He stood near her, arm over her shoulder as he demonstrated, and she was more tempted than she had ever been in her life just to lean back and rest. She didn’t, though. No matter what Marnie had said about the way he looked at her, she wasn’t sure she was willing to give her trust so easily.
“Have you got it?” he asked her.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, the instructions are on the counter, if you have any difficulties.”
“Quinn!” Marnie said, throwing herself at him with a childish abandon, hugging him, then letting him free. “It was great, it was so wonderful. Even the coach…what’s her name, Shannon?”
“Christie,” Shannon said patiently.
“Even Christie said I’ve real potential.”
“That’s wonderful.” His eyes met Shannon’s.
“Can we have some tea?” Marnie asked.
There had been nothing Shannon wanted more than to crawl straight into her bed, but now Quinn’s and Marnie’s eyes were on her.
“Sure,” she said, resigned.
“You’ll stay, right, Quinn?” Marnie asked.
“I really need to go.”
“Just stay for a cup of tea,” Marnie prodded.
“One quick cup of tea,” he said, looking at Shannon.
“Have you eaten anything?” Shannon asked. She added, “You did get this alarm in for me. I mean, I owe you.”
“No, you don’t owe me,” he said firmly.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” she murmured, wishing she weren’t flushing. “Anyway, please go sit down…I’ll brew the tea.” She smiled. “Marnie can tell you about her day for a while.”
He arched a brow, a slow smile curving his lips. He was well aware that Marnie had been talking nonstop.
“All right. Make tea in peace,” he said.
He walked toward the back of the house. Marnie stood still for a minute. “Hey, sorry, I should help, huh?”
“No. Go entertain Quinn.”
Shannon boiled the water, fixed a pot of English breakfast tea and found some oatmeal bars to set around it. Then she dug around in the refrigerator and found some cheese squares, and decided to add toast points. When she had fixed the tray and was ready to bring it out to the coffee table in front of the couch, she realized that the room was strangely silent.
Marnie was curled into the chair, sound asleep. Quinn was leaning back on the sofa, legs extended on the coffee table.
Sound asleep as well.
As Shannon stood there, Marnie’s eyes opened.
“Oh,” she murmured. She uncurled herself. “I was talking to him and then I realized he wasn’t answering me anymore,” she whispered. “I guess we should wake him.”
Shannon turned back, putting the tray on the pass-through counter.
“No,” she said softly.
“But what do we do?”
“Let him sleep. Come on in the kitchen and drink your tea. We’ll sleep in my room.”
Marnie leaped up and came around beside Shannon. “You think he’ll be all right?”
“He’ll be fine.” Shannon turned and went into her room for a blanket, then brought it out and swept it over his outstretched legs. “Come on,” she said, bringing her fingers to her lips to indicate that they should be quiet.
Marnie nodded and followed Shannon back into the kitchen. They drank their tea, and Marnie went through half the food on the tray. She looked famished.
Well, she’d worked really hard, Shannon thought. And she certainly didn’t have any fat stores to draw on.
When she had finished, she seemed to realize that she had inhaled everything. But she didn’t apologize, just looked at Shannon a little morosely. “I’ll clean up.”
“Leave it. We’ll get it in the morning. Come on, we’ll take turns in the bathroom, then get some sleep.”
She was afraid Marnie would want to whisper all night. She didn’t. She accepted the new toothbrush and nightgown Shannon gave her with a simple thank-you, then insisted Shannon go first.
At last, way after midnight, they were in bed. Marnie kept carefully to her own side, as if she were afraid to offend her benefactor in any way.
After a minute, she said, “Thank you so much for everything.”
There was something in the way she spoke that made Shannon smile, glad in a way she had never imagined.
“It’s okay, really.”
“Good night. I swear I won’t make another sound.”
Shannon laughed softly, tousled her guest’s long hair and turned her back on her.
Strange. This was not at all the night she would have been having in her dream of dreams.
But at least she felt safe and secure with her house full.
In minutes, she was sound asleep herself.
Jake was still taking time off.
He offered to come into the station, but Quinn flatly refused to let him do so. Jake had a new partner though, a woman named Anna Marino, and she was a blessing—pleased to meet Quinn and happy to help. She was tall for a woman, probably a good five-ten or five-eleven, but she was slim and as wiry as a polecat. She was very pretty, with naturally light hair, vivid blue eyes and classic features. She might well have graced a runway had she not decided to become one of Miami-Dade’s finest.
“I’ll give you anything I can,” she assured Quinn, digging through Jake’s files for him. “I wish we had more. That’s one of the sad facts of this work. When we have a suspect, modern forensics do wonders for us. But when we haven’t got a prayer of a suspect…Here. Here’s the old one. Sally Grant.” She skimmed the file before handing it to Quinn. “Twenty-two, working the streets, her address is a boardinghouse known to be a little less than reputable but not a drug house, just one of those places that doesn’t ask for a lot of background information and doesn’t much care what you do in your room as long as the door is closed. Transient, out of Oklahoma, folks dead, one brother found, and he didn’t come for the body, he just asked if there was life insurance on her. I found her case one of the saddest. So did Jake. We combed the streets, and narcotics came in on it, too, doing a real rundown on the clubs. No matter how hard we tried, we came up with zilch.” She hesitated. “We took up a collection in the department just to get her a decent burial. One of the funeral homes helped out.”
Quinn nodded, taking the file and sitting across from Anna. She folded her hands on the desk, watching him. “I’ll get the Sonya Miller file. Jake is convinced that these two are associated, though we don’t know how. Sonya Miller had money and a family that claimed her. The two women were from totally different social arenas.”
“I can see that.”
The case of Sally Grant was truly sad. She’d been so young. The photos taken at the scene were truly pathetic. Her eyes were wide-open. She was staring. Long brown hair spilled over the sidewalk, reminding Quinn of Marnie.
He looked up at Anna. “No sign of sexual assault in either case?”
Anna shook her head. “Sally was a hooker—there were enough street people around to assure us on that point. But she hadn’t even had any business the night she was killed.”
Quinn gave a grim smile as he looked at Anna. “Could have been an accidental death.”
She shook her head. “She was found on the sidewalk, with the needle still in her arm. Staged, but staged badly. Where the hell was her stash? Her source for getting the heroin into the needle? It’s been called possible homicide, probable homicide and death by misadventure. Call it what you will. She was murdered.”
“The two deaths were months apart,” Quinn mused.
“Right. Like I said, though, Jake and I are convinced that they’re related. I understand that you’re investigating the ‘accidental’ death of the dancer?”
“That’s right.”
“I wish it had been assigned to Jake and me. But it wasn’t. And Dixon closed the case. Though, quite frankly, I’m not sure what correlation Jake or I could have made, either. Your dancer died of
prescription drugs and alcohol. There were definitely no street drugs.”
“Another woman died recently of a massive overdose of prescription medication,” Jake said.
She nodded. “Nell Durken. Husband arrested. Joel Kylie has that case. He said the arrest was easy, you had such great records on the husband.”
Quinn winced. “I’m not so sure anymore that the guy is guilty.”
Anna looked surprised. “His prints were all over the pill bottle,” she reminded him. “What makes you think he’s innocent?”
“Well, he says so, for one thing,” Quinn told her.
She smiled. “Most murderers claim to be innocent. You know that. You can see a guy pull the trigger, and he’ll still look you right in the eye and deny it.”
“Like you, I think the two deaths are associated. And I also think they’re associated with your drug overdoses.”
“There have been other deaths by drug overdose, you know. Even though we’ve actually cut down on murder cases per capita recently, we’re still talking hundreds a year in the general area. You worked here—you know that many go unsolved.”
“Sadly, I do know that.”
“So what makes you think the deaths are all related?”
“Nell was a dance student at Moonlight Sonata. Lara Trudeau was a coach there and got her start there. The beach where Sonya Miller was found is right there, and, according to this report, Sally Grant was found just down the street.”
“I don’t think our hooker, Sally Grant, took dance lessons. And she would have been thrown out of a club like Suede before her little toe passed the door. Sonya might have been in the place, but we grilled everyone in there as hard as we could, within the limits of the law,” Anna assured him. “The other business in the building belongs to a designer, and our hooker couldn’t begin to afford her clothing. Patrolmen canvassed the area after both bodies were discovered. Officers spoke with the designer and her husband, and they talked to people at the dance studio, as well.”
Quinn stared at her, then paged through the file on Sonya Miller again. An Officer George Banner had spoken with Gordon Henson on Monday and been assured that the woman had not taken classes there at any time, nor did he recognize her as anyone who had ever been around.
Strange, Gordon had never mentioned the fact that the police had been in on Monday.
Gordon had a way of keeping quiet about things, he had realized that the other day at Nick’s, when Gordon had revealed all he knew about Quinn.
“Anything else?” Anna asked him.
“After these deaths, narcotics did a sweep of the area clubs,” Quinn said. “What happened there?”
“After the first girl was found, we acquired search warrants for Suede and a few other clubs. Ted Healey, in narcotics, told me that when they arrived at Suede, they almost had to force the folks there to look at it. Management said they were welcome to tear the place apart if they wanted to. Suede prides itself on—”
“I know, I know. Controlling alcohol consumption by drivers and putting heavy pressure on their people to make sure that IDs are good,” Quinn said.
“Right,” Anna agreed, looking at him strangely.
“I know the guy who owns the place,” Quinn said. “Hey, you have extra pictures in here, sketches, of your first victim. Can I take one?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thanks. For this, and for all your help.”
“Hey, if you can find something we didn’t, it’ll be great.” Her eyes darkened for a minute. “Every unnatural death is sad, but you know, you come to live with it. When we found Sally Grant…I don’t know. She got to me. Such a kid. And with no one. No one who cared at all. I’d give a lot to see that justice is done for her, even though she’s dead and can never know.”
“I understand.”
“Since you think these deaths are related, as far as your dancer goes, do you have any suspects?” she asked.
He grimaced ruefully. “Too many,” he said. And too few. The two people with the best motive seem to be my brother and the woman I’m falling in love with.
When he left the station, he returned to the Twisted Time. After checking his messages, he discovered that Manuel Taylor hadn’t returned his call, so he made another and left another message.
Then, at his desk, he drew a map of the studio and the surrounding blocks.
He looked over his lists, making comparisons, looking for similarities. The only thing in common between the four deaths was proximity to or association with the building that housed Moonlight Sonata.
Someone had to know something.
The same someone, he was certain, who drove by Shannon’s house in a gray or beige sedan.
He checked his e-mail.
His brother had come through on one thing. There was a list of plates and cars belonging to everyone who worked at the studio or at the building, or went there on a regular basis.
Elimination time. Shannon—it was unlikely she was casing her own house. Jane—she drove a red Chevy minivan. Rhianna Markham drove a blue Mazda.
Gordon had a beige Lexus. Ben had recently purchased a “pre-owned” gray Mercedes. Old Mr. Clinton owned a “taupe” Audi. Figured. He eliminated Clinton anyway. He went down the list. Gray or beige sedans were owned by Jim Burke, Mina Long, Justin Garcia, Christie Castle, Sam Railey, Gabriel Lopez and four more employees of Suede.
At least his own brother, the one who had definitely argued with Lara Trudeau the day of her death, drove a dark green aging Jaguar.
As he sat there mulling the cars, he finally realized just what Manuel Taylor had said that had bothered him, that he wanted to pursue.
He put through another call, but the man still didn’t answer. He left another message, then headed out.
Quinn was gone when Shannon awoke, but he’d left coffee on again. “Schedule me for late afternoon,” was the message he left behind that day.
Determined to spend some time at the studio alone in nice bright daylight, Shannon slipped out before Marnie awoke, leaving her a note that she would be back later to pick her up. She hurried to the studio, letting herself in and locking the doors once more before determinedly looking around. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she went so far as to knock on walls, search the area around the toilet stalls, and then, at the end, let herself out the back door into the little hallway-balcony area off the stairs that led down to the back lot, up to Gabe’s apartment, and over to Katarina’s design shop.
She paused, then opened the door to the storage area. The costume on the dressmaker’s dummy still seemed eerie, even in the glare of the light. She noted that the back shelves weren’t actually very full and made a mental note that she could move more of the boxes of old paperwork back here, and also that she had lots of her old outfits back here, and some of them were in excellent shape. If she was considering competing again, she should start going through them. As she stood in there, surveying the shelves, she thought she heard someone out in the hallway. Glancing at her watch, she realized that the others would be arriving soon.
Suddenly the light went out.
“Hey!” She turned, not really afraid; it was daytime, after all.
But then the door closed, and the room was plunged into darkness.
“Hey!” she called again, and rushed forward, toward the door, just in time to hear retreating footsteps.
The pitch blackness caused her a moment’s disorientation. She plunged into the dressmaker’s dummy and struggled with it, trying to keep it upright at first, then trying to maintain her own balance. As she teetered backward, she would have frozen if she could have, because she was suddenly certain she heard the sound of breathing…right next to her ear.
It was right there.
While the footsteps had been outside, even when the light had gone out and the door had closed.
Suddenly the dummy seemed to collide with her. She fought wildly for her balance, then went crashing down to the floor. Her head struck a shelf, or, s
he thought rather bizarrely, the shelf struck her.
And as the blackness became complete, she thought that she heard a strange groaning sound, although it might have been issuing from her own lips.
Things were getting out of control, and it was all because of her. What the hell was she doing now, suddenly digging around in the storage room? Should he just have waited? She might have turned around, walked on out.
They all came in.
And they all walked out.
The cops had been through the building. Not because of the studio, but because of the club. They had gone over it with a fine toothed comb and found nothing. Because the club was clean. There was nothing to worry about.
So why had he moved so quickly?
Killers always made a mistake eventually, or so they said. Not true. People definitely got away with murder. So…
Slow down. Calm down.
What did she know?
Too much. Somehow.
She knew too much. Suspected too much. Those beautiful eyes were not as innocent as they looked. But he had known. He had watched. And he had wanted.
And now…
Some things were simply necessary.
All he really had to do was get a grip and remember to act naturally.
Quinn walked in with a handful of flowers, looked around the room and thought that his own bouquet was a bit shabby. But Jane, who was sitting up a little in the hospital bed, smiled radiantly at him.
She might have been in absolute agony on the floor the other night, but she was already glorious again. Her hair was brushed; she was wearing makeup.
“Quinn, hi. This is really nice of you. Thanks for coming by. And thanks for the flowers—they’re beautiful,” she told him. She reached out, something like a queen awaiting a subject. He realized she was just used to greeting everyone with those double cheek kisses.
He obliged, then sat on the bedside chair.