With a nod, she herded her team into the ballroom while I returned to my office and got to work. I took a break at noon to attend my ballet class-rarely had I needed to dance more-and was walking home, pleasantly tired and sore, when a familiar white limousine glided to the curb beside me. Phineas Drake. The rear window purred down and I was surprised to see not the lawyer, but Victoria Bazán.
Chapter 19
I stopped dead, causing the man behind me to bump into me. He shouldered past with an annoyed grunt.
“Miss Graysin. Stacy,” Victoria said. “Do you have time to talk to me for a minute? Mr. Drake loaned me his limo so that we could have a chat.”
“You stole my wallet,” I said from the sidewalk.
“I’m sorry.” Her dark eyes pleaded with me.
“Oh, all right,” I said ungraciously, curiosity more than anything else propelling me to the limo’s door.
Victoria sat on the back bench usually occupied by Drake, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, her dark hair loose. A suited man I didn’t recognize sat beside her, short hair and a stern face making him look like Hollywood’s idea of a federal agent. He gave me a sharp glance as I climbed in, then returned to contemplating the view out the side window.
“My minder,” Victoria said.
That didn’t exactly clarify things, but I sat opposite them, feeling compelled to apologize for my sweaty leotard and tights. “Ballet class,” I explained.
Victoria waved my apology aside. An awkward silence fell, as if she didn’t know where to start, so I prompted: “You were going to tell me what the heck is going on. How did you hook up with Drake?”
She laughed mirthlessly. “He caught up with me last night when I tried to use your credit card at a hotel in Richmond. His investigator, a woman named Mary-”
“Pearce. We’ve met.”
“She found me and… kidnapped me!”
“Really?” I said, politely disbelieving.
“Well,” Victoria amended, “she fingerprinted me and made me go with her to see Phineas. He’s something else,” she said, admiration and disgruntlement mixed up in her voice.
It hadn’t taken her long to get on first-name terms with the lawyer, I noted. “What did he do?”
“He told me that my fingerprints were on the gun that killed Rafe-”
“What!”
“Stop interrupting,” she said pettishly. “I guess I didn’t tell you the whole story the other night. Rafe tried to give me a gun on Wednesday when he drove me up to the cabin. He handed it to me, so my prints were on it, but I didn’t want it, so I gave it back to him.”
“Really?” I let my disbelief bleed into my voice.
“Yes, really!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was afraid. Afraid I’d kill Héctor. I didn’t want to be tempted.”
“How did Phineas Drake know your fingerprints were on the gun?”
“He faxed my prints to the police.”
I was sure that even if her prints hadn’t been on the gun, he’d have found a way to incriminate Victoria anyway. Phineas wasn’t above lying or manufacturing evidence, in my opinion. But Victoria had lied, too, at least by omission. I didn’t know whether or not to believe her, so I made a “go on” motion.
“Phineas said he could use the prints on the gun to prove I’d killed Rafe. I wouldn’t end up in jail because of diplomatic immunity, but I’d be deported to Argentina, where Héctor would find me within minutes. I’d be dead within two hours of landing at the airport.”
“I’m assuming there’s an ‘or’ in here.”
She nodded. “Or I could talk to your DEA”-she nodded toward her minder-“and provide details about Héctor’s business dealings, and they would help me reestablish myself somewhere else, maybe in Canada or Australia.”
“The witness protection program?”
“Something like that.”
“So your husband’s a drug dealer?”
“He has many business interests,” Victoria waffled. “He-” She stopped as her minder shook his head sharply. “You’re safer not knowing the details.”
The sincerity in her voice made me shiver. That’s all I needed-an Argentinean drug lord thinking I was clued in on his smuggling routes or something. “I don’t want the details,” I said hastily. “What does all this have to do with me, other than I assume you’re going to return my wallet?”
“Phineas has your stuff,” Victoria said. “Part of the deal is that he’s sharing my fingerprints with the police. Since I can’t be tried here, anyway, and I’ll be set up somewhere else, it can’t hurt me and it will get you off the hook for Rafe’s murder.”
I leaned back against the cushy leather, stunned. “But… did you kill Rafe?”
“Of course not!” Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“If the police think you did, they’ll stop hunting for the real killer.”
“Phineas seemed more concerned with ensuring the police don’t arrest you than with hunting down the murderer,” Victoria said.
“So the murderer gets to wander around, scot-free? I don’t think so.” I didn’t try to hide my indignation.
Victoria shrugged. “Take it up with Drake.”
“I certainly will.”
The minder tapped his watch and Victoria grimaced. “Time’s up.” She looked forlorn, and I tried to place myself in her shoes: betraying her husband to the cops, going into exile alone, leaving behind her family and friends. Her situation had echoes of Taryn’s, but at least Taryn had Sawyer. Both women were object lessons on how one bad decision-not pausing for a condom, saying “I do” with the wrong man-could totally alter the course of your life.
“Take care,” I told Victoria.
She smiled ruefully. “Always.”
As I stood in a semicrouch to climb out the door the chauffeur had opened, the man beside Victoria spoke for the first time. “Is it true you’re a champion ballroom dancer?” he asked, leaning forward to look at me around Victoria.
Startled, I nodded. He had rather attractive blue eyes when he wasn’t concentrating on looking grim and threatening.
“Cool. Can my girlfriend and I come for lessons? She wants to learn the West Coast Swing like they do on Ballroom with the B-Listers.”
“Sure,” I said, bemused. I pulled a slightly dented business card from my bag. “Here.”
Alone on the sidewalk, I hitched my dance bag onto my shoulder and headed for home, intending to have a heart-to-heart with Mr. Phineas Drake.
Mr. Drake was in court, his secretary politely informed me when I called. She’d let him know I was interested in a meeting. I could hear “brush off” in her voice, but I thanked her and hung up gently, rather than slamming the phone down like I wanted to. Picking the phone up again immediately, I dialed Tav Acosta’s number.
“I just talked to Victoria Bazán,” I announced before he could even say hello. “Drake has set it up so the police think she killed your brother, but I don’t think she did, so the killer’s going to get away with it.”
To his credit, Tav didn’t say, “What the hell are you babbling about?” Instead, he said, “I am on my way over. Give me forty-five minutes.”
Feeling antsy, I returned to the studio, where the whir of the refinisher’s sander practically deafened me. The cleaning crew had gone and I was impressed with how much lighter the walls looked, now that they had removed the film of smoke and chemicals. Spotting me, the refinisher shut down his machine and pulled off the white mask that covered the lower half of his face. “It’s coming along,” he observed. “I’ll do the first coat of polyurethane tomorrow and another couple coats by the end of the week. Let it cure over the weekend and you should be good to go early next week.”
“Thanks,” I said, relieved that we could resume classes in the ballroom so soon.
“Oh, here.” He dug in his pocket. “I found this wedged between the baseboard and the floor when I removed the baseboards. It probably got pretty wet, but it doesn’t look burned. I don’t know if you can get anything off it, though.” He handed me a small red item with a metal piece at one end.