“I’m okay now,” I babbled. “There was someone… He knocked me over. Tav is my partner. He’s the one who called you. I don’t know why… he searched for…” I gestured toward the kitchen, knowing I wasn’t making sense.
“You might want to get a robe, ma’am,” the cop said, lowering his gun. “Let me see some identification, sir,” he said to Tav as I scurried to my bedroom. The wispy robe that went with the nightgown was not going to give much extra coverage. I yanked Great-aunt Laurinda’s tatty flannel robe from the back of the closet, where it had been when I moved in, and shoved my arms into the sleeves. Tying the belt at the waist, I returned to the kitchen, comfortable but frumpy in the plaid robe that draped around my torso and puddled on the floor. Great-aunt Laurinda had been a tall woman.
Tav bit back a smile at the sight. The officer had been joined by his partner, a competent-looking woman with sandy hair in a braid tucked down the back of her shirt. They questioned us for what seemed like hours, asking me to go over the night’s events several times. Showing me where the back door was splintered near the lock, they suggested the would-be thief had used a crowbar or something similar to pry it open. “Not a professional,” the female cop opined.
When I led them into the front parlor, Tav following, I gasped to see that it, too, had been searched. I hadn’t noticed it in the dark. A stack of dance magazines had cascaded from a pile by the couch; I must have slipped on one of them. Great-aunt Laurinda’s papers from a small Oriental chest I kept meaning to sort through were strewn higgledy-piggledy around the room. “Any idea what the intruder might have been after?” the male cop asked.
I hesitated a second before saying, “No,” and Tav shot me a suddenly suspicious look.
“Strange he overlooked your purse,” the female officer said, her eyes narrowing as if she suspected there was more to the story than I was sharing.
I met her gaze blandly, having no intention of regaling them with my theories about Corinne Blakely’s death and a mysterious manuscript no one could verify ever existed, but which the greater part of the ballroom dance community thought I had possession of.
Finally, the police officers were ready to leave. They handed me a business card, suggested I contact my insurance agent and get my door repaired, and told me to call them if I thought of anything else or found something missing. “Thank you very much,” I said gratefully. As they pulled away in their squad car I noticed lights on in the windows of a couple of neighbors’ houses. Great, they probably thought they’d see me on the next installment of America’s Most Wanted.
I returned to the kitchen to find Tav pouring the coffee I’d put on for the officers but which they’d declined. “Actually, I could use something stronger,” I said, pulling a bottle of lemon vodka from the freezer.
Tav raised his brows.
“It was for a party,” I explained, uncapping the bottle. “A hostess gift. I forgot to take it with me.” I poured a couple fingers into a juice glass and looked a question at Tav.
He shook his head. “I am driving.”
It crossed my mind that if the police hadn’t arrived when they did, he might not have been driving home, and I took too large a swallow of the vodka. The lemon and cold stung my throat and I coughed. Now I knew why I didn’t drink vodka. I set the half-full glass on the counter with a grimace and reached for the mug of coffee Tav held out.
“So,” he said mildly after I’d had a couple of warming sips, “perhaps you will tell me what you think your intruder was after? Do you know who it was?”
“No!” I saw doubt in his eyes. “No, really. I have a guess about what he-or she-was looking for, but I don’t know who it was. I would’ve told the cops if I did.”
Tav nodded, his gaze steady on my face. “So he was looking for…?”
“Corinne Blakely’s manuscript?”
He raised his brows so they furrowed his forehead. “Why in the world would anyone expect to find it here?”
I winced. “Because I told Greta Monk I had it,” I said in a small voice. Before he could interrupt, I hurried through my explanation.
He didn’t call me a lying, deceitful, dishonest wretch, as I was afraid he might. Instead, he asked, exasperated, “Did you not realize you might be putting yourself in danger?”
“Not until Danielle mentioned it,” I confessed. “And even then I didn’t think I’d be in real danger.”
“Well, you must let everyone know that you do not, in fact, have Corinne’s manuscript or notes or anything else.”
“I already tried. No one believed me.” There was probably a fairy tale that dealt with a girl who lied and was murdered or eaten by a monster as a result, but I couldn’t think of one. “I’m a moron.”
“You are not a moron.” Tav set his mug on the counter and crossed to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “You are merely too impulsive, querida.”
“Don’t call me that.” The words were out before I could stop them.
Tav stepped back, startled.
“Rafe used to-”
He nodded in instant understanding, but the gentle moment had passed as the specter of his dead half brother rose between us. “Of course. Let me help you secure this door and I will be on my way. We can discuss this in the morning, when we are not so tired.”
I glanced at the kitchen clock, startled to see it was after four. I admitted I didn’t have a toolbox and didn’t know where the hammer I used to hang pictures was, so Tav and I scooted the heavy kitchen table across the floor so it blocked the back door. “That will have to do,” Tav said, clearly unsatisfied with the security arrangements. “I could stay-”
“It’ll be fine,” I insisted, yawning. “I’ll get someone to fix it first thing.”
Allowing me to convince him, Tav let me show him to the front door. As I swung it open to admit the chill breath of almost-dawn, he looked down at me, the expression in his deep-set eyes sending a tingle through me. “We will continue our other… discussion later.” Without waiting for me to answer-which was a good thing, because his comment flustered me and I would only have stuttered something stupid-he stepped into the darkness. I closed the door, shot the dead bolt, and watched through the narrow windows inset on either side of the door as Tav strode to his car.
When I saw the headlights come on, I made myself turn away, hoping our one half-kiss in the aftermath of danger would not make things awkward between us in the studio. We were business partners; that was all, I reminded myself as I headed to my bedroom. Anything romantic would only complicate matters. And my life had enough complications as it was.
Chapter 23
The morning brought some clarity of mind, but no insight into who had broken in last night. My headache had diminished, but I was achy and bruised in several places, probably because the intruder had knocked into me hard. Dressed in pink shorts and a tank top for my first class, I inhaled the steam from my first cup of coffee and made a mental list of intruder candidates. Greta Monk and her hubby topped the list, since not only did they think I had the manuscript, but they clearly wanted it badly-fifteen thousand dollars badly. Good thing I didn’t have it, I thought ruefully, because that sum would tempt me to sell it, even though it wasn’t mine. Fifteen thousand would keep Graysin Motion solvent for a couple of months, at least.
Marco Ingelido also knew, because he’d overheard Monk. I thought about Marco. His reaction yesterday had surprised me. He was angry, yes, at discovering I had (as he thought) the manuscript. But in addition to the anger, he’d shown real fear, almost despair. And he’d been pleading with me to destroy the manuscript. I felt a pang of compassion. Whatever Corinne had planned to write about Marco, it was something much more damaging than an affair with an older woman.