Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  "Oh," Bex said. “Toni, I'm sorry, but why didn't you tell me all this when I first asked you about Rachel?"

  "You didn't ask me about Rachel," Toni reminded gently. "You asked me about Robby."

  She had a point. Bex had been so eager to unmask a murderer, she'd kind of skipped that crucial, first step—the one where you figure out if a murder ever actually happened.

  "Yeah," Bex sighed. And wished that she weren't sitting, so that she might kick herself in the manner she obviously deserved. But, then again, there was still hope…. “Toni, do you think you could give me Rachel's number? I'd still like to talk to her for my piece about skaters like her and Jeremy Hunt, who dropped out with seemingly no reason."

  "No," Toni said.

  Okay, Bex hadn't seen that one coming. "But I—you gave me Robby's number."

  "That was different. Robby isn't trying to keep a low profile and, besides, I called him first to ask if it was okay. Rachel is a different story. She doesn't want any publicity, she doesn't want to talk about the past. Rachel wants her privacy and I have to respect that. I'm sorry, Bex."

  Bex considered whining. She considered pleading and begging and basically throwing herself on the mercy of the ice in order to wheedle out the necessary information.

  But, in the end, all she said was, "That's all right, Toni, I understand."

  Because, in the end, Bex also suspected that Toni had already told her everything she needed to know.

  Her second day working as a professional researcher, Bex had been blown away by how truly easy it was to track down most people and facts—as long as you knew where to look. No, that wasn't quite correct. It was as long as you know how to look. The Internet, she'd long ago realized, was God's own gift to the researcher—or just to the perennially nosy. It would tell you anything, as long as you asked it the right question. And, most often, the right question was simply a matter of the right combination of words.

  Immediately after hanging up with Toni, Bex got on her computer, pulled up her favorite search engine, and typed in two words: "Rachel Rose." She received about 26,000 results. Good. First part of the test passed.

  Next, Bex typed in "Rachel Rose" & "travel agency." Her results were instantly cut down to twelve. God, but Bex did love it when a plan came together.

  Two of the listings proved to be obituaries for an eighty-four-year-old woman who'd also been named Rachel Rose and apparently loved to travel. One was an agency in England. And eight were posts on various travel-oriented message boards, all praising the great time they'd had on trips arranged by one Miss Rachel Rose, who operated a one-woman agency from her home in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

  The final listing was a simple, promotional Web page for the agency, apparently called The Smooth Journey. And an address.

  In the end, it took Bex two hours to drive from New York City to the Poconos, and another two hours to make heads or tails of the winding roads that seemed to loop around each other rather than lead to what one presumed should be their logical conclusion. At least the path was pretty—even in early December, the unseasonably mild weather they'd been having ensured that there were still remnants everywhere of summer greenery and fall flora and wholesome, farm-fresh country living. Bex expected to see Andy Griffith and the Oscar-winning Opie to come ambling past at any moment. Unless, they too, got lost on these roads, trying to find the fishing hole.

  According to the address on the Web site, The Smooth Journey operated from a two-story cottage covered in creeping ivy and tucked discreetly into the corner of a cul-de-sac that, from the front, looked like any modest, middle-class vacation lane. From the rear though, it became clear that every house built into this mountainside had for its backyard a personal lake in the summer, a ski slope in the winter, plus a sturdy deck large enough to qualify as a second home.

  Working from the "Whistle a Happy Tune" premise ("Make believe you're brave/And the trick will take you far/You can be as brave/As you make believe you are,"), Bex hurried out of the car before she had a chance to, perhaps most wisely, change her mind. Furiously whistling all the while, she marched herself up the steps to Rachel Rose's home.

  Unlike at Felicia's, Bex was greeted here with a smile.

  Of course, to be fair, Rachel had no idea who Bex was or what she wanted.

  This was the right Rachel Rose, though, there was no doubt about that. Like Felicia, she too had given up the ballerina bun. Only, in Rachel's case, it was to allow her hair (clearly not streaked and possibly not even salon cut) to fall down the length of her back. Only a seashell clip at the base of her neck kept it from falling into her makeup-free face. She was dressed in blue denim jeans and a white tailored shirt with a narrow collar and the top button undone. The tasteful, gold hoops she'd worn in her ears for the publicity photos with Robby were gone. In fact, she wore no jewelry of any kind, except for a simple silver watch.

  "May I help you?" Rachel asked pleasantly.

  Bex said, "My name is Bex Levy. Well, it's Rebecca, actually, Bex is just a nickname."

  Rachel continued to listen politely. Although a frown was beginning to creep into the tiny crevasse between her eyes. She probably thought Bex was an Avon lady. Or a babbling nut.

  "I work for 24/7 Sports, and I'm doing a story on skaters who suddenly quit skating and—"

  The tiny crevasse turned into a pit of distaste. Her green eyes darkened, changing from teal to a murky, swampish color. Her shoulders stiffened and she reached for the door. "I'm sorry, Rebecca. I don't do interviews. Ever."

  "It's Bex. My name is Bex," she insisted, figuring if she and Rachel could just agree on that, they'd be halfway to lifelong bonding.

  "I don't do interviews, Bex. And I don't appreciate being ambushed in my own home."

  "I'm sorry," Bex said. And she really was, too. Despite outward appearances, Bex did have a clichéd, pathological need to be liked, and she suspected that barging into private people's homes and asking them questions about things they didn't want to talk about was probably not the way to do it. "But, this is important. See, I kind of told my boss that I would have this story for him, and when I couldn't find you at first, I thought maybe I could make it about Robby Sharpton, but—"

  "Robby?" Rachel's voice dropped to what Bex might have guessed was a scared whisper, but, at the same time, she stood up straighter, stronger, not at all cowering, but rather confronting head-on. "You've interviewed Robby?"

  "Yes," Bex said. And then added, in a moment of inspiration, as she fumbled in her purse, "Would you like to see the tape?"

  Rachel hesitated. And then, very tentatively, she nodded yes.

  Unwilling to risk losing whatever advantage she'd accidentally stumbled into, Bex hurried to pop the tape into her camera and flick it on play. She sat down on Rachel's couch and turned the viewfinder toward her. The former U.S. Pairs Champion watched the first part of the video silently, only flinching the slightest bit when Robby first appeared on camera.

  When they got to the part where Bex asked Robby, "You've admitted that you had a bit of a problem with women and with hitting and everything, and, you know, with Rachel disappearing so suddenly, I was wondering if, possibly, did you, when you were skating together, did you ... did you... hit... Rachel? Maybe? Once or twice?" Rachel leaned forward, apparently as eager to hear his answer as Bex had been.

  "Hitting your partner is stupid," on-camera Robby said.

  Rachel burst out laughing. She instantly realized what she'd done and quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, looking at Bex guiltily. "I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't funny, was it?"

  "Did Robby hit you, Rachel?"

  "Not as much as he did Felicia. I was a better skater, you know." Rachel laughed again. Then added, "I guess that wasn't funny, either."

  "Is that why you quit? Because your partner was hitting you?"

  "Have you ever been to a competition press conference, Rebecca—er, sorry, Bex?"

  Okay, she'd asked one question and gotten another
in return, but Bex was willing to play along in case this managed to lead her somewhere. "Actually, yeah. I'm the 24/7 researcher. I go to every press conference, both the before and after, at every event we do."

  "Then you know. What is the one thing every skater says is their goal at any given event?"

  "I just want to skate well and stay focused and have fun out there," Bex answered with utmost confidence. She could recite the programmed mantra in her sleep.

  "Hitting and fun don't exactly go, excuse the Pairs skating pun, hand in hand. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "I understand," Bex said. "And, really, that's all I want you to say on-camera. That you quit skating because you weren't having fun anymore, due to your partner's abuse. Just think of how your speaking up could help girls in similar situations." Bex figured if she couldn't appeal to Rachel's vanity—Bex's regular tool for getting people on-camera—she could try the Do Gooder approach. "I'm sure a lot of skaters today are going through the same—"

  "No," Rachel said.

  "It would be very quick. We'll air Robby's admitting to hitting Felicia, and then the part where he claims he didn't hit you, and then we'll have you telling your side of the story."

  "If I wanted to tell my side of the story, I could have done it fourteen years ago. I made a choice, then. I chose to leave rather than confront Robby."

  "Was it because you were scared of him?"

  "I had my reasons."

  "Did he threaten you? Were you afraid for your life? Was there something else going on besides the abuse that you thought—"

  "Please leave, Rebecca. Now. And, I warn you. If you mention a word about me, my life, what I do, or where I live in this feature of yours, I will sue you, and 24/7, for trespassing, invasion of privacy, and anything else my lawyers can think up. Am I making myself clear?"

  Bex nodded. And gulped.

  On the drive back into the city (over roads that somehow didn't look nearly as wholesome and picturesque now that Bex knew showing even a second of video footage about them might lead her and 24/7 into the heart of a lawsuit), Bex reasoned that, if she assumed Rachel was just bluffing—and really, she had to be; why would a person obsessed with her privacy risk launching what could turn into a very public lawsuit?—then Bex still had enough information to put together a piece more or less like the one she'd promised Gil in the first place.

  She had Robby's interview, which was great television, especially with him going from Jekyll to Hyde like that. She could recap his and Felicia's story using vintage newspaper reports, old footage of them skating, and then the new interview. She might even take another crack at getting Felicia in front of the camera. After all, Bex did possess Robby's apology to his ex-wife. How fabulous would it be if Bex could screen the tape for Felicia and then get her reaction?

  And then, after she reunited Robby and Felicia live on 24/7—a girl could dream, couldn't she?—Bex would segue into the Rachel part of Robby's life. Over photos and clips of their National and World triumphs, Bex could record a voice-over telling Rachel's side of the story. It wasn't nearly as effective as having Rachel telling it herself would have been, but, as the account was certainly dramatic enough, it just might work.

  And then, oh, and then! Wouldn’t it be awesome if Bex could convince Rachel and Felicia and Robby to all skate a number together as a symbol of their healing? And what if she also got another pair, maybe a young, up-and-coming pair, to perform alongside them, a sort of profound passing of the torch? A commitment to skating and its new, zero-tolerance policy for abuse (Bex figured, as long as she was at it, she’d get the USFSA to implement one of those, too). Wouldn’t that be something?

  Dream Ballet... On Ice

  Of course, Bex still had to run the idea by Gil. And she really should do it as soon as she got back to the office.

  Bex decided to give it a couple of days.

  She figured he was busy. She didn't want to bother him. Besides, Bex sucked at making oral presentations and Gil was even worse at listening to them. He had a tendency to literally get up in the middle of a pitch and start doing things like running documents through his shredder or playing with his window blinds. It was very disconcerting.

  Gil was much better at staying focused if you came to him with at least some sort of visual guideline for what you were hoping to do. So, rather than speaking to him immediately upon her return from the Poconos, Bex retired to her office to compile a rough cut of what she already had and what she hoped the final product would look like.

  She dug up all the archived footage she could get her hands on, plus some nice, glossy stills of Robby with both of his partners. She logged Robby's interview, picking the best (i.e., most psycho) bites and arranging them in an order that worked best for her, if not necessarily him. She wrote a tentative script and recorded her own voice on the scratch track to indicate where the announcer's narration would go. And then she got ready to present the whole thing to Gil.

  Except that, on the morning of their scheduled appointment, just as Bex was adding some last minute touches and graphics to her demo, she got on-line to check her Email. And saw the latest digital news headline running on the sports ticker

  Ex-U.S. skating champ, Rachel Rose, mysteriously beaten to death...

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bex thought, "Oops."

  It was probably not the most appropriate response ever to a death, nor the most respectful, nor the most profound. And yet, it was the one that felt most right at the moment. "Oops."

  Now, as a rule, Bex thought she had a pretty healthy ego. And while she had a rather high opinion of her abilities, especially in certain areas like writing, research, and witty repartee, she did not belong to the category of people who managed to believe that all things that occurred anywhere in the world were somehow connected to them. Bex wanted to make that point very clear.

  Before she leapt to the obvious conclusion that what had happened to Rachel Rose was somehow connected to her.

  This wasn't ego talking. It was duh-proof logic. The woman had stayed below radar for fourteen years, and three days ago, she was still alive. Then Bex decided to look her up, and, ipso presto, suddenly she's dead? Was Bex supposed to think it was a coincidence?

  She really would like to think it was a coincidence. Honestly, the fact of her feature suddenly getting a lot more interesting aside, Bex would really, really like to think it was a coincidence.

  She called Gil and cancelled their meeting. He sounded surprised to be reminded that they'd had one planned, so Bex doubted he would be shedding any tears over it. That done, Bex went back on-line, clicking on the link about Rachel Rose's death.

  EX-U.S. SKATING CHAMP MYSTERIOUSLY BEATEN TO DEATH

  Rachel Rose, the 1987, 1988, and 1989 U.S. Figure Skating Pairs Champion with Robert Sharpton, was found by passing joggers at dawn this morning in a public park several blocks from her Clear Lake, Pennsylvania, home. She had been beaten to death by a blunt object of indeterminate origin. Local police report no suspects at this time.

  Well, Bex thought, that was a singularly unhelpful experience. There was practically no more information in the text than there'd been in the headline. What was American journalism coming to these days? Didn't people take pride in their work anymore? Where were the diligent reporters rolling up their ink-stained sleeves His Girl Friday-style and digging up stories, chasing down leads, cross-examining sources... getting people killed?

  Oh, God. Bex buried her face in her hands. Had she gotten Rachel Rose killed?

  She had to know for sure. Because this just wasn't funny anymore.

  This time around, Bex didn't even notice the picturesque trees or think about Andy Griffith as she swerved down the road to the Poconos. Her only focus was on finding the police station. And hearing them tell her that Rachel's death was the work of a well-known serial killer who'd long been stalking the area. It wouldn't bring Rachel back to life. But, it sure as hell would make it possible for Bex to breathe again.

>   Less than a year ago, like probably a majority of the law-abiding population, Bex could have honestly asserted that she'd never set foot in a police station before. But that all changed last March when, as part of her researcher duties at the World Figure Skating Championships, Bex found herself in the middle of an investigation into who killed the Italian judge who placed the Russian girl ahead of the American one and cost adorable little Erin Simpson the gold medal in Ladies' Singles. To be honest, Bex was the only one actually investigating the murder. Heck, Bex was the only one who thought a murder had been committed. She fervently hoped that wouldn't be the case this time around. After all, while a judge could have, by some stretch of the imagination, had a reason for walking into a refrigeration room, stepping into a puddle, pulling on the lighting cord, and electrocuting herself, Bex thought it would take quite a considerable suspension of disbelief to buy that Rachel Rose had beaten herself to death in a public park.

  The Poconos police station proved as rustic as the rest of the area. If it weren't for two black-and-whites parked outside, it might have been just another tourist's summer cottage. But, when Bex got inside, she learned that, unlike the San Francisco police station she'd spent her time in last spring, this one actually had a professional liaison specifically to deal with questions from snoopy people like her.

  The liaison's name was Gretchen. She looked to be about forty years old and, before Bex even had the chance to mention what she wanted, Gretchen took one look at Bex's 24/7 credential and launched into a tale (really more of a miniseries) about how she, too, used to live in New York City, doing big-time Public Relations for some major, major firms, but how, when she passed her thirty-seventh birthday and was still unmarried and without children (really, who had time, working those twenty-hour, hustle/bustle days?), she decided to chuck it all for a life of rustic splendor, and now she had a new husband, a local man, and they were trying to get pregnant and not being very successful at it but they weren't quite at the assisted reproduction stage yet, and Bex should really take care to make sure that never happened to her because the years really did pass quickly and you wanted something to show for them, you really did, take it from Gretchen.