No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7

by Barton, Sara M.

  “There’s a fire at the Bliss Redux Gallery on Talbot,” I said in a rush to the dispatcher who answered. I managed to spit out the address before hurrying to Axel’s side. Prudence was now sitting on the curb, her hands on her head. Down the road, I could hear the bell pealing for the volunteer firefighters.

  “Keep her here. Don’t let her leave. I’m going in,” he announced.

  “I called the fire department. They’re on their way, Axel. Don’t take any foolish chances.”

  The door bounced behind him as he disappeared from view. I tried to imagine him going through the narrow hallway to the front gallery. I had no idea what he would find. It seemed to be taking him forever. And then the door flew open and Axel came tearing out, like he was on fire, coughing and choking on the thick, black smoke.

  “Back, get back as far as you can. Hurry up!” He dragged Prudence along roughly, even as she resisted his efforts. When we were thirty feet from the building, Axel ran to the street, hollering for people to clear the area. The volunteer firefighters arrived just as there was a loud explosion.

  “Prudence,” I said, holding onto her shoulder, “what happened in there? Are you okay?”

  “Kelsey, I’m so glad you’re here.” She collapsed in a shower of tears. Her words seemed slurred as she talked, and I thought I smelled scotch on her breath. “I just couldn’t take it any more.”

  “Couldn’t take what, Pru?”

  “Warren. He just bullied me once too often. He shouldn’t have done that,” she said, to no one in particular. “I didn’t deserve that. You know what his nickname for me was? ‘Prude’.”

  “What happened?” I prodded her again. Now I was growing more and more concerned. “Warren told me that he fired you.”

  “Just like that. All because I said no.”

  “No to what?” I could see the firemen working hard to clear the area. A couple of marked police cruisers pulled into the lot and parked a short distance from us. The officers engaged in a lengthy discussion with Axel. He pointed to Prudence briefly and then turned his attention to the conversation.

  “What did you say no to, Pru?”

  “He told me if I wanted my job back, I had to….”

  “Had to what?”

  “You know!” By now, Warren’s assistant was beginning to lose her grip. The shock of what had happened began to seep into what was left of her conscious mind. “I’m not a whore, Kelsey! After all these years, I didn’t want to keep doing it. I told him I wanted no part of that any longer. He could go ahead and ruin me. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to put my mouth on that filthy, disgusting thing one more time!”

  She shuddered at the memory and then a loud, painful sob broke through. She began to wail. It was the sound of human agony. I let her cry. I didn’t try to stop her. I just kept rubbing her back, tracing a circle with my fingers. When the moaning seemed to subside, I prompted the rest of her story.

  “What did he do that made you so upset?” I asked gently.

  “He told me I didn’t know real art when I saw it. And then he showed me the sex tapes. Half the time, I wasn’t even awake. Oh, the things he did to me!”

  “He wanted to humiliate you.” I looked at this attractive young woman, huddled beside me. I could smell the smoke now, mingling with the scent of barbecue. A glance at Bliss Redux showed me that the fire was still burning hot enough to keep the firefighters back. “What did you do?”

  “I taught him not to mess with me any more,” she announced. “He was a very bad man, Kelsey.”

  A feeling of dread came over me as I sat on the curb with her. She was moving away from tragedy and forward into triumph.

  “Pru, where’s Warren?”

  “He was going to show the videotapes at the gallery opening tonight. He was going to pretend it was art! I couldn’t let him do that, Kelsey! I have a Ph.D in art appreciation, for God’s sake!”

  Four police officers approached us cautiously, their hands on their holstered weapons. Axel was right behind them.

  “Prudence Generis, please stand up,” said one of the officers.

  “He deserved it, Kelsey. I was just protecting myself.”

  “Miss, stand up,” the officer said again.

  “Come on, Prudence,” I encouraged her. “You need to go with these police officers. They want to know what happened.”

  “Please put your hands behind your back,” another officer instructed her. She complied willingly, almost eagerly, as he used plastic cable to fasten her wrists together.

  “Warren loved his controversy,” she said. “Nothing he liked more than raw, human drama, right? Well, people are going to remember his death for its artistic value more than for the value of the man who died. He told me I didn’t appreciate contemporary art, Kelsey, that I shied away from the nitty gritty of real life. Well, I sure showed him!”

  By the time the police officers loaded Prudence into the back of one of the cruisers, she was gloating. I still had no idea what she had done, but one look at Axel’s grim visage told me it wasn’t worthy of an exhibit at the Hirshhorn.

  “Come on,” he urged me, grabbing my hand. “We’re getting the hell out of here before something else happens.”

  We got into the SUV and drove out of the parking lot slowly, past the Hazmat team in their spacesuits, the emergency responders, and the rubber-neckers jockeying for a position in the viewing stands.

  “Axel, what did happen to Warren?” I saw his lips tighten.

  “I have seen people do some crazy ass things in my life,” he told me, “but this really takes the cake.”

  “What happened to Warren?” I repeated my question, dreading the answer.

  “She pumped him full of drugs, tied him stark naked to a chair, and covered him in her own feces. Then she took about five hundred video cassette tapes and DVRs, piled them all around the chair, added several gallon jugs of flammable chemicals to the mix, soaked some rags in turpentine, and set it all on fire.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  “There is a God. Warren remained unconscious, even as he burned. But she didn’t just leave it there. She had video cameras filming the whole thing, with a live feed on her website, “Prude Art”. We found her laptop in her car. No doubt it will be a “Me Watch” sensation before the night is out.”

  We drove the two hours back to Arlington avoiding any meaningful conversation, each of us battered by the events of the day. When Axel pulled up to the curb in front of my building, he put the SUV in park. He leaned his head briefly against the steering wheel before heaving a loud sigh.

  “Do you realize that in the space of less than half a day, I nearly lost you three times? If we had gotten to the gallery any earlier, Prudence might have killed you, too. She’s out of her right mind, you know.”

  “I had no idea Warren was forcing her to have sex. She never said a word, not even a hint that there was any kind of personal relationship.”

  “You know, you told me your boss was a bastard, but even you didn’t know how bad he really was.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She didn’t just kill him because he was abusing her. She murdered him because she was being replaced. Warren had a contract sitting on his computer, ready for you to sign. That’s why the cops were so nervous about moving in when they saw you two sitting there on the curb. They knew she was planning to kill you, too, to punish you for taking Warren away from her.”

  Those words penetrated the fog in my brain. I couldn’t imagine the meek, complacent Prudence harboring murderous intent towards me. Perhaps Warren drove her over the edge, with all his mind games and manipulation. And then a terrible thought occurred to me.

  “Where’s Bella? Where’s my assistant? She should have been at the shop. And Walter should have been there, too!”

  “Call them,” he instructed me. “Right now.”

  I dialled as quickly as I could. Bella answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Kelse. What’s up?” Relief floode
d over me. My heart slowed down to a more normal pace.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she announced cheerfully. “But Warren’s not so great. He cancelled the gallery opening tonight. Didn’t he text you?” That must have been Prudence’s handiwork, to prevent anyone from interrupting her plot.

  “Do you know where Walter is?”

  “Walter? He’s here with me. We’re making pierogis. He’s teaching me his grandmother’s recipe. Want to come over for dinner?” I could hear music playing in the background.

  “No, thanks. You two have fun together. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay,” Bella giggled. “But you’re missing a great meal.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her?” Axel wanted to know, after I ended the call. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to sort out the surreal details.

  “You know what? This has been a dreadful day. I have seen people do unspeakable things to other human beings. Right now, Bella and Walter are in her apartment, making his grandmother’s pierogi recipe. Tomorrow is soon enough for them to learn the ghastly details of Warren’s fate. Let them have tonight. Let them enjoy each other.”

  “Now I just know I have to get to know you better,” Axel said. “I finally found myself a woman who is a true romantic”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a long sigh as we headed up to my seventh floor unit in the elevator. “Romance is a lot more than just sentiment and sex.”

  “Oh? What else is romance?” Axel’s lips were on the curve of my neck, leaving me tingling all over and slightly breathless at the thought of his touch.

  “It’s like a dance between two people. There’s a give-and-take rhythm that has you both moving in synchronicity, as one. You have to be aware of your partner or it doesn’t jive.”

  “How would you like me to show you my best dance moves?” Axel wiggled his eyebrows playfully as he moved to take the key from my hand. In one short motion, he inserted the key, turned the knob, and threw open the door. With his arms around me, he twirled me over the threshold before dipping me. “And you can show me yours.”

  “Just as long as we’re not talking about the Funky Chicken or the Bunny Hop.”

  “Not even close,” he whispered in my ear. “Not a chicken or a rabbit in sight.”

  “Oh,” I giggled. “That sounds promising. I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “Only one way to find out,” he grinned.

  Paso Doble with a Passionate Python

  Powerful men sometimes have dark secrets that only become apparent over time, when the romance and charm wear off. Women who are drawn into relationships with these men often find it impossible to resist the seduction until it’s too late, and then they must fight to survive. And when they want to escape, to break free of their tormentors, there are hazards that can remain hidden from view until the predators are ready to strike!

  Chapter One —

  As I stood on the edge of forever, the railing of the Beauty of the Seas was the only thing keeping me from plunging into the deep, dark ocean. There was nothing now to stop me from letting go of the ache, the anger, the agony of what my heart had gone through. I was on a ship bound for Bermuda, filled with people, and yet I had never felt lonelier than I did at this moment. I felt myself teeter on the edge of despair, and I wasn’t sure I could climb back to safety. The dark night seemed to swallow me up, making me feel even smaller than before. Soon I would cease to exist as Mariem Dufours.

  I had been a widow for exactly two years, four months, three days, and nine hours. On that January day in 2010, my whole life had gone belly up. When I got the call from the Miami-Dade Police, telling me my husband had been lost in a boating accident, I thought I would never be able to take another breath on my own without remembering all that came before that one moment in time. The past remained in every cell of my being, indelibly written on the invisible skin of my spirit. Henri was the center of my universe and everything, good or bad, revolved around him. When he died, the woman I was died with him.

  “You’re not planning to leap overboard, are you?” I jumped at the sudden interruption. A black silhouette stepped out of the shadows. “I’d hate to have to follow you into the water, especially at this time of night.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s not worth it, no matter what you might think.” The stranger stepped closer to me, almost as if he was trying to anticipate my next move. Even now, I still couldn’t see his face. But I heard concern in his voice.

  “I’m not suicidal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Right.” That was said with some skepticism.

  “It’s true. I’m getting married in two weeks.”

  “You sure looked like you were considering doing a swan dive off the back of the ship,” said the deep voice.

  “Not a swan dive,” I said forlornly. “I was planning on scattering my late husband’s ashes, to say goodbye.”

  “Prove it,” the man demanded.

  “I have Henri’s urn right here,” I announced with a little bit of irritation creeping into my voice. “Would you like to see it?”

  “As a matter of fact, I would.” A moment later, fingers grasped my wrist, pulling me towards the hallway door, back inside the ship. I was dragged into the light, where I finally saw my would-be rescuer.

  “Well?” He was shy of six feet by more than a few inches, with a head of dark hair turning silver. His mahogany eyes were narrow, rimmed with dark lashes. “Let’s see this so-called urn of yours.”

  “Here.” I held out the sphere that held Henri’s ashes.

  “What’s that?” He seemed reluctant to take it from me.

  “My late husband’s urn,” I told him. He seemed confused, so I explained. “Biodegradable. It’s made of sand, with a binder that dissolves in water, so the ashes are released.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He shook his head with disbelief. “I saw you there and I thought you were distraught.”

  “And you decided to play Sir Galahad?” I demanded, suddenly feeling sullied by the accusation I was contemplating suicide.

  “It’s my job,” the stranger confessed. “Ryan. Bob Ryan. Security for Ocean Magic Cruise Lines.”

  I looked down at the badge he flashed at me. It looked official enough.

  “Fine. You were just doing your job,” I acknowledged.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” I felt his hand on my elbow, steering me towards the lounge down the passageway.

  “Are you in the habit of buying supposedly suicidal widows liquor?” I snapped. I was mad that I was still holding what remained of Henri in my hands. So much for saying goodbye and finding closure. “I can’t have a drink. I have to scatter Henri’s ashes.”

  “Tell you what. Let’s go back out there. I’ll stand quietly at your side while you do what you have to do. You shouldn’t have to be alone when you’re doing something this important.” He seemed sincere enough. What harm could it do?

  “I wanted to do it alone,” I told him. “I wanted to say a private goodbye.”

  “Fine. How about I stand right here and just keep an eye out for you? I won’t interfere,” he promised. “Scout’s honor. When you’re done, I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll say a toast to the late Henri.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, feeling that catch in my throat as the sadness began to well up in my throat. Maybe it would be better to have someone there for me when I finally let go.

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Bob held open the door for me and I stepped out on the deck. The sea breeze kissed my cheek as a tear rolled down and wrapped around my chin like a gentle embrace. It was as if the heavens heard my plea and sent consolation on the wind. I took a deep breath, my hands clutching the sandy sphere that contained Henri’s remains. I stood by the rail once more, framing what I wanted to say to the ghost of a man to whom I had been married for nearly twenty years.

  “Henri,” I began, “we’ve had our
share of differences over the years, our struggles, our pain….”

  A ghostly silence enfolded me as I lingered at the railing. Below me, the waves splashed against the side of the cruise ship rhythmically as the bow cut through the ocean in the black night. There were no stars above, only thick, heavy clouds. As I tried to once again compose myself for the task that lay before me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a presence lurking in the darkness. A feeling of foreboding filled me with apprehension. Was it my late husband rising up in a final show of temper, lashing out one last time before heading to the bottom of the Atlantic, to his final resting place on the ocean floor? Was it a furtive movement of the human kind or a slight atmospheric disturbance of the ethereal kind? I shook it off, telling myself it was my imagination. Maybe it was just the man from Ocean Magic, making sure I didn’t jump.

  “Henri,” I began again. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I felt strong, determined hands wrap around me like the tentacles of an octopus, lifting me up. My feet left the deck, and were now dangling in mid-air. As swiftly as I traveled through the darkness, my mind sought to process the information. I was in danger. What was happening to me? My left shoe hit the rail. Someone was tossing me overboard.

  “Help!” I screamed. I had no choice. I dropped Henri, ashes and all, into the sea. No loving words. No forgiveness of sins. No final farewell. Just a big splash and he was gone. I was too busy fighting for my life.

  As I felt myself being propelled forward toward the sea, I did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed the bottom of the railing for dear life as determined hands shoved me this way and that, trying to pry my desperate hands from their grip on the side of the ship. Suspended upside down, I felt the blood rush to my head. One minute, I was doing battle with an unknown, unseen foe, and the next, my assailant stopped. The hands that had fastened themselves around my wrists ceased pushing me towards the deep, dark depths of the Atlantic. I took advantage of the lull to cling to every inch of metal railing I could find. There were sounds of a scuffle a few feet away as I managed to right myself, locking my arms around the strength of the cold steel form. My legs dangled dangerously from my precarious perch. I thought about pulling myself back up and over the rail, but I was too terrified to try. And then, just as suddenly, hands were grabbing me again. I tried to fight back. I tried to evade those hard, pressing fingers.