. She spent so much 24/7 time on her feet, sneakers were the only way to dress. As for Amanda, Bex had never seen her in anything but sensible, synthetic fur-lined, gray boots. Of course, Bex had never seen her anywhere outside of an ice rink.

  Amanda looked around. "Didn't Silvana Potenza ..."

  "Yes, yes, let's not dwell on it."

  "... in a room just like..."

  "I said, let's move on." Bex withdrew Marchenko's check from the pocket into which she'd previously stuffed it and waved it rather theatrically in the air. "You were going to explain this?"

  "Th - there is nothing to explain." Amanda did her best to appear defiant and dismissive. The stuttering didn't help.

  "Is this your signature on this check?"

  "Y - yes."

  "This check made out to Igor Marchenko?"

  "I guess."

  "So, you wrote a check to Igor Marchenko, the coach of your daughter's primary competition, and you think there is nothing to explain?"

  "It's none of your business, Bex."

  This, certainly, was true. But why in the world should Bex let that stop her? She never had before, after all.

  "Okay," Bex said. "Don't explain anything to me. I'll just turn right around, go back to the production offices, mention this to Francis and Diana and le
t them bring it up on air. Would you prefer that ending to this story?"

  In her line of work, Bex made a lot of idle threats to get people to cooperate. She made so many it had gotten to the point where she had forgotten how satisfying it was to actually threaten an act she could deliver. Because, boy, could she deliver this one. All Bex had to do was hint that something odd might be going on in Lian-land, and Francis and Diana (not to mention Gil) would be blabbing it all over their broadcast. Bex figured she didn't need to mention to Amanda at this time that, regardless of what Amanda chose to tell her, odds were good that Bex would be mentioning this development to Francis, Diana, and Gil anyway. It was, after all, exactly what she'd been hired to do.

  "Oh, please, don't do that!" Amanda exclaimed.

  "Then talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

  Amanda took so long to reply, Bex imagined she could hear the floor curdling beneath their feet. Finally, she said, "I wrote Igor Marchenko a check."

  "Yes," Bex agreed. "I kind of already knew that much."

  Amanda met Bex's eyes for the first time since they'd entered the refrigeration room. "How did you get it, anyway?"

  Uhm... what sounded better? Bribing the locals or breaking and entering? Bex skipped right over the whole moral and legal conundrum by deciding to table the debate and just wave her hand around in an unconcerned, authoritative manner. "It's standard procedure when someone dies. Igor was here under the auspices of 24/7, since we're the ones covering and paying for the event, so the police gave us all of his things."

  Yeah. There. That sounded good.

  It must have, because Amanda just sort of nodded her head vaguely and said, "I am begging you, Bex, please don't tell anyone else about my check to Igor. Lian would be ruined if word got out!"

  "Why? People switch coaches all the time. And Igor is much better connected internationally than Gary."

  "We weren't," Amanda hedged, "switching coaches. Not exactly."

  "Then what was the check for?"

  "It was for Igor to coach Lian."

  “I see...”

  "You see, we weren't..." Amanda took a deep breath, got a plentiful whiff of the aforementioned urine-soaked sneakers and reconsidered. She made a face, taking short, shallow breaths through her mouth as she huffed and puffed out. "We weren't officially switching coaches. Lian is Gary's top student, so he was obviously a better advocate for her than someone who had a competing skater, like Igor did with Jordan. Plus, Lian has been with Gary for such a long time. We're practically family...."

  "And Igor didn't want to take Lian full-time, did he?"

  "Not exactly," Amanda conceded.

  "So what exactly was he willing to do for her?"

  "He was willing to give her some spin lessons. In addition to Gary's coaching. I mean, obviously Lian doesn't need any help with her jumping technique. She's landing triple-triple combinations more frequently than any other woman on the circuit."

  "I'm sure that's a surprise to Galina Semenova."

  "Oh, Galina..." Now it was Amanda's turn to do the patented, dismissive yet authoritative wave. "Galina is a flash in the pan. Sure, she can land the triple-triple—"

  "And quadruple," Bex reminded.

  "All those jumps now. But she's only fourteen years old. She has the body of a child! When she can still do them at seventeen, like my Lian ..."

  Bex supposed she could have interrupted again to point out that at seventeen, her Lian had the same body as fourteen-year-old Galina. But it wasn't worth the trouble. A word or two from Bex was hardly going to rip Amanda from her delusions. And Bex really wanted to get back to the topic at hand. "So, you were having Igor coach Lian on her spins?"

  "Yes. Yes. Like I was saying, Lian doesn't need any more work on her jumps, she's already world class. But the international judges seem to have this obsession with spins. That's all we ever hear about Jordan. Look how beautifully she spins, look at that change of position, look at that speed, look at how long she holds them... as if any of that really matters. Oh, and her spirals. The judges seem to prefer Jordan's spirals to Lian's. And her footwork. They think she has better footwork. All of those secondary elements, you know? Still, we decided, well, why not? I suppose Lian could use a little polishing, if that's what the judges really want. Igor was going to help her with all that."

  "Okay," Bex said. "That's reasonable. And it happens all the time. You know Jeremy Hunt? He skates at your rink? He's one of Toni Wright's students, but now that he's headed for Nationals, Toni was having him work with Igor on some spins and some footwork, too. A lot of coaches do that. Send their kids to a specialist for a bit. Why are you so set on keeping Lian's work with Igor a secret?"

  "Because," Amanda confessed, "it is a secret. From Gary."

  "Oh." Now it all made sense. "Gary didn't know his top student was getting a little outside polishing."

  "It would have just upset him so much. You know the history with him and Igor. They're so competitive, even to this day. I didn't see any reason to make waves."

  "If Gary finds out you went to Igor for extra coaching….”

  "He'll drop Lian. He won't ever coach her again."

  "Which, I guess, would really be a problem for you now that Marchenko is dead. You won't even have a backup."

  "It would ruin Lian's entire season! Nationals are only a month away. If Gary were to stop coaching her now... it's not enough time to find someone else. And Lian is the favorite to win the U.S. title this year!"

  Well, assuming Jordan Ares drops dead, yes, she was.

  Bex said, "You were taking a heck of a risk then, going to Igor."

  "I love my daughter," Amanda said simply. "I want what's best for her. When we first brought her home from China, she was thirteen months old. But she was the size of a six month old. She could barely sit up. Couldn't stand, definitely couldn't walk or crawl. She would just lay there, her eyes following you around the room. When anyone got near her, her whole face would light up and she'd kick her little arms and legs. But then she would get so overwhelmed, she'd burst into tears. At the orphanage, the babies didn't have much human contact. She had some serious developmental delays. I think it was months before she trusted us enough to try and pull herself up to a standing position while holding on to my fingers. Her legs were so weak. Our pediatrician thought some kind of exercise would help. That's how we ended up at the ice rink. She loved it from the first day, the first moment. As soon as she started skating lessons, she just bloomed. Would you believe she used to be so shy, she couldn't make eye contact when she spoke to people? She barely talked above a whisper. Skating didn't just strengthen her legs. It set her free. It made her a person. Skating makes her so happy, Bex. When it comes to Lian's skating, I can't refuse her anything."

  Bex wasn't an idiot. She knew when she was being played.

  She also knew when the said playing was particularly effective. Because now, instead of seeing either a potential murder suspect or, at least, a suspect's mother, Bex was seeing Amanda Reilly cradling a sickly, newly adopted Lian— though, disturbingly, sickly, newly adopted Lian was wearing a shiny, tot-sized skating costume.

  "Please don't tell anyone about my check to Marchenko," Amanda pleaded. "It will ruin Lian's season. Possibly her entire career. And it won't help anyone. It won't bring Igor Marchenko back to life, and it certainly won't help you find his killer."

  Well, now, Bex couldn't be so positive about that. Because, from where she was standing (in filth), it certainly gave an already acrimonious Gary Gold another motive for murder. Not to mention Amanda and Lian Reilly. Just how far would either of them go to keep their clandestine coaching a permanent secret? And, while she was dabbling in the motive game, Bex also contemplated how angry Jordan Ares would feel if she found out her mentor was also helping out the competition.

  Bex was about to press Amanda for further details, such as an exact accounting of where she, Gary and Lian were for each minute during the time when Igor was poisoned. She had only gotten as
far as asking Amanda, "Speaking of Gary, can you remember, was he the one who put Marchenko's gloves on the heater?"

  And Amanda had begun to say that she couldn't recall but, it was possible, since Gary was very meticulous about things being put in their proper place—

  When the refrigeration room's door creaked slowly open.

  As darkness, filth, and stench didn't traditionally add up to the most popular spot in the arena, Bex and Amanda were understandably surprised to be so rudely interrupted.

  But not nearly as surprised as when they both caught sight of the interloper.

  Brittany Monroe was standing in the doorway. She'd changed out of her skating costume and now wore her regular clothes, looking even more all-American that she had on the ice, if such a thing were possible. Black jeans, a fluffy cherry sweater with equally fluffy white kittens frolicking across the front, high-top sneakers with Velcro straps.

  And, in her hands, she clutched a pair of gold-dyed ladies' figure skates.

  Which were most definitely not her own.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bex and Amanda stared at Brittany.

  Brittany stared back at Bex and Amanda. And she clutched the golden skates to her nonexistent breasts so tightly, it looked like she was trying to force-feed both to the fluffy, white kittens.

  At first, the shock of the moment kept all three of them rooted in place. After all, what was more shocking than picking a filthy, disgusting site for privacy, only to learn it was actually the hottest filthy and disgusting site in town?

  Brittany was the first to regain her bearings. Still clutching the skates, she spun around and attempted to flee without an explanatory word. Her hasty pirouette spurred Bex into action. When Brittany ran, Bex followed. It was instinct, not a plan. If Brittany hadn't budged, Bex would probably have dumbly done the same.

  Now, however, she acted impulsively, slogging noisily through the grime in three not very graceful leaps. Two muddy sneaker prints were left on the discolored concrete right outside the refrigeration room before Bex, with a wild lunge, managed to wrap her fingers around Brittany's wrist. She ended up with a handful of cherry-red sweater fluff, but it was enough to slow the fugitive down. To save the fluffy kittens, Brittany braked in her tracks and tugged on her sweater, forcing Bex to let go. But she stopped running.