Dead on the Dance Floor (20 page)

What? Did both Quinn and Whitelaw, whoever he was, suck so bad at what they did that they couldn't even afford an answering machine?

It was Sunday. What the hell had she been expecting?

She was startled when the phone was suddenly answered. By a human being.

“Whitelaw and O'Casey.”

Her mind went blank.

“Hello? Whitelaw and O'Casey.”

“Sorry, sorry—is Mr. O'Casey in?”

“I'm sorry. He's on vacation. Perhaps you'd like to leave a message for Mr. Whitelaw?”

“Ah, no, thanks. I'll call back. It's Mr. O'Casey I need to speak with.”

“Are you from the Quantico office? I can reach him if need be.”

“No, no, it's a personal matter. Thank you.”

She hung up quickly.

Quantico?

He wasn't just a private investigator. He was FBI. Or had been. Maybe not. Lots of people lived in Quantico, Virginia.

That was bull, and she knew it. He either was, or had been, FBI.

Pleasant, laid-back fisherman, diver, charter manager?

Like hell.

All she knew for certain at that moment was that he had used her.

Tears suddenly stung her eyes, and she brushed them away in self-fury. At the steps, she turned back and looked into the cabin.

“I don't know exactly what you are, Mr. O'Casey, except an absolute asshole!”

She left the boat, forgetting to hit the lock, and she didn't look back.

“T
here's probably no association at all,” Jake told Quinn, looking bleary as he sipped from a mug of coffee.

They weren't outside on the patio that morning. They were in Nick's kitchen. Nick and his wife were still sleeping.

Jake kept a boat moored at the pier, as well, but in the past months, the rocking of the boat at night had kept his wife, fellow officer Ashley Montague Dilessio, awake, so they'd been sleeping in Ashley's old place at Nick's, an apartment off the side of the restaurant/dwelling.

Quinn was certain that the fact Ashley was away in Jacksonville was wearing on Jake's nerves as much as his schedule was. But despite the fact that he was obviously longing to jump into bed, he was taking the time to bring Quinn up-to-date on the latest.

Another corpse.

“Duarte says it's fresh. He knows his stuff, and I've seen them when they've been in the water awhile. This one hasn't,” Jake said. “He probably won't get to the autopsy until tomorrow sometime, but you know him. He's a worker—he was out there when the call came.”

“Did he say anything based on the preliminary?” Quinn asked.

“Rich, at a guess. I'll give you my notes with the exact details, but for the moment…Rolex. Necklace with enough gold to sink a ship and a diamond heart with enough carats to make many a woman green with envy.”

“Hispanic, Anglo, black, Asian?”

“Or mark here for ‘other'—whatever other may be?” Jake asked dryly. “I don't know yet. Dark. Possibly Hispanic. Hell, down here she could have been blond and still Hispanic. Half the South Americans I know look as if they came from Germany. She was dark. Dark hair, dark eyes, deep tan.”

“Any sign of a struggle?”

“She was naked, but if she was raped, there aren't any bruises or signs of violence. Just tracks on her arms.”

“So she was a junkie?”

“I don't know about a junkie. But she'd done some drugs in her day.”

“Did she match up with any recent missing persons reports?” Quinn asked.

“Not so far. All I can say for certain right now is that a young woman's body washed up on the beach. According to Duarte, she probably died last night. She'd been in the water, so she might have been dumped in from a boat. She showed signs of drug abuse, and it's likely she died from an overdose. As soon as I find out more, I'll keep you informed. I still can't figure how the deaths of two women from prescription drugs can tie in with the illegal narcotics scene, but…hell, like you, I think it's odd.”

“Odd enough to reopen Lara Trudeau's case?”

Jake winced. “She wasn't my case and it isn't my call. I'll have to bring it to my superiors, and to do that, I'm going to have to give them more than another drug death in the same vicinity. As a county employee, I have a lot of rules and regs to follow. You can get away with a lot that I can't.”

“Yeah, but you can call a hell of a lot of shots
I
can't,” Quinn reminded him.

Jake shrugged. “The whole damn thing is crazy. It's sad, but true—there's a whole high-flying scene, a lifestyle, on the beach. Drugs flow, no matter what the cops do. Every year, people die of abuse and overdoses, or violence escalated by uppers and downers. It happens. Most cases aren't related. Hell, most of them are random. But anyway, I know your interest. If you want, I'll call you for the autopsy. Duarte won't mind having you there.”

“Yeah, I want, thanks.”

“You all right? You look as ragged as I feel. Who's down at the boat? Someone I know? Hell, someone you know, at least? I hope.”

Quinn angled his head as he stared at his friend sharply. “Someone I know. Let's leave it at that for now, huh?”

“Yep.” Jake rose. “I don't know what the hell I'm doing, drinking coffee, when all I want is a shower and bed.”

Quinn stood, as well. “You're right—coffee probably isn't the best thing for you to be swilling right now. Thanks. I appreciate you letting me in.”

“It may mean nothing.”

“It probably does. Thanks anyway.”

“You bet. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Hope Ashley gets home.”

“She's due in late this afternoon.”

“Good. I'll see you later.”

Quinn let himself out from the side door, facing the parking lot. He could see Shannon's car was gone.

He'd expected her to leave, hadn't he? After all, he'd had no idea how long he was going to be gone. And the way Shannon felt about being seen with a student…

Fraternizing.

He'd been anxious to talk to Jake, and just as anxious to get him away from the boat, since he hadn't wanted to make her uncomfortable.

And still…

A sense of unease plagued him as he headed back to his boat.

 

“Now that's bad,” Justin said.

They were lying on the sand, the group of them, slicked with lotion, feeling the sun, facing the water.

Justin—who had brought his own beach chair—was doing a lot more people watching than loafing.

“What?” Jane demanded.

Justin pointed. “That is just way too much flesh to be seen.”

“Justin, that isn't nice,” Rhianna told him.

“You're right. Not nice at all—it's major-league
nasty.
”

“Hey, who told you that you look so great in a bathing suit, anyway?” Jane teased him.

“I may not look great, but I don't look like a beached whale.”

Shannon took a look at the woman walking along the shoreline. She was definitely a little large for her suit, but the idea that everyone on the beach looked like a swimsuit model was an invention of the movies and nothing to do with reality.

“Justin, you're being cruel,” she told him. “The beach belongs to everyone.”

“Yeah, you're picking on women,” Jane drawled.

“No, I'm not. There, over there. Look at that old geezer, thinking he's sexy 'cause he's got a package in those skimpy shorts. He's got more skin flapping around than a basset hound.”

“Would you stop!” Shannon said.

“I can't. The woman's back. Oh no! She's bending over. I'm blinded by the pure white reflection of her ass.”

“Justin…” Rhianna moaned right along with Shannon.

Cruel, Shannon thought, and yet, Justin was funny. He was trying to make them laugh. He wanted the world to get back to normal.

Jane decided to take care of him. She moved her sunglasses down her nose, staring at him. “Since it's so easy to see over your head, Justin, I just got a good view myself.”

“Fine, make fun of the poor vertically challenged man,” Justin said in mock affront.

“Thank God,” Rhianna said, “that at least the cops aren't still crawling all over the place. Those poor guys trudging through the sand in their uniforms and dress shoes.”

“The cops?” Shannon said.

“Rhianna,” Sam groaned. “We weren't going to say anything, remember?”

Shannon sat up straight, slipping her sunglasses from her nose, staring at them all. “Why were the cops crawling all over the beach?”

“A body washed up,” Sam told her. “Someone must have found the corpse at like two or three in the morning. A whole stretch of the beach was closed off until ten or eleven, when they took her away. They were still talking to people until about five or ten minutes before you got here.”

“A body?” Shannon said.

“Not a dancer,” Justin said quickly.

“How on earth can you know that?” Jane demanded.

Justin sighed. “I heard them talking. She was some kind of ritzy socialite. People who saw her were talking about all the jewelry she had on. Not a stitch of clothing, but tons of jewelry. She had track marks, though. Probably some hot little Latin mama, too into the scene.”

“Found with two tons of jewelry,” Rhianna mused. “Well, she wasn't killed and then robbed, anyway.”

“Who said she was killed?” Jane demanded.

Rhianna sat up, staring at Jane. “What? She accidentally took off all her own clothes and lay down on the beach and died? That's ridiculous.”

Yes, ridiculous, Shannon thought, but no more so than the thought that Lara Trudeau would take that many pills when she was dancing.
Knowingly
take them, at any rate.

“Oh, God,” Justin groaned. “Read the newspapers. Someone dies every day. We can't take each and every one of them to heart. We're getting over Lara. Let's not start obsessing over a stranger, okay?”

“Do we know that she's a stranger?” Jane asked softly.

Justin sighed. “I don't really know anything,” he said. “But come on, think about it. We can't take the woes of the whole world on our shoulders. We're all punch-drunk right now, over Lara and all. We're trying to have a beautiful day.”

“Right,” Shannon said dryly. “It was rude of that woman to be murdered where we were planning on having fun.”

“Definitely murdered, huh?” Jane said.

“Hey, none of us is a cop,” Justin said. “We can talk to Doug O'Casey next time he comes in. He should know.”

“He's a patrolman—not in homicide,” Jane said.

“So? He's got friends. He'll find out the scoop for us,” Justin assured her.

Yes, and if he doesn't, his brother can, Shannon thought. His brother, the private eye. Who was apparently there to watch them. All of them.

Why?

And who had hired him?

What did someone else know that they didn't?

Rhianna rose, dusting the sand from her butt. “I think I've had enough of the sun. I'm going to call it quits, guys. See you in the morning.”

Jane stood, too. “Justin, thanks for getting us all together. It was a good idea, but I think I'm a little baked, too.”

Justin rose with a sigh. “Same here, so…so long.”

“I'm going to hang around a while longer,” Sam told them. He had laced his hands behind his head to lie back and now looked as if he was caught in the middle of an abdominal exercise. “You should stay, Justin.”

“No, he can't—he picked us both up. He has to take us home,” Jane told him. “See you tomorrow, Shannon.”

She shrugged and waved tiredly. Jane and Sam were the studio's rising stars, willing to work hard. She was just feeling absurdly tired.

Disheartened. Hurt. Crushed, actually. She'd thought she might be acquiring a life with a dynamite guy…and she was just being investigated.

Thoroughly, she thought, with a sense of pained amusement.

“Shannon?” Jane repeated.

“Sure. See you in the morning. Ten-ish.”

Jane smiled and waved. Sam lay back in the sand. Shannon remained seated, hugging her knees to her chest, staring out at the waves. She did love the sound of the waves crashing on the sand. She loved the water, the sky, even the salty scent that clung to the air. It seemed bizarre that so much beauty could evoke so much violence.

Suddenly, at her side, Sam gave a deep sigh. “Come on. Let's walk down there.”

She started, feeling guilty. She hadn't allowed herself to even form the thought in her head, but she wanted to see where the woman had been found.

“That's morbid, isn't it?” she asked Sam.

“Just natural. Think about it. This isn't far from the studio—not to mention your house.” He jumped to his feet and offered her a hand. She stood, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders as they walked down the beach. “We'd all agreed we weren't going to say anything to you, and of course we hoped the cops wouldn't come back.”

“Sam, it's sweet of you guys to try to protect me from bad news, but hey, I've got a TV and I do read the paper,” she told him.

“No, but Justin was right. You've been so upset about Lara. We wanted you to have a nice, death-free day at the beach. It didn't quite turn out that way, huh?”

She gave him a quick squeeze. “Like I said, it was nice of you guys to try. I'm pretty tough, though, you know.”

“Yeah?” He looked at her, a grin curving his lips. “Most of the time, sure. You run a tight ship, you've earned everyone's respect. But a really tough cookie…? I don't know.”

“Why do you say that?”

His smile deepened. “I shouldn't encourage you. Because you'd just be new competition for Jane and me. But, if you were really tough, you'd go out there and compete again.”

She groaned. “Sam, my ankle will never be what it was.”

“Bull. An orthopedist might say that, but it's been years. Your ankle is plenty good.”