Free Quickstep to Murder by Ella Barrick

unsure if I wanted to invade Rafe’s privacy by cruising through his e-mail and files, and my hand brushed the mug, jolting drops of old coffee onto my wrist. I jerked back as if it had come alive and licked me. The liquid was still warm. My gaze darted to the entryway. The coat closet door was an inch ajar, not closed as when I’d come in. Understanding crashed down on me like an avalanche, leaving me cold and gasping for a breath. No one had come in while I’d been in the bedroom. Someone had left .

Chapter 5
    Carmelo whickered at me and snuffled at the pockets of my patio dress for the carrots he was sure I carried. Mom pushed his head away, saying, “Get away, greedy.”
    I took a deep breath of the barn air, taking in the scents of hay and clean water and horse dung, and felt my shoulders relax. I hadn’t known where to go after leaving Rafe’s condo. The realization that someone had been there when I arrived, hidden in the closet, gave me the creeps. I couldn’t leave fast enough. On the quiet street in front of the building, I looked both ways, nervously searching for signs that anyone was paying attention to me. A guy in a Dodge Charger pulling out of the condo garage gave me an appreciative once-over, but that didn’t count—it happens all the time if you’re tall, blond, and stacked. I didn’t see anyone who looked like a cop, or anyone lurking behind a tree. A black woman sat at a bus stop, reading a romance novel. A pair of young mothers walked past briskly, pushing strollers. A man ran a leaf blower, spraying trash and dust off the sidewalk into the street.
    I hurried to my yellow Volkswagen Beetle and got in, locked the doors and sat there a moment, unsure where to go. If I went home, the cops might show up and arrest me. I had to go home eventually, but I wanted to delay it as long as possible. Danielle was working, so I couldn’t meet her someplace. I could go to Dad’s or to Mom’s. After some thought, Mom won out, primarily because her last name was different than mine since she and Dad divorced, and I didn’t think it would be as easy for the police to track me to her place.
     
    “I can’t believe Rafe was murdered,” Mom said for the third time since I’d arrived fifteen minutes ago. “I never thought he was the man for you, dear, but murdered!” She bent to lift Carmelo’s hoof and work out some pebbles with a hoof pick.
    Mom does horses. Horses and basketball. That’s why the three current inmates of her six-stall barn outside Albie, Virginia, were Carmelo, Kobe (a mare), and Bird, the twenty-two-year-old bay gelding I’d learned to ride on. I patted his neck, watching Mom work. She moved with economy of motion, and her slim, angular body still looked great in form-fitting riding breeches. From behind, with her graying red hair covered by a riding helmet, you’d think she was thirty instead of fifty-four. Riding might be good for her figure, but it had sabotaged my folks’ marriage. My father got tired of the vast sums of money spent on horsey well-being and dressage training, and Mom’s frequent absences that left him working full time and taking care of three kids as well.
    When he’d said “It’s me or the nags,” she went with the horses and didn’t even try for custody of me and Danielle and Nick. I’d been upset with that as a teenager, but I’d gotten over it. Mostly. Danielle still had issues with Mom, but I sort of understood about passion trumping all else. When I fell in love with ballroom dancing, Mom was the one who persuaded Dad to let me keep at it—he wanted me to take up a scholarship sport like volleyball—despite the steep competition bills. She said it was important to follow one’s passion. She even fronted the money for coaching and dresses with her dressage winnings, and came to watch me dance when she could. At prom time, I might have wished she’d been hovering in the foyer like other moms, snapping photos of me and my date, instead of in