I returned his toothy smile, feeling confident myself. “We make a good pair,” I said.
“Da,” he agreed. “You is fulfilling your potentiality with Vitaly. None of that romance to detracting from technique.” He flipped his hands as if shooing romance away.
I hadn’t thought about that. Had Rafe’s and my relationship detracted from our dancing? I always thought that it gave us a bit of extra zing, especially in the smoldering Latin dances, but maybe we’d been a bit too careful of each other’s feeling in practice, not insisting on perfection, not being ruthless enough in our critiques of each other’s performance.
“You should being gay,” Vitaly said, grinning widely and throwing back his head to laugh like a donkey braying.
“I’ll consider it,” I said, closing the door behind him.
In my office, I wrestled with entry forms and fees for the next dance competition we’d be taking students to, until the logistics of it all drove me batty. I was almost willing to accept even Solange as a partner if she’d be in charge of the business end and let me focus on the dancing and teaching. I e-mailed all the students to let them know classes would resume as normal next week and to offer a “fire sale” discount of ten percent off for the month to coax back some of the wiffle-wafflers. I couldn’t afford to do it, but I also couldn’t afford to lose any more students. I resigned myself to subsisting on homemade bean and cheese tortillas, canned tuna, and carrots for the next month. An incoming e-mail from Sherry Indrebo said “THANKS!” for finding her flash drive and let me know she’d be by later today to pick it up. Swell.
When a knock sounded on the outer door shortly after six o’clock, it was neither Tav nor Sherry Indrebo, as I expected. Instead, a man with battleship-gray hair, wearing a belted navy raincoat, stood with his back to the door, looking out across the neighborhood. At the rasp of the dead bolt, he turned and I recognized Sherry’s husband, Ruben Indrebo. The light rain misted his glasses and blurred his slight smile.
I pulled the door open. “Come in,” I said. “I hadn’t realized it was raining.”
“Just a sprinkle,” he said, stepping in and running his left hand over his damp hair. His right hand held a cane and he leaned on it slightly.
“I guess you’re here for the flash drive,” I said, leading the way to the office. “I know Sherry’s anxious to get it back.”
“Indeed.” Instead of following me into the office, Indrebo continued to the junction with the hall and looked around. “A beautiful old home. It seems quiet,” he observed.
“We’re not back to our full schedule until next week,” I said, explaining about the floor. Since he seemed interested in a tour, I stepped across the hall and opened the door to the empty ballroom. Newly applied polyurethane shone slickly and the sharp odor rose in almost visible waves. I coughed.
“I heard about the fire,” Indrebo said in his mild voice. “What a shame. Do they have any idea how it started?”
“Arson. The police arrested a guy.” I didn’t feel like going into the details; it made me uncomfortable to admit that a student I’d known well had done such a thing. Let the Indrebos read about it in the paper when Mark Downey came to trial.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Indrebo asked, surprising me with a focused stare. His eyes hovered between blue and slate and I felt some of the force I was sure had propelled him to business success.
“No, not really.”
“I’d think you’d be nervous to dance in here, what with your partner being murdered here.” He pointed with his cane to a spot eerily close to where Rafe had lain.
“I guess I’m not the nervous type,” I said lightly, closing the door. “Look, I don’t mean to seem rude, but I’ve got a dinner thing.” At least, I hoped my meeting with Tav would turn into a dinner date. “Let me get that flash drive for you.”
“Where did you find it anyway?” he asked. “In there?” He nodded toward the ballroom. “Or maybe you’ve had it all along.”
I gave him a startled look. “No, of course not. The floor refinisher found it wedged under a baseboard in the-” I bit off the words, suddenly realizing that he knew too much. How did he know where I’d found Rafe? All the paper said was “at a dance studio in Old Town, Alexandria.” And why would he think I’d found the flash drive in the ballroom? Unless-My heart rate seemed to double, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard I was afraid Indrebo would hear. I stopped just outside the office door. “You know,” I said, trying to sound mildly frustrated, not scared witless, “I left it downstairs on my dresser. Wait here and I’ll be right back with it.”
“I don’t think so.” His voice didn’t get louder, but steel threaded through the words. A gun appeared in his hand, aimed at my stomach, and I gaped at him wordlessly. “You must think I’m a fool, Miss Graysin.”
“No, no, I don’t,” I stuttered. Killer, yes. Fool, no.
A smile played at the corners of his mouth, like I amused him. “Your partner made the same mistake of underestimating me. When he tried to blackmail my wife, he took on me, too, little though he understood that at the time.”
“Rafe tried to blackmail Sherry?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he said wearily. “I’m sure you were in on it with him.”
“I wasn’t! I didn’t know that-”
“No matter. Step back.”
I took a giant step backward, happy to have a couple more feet between me and the gun. Not that a few feet would make much difference if he shot me. I needed to get out of the confines of the hall to someplace where I could maneuver. I rubbed suddenly damp palms against my jeaned thighs. Surely I could outrun a man with a cane? Maybe, but I couldn’t outrun a bullet.
I played for time, hoping Tav would walk in, preferably with a SWAT team in tow. “What’s on that drive, anyway? I mean, the Post already broke the story, so what’s the big deal?”
“As you well know, the Post only had one story,” Indrebo said, “the one that Acosta sold them, trying to get my wife to pay more for the return of the flash drive. She’d have paid it, too, if I hadn’t told her to leave it to me. It’s not just her political future at stake,” he said, “it’s my business. And as I explained to her when she was reluctant to have me meet Acosta in her place, it’s my business-my money-that keeps her in politics. It’s a symbiotic relationship-I have financed her campaigns and she’s finally on the right committees-do you have any idea how long it took to maneuver her onto the House Armed Services committee?-to nudge business my way or pass certain laws that make the business climate more… favorable.” He laughed, a mellow, grandpa-ish sound that didn’t even hint at his ruthlessness. “There’s a vote on the next-gen army helo coming up next week and it’s vital for my company that she be at the HCAS meeting to cast her vote and sway any of her compatriots who seem to be waffling.”
“You build helicopters?” I tried to keep him talking.
“Avionics for helicopters,” he corrected me. “Never mind. But we’re talking about hundreds of millions. And now that reporter, that McDill, is sniffing around, trying to connect his story about Sherry planting a spy in the Democrats’ campaign office with Acosta’s death, and I’m told he got the lead from you.” His face hardened and he glared at me. “We’re wasting time. Just give me the drive.”
“It’s downstairs,” I said. “On my dresser.”
He studied me, assessing my truthfulness, then stepped aside and waved me past him with the gun. “You go first. And don’t try anything stupid because I’ll be right behind you with this gun aimed at your spine. I don’t think you’d do much dancing with a backbone shot to splinters.”