Quickstep to Murder Read Online Free PDF

flourish.
    “Thank you,” Maurice said, kissing my hand with oldfashioned gallantry.
    “Let’s talk when you’re done here,” I said with a meaningful look.
     
    I struggled with the accounts for another half hour before I heard Maurice call, “Au revoir, ladies. Until next time.” Moments later he stood in the doorway.
    I had hired Maurice almost two years ago, and we’d developed a relationship that seemed more like greatuncle with favorite niece than employee-employer, despite the fact we never socialized outside the studio. I didn’t know much about his personal life other than that his wife had died of an aneurysm in her early fifties. He’d never remarried, although I was certain he’d had plenty of opportunities, if the women in his classes were anything to go by. Speaking of which . . .
    I gestured for him to sit. “Maurice, what is it with those women? We need to find a way to keep interactions more . . . more amicable. We can’t have students mistaking your class for a boxing match and breaking their osteoporotic bones. Plus, we can’t let a couple of scrappy senior citizens make the atmosphere so bitter that we lose clients. Lord knows, we can’t afford that.”
    “I couldn’t agree more, Anastasia.” He cocked his head a bit to one side, clearly asking me how to fix the problem. One ankle rested on the opposite knee and his hands lay on his thighs.
    “What did you do when these sorts of problems arose on your cruise ships?”
    “Threw them overboard,” he said, straight-faced.
    His deadpan humor never failed to catch me off guard and I gaped at him for a moment. Then I started laughing. His mouth twitched at the corner, and he leaned across the desk to hand me a pristine handkerchief as tears leaked from my eyes.
    “Wouldn’t work here,” I finally said. “No ocean. Although the Potomac’s not that far . . .” I mused.
    His blue eyes twinkled.
    Damn, if I were fifty years older—make that thirty—I’d probably be fighting Edwina and Mildred for him.
    “If it concerns you, Anastasia, I will fix the problem.” He opened his hands like a magician performing a trick. “I shall recruit two gentlemen of my acquaintance to attend the classes—perhaps I may tell them the classes are complimentary?”
    “Absolutely,” I said, relieved to have such an elegant solution to the dilemma. “Thank you, Maurice. The real problem, you know, is that you’re much too charming. Do you think you could dial back the sex appeal a notch?” I smiled at him as he rose.
    “Impossible, my dear Anastasia.” A look of mischief lit his face. “It’s a curse.”
     
    Moments after Maurice left the office, I heard the outside door open and the click of high heels stop at my doorway. I looked over to see a woman posed in the opening. In that nebulous range between fifty and sixty, she had a flawlessly made-up face that had probably been lifted at least once. Her hair was an ashy blond cut to jaw length and expensively styled. A pink raw-silk suit clung to her lean curves and she wore matching stilettos that undoubtedly said Blahnik or Choo on the label. If her long neck was a bit scraggy and the skin on her hands a tad mottled, she was still a very attractive woman. Sherry Indrebo, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. And a talented amateur ballroom dancer who paid Rafe to dance with her at competitions, like Mark Downey did with me. I’d heard rumors that maybe she got more than dancing for her money, but I’d never believed them.
    “Stacy,” she said with a tight smile. “Tell Rafe I’ll just be a minute, would you? I need to change. Thanks.”
    Uh-oh. “Rafe’s not here, Sherry.”
    Her perfectly arched and penciled brows snapped together. “He’s not? Well, I’m sure he’ll get here any minute. He wouldn’t forget. Not with the Capitol Festival so close.”
    I didn’t tell her Rafe had been forgetting a lot of things recently.
    “He’d better not forget.” The corners of her