I didn’t mention my suspicions about Scott to anyone, not even Richard. I considered telling him when we talked over the phone on Wednesday night but decided I would prefer to have that discussion face-to-face. Even though I was desperate to share my concerns, I felt it would be better to wait to broach this particular subject when he returned home from his choreography gig.
Despite my determination to keep silent on this matter, I was so distracted the next day at work that I kept making stupid mistakes. After discovering that one book was still checked out, Samantha had to redo an entire cart of returns just to make sure I’d cleared them.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “My mind is scattered today, it seems.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Samantha said. “It’s wedding jitters, I bet. I was completely useless a couple of weeks before my own ceremony.”
I didn’t correct her. The truth was, the mystery surrounding Oscar Selvaggio’s death had driven concerns about the wedding completely from my mind. Anyway, everything seemed to be on track—we’d already arranged everything with the caterer, florist, and musicians and had met with the pastor of the Episcopal church, who’d agreed to conduct the ceremony. I was scheduled to pick up my dress and veil over the weekend and already had my shoes, undergarments, and other necessities. All I really needed to do now was keep practicing my dance steps with Karla. Something I planned to do later. With Richard out of town, we’d agreed to meet at his home studio.
When I arrived at Richard’s house after work, Karla was relaxing on one of the Adirondack chairs on the covered front porch. “You have keys, I assume?” she asked, jumping to her feet.
“Of course,” I said, opening the door. “Just like Richard has one to Aunt Lydia’s house, in case of emergencies. Anyway, I take care of the cats and collect the mail and that sort of thing when he’s out of town. Speaking of cats,” I added, as Loie and Fosse dashed up the stairs, something they did when anyone but Richard or me entered the house, “they’ve headed upstairs for now, but we’ll have to keep an eye out for them. I don’t want them running around underfoot, causing a dangerous situation for them as well as us.”
Karla hoisted the strap of her dance bag up over her shoulder as she crossed into the dance studio that occupied half of the front room. “I’ll warn you if I see them sneak back down.” She glanced around the room, which ran the entire width of the house. “It’s kind of funny, you just moving next door when you get married. I moved halfway across the country.”
“It’s true, it won’t be that big of a transition for me. I’m here a lot anyway, and I plan to continue to help my aunt with the upkeep on her home and garden after the wedding.”
“I wondered about that,” Karla said, dropping her dance bag near the wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “Your aunt’s house is so big. I hope she won’t feel too lonely when you move out.”
“We kind of hoped that someone else might move in with her, but now”—I paused with my hand on the dead bolt as I heard a nearby car rev its engines—“it doesn’t look like that’s likely to happen.” Peering out the window near the door, I noticed Scott’s car backing out of the adjacent driveway.
“You mean because she and Mr. Chen aren’t on great terms right now?” Karla stripped off her loose T-shirt, exposing her sleeveless black leotard. “Rich told me they were having some problems.”
“Which is really too bad. They’ve always gotten along so well before.” I watched Scott drive away toward the main part of town. Perhaps he’s meeting Ethan, I thought, hoping it wasn’t a more dangerous assignation.
“You’d better switch into some decent shoes,” Karla said, eyeing my leather loafers. “Did you bring the slippers you plan to wear for the wedding, like I asked?”
I fished them out of my soft-sided briefcase and held them up for inspection.
“Very good. Now, enough procrastination. March over here and let’s get to work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her a mock salute.
Karla ignored this attempt at humor, instead tossing me a bundle of white material she’d pulled from her dance bag. “Here, put this on over your slacks. Now that you have the basics down, you need to get used to dancing in a long skirt.”
“Yikes, more complications,” I said as I tied the strings of the practice petticoat at my waist. “I don’t know. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I can just see me doing a face-plant in my wedding gown.”
“Nonsense,” Karly said firmly. “Besides, you’ll be dancing with Richard, and I guarantee he won’t let you fall.”
“There is that.” I kicked off my loafers and slid my stockinged feet into the hard-soled white ballerina flats I’d bought to wear with my gown. “At least I’m not trying to attempt this in heels. I don’t know how those professional ballroom dancers do it.”
“Neither do I, honestly. They have my true admiration. As do ballerinas, with their toe shoes.” Karla pointed the toes of one of her feet, which were clad in black jazz flats. “I’m more used to wearing something like this, or even dancing barefoot. Now,” she added, after adjusting the ties of her flowing cotton dance pants so that they hugged her sculpted waist, “let’s get to work.”
We had settled on the American rumba, which was more of a partner dance than some while still being, as Karla had told me with a wink, “sexy as all get-out.” With Karla playing the male role, I had finally mastered the basic steps, but the addition of the petticoat did present new challenges.
“Quick, quick, slow,” Karla chanted, as we moved around the wooden dance floor Richard had installed in half of his front room.
I stumbled a few times, catching my foot in the petticoat, but after a while, with Karla’s help, I began to find my way. We practiced to a mix of songs, all with a rumba beat.
“Better to learn to various songs rather than just one,” Karla had said when I’d questioned this approach. “Unless you’ve definitely settled on one yet.”
“No. Richard hired a student group from Clarion that plays big band and jazz and so on. They’re really good, but I haven’t found the prefect song for this dance yet,” I took a deep breath. I still got winded during rehearsals, unlike Karla, who seemed unaffected by any exertion. “I have their lead player’s number, though, so I can give them a heads-up when I finally settle on something.”
“Good idea. Unless it’s already in their set list, they’ll need to practice it before the wedding.” Karla looked down at me, widening her hazel eyes. “In other words, you’d better decide soon.”
“I know,” I said, as the music ended and we took a break. “I just want it to be the perfect choice.”
“After all this work, I agree with you,” Karla said, rolling her head in a stretch that swung her chin-length cap of brown hair.
I stepped back to lean against the wooden barre that ran the length of the mirrors. “I want you and Richard to dance together too.”
Karla raised her eyebrows. “When have you ever known us not to, given a dance floor and music?”
“Right. What was I thinking?” I pressed my lower back into the barre. “I think I need some water. Can I get you some?”
“Sure, that would be great,” Karla said.
I headed into the kitchen to grab two bottles of water, but as I returned to the front room, the doorbell chimed. “Wonder who that could be?” I handed Karla one of the bottles and crossed to the front door. Peering out through the peephole in the door, I saw Brad Tucker.
“Hello,” I said, opening the door. “What’s up? Richard’s out of town if you were looking for him.”
“I wasn’t.” Brad removed his hat and nodded an acknowledgment to Karla, who’d hung back near the studio’s wall of mirrors. “Sorry to bother you, but Ms. Talbot told me you might have a better idea about your brother’s whereabouts.”
“Scott? Why are you looking for him?”
Brad twisted the brim of his hat. “We need him to come into the station. There’s some questions we’d like to ask him.”
“In relation to the Oscar Selvaggio case?” I asked, fighting to keep my tone light.
“I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny that,” Brad said.
I stared into his steely blue eyes. They gave nothing away, which frustrated but didn’t surprise me. “The thing is, I’m not going to be able to provide any more help than Aunt Lydia could. I really don’t know where Scott is. I saw him drive off about forty-five minutes ago, but I have no idea where he was going.” I wiped a trace of sweat from my upper lip with the back of one finger. “Sorry, we were rehearsing something, as you might’ve guessed,” I added, holding out a section of my practice petticoat. “Anyway, you could check with Ethan Payne. He and Scott have been spending time together. Maybe Scott went to visit him.”
“No, we checked that already. Mr. Payne is on duty at the fire station today.”
I shrugged. “Then I have no idea.”
“All right. It was worth a shot.” As Brad put his hat back on, amusement softened his stern expression. “Rehearsing, huh? This wouldn’t be for a first dance or something, now, would it?”
“Maybe, but please don’t mention anything to Richard.”
“A surprise? Sounds like fun. By the way”—Brad tugged his hat down a little lower on his forehead—“you might as well know, since I’m sure it will get around soon enough. Alison and I got engaged over the weekend.”
I clapped my hands. “That’s wonderful!”
“Yeah, so maybe I should start taking notes on all your preparations.” Brad’s smile turned boyish and shy. “Never done this before, you know.”
“The most important thing is to do what you and Alison want, not what anyone else tells you to do.” I stepped forward and impulsively gave Brad a quick hug. “I’m very happy for you. And Alison, of course.”
As I stepped back, I noted Brad’s flushed cheeks, which I knew indicated embarrassment rather than disapproval. “Thanks. Well,” he said, glancing into the studio, where Karla was stretching at the barre, “I’ll let you get back to it. And I promise to keep my mouth shut about this.” His lips quirked into a smile. “To tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to seeing Richard’s face when you spring this surprise on him.”
“Me too,” I said with a wink. “And as for Scott—he can be something of a loner. He may have just decided to take a drive to collect his thoughts. He does that sort of thing quite often.”
“That may be, but when you do see him, tell him he needs to contact the department right away. It’s important.” Brad gave a tip of his hat. “Have a good day, Amy.”
“You too,” I said as he turned away.
I waited until he was back in his cruiser before closing and locking the door. Wandering back into the studio portion of the front room, I met Karla’s inquiring gaze with a little shake of my head. “He just wanted to talk to my brother.”
“So I heard.” Karla crossed to the sound equipment set up on the far wall. “From what Richard’s told me, Scott’s a bit of a mystery.” She flipped through a stack of CDs piled on top of the shelves.
“He has a classified job, so yeah, he tends to keep things pretty close to the vest,” I said.
Karla held up a CD. “Here’s an option. Part of a mix that Rich apparently recorded for his studio. ‘Sway,’ sung by Michael Bublé. That has a rumba beat, and it would be wedding appropriate.”
I burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry,” I said, as I collected myself. “I should’ve thought of that right away. It would be perfect. It’s actually something Richard played for me on one of our first dates.”
Karla grinned. “Seducing you with dance, was he? The naughty boy.” She looked me up and down. “Did it work?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Then it is perfect. Your chance to seduce him back. Although you don’t really need to. He’s already mad about you. But still—it will be fun to see you match his moves with finesse.” Karla popped the CD into the player and turned to face me. “That being said, maybe we should rehearse a little more.”
“Must we?” I flexed my right foot, which was sore.
“If you want to keep up with your husband during your first dance, yes, we must. Besides”—Karla tossed her hair as she strode toward me—“my reputation as a teacher is at stake.”
“Well, in that case,” I said, stepping forward to meet her, “we’d better practice the rest of the evening.”