Dead Man Waltzing

Chapter 22

Backpedaling, I kept screaming. I bumped into the counter and scrabbled for a weapon. The first thing my fingers contacted was the ceramic rooster. I hefted it and raised it over my head, ready to hurl it at the intruder.

Tav stepped into the kitchen. “Stacy. I came as fast as I could. What is wrong?”

I cut myself off in midscream.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Were you saving that from an intruder or using it as a weapon?” He gestured to the rooster.

Sobs of relief ripped through me, and my arms went numb. The rooster crashed to the floor, shattering into a couple hundred garish pieces. Oops.

Sensing that I was incapable of making sense, Tav crossed the room in two strides and pulled me into a hug. “It is okay. You are okay, Stacy. Do not cry.”

His arms were hard and comforting, his chest where my face pressed against it warm and reassuringly solid. His hand stroked my hair. “When I got your call and you did not say anything, I knew something was wrong. I heard you cry out and ran for my car.”

I must have hit redial just before the intruder attacked me. I pulled back slightly so I could see Tav’s face. His brown eyes, clouded with concern, searched my face. Using one finger, he lifted my chin. “You are all right?”

“Except for a headache.” I fingered the spot on my head where it had cracked into the wall. I wasn’t going to mention the pain in my derriere to Tav. “A couple aspirin will fix me right up.” I smiled wanly.

“I think I should take you to the hospital to get you checked out.”

“No.” I didn’t want to spend several hours sitting in an ER crowded with real sick people who might give me something a whole lot worse than a headache. I explained that to Tav and he half smiled.

“Okay. Well, at least sit down.”

I became aware of the fact that he still held me in a loose embrace, that I was pressed against him from thigh to chest, and that his hands through the thin silk of my nightie felt way too good as they absently stroked my back. I saw awareness hit him, too. His eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to my lips. “Stacy…”

He pulled me closer, and the cedary scent of him made my head swim. When I didn’t break away, he bent his head. His lips had barely grazed mine when a harsh voice called, “Police! Put your hands where I can see them.”

Releasing me instantly and holding his hands out to his sides, Tav smile ruefully. “I called the police on my way over here. I hoped they might get here before I did.” He turned to face the cop as I raised my hands to shoulder height, embarrassed at being caught in such an awkward position and almost overcome by an insane desire to giggle. My emotions had been on a roller coaster tonight.

The officer motioned Tav to one side with his gun and addressed me. “Ma’am, we got a nine-one-one call that there was an intruder at this address. Are you all right?” A sturdy-looking black man in his mid-thirties, he was all business. His gaze swept me from the top of my tousled blond head, down the length of my body in the peach nightgown, to my gold-painted toenails. His wary expression never changed. He spoke quietly into the radio hooked near his shoulder, and I glimpsed his partner as he or she checked the house’s exterior.

“I’m okay now,” I babbled. “There was someone… He knocked me over. Tav is my partner. He’s the one who called you. I don’t know why… he searched for…” I gestured toward the kitchen, knowing I wasn’t making sense.

“You might want to get a robe, ma’am,” the cop said, lowering his gun. “Let me see some identification, sir,” he said to Tav as I scurried to my bedroom. The wispy robe that went with the nightgown was not going to give much extra coverage. I yanked Great-aunt Laurinda’s tatty flannel robe from the back of the closet, where it had been when I moved in, and shoved my arms into the sleeves. Tying the belt at the waist, I returned to the kitchen, comfortable but frumpy in the plaid robe that draped around my torso and puddled on the floor. Great-aunt Laurinda had been a tall woman.

Tav bit back a smile at the sight. The officer had been joined by his partner, a competent-looking woman with sandy hair in a braid tucked down the back of her shirt. They questioned us for what seemed like hours, asking me to go over the night’s events several times. Showing me where the back door was splintered near the lock, they suggested the would-be thief had used a crowbar or something similar to pry it open. “Not a professional,” the female cop opined.

When I led them into the front parlor, Tav following, I gasped to see that it, too, had been searched. I hadn’t noticed it in the dark. A stack of dance magazines had cascaded from a pile by the couch; I must have slipped on one of them. Great-aunt Laurinda’s papers from a small Oriental chest I kept meaning to sort through were strewn higgledy-piggledy around the room. “Any idea what the intruder might have been after?” the male cop asked.

I hesitated a second before saying, “No,” and Tav shot me a suddenly suspicious look.

“Strange he overlooked your purse,” the female officer said, her eyes narrowing as if she suspected there was more to the story than I was sharing.

I met her gaze blandly, having no intention of regaling them with my theories about Corinne Blakely’s death and a mysterious manuscript no one could verify ever existed, but which the greater part of the ballroom dance community thought I had possession of.

Finally, the police officers were ready to leave. They handed me a business card, suggested I contact my insurance agent and get my door repaired, and told me to call them if I thought of anything else or found something missing. “Thank you very much,” I said gratefully. As they pulled away in their squad car I noticed lights on in the windows of a couple of neighbors’ houses. Great, they probably thought they’d see me on the next installment of America’s Most Wanted.

I returned to the kitchen to find Tav pouring the coffee I’d put on for the officers but which they’d declined. “Actually, I could use something stronger,” I said, pulling a bottle of lemon vodka from the freezer.

Tav raised his brows.

“It was for a party,” I explained, uncapping the bottle. “A hostess gift. I forgot to take it with me.” I poured a couple fingers into a juice glass and looked a question at Tav.

He shook his head. “I am driving.”

It crossed my mind that if the police hadn’t arrived when they did, he might not have been driving home, and I took too large a swallow of the vodka. The lemon and cold stung my throat and I coughed. Now I knew why I didn’t drink vodka. I set the half-full glass on the counter with a grimace and reached for the mug of coffee Tav held out.

“So,” he said mildly after I’d had a couple of warming sips, “perhaps you will tell me what you think your intruder was after? Do you know who it was?”

“No!” I saw doubt in his eyes. “No, really. I have a guess about what he-or she-was looking for, but I don’t know who it was. I would’ve told the cops if I did.”

Tav nodded, his gaze steady on my face. “So he was looking for…?”

“Corinne Blakely’s manuscript?”

He raised his brows so they furrowed his forehead. “Why in the world would anyone expect to find it here?”

I winced. “Because I told Greta Monk I had it,” I said in a small voice. Before he could interrupt, I hurried through my explanation.

He didn’t call me a lying, deceitful, dishonest wretch, as I was afraid he might. Instead, he asked, exasperated, “Did you not realize you might be putting yourself in danger?”

“Not until Danielle mentioned it,” I confessed. “And even then I didn’t think I’d be in real danger.”

“Well, you must let everyone know that you do not, in fact, have Corinne’s manuscript or notes or anything else.”

“I already tried. No one believed me.” There was probably a fairy tale that dealt with a girl who lied and was murdered or eaten by a monster as a result, but I couldn’t think of one. “I’m a moron.”

“You are not a moron.” Tav set his mug on the counter and crossed to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “You are merely too impulsive, querida.”

“Don’t call me that.” The words were out before I could stop them.

Tav stepped back, startled.

“Rafe used to-”

He nodded in instant understanding, but the gentle moment had passed as the specter of his dead half brother rose between us. “Of course. Let me help you secure this door and I will be on my way. We can discuss this in the morning, when we are not so tired.”

I glanced at the kitchen clock, startled to see it was after four. I admitted I didn’t have a toolbox and didn’t know where the hammer I used to hang pictures was, so Tav and I scooted the heavy kitchen table across the floor so it blocked the back door. “That will have to do,” Tav said, clearly unsatisfied with the security arrangements. “I could stay-”

“It’ll be fine,” I insisted, yawning. “I’ll get someone to fix it first thing.”

Allowing me to convince him, Tav let me show him to the front door. As I swung it open to admit the chill breath of almost-dawn, he looked down at me, the expression in his deep-set eyes sending a tingle through me. “We will continue our other… discussion later.” Without waiting for me to answer-which was a good thing, because his comment flustered me and I would only have stuttered something stupid-he stepped into the darkness. I closed the door, shot the dead bolt, and watched through the narrow windows inset on either side of the door as Tav strode to his car.

When I saw the headlights come on, I made myself turn away, hoping our one half-kiss in the aftermath of danger would not make things awkward between us in the studio. We were business partners; that was all, I reminded myself as I headed to my bedroom. Anything romantic would only complicate matters. And my life had enough complications as it was.