Shadow Dance Read online

  SUSAN ANDERSEN

  SHADOW DANCE

  This is dedicated with love

  to my guys

  for years and years

  of making me laugh

  And in memory of Dad and Uncle Harold

  Contents

  Prologue

  Amanda Rose Charles awoke Tuesday morning with a warm feeling…

  Chapter 1

  The flight was like no other Tristan MacLaughlin had ever…

  Chapter 2

  Tristan wouldn’t have thought he’d given a moment’s consideration to…

  Chapter 3

  Amanda’s first reaction when she finally had her apartment to…

  Chapter 4

  Tristan was ready to snarl with frustration by the time…

  Chapter 5

  Amanda found herself temporarily alone in the middle of what…

  Chapter 6

  In the following weeks, Amanda’s life slowly returned to normal.

  Chapter 7

  Amanda stared at the large man and the little dog…

  Chapter 8

  “Buy you ladies a drink?”

  Chapter 9

  A flower was delivered to Rhonda in the early hours…

  Chapter 10

  Dance rehearsals were generally held only when a new headliner…

  Chapter 11

  By the time Amanda’s alarm rang the next day, the…

  Chapter 12

  The address Joe Cash gave Tristan belonged to a small…

  Chapter 13

  Heart pounding, Amanda rolled back toward the nightstand and turned…

  Chapter 14

  The emotion tightening his stomach was so unfamiliar that at…

  Chapter 15

  The cup and saucer fell from fingers gone nerveless, and…

  Chapter 16

  Tristan was aware of the moment Amanda awakened. He felt…

  Chapter 17

  Tristan and Amanda weren’t able to go on dates like…

  Chapter 18

  It seemed to Tristan that he had just fallen asleep…

  Chapter 19

  “…hospital states her condition as satisfactory.”

  Chapter 20

  Rhonda looked at Amanda in her prim white cotton nightie…

  Chapter 21

  “MacLaughlin!”

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Susan Andersen

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Amanda Rose Charles awoke Tuesday morning with a warm feeling of well-being that lasted about forty-five seconds. Then she remembered her conversation with Charlie just before the midnight show the previous night, and a leaden weight seemed to press down on her chest, making it difficult to draw a really deep, satisfying breath. Struggling up on one elbow, she yawned, raked her fingers through her hair, and then reached for the telephone on the nightstand. She placed it on the mattress next to her stomach, but hesitated for a moment, simply looking at it. Finally, she picked up the receiver and punched out the familiar numbers.

  The phone rang ten times before she conceded defeat and hung up again. Damn.

  Where was Maryanne? The idea of calling the police sure didn’t appeal to her—Maryanne would be furious if it turned out she had done so needlessly. But she and Rhonda had agreed on the way home last night that they’d call the authorities today if Maryanne didn’t come home. It had been three days since they’d seen her. Not that this was the first time she’d taken off without a word to anyone. She seemed to make a habit of it, despite the agreement the three of them had made always to let one of the others know where they could be reached and when they could be expected back if they were going to be gone for a while. It was so blasted inconsiderate, the way she let them worry about her…but typical, vintage Maryanne.

  But not even to bother calling in sick was sheer professional suicide, and that wasn’t typical of Maryanne at all. Amanda only hoped the guy she was with turned out to be worth it.

  But she wouldn’t hold her breath. They so rarely were.

  She didn’t understand this preoccupation with men that everyone except her seemed to harbor. Sometimes she felt like the only grown-up in a room full of adolescents when the conversation turned, as it invariably did, to the subject of men and sex. But that was the least of her problems this morning, and Amanda tossed back the blankets and climbed out of bed. Stifling a yawn, she crossed the carpet to rummage through her drawers for an old leotard. She’d do her morning workout, then try calling Maryanne one more time.

  Despite her determination to shelve the subject, however, during her preliminary stretches her thoughts drifted back to it. As she stretched out her spine, she reflected on how much easier it had always been for her to make friends with women than with men. Perhaps that was because she had grown up with three sisters. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t like men or anything. As dance partners they couldn’t be beat, and a couple of them even made pretty handy friends. But they were definitely a different species, and she supposed it was her failure to understand their basic nature that made her erect fences between herself and most of their persuasion. It was an automatic reflex—she simply threw up guards without even realizing what she was doing half the time.

  Not that her motives, unconscious or not, made a lick of difference to the gossips in the dance community, she acknowledged wryly, lying on her stomach and arching until the bottom of her toes touched the top of her head. They couldn’t care less what her reasons were. They simply knew what they saw, and they spread the word as they saw it. From the moment she’d joined their ranks, she’d somehow managed to garner herself a reputation.

  Of course, acquiring a reputation for anything was almost impossible to avoid in this business. She’d always thought that being a member of the gypsy community must be a lot like growing up in a small town. Everyone knew everything there was to know about you, and what they didn’t know for a fact, they invented. Labels were dispersed indiscriminately, and once one acquired a name for something, it practically took an act of God to lose it. Her label seemed to be “ice maiden.” Or maybe “frigid bitch,” depending on who you were talking to and how gently she’d let him down.

  She preferred to call it selective.

  When she’d arrived in New York as an eighteen-year-old, she’d been on her own for the very first time, and sporting some painful emotional scars that were only superficially healed. Teddy was gone; her family life was a total disaster; and all around her, in her permissive new environment, friends, roommates, co-workers, and fellow inhabitants of the dance world were touting the glories of sexual freedom. She’d had every intention of joining their ranks, of being wild and wicked and doing things that would blow her parents out of the water, should they ever find out.

  All the things her sister Teddy would have done.

  So she’d done her best to toss out her woefully outdated beliefs, but it simply hadn’t gelled. She’d managed to shed her virginity, an experience that hadn’t been any great shakes. Left wondering what all the fuss was about, she hadn’t taken long to decide indiscriminate sex just wasn’t for her.

  Amanda gave a mental shrug as she slowly uncurled and rolled to a sitting position. Spreading her legs until they formed a line perpendicular to her torso, she leaned forward, resting her weight on her forearms as she pressed her upper body to the carpet. When she’d returned to her retro ways, tales of her standoffishness with men had quickly made the rounds. And so her rep had been born.

  Escalating the pace of her workout as she switched from stretches to more serious body strengthening exercises, she decided she could live with that. Sometimes she regretted her reputation, but at least
she wasn’t likely to be led astray and have her entire career jeopardized, like Maryanne.

  She doubted there was a man alive worth sacrificing that for.

  Finishing up a while later, she headed for the bathroom, where she eyed the bathtub covetously for a moment. She decided, however, to settle for a shower in the interests of time. Leaning into the mirror while the water heated, she curled her lip at the image reflected back at her. How charming—there must be a dozen creases pressed into her cheek from the bed linens. Averting her eyes, she reached for her toothbrush. She wished someone would invent some sort of instant energizer for people like her—something you could plug into a socket for a few minutes to make you come alive. She wasn’t at her best first thing in the morning.

  Propping herself beneath the flow of hot water in the shower, she stood with her head tilted back, sleepily blowing the streaming water out of her mouth. She wondered idly how her life might have differed if her personality had been a better fit for the flamboyant gypsy environment in which she moved. The thought made her smile. Because really, you had to admire the irony.

  By coming to New York on her own to pursue a career in dance, she was considered by Mother and Father to be beyond the pale. But within the gypsy world, she was also seen as something of an oddity. She didn’t have a bohemian bone in her body, and except when she danced, she was quite conservative by nature. Plus, she was quiet. She was friendly enough, but she wasn’t a big partier, and never having been one to rush relationships, she failed to collect friends by the dozen. Even her personal style differed radically from that of most of her fellow dancers. Personally, she liked her fashion sense and felt she dressed with a flair that was individualistic. But she admitted it was probably a lot more Ann Taylor than Madonna.

  Well, those were the breaks. She was a product of her upbringing, and if she hadn’t been able to change that when she was eighteen and angry, hurting, and determined to forsake all the false values and pretensions of her former life, what were the chances of changing it at twenty-eight? Turning off the water and grabbing a towel, she stepped out of the tub.

  She smoothed on body lotion, and a moment later, clad in her underwear and blotting the ends of her hair, which still trickled water down her back and over her collarbones, she strode into her bedroom. Draping the towel over her shoulders, she sat down at her dressing table, picked up a long-handled sable powder brush, and leaned into the mirror. She began applying makeup with a light hand, and by the time she’d finished doing her eyes, her stomach had started to growl for breakfast. She hurriedly untangled her damp curls and dressed.

  It was her one day off in a blue moon—hers and Rhonda’s both, which was even rarer still. They had made plans to hit the nearest shopping center to stock up on staples and run all those errands they hadn’t had time for in the past few weeks. It was nearly noon; she had arisen earlier than usual. Being in a casino show meant keeping a timetable that was different from the rest of the world. Chorus gypsies were generally just getting out of bed about the time everyone else’s workday was half over.

  In the kitchen, she put on the kettle to make a pot of coffee. Snapping on the small countertop television set with one hand to catch the noon broadcast of the news, she reached for the coffee grinder with the other. The volume was turned low, so she missed the beginning of the sound bite over the rattle of the coffee beans she poured into the electric grinder and the high-pitched whir as it turned the beans into a fine, fragrant powder. Without looking up from her task, she reached over to turn up the sound.

  “…Woman the authorities believe to be the latest victim of the Showgirl Slayer. She is five feet eight inches tall, weighs one hundred twenty-three pounds, and has dark-blond hair, hazel eyes, and a small, fine scar running through her left eyebrow. Anyone having knowledge of her identity is urged to contact Detective Joe Cash at the Reno Police Department, Homicide Division. That number again is…”

  Very slowly, Amanda raised her eyes to focus on the screen. She lowered the kettle, cutting off the stream of steaming water that she had been pouring through the coffee grounds into the pot below. Oh, God. It couldn’t be.

  Could it? Dear God, no. Please.

  Amanda finished making the coffee, automatically setting the kettle back on the stove and turning off the burner beneath it. Pouring herself a cup, she placed the glass coffeepot atop a protective wire on the back burner and turned it to low. Then she picked up her coffee cup and carried it into the living room, noticing without surprise that it was rattling badly in its saucer. Very carefully she set it on the coffee table, then took a seat on the couch and simply stared at it for a moment.

  Slowly she reached out and picked up the telephone receiver from its unit on the small marble-topped end table, reluctantly pressing the numbers etched in her brain. Clutching the receiver in sweaty palms, she sat rigidly upright as she listened to the telephone ring on the other end of the line. Then it was picked up, and her spine suddenly melted. Feeling boneless and lightheaded, she slumped on her tailbone on the chenille upholstered cushion, clamping the receiver to her ear.

  “Reno police department,” said the polite, businesslike voice.

  Chapter

  1

  The flight was like no other Tristan MacLaughlin had ever taken. Not that he considered himself a huge world traveler, by any means, but when he did fly, it was usually on the commuter shuttle, packed with businessmen. And regular commuters generally slept or booted their computers to go over work. They were a different breed altogether from the boisterous revelers surrounding him now.

  Certainly, on the average public transport, he wasn’t accustomed to hearing the sound of cards being shuffled or the rattle of dice. And when the plane hit a wee bit of turbulence approaching the Reno airport and abruptly lost altitude for a stomach-dropping instant, Tristan was not amused to hear more than half the passengers whoop as though they were on an amusement park ride. He felt, in fact, downright grim. It hammered home the frivolous nature of the city to which he had been assigned.

  The muscles along his jaw bunched and relaxed rhythmically as he stared out the tiny window at the dusty green and dun landscape below. Why him? There had been at least three detectives who had begged for this assignment—who had actually considered it the opportunity of a lifetime to set up a task force for a case involving showgirls in a city designed for entertainment. Tristan hadn’t been interested at all, and he had been stunned when Captain Weller had called him into his office to discuss the temporary transfer to Reno. He couldn’t argue with Weller that his experience on the revived task force for the Green River serial murders in Seattle was exactly what Reno was looking for. But he certainly hadn’t agreed when Weller had suggested that this would also be an opportune time for Tristan to be absent from Seattle, in case Palmer, a man he had been instrumental in putting behind bars, decided to make good on his threat to see him planted six feet under. Palmer had just escaped from prison in Denver, and Tristan was certain he had more important matters on his mind right now than trying to exact his promised retribution. He was going to have all he could handle just avoiding recapture. Tristan hadn’t bought that particular theory when Weller had first suggested it as an additional reason to head up his Reno case, and he didn’t buy it now.

  But when it came to departmental politics, it wasn’t necessary for him to buy a damn thing, Tristan acknowledged glumly as he waited for the majority of other passengers to finish shuffling past him before he stepped into the center aisle to leave the plane. A captain outranked a lieutenant every time, and it was clear that Weller had already made the decision to send Tristan to Reno. As far as his captain was concerned, Tristan MacLaughlin was the best man for the job. And that was the beginning and the end of it.

  Once out on the concourse, Tristan intended to head straight to the baggage claim to retrieve his luggage. But he was sidetracked by his amazement at some of his fellow passengers. They hadn’t even waited to leave the bloody airport before they’d b
egun gambling.

  He shook his head as he watched his former seatmate, a talkative little white-haired lady in a red polyester pantsuit, as she plumped herself down on a padded stool in front of a bank of slot machines. She wasn’t talking now. She was all business as she began feeding quarters into the machine and pulling the arm at an amazing rate, avidly watching the revolving cherries, oranges, bars, and sevens as they whirred past, finally to clunk one, two, three into a pattern between a set of red lines. Her eyes were in constant motion, darting left and right to keep tabs on the slot machines on either side of her, as well as her own. When she felt his gaze, she threw a suspicious glance at him over her shoulder.

  It was as if their previous amiable conversation on the airplane had never happened. If her expression was anything to go by, she expected him to pounce on her slot machine any minute now. Personally, Tristan failed to see the attraction, and he shrugged and turned away. Removing his glasses, he pulled a snowy white handkerchief from his pocket to polish the lenses.

  “Lieutenant MacLaughlin?”

  Tristan replaced his glasses and peered down at the man in front of him. “Aye,” he acknowledged. “How did you know, then, mate?”

  “I’m a detective,” the man said, grinning. When his smile was not returned, he hastened to interject, “Actually, your captain said to look for a very large man with sandy-brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. My name is Cash,” he added, thrusting his hand at Tristan. “Joe Cash.”

  What Weller had actually said was, “He’s a big, dour, sonofabitchin’ Scot with blondish-brownish hair and horn-rimmed glasses. You can’t miss him. Look for shoulders like a linebacker’s and a face that doesn’t exactly remind you of the life of the party.”