Read Online Quickstep to Murder by Ella Barrick - Free Book Online

I’ll see you in an hour.”
     
    General Ulysses S. Grant presided over the memorial from atop a placid-looking bronze horse. Larger-thanlife maned lions lay at the four corners of Grant’s stone dais, facing out. Perhaps they were watching for danger: pigeons or taggers. I wasn’t quite sure the lions worked with the Civil War–era general and the cannon behind him with soldiers draped over it, but they probably had some mythological significance. A few tourists loitered around the statues and a boy of eight or nine climbed onto the lion nearest me to have his photo taken, but I didn’t see Sherry Indrebo. I was just lowering myself to sit on the marble stairs when I spotted her coming toward me from the Capitol. Her brisk walk and the way she focused straight forward set her apart from the herd of tourists.
    “This is an absolute nightmare,” she said as she drew even with me. A frown pinched her refined features and, despite the oomph of her red suit, she looked washed out and somehow older than the last time I’d seen her. Maybe it was the harsh sunlight.
    Noting that she hadn’t bothered with “Hello, Stacy,” or a “Thanks for coming, Stacy,” I waited for her to tell me why she’d dragged me all the way downtown.
    “I can’t believe someone shot Rafe. It’s unbelievable.” Her fingers twiddled the strand of marble-sized pearls gracing her neck.
    I reared back slightly at her words. “I didn’t tell you Rafe was shot,” I said carefully.
    She gave me a scornful look, completely unfazed by the implication that her knowledge was suspicious. “I made some calls after we talked,” she said. “To the police. They say an arrest is imminent.”
    “Really?” I said, trying to swallow around the lump that swelled in my throat. “Did they say who?”
    Surprisingly, she didn’t seem too concerned about the identity of Rafe’s killer. She waved my question away as her eyes scanned the disinterested tourists as if she suspected one of them might be taping our conversation. Paranoia: the hallmark of the true Washington insider. “What I have to discuss with you is . . . sensitive. Can I trust you not to tell anyone?”
    “Maybe,” I said. Why in the world would the congresswoman from Minnesota want to tell me something sensitive?
    Her mouth twisted with dissatisfaction. “This is awkward.” She paced toward the edge of the pool that reflected Grant’s image and motioned for me to join her. My patio dress swished around my ankles as I stepped closer to the pool and stared into its inky depths. A hopeful duck swam over and looked up at us. “I left something at Rafe’s condo the last time I was there,” she said in a low voice. “I need you to get it for me.”
    “What?” I was so startled by her request that the word came out louder than I intended.
    “Shh.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m sure you can understand why I can’t go myself to fetch it. In my position, the media would be all over me if someone saw me and they might . . . misinterpret my presence, put a negative spin on what was a completely aboveboard dance partnership.”
    Uh-huh . Just like I was currently misinterpreting the fact that she’d obviously been to Rafe’s place.
    “I can’t afford to be connected in any way to a murder investigation, not when I’m up for reelection this fall.”
    I’d bet she didn’t need her husband and chief campaign contributor getting wind of her visits to a single man’s condo. “Why me?”
    “Well, I figured since you and Rafe were . . . Since he and you . . . I thought you might have a key.”
    I did have a key, as a matter of fact. It was in a box with one of Rafe’s sweaters I’d found a few days after our breakup, the bottle of contact lens solution and toothbrush he’d left in my bathroom, the half-finished thriller abandoned on my bedside table, and some other odds and ends. I’d tried to give him the box a couple of times, but he always had some excuse for not