Free Aria in Ice by Flo Fitzpatrick Page B

poor
piano tuner had doubtless had a heart attack and had been
discovered below only a few hours earlier. Franz was not having a
great time. He was on a mission to discover Corbin’ s and Johnny’s
real interest in Kouzlo Noc . I gathered that silence had
been the order of the day during that very odd trip to deliver the
corpse of one piano tuner with a bad heart.
    Corbin didn’t look pleased. He stopped our
banter with a single statement. “Miss Fouchet. Abby. Veronika tells
me you’re interested in the history of the castle. Is that
correct?”
    “When did she say that?”
    “After you and Mr. Gerard left the graveyard
yesterday”
    Franz coughed. “Graveyard? You met Abby in a
graveyard?”
    “Yes. She was… what was the explanation, Miss
Fouchet?”
    I casually leaned against the windowpane.
“Hey, I was being a good little location scout. Looking for exotic
shots. Then again, to be honest—that particular graveyard? I was
nosy. Simple.” I squared my shoulders and prepared to drop a bomb.
“And of course, I was interested in discovering who’d been playing
the flute earlier somewhere near the north tower. Though I thought
I saw a gardening type troll with a trowel, who was perhaps then
lost in the cemetery.”
    Franz and Corbin both whipped their heads
around to me. Franz spoke first while Corbin merely raised an
eyebrow. “You heard a flute?” That was quickly echoed by Corbin, “A
flute? Where?”
    I didn’t have a chance to answer, which was
just as well since I had no desire to tell either Franz or Corbin
that I’d heard music with no one actually holding it in hand—or at
mouth- and that I wished I’d never mentioned that instrument in
mixed company. Dumb move by Fouchet.
    Fortunately, I was too busy thanking all the
deities for the interruption created by the entrance of the tall
newcomer who came striding toward me with a grin of pure, delicious
evil. Shay Martin. Choreographer, director and instigator of
trouble whenever possible.

Chapter 8
     
     
    As I’d informed Franz yesterday, Shay and I
really did meet in dance class before she’d pursuaded me to join
her at the residence on Seventy-Ninth and Amsterdam along with our
other roommate, Cherry Ripe, a former topless dancer at Manhattan
club on Eighth Avenue. Shay and I had become friends in class, then
bonded into true sisterhood through various emotional, physical and
vocational traumas suffered in and around‘Seven-D.” Which Shay
joked was her bra size. She is a big girl for a dancer,
which is one reason she turned to choreography and direction. The
other is that she’s damn talented at both and sure as heck making
more money than we lowly players.
    She crossed the room in three graceful
strides and enveloped me in an excruciatingly tight bear hug.
“Little Abby! What a damn weird and wonderful room. Does anyone
live here other than dead people?”
    I hugged her back and ignored her statement
and question. “Sass-shay! Not that I’m not thrilled to see your
smiling face in Prague, but exactly why are you in Prague? I mean,
now, not in a week, like after the wedding?”
    We drew apart. She growled, “Because that
idiot Kathy and her even more idiotic fiancé, Jean-Claude Lafitte
the Nineteenth or whatever, had another huge fight and called off
the wedding for the sixth time in five days. I said, ‘Nuts to
this. I’m not waiting around playing peacemaker until the two of
them decide either to elope or just shoot each other.’ I’m
tellin’ ya, it’ll take a Nobel Prize winning mediator to solve the
war between them!”
    She suddenly realized we were not the only
two folks in the room. “Who the hell are the hunks? Chee –wow
–wah! Oh wait. Franz! You sexy man, you look even better than
you did at the screen test.”
    I squinched my face with a “ damn Shay,
just be rude and embarrass the guys, why doncha? ”
expression.
    She shrugged. “What? If these guys don’t get
that they’re foxier than critters at a