“Or maybe alcohol?” Justin said worriedly.
“When she’s dancing?” Rhianna protested, shaking her head.
“She truly considers her body a temple,” Sam informed them with complete assurance. “But sometimes the temple needs a few offerings, she says,” he added. “She must have taken something. I mean, look at her.”
“I hope she’s going to be all right. She’s got to be all right!” Shannon said, sharing Gordon’s concern regarding whether or not she should step forward.
Gordon set his hand on Shannon’s shoulders. “No,” he said softly.
She stared at him, puzzled.
“It’s too late,” he told her.
“What?” Shannon said, disbelieving.
Yet even as she asked the question, Richard Long rose. “Clear the floor, please. I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said quietly.
“Too late?” came a shout.
“She’s…gone,” Richard said awkwardly, as if sorry that his words gave the final ring of reality to the unbelievable.
“Dead?” Someone in the crowd said.
Richard sighed, dismayed that he couldn’t get his words to sink through the collective head of those surrounding him. “I’m afraid…yes.”
The sound of sirens filled the night.
Seconds later the crowd parted and medical techs swept into the room. They added emergency equipment and a desperately administered injection to the CPR efforts.
But in the end, no matter how hard they tried, it was over. Those watching kept their distance but could not turn away.
Shannon stared at the uniformed men, frozen in disbelief, along with the others. And as she watched, unbidden, a strange whisper filtered back into her mind.
You’re next.
Insane. Silly. Someone had mistaken her for the next dancer to compete, that was all. Everything was a mess, Lara had fallen, but would be all right in the end. The CPR would work. She would suddenly inhale and stand up, and soon they would all be talking about her again, saying that she would do anything to create the biggest impression of the evening. She meant to be remembered, to be immortal.
But no one lived forever.
As the crowd left the floor at last, still stunned, there were murmurs everywhere.
Lara Trudeau. Gone. Impossible. And yet, she had died as she had lived. Glorious, beautiful, graceful, and now…dead.
Dead on the dance floor.
CHAPTER 2
“Hey, Quinn, someone to see you.”
Quinn O’Casey was startled to see Amber Larkin standing at the top of the ladder as he crawled his way up. He was in full dive gear, having spent the past forty-five minutes scraping barnacles from the hull of the Twisted Time, his boat.
To the best of his knowledge, Amber had been in Key Largo, at work at the office, where she should have been. He was on vacation. She wasn’t.
He arched a brow, indicating that she should step back so he could come aboard. She did so, ignoring the look that also questioned her arrival when he should have been left the hell alone. So much for chasing a man down.
She backed up, giving him room, and when he stepped on deck, tossing down his flippers, pulling off his dive mask, he saw the reason she had come. His brother was standing behind her.
“Hey, Doug,” he said, frowning at them both.
“You might have mentioned you were coming up. I wouldn’t have had to drive down to Key Largo just to make Amber drive back up to Miami with me.”
Maybe he should have mentioned his vacation time to his brother, but why drag him down? Doug had gone through the police academy less than a year ago. An enthusiastic and ambitious patrolman, he was a younger brother to be proud of, having survived his teen years and young adulthood without the growing pains that had plagued Quinn’s younger years—and a few of his older ones, for that matter. But hell, that was why he was back in South Florida, despite the gut-wrenching work he’d found instead of the easy slide he’d expected at the beginning.
Quinn shook his head. He was glad to be back home in South Florida. It could be one hell of a great place to live.
It could also showcase the most blatant forms of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.
And thus, the vacation. It wasn’t as if he felt shattered or anything like that. Hell, he knew he couldn’t control the evils of the world, or even those of a single man. But who the hell had ever expected what had happened to Nell Durken? He should be glad that the scum who had killed her was under arrest and would either be put away for life or meet a date with death. Still, whatever Art Durken’s sentence, Nell was gone. And maybe he did blame himself a little, wonder if he shouldn’t have told her to get away from the man immediately. But she had just come in to hire Quinn for routine surveillance, so who the hell knew until it was too late just what kind of a hornet’s nest they’d stirred up. Eventually he had suggested that she part from her husband, and he had assumed she meant to do so, armed with the information regarding the man that Quinn had been able to give her.
But she hadn’t left fast enough. Art hadn’t been abusive, not physically, though he had been sexually demanding of Nell while spending his own time in a number of places outside his own home—and with a number of women who had not been his wife.
Who the hell could have known the guy would suddenly become homicidal?
He should have—he should have suspected Nell could be in danger.
Today he felt something like the boat—his time on that particular case had caused a growth of barnacles over his skin. Some time off might help scrape off the festering scabs of surprise and bitterness.
Vacation. From work, from family, from friends.
Maybe especially family. Doug didn’t deserve any of his foul mood or foul temper.
And also, he hadn’t actually been up to spending time with Doug. His brother could be a royal pain in the ass, a nonstop barrage of questions and inquiries. Like an intern in an emergency room, ready to diagnose a malady in any tic of the body, Doug was ready to find evil in every off-the-wall movement in the people around him.
A tough way to be in Miami-Dade County, where more than half the inhabitants could be considered a bit off-the-wall.
Quinn didn’t know whether to groan or be concerned. Doug wouldn’t have hunted him down to ask hypothetical questions. A tinge of unease hit him suddenly.
“Mom?” Quinn said worriedly.
“Heart ticking like an industrial clock,” Doug assured him quickly. “However, she did mention that you hadn’t been by lately, and she enjoys it when you come around
