Free Quickstep to Murder by Ella Barrick Page A

Brussels or Germany at an international equestrian event, or that she’d been around to take me to the ER when I broke my arm falling out of a lift, but she was around when she could be.
    Picking up a curry comb, I began brushing Bird, who enjoyed being groomed. If he’d been a cat, he’d have been purring. “I’m afraid the police are going to arrest me, Mom.”
    “You didn’t shoot him, did you?” she asked, with no more angst in the question than if she’d asked, “Do you want syrup for your pancakes?”
    “Of course not!” I said so loudly that Bird sidled away.
    “Then we should call my brother, Nico,” she said decisively, “although I think he’s in Barcelona. He’s good at this sort of thing.”
    I didn’t ask “What sort of thing?” Some questions you just don’t want answered.
    “Are you okay?” She straightened and brushed dust and horse hair from her jeans, her blue eyes fixed on mine.
    I saw real concern in her expression and smiled to reassure her. “About being arrested or about Rafe?”
    “Rafe,” she said.
    “Not really,” I admitted, trying to still my lower lip, which wanted to tremble. “I thought I hated him, but—And he was killed in my house! Well, in the studio, but it’s part of my house. And—” And now I’d have to run Graysin Motion by myself and I hated the money end of the studio, and I didn’t have a dance partner, and I might get arrested and spend the rest of my life in prison, teaching the cha-cha to a gaggle of hard women doing time for stabbing their pimps or dismembering abusive spouses.
    Mom seemed to understand all that without my having to spell it out. She patted my hand—a rare gesture of physical affection for her—and gave me her generalpurpose prescription for all ills, physical or mental: “Let’s go for a ride.”
    I picked up a fold of my patio dress and waved it at her. “In this?”
    “You can borrow my old jodhpurs, and a pair of boots. Luckily, our feet are the same size.”
    Yes, but I was four inches taller than she was. However, I obediently followed her into the house to change.
     
    It was late afternoon before I finally drove home, weary from the ride and knowing my legs and ass would punish me the next day, but feeling more relaxed than I had since finding Rafe. Horses are simple creatures—big, beautiful, and brave, but blissfully simple—and I’d enjoyed rebonding with Bird. And Mom. She, too, was easy to be with because the only things she was interested in were horses and international dressage competition and related topics. She had no interest in politics—she probably couldn’t name the governor and would be interested in foreign relations only if it impacted her ability to compete overseas—and even less in popular culture.
    I didn’t see any police loitering on my doorstep, so I pulled into the narrow alley that ran behind the row houses and maneuvered my Beetle under the carport’s sagging roof. I’d barely made it through the rear door into the kitchen when the doorbell summoned me to the front of the house. “Coming,” I called, figuring it was Danielle with dinner. Good thing, too, because I was starving.
    I flung the door open to see detectives Lissy and Troy and two uniformed officers. I felt myself flush red and then pale as little shivers vibrated through my body. Sherry Indrebo had been right—the police were here to arrest me. My mouth opened but no sounds came out. Detective Lissy held up some folded sheets of paper. His red lips glistened moistly and I stared at them, unable to refocus.
    “We have a search warrant,” he said, slapping the pages into the hand I automatically extended. “For your personal quarters, your car, and the dance studio.” When I didn’t move, too shocked to make my feet work, he added, “You have to let us in.”
    I stepped aside, and the four of them entered. Detective Lissy provided some low-voiced instructions and they split up. I finally found my voice as Lissy