Dancing With Danger in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “We’ll have to talk to Keith tomorrow, then,” I said. “I know he’s hiding something from us, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

  14

  I hadn’t wanted Ryan’s meeting my parents for the first time to be a big deal, so I told my mother I didn’t want her to invite anyone else over for dinner that night. However, Ian had begged and pleaded for me to take him along with us, and it occurred to me that Ian’s being there might make the situation a little easier.

  So that evening, I turned up at my mother’s doorstep with Ian and Ryan standing on either side of me. Ryan had picked us up and driven us over, and he looked handsome in his white button-down shirt and khaki pants.

  My mother opened the door and smiled at the three of us, exclaiming enthusiastically after I introduced Ryan to her, and telling us all to come in.

  “It’s so nice to meet you finally,” Mom was saying to Ryan. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Tiffany. It’s too bad you couldn’t come the other day.”

  “I was tied up with an emergency,” Ryan said, “I felt terrible having to cancel like that.”

  “I know, I understand of course. The city needs more hardworking detectives like you…”

  As I followed my mother over to the den, I could hear the words she was saying. But to my ears, it sounded as though she was saying, “I can’t believe you exist! Tiffany told me about you, but I always thought she was making it up. You’re not just an actor she hired, are you? I still can’t believe my daughter actually has a boyfriend. I’ve been trying to set her up all these years, and she just didn’t get along with any of those lovely young men.”

  Ryan chatted with my dad, who looked a lot less surprised than my mother to see proof of the existence of my boyfriend. A few minutes in, we all headed over to the dining room, and we’d just sat down at the table to dig into a delicious-looking meal of roast pork with carrots and mustard gravy, when there was a knock on the door.

  “I didn’t invite anyone else,” my mother said quickly, “but I’ll just go see who that is.”

  We all waited until she came back a few seconds later, followed by Gavin.

  I stared at them, bug-eyed.

  “I’m sorry, this seems like a bad time,” Gavin said politely. “I just stopped by to have a quick chat with Nanna. I can come back another time if that would be more suitable.”

  “Nonsense,” said my mother, rushing around and quickly setting another place. “You must join us for dinner. The more the merrier.”

  My mother turned to Ryan and introduced Gavin to him. “Gavin is a close friend of Tiffany’s,” she said.

  “No,” I said quickly, “that’s not true. Gavin and I just met the other day. Gavin, this is my boyfriend, Ryan, the one I was telling you about—he’s a detective with the LVMPD.”

  Gavin nodded and smiled politely. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said to Ryan, and I thought for a split second that he’d gotten the message—but then he turned around and gave me a broad wink.

  I narrowed my eyes at Gavin, but it was clear he wasn’t about to give up.

  “Anyway, I just came around to tell Nanna—”

  Just then, Nanna’s and Ian’s phones beeped simultaneously.

  They both looked down to check their messages, and Ian let out a large whoop.

  Nanna gasped. “It happened!”

  “We’re in!” said Ian. “We got into the first round of auditions!”

  My jaw dropped. “Dance Party USA?”

  “What else!” said Ian. “The audition’s tomorrow—we’ll have to practice a little in the morning, and then we’re heading over to the studios in the afternoon! Can you believe it?”

  “That’s what I came over to say,” said Gavin. “One of the producers texted me and said he loved the video you two sent in.”

  I couldn’t seem to be able to close my mouth. What had just happened? Had Ian’s and Nanna’s video gotten mixed up with somebody else’s? Or had Ian managed to do some kind of miracle feat of editing? I couldn’t imagine a producer looking at the video of Ian and Nanna “dancing” and thinking they were good enough to be on the show.

  “You look stunned,” Ian said to me.

  “I’m in shock,” I managed to say. “I’m so happy for you guys.”

  “But why are you surprised?” said Ian. “Did you think we wouldn’t get in?”

  “No,” I forced myself to say, “I thought you guys were very… interesting.”

  “I thought so too,” said Nanna. “I had a good feeling about the whole thing.”

  “I had no doubt you guys would get in,” said Gavin. “Congratulations! I’m sure you’ll do well in the live audition tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” I murmured, suddenly realizing that Ian and Nanna would have to perform live. What would they do when they were up onstage? “I’m so happy for you two,” I repeated, unable to think of what else to say.

  “I wish we could be there to watch you two,” my mother said, sounding as though she couldn’t quite believe they’d gotten through. “But we’ve already made plans with Bob and Patty for the whole day.”

  “Tiffany and I will come! We’ll be right there in the audience cheering you on!” said Gavin. He looked at me and smirked. “Right, Tiff? You did promise me that we’d go together if Nanna and Ian got in.”

  I looked at Gavin and shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go,” I said, not wanting to spend another minute with Gavin.

  Ian groaned, and Nanna gave me a puzzled frown.

  “Don’t you want to come and see Ian and me perform?” said Nanna.

  “Yeah, Tiff,” said Ian. “You’ve got to come!”

  I didn’t see how I could get out of this, and Nanna’s eyes looked so hopeful.

  “Sure,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll be there in the audience, cheering you on. I’m sure you guys will do great.”

  15

  When I got to at the casino that night for my shift, I was in a good mood.

  I let the bright lights and garish colors of the casino floor wash over me like a sea of familiarity, and as I dealt cards to the players sitting in front of me, I thought back to the dinner.

  Everything had gone quite well—my parents had seemed to like Ryan, and they’d chatted easily about his work, how he enjoyed Vegas, and what he thought of the New York Jets.

  The only fly in the ointment had been Gavin; I knew he would show up to watch Nanna and Ian’s audition with me. And I just knew that he didn’t realize I wasn’t interested in him, and that no matter how hard he tried, I would never get together with him. I had thought that if he met Ryan, he’d understand that I could report him for harassment and get him into trouble, but the truth was I wouldn’t ever do something like that. So, I was stuck with him—and if he tried anything funny at the audition tomorrow, I’d be sure to put him in his place.

  I fell into a light-hearted conversation with the three young men sitting in front of me, trying their best to win at blackjack. We talked about their holiday in Vegas, and what they thought of all the different casinos they’d been to. It turned out that the three men were old high school friends who came to Vegas together every year or two. This year, they were excited about going to a huge party that was being thrown at the Mermaid Bar. My smile faltered a bit as they talked about their parties; I tried to stay focused on the game and the customers sitting in front of me and not to think about Ronan.

  But I couldn’t help wondering about Ronan and his secrecy—did he really know anything about Ella? And if not, why had he lied about his alibi for that night?

  The next day, Ian and I shared an early lunch together—microwave meals this time, rice with Thai curry—and then we headed over to Ronan’s penthouse apartment.

  Once again, we were given guest passes from the receptionist that allowed us to take the elevator straight up to the penthouse suite level. This time, when we knocked, we waited for five minutes until we heard the loud shuffle of slow footsteps, and then Ronan opened th
e door and blinked at us, bleary-eyed.

  Today, he was wearing crumpled blue-and-white checked cotton pajamas, and his dark hair was disheveled and uncombed. Stubble covered his cheeks, and he smiled at Ian and me apologetically. “I forgot you guys were coming by. Come in, I guess I can’t avoid talking to you.”

  I tried to check the annoyance that bubbled up inside me as I stepped into the penthouse living room area. Ian and I sat down next to each other on one of the white leather couches, and Ronan headed over to the kitchen area, where he made himself a steaming hot mug of coffee from his expensive-looking coffee machine.

  The room filled with the aroma of delicious, rich coffee, and Ronan sat down opposite us, cradling the large coffee mug in his hands. In a way, I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t offer Ian and me anything to eat or drink—after all, he clearly wasn’t happy to see us, and he wanted to get rid of us as soon as possible.

  Ian said, “That coffee smells delicious.”

  Ronan smiled, clearly flattered by Ian’s praise. “I got myself the new Gaggia Accademia coffee machine, and these are single-origin beans from Ethiopia.”

  “Tiffany and I only ever have instant,” Ian said. “Unless we go out to have coffee, of course.”

  “The coffee they serve at most places is disgusting,” Ronan sneered. “But I can see you probably don’t know what good coffee tastes like, so let me make you a mug. I’m assuming you take cream?”

  Ian nodded. “Cream and sugar.”

  “I’ll make you a latte with one sugar,” said Ronan.

  I kept my thoughts to myself; I was torn between asking for a coffee for myself, and telling Ronan that we hadn’t come here to chat about his expensive coffee habits.

  But when he came back with a latte for Ian, I felt my annoyance subsiding. Ronan seemed to get a childlike pleasure from finding someone who appreciated his coffee habit, and Ian made appreciative noises as he sipped on his latte.

  After a few more minutes of talking about coffee, Ronan finally turned to me and said, “So, you’re here to talk about Ella’s death.”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said, sounding apologetic. “Why did you lie about your alibi?”

  Ronan shrugged. “You know, the usual. I didn’t want the cops to think I had anything to do with her death, so I wanted to make sure I was busy at the time.”

  “But you weren’t?”

  Ronan smiled thinly. “Oh, I was. But it’s not the kind of thing I can talk about in public. So of course, you’ll have to make sure you don’t tell anyone else about this.”

  I rolled my eyes and nodded. In my line of business, I come across secret affairs all too often—a young man or woman sleeping with someone they shouldn’t be. I assumed that Ronan had a similar kind of secret. “I have to keep these kinds of secrets all the time,” I told him. “Whatever it is you’re up to, you can tell me. But I’ll have to check your alibi.”

  Ronan shrugged. “That won’t be too hard to do. I was here all night—I left the party early and came straight back. You can see me on the casino security footage. I came back at around nine, and I didn’t leave until after lunchtime the next day.”

  I frowned. “Why bother to lie about it? Surely it’s not so embarrassing to say that you left the party early.”

  “Because there was someone else with me,” Ronan said.

  “Ahh.” I nodded. “A secret affair.”

  Ronan laughed. “I wouldn’t call it an affair—more like… a spiritual relationship.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “I’m sure that’s a romantic way to describe it.”

  “No, it’s not romantic at all,” said Ronan. “That’s literally what it is—a spiritual relationship. The pastor of one of the local churches visits me once in a while. He came by that night to talk to me. We had a long discussion about what it means to be a good person these days.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. Finally, I glanced at Ian to see what his reaction was. But Ian was busy drinking up his latte, and he didn’t seem to be too surprised by Ronan’s revelation.

  “Why are you seeing a pastor?” I said finally. “And that sounds like a perfectly good thing to do. Why do you have to keep it a secret?”

  Ronan smiled at me, his eyes glimmering with condescension. “Of course you wouldn’t understand. But a guy like me, I’m supposed to be cool, I’m supposed to be hip and bad and dangerous and all those things—how does it look if I’m meeting with someone from the church, and talking about how to be a better person?”

  He had a point. “I guess the gossip magazines wouldn’t understand.”

  “Of course not,” said Ronan. “They’d think I’d gone soft, and that my parties would no longer be as fun, and I’d probably start losing touch with my celebrity friends. So there’s no way anyone can find out about this, you see.”

  “But why are you seeing a pastor?” I said, unable to contain my curiosity.

  “Because I was in shock. I can’t believe that girl got hurt at one of the parties I organized—I had nothing to do with it, but I didn’t want that kind of thing to happen again. And I worried that it might. It’s not my fault—but I felt responsible. I want to make sure nobody gets hurt. I just want people to have a good time.”

  I was speechless for a few seconds. I couldn’t help looking at Ronan with a newfound respect, suddenly impressed by his dedication.

  “That’s a really good thing to do,” Ian said seriously. “I think you can be a good person and still throw cool parties.”

  “Thanks,” said Ronan. “But the media won’t think so.”

  “You’re doing the right thing,” I found myself saying, “and I don’t think it’s fair you have to hide it. But I do understand, of course.”

  Ronan nodded somberly. “Thanks.”

  Ian had finished his latte, and he put it down on the coffee table in front of him. “Thanks for the drink,” he said. “It was delicious.”

  Ronan grinned. “I know, right? You should get one of these.”

  “I might,” said Ian thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll get into having nice coffees, like you.”

  Ronan stood up, indicating that our interview was over. “I guess I’ve told you what you came here to learn.”

  I stood up reluctantly. “I’m glad you had nothing to do with Ella’s death,” I said. “But I wish we’d been able to learn something useful. Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing else Ella ever said to you that might give us a clue about what was going on in her life?”

  “Actually,” said Ronan with a frown, “now that I think back to that day in court, after I went up and yelled at her, she said something that seemed a bit odd.”

  My pulse quickened. “What?”

  “She said she didn’t need me to harass her—that she was being harassed enough at work.” Ronan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “At that time, I thought she was just complaining about how much work she had to do, but maybe she meant something else.”

  “Maybe she was talking about Keith,” said Ian excitedly. “Maybe Keith wasn’t just badmouthing Ella to other people—maybe he was being mean to her in person.”

  I looked at Ian and nodded grimly. “It sounds like something was happening at her work. We’d better look into the people at Elman and Associates again.”

  Ian and I headed home with a sudden, renewed vigor.

  If what Ronan had said was true—that Ella was being harassed by someone at work—then we needed to find out who the harasser was.

  “It can’t have been one of the other associates who was harassing her,” Ian reasoned. “Unless it was Keith. Other than Keith, everyone else seemed to get along with Ella, and nobody said anything about anyone being mean to her, let alone harassing her.”

  “It might have been Keith. Or maybe it was one of the senior partners—just because they said they didn’t work with Ella, or that they didn’t know anything about her, doesn’t mean that they were telling the truth. Perhaps Sam or Rob had an affair with Ella, or they were harassing her.”


  “Or maybe Claudia was harassing her,” Ian added. “It’s not like a woman can’t harass another woman.”

  I nodded. “Whoever it is, we’d better find out.”

  16

  Ian brought his laptop and Snowflake over to my apartment. Snowflake jumped on top of the fridge and started licking her paws vigorously, as though she never got a chance to lick her paws when she was at Ian’s place, and Ian sat on the sofa and fired up his laptop.

  I fired up my laptop too and logged in to my private investigator’s database. Ian headed over to Google and social media and tried to find out if there was any publicly available incriminating information about the lawyers at Ella’s firm.

  The searches I ran on Sam, Rob, and Claudia brought up nothing. All of them were upstanding citizens with no records, not even a speeding ticket between them. Of course, why was I surprised? They were all powerful lawyers, and if they ever got into any kind of minor trouble with the law, they probably knew how to take care of it. I wondered if they had been just as good at taking care of more serious troubles—like a pesky younger employee.

  I looked into Keith, too, but nothing interesting came up. He didn’t have a record either, and the only interesting thing I learned was that he’d been living in Vegas for the last four years, having moved here from London, Kentucky.

  “Did you get anything good?” I asked Ian. He shook his head.

  “I’ve looked into Sam, Rob, and Claudia so far—all of them are pretty much ghosts on social media. There are a couple of news articles about them and the firm, but it’s all publicity fluff. Hang on—I’m still looking into Keith. There wasn’t anything interesting on the social media pages, but I can look a bit more.”

  “Everyone keeps their social media private these days,” I said. “Let’s just go talk to someone.”

  “Like who?”

  I mentally scrolled through a list of names.