Death of a Chorus Girl (The Delacroix Series Book 1) (2 page)

There was no way I could answer that question honestly, mainly because I don’t completely understand it myself.  I get visions every now and again, ones that strictly occur in a colorless world.  I’m not psychic because the visions have never been of the future until today.  The best explanation I can give is that I’m an empath, but I’m impacted by the spaces instead of by the feelings of those around me.  When powerful emotions—rage, love, sorrow, disappointment, joy—motivate behavior, the events somehow imprint upon the space where they take place. I become a party to it when I inhabit the same space.  Typically, I see and feel what happens through the eyes of the person experiencing the emotion, almost as if it is my own living memory.

I didn’t realize I was living behind Annie’s eyes when the vision today struck.  One moment I was watching the colorful chorus execute my choreography with near perfect precision.  The next, I found myself in a black and white world, twirling around myself with hazy, dancing figures surrounding me.  They slowly disappeared until they left alone, marking the steps to the melody playing in my mind.  Then two hands closed around my neck, the fingers pressing into my throat.  A spark of excitement had rushed through me before the fear took hold.  My hands leaped to his but instead of clawing at his skin, my nails were only able to dig into the man’s thick leather gloves.  I managed to get my fingers underneath his sleeves to scratch and pull on his arms, but it was no use.

I never saw the face of the man who killed me in the vision, and not just because he was at my back.  People are just nondescript figures in the visions, but it doesn’t make the pain the victims suffer any less real when I stumble upon murder and violence.  It doesn’t make me feel any less alone as I succumb to the deaths of others.

The world evaporated slowly, too slowly it seemed.  Its blackness had only taken hold for a second before I gasped for a huge intake of breath.  The need to clear my head and center my thoughts had been immense, so I called for the break.  Had I known it portended the future, I would have done something different.

I couldn’t tell Tom any of that.  Even now, I’m still not a hundred percent sure that the vision was Annie even though I feel that it was in the pit of my stomach.  At my self-incriminating silence, Tom threw me in his car and slammed the door.  The car instantly took off and drove me to the office of Tom’s lawyer.  I went inside the building, but never saw the lawyer.  I walked back outside and hailed a cab as soon as Tom’s car pulled away and directed the driver to take me to the precinct.  Which is how I ended up here, waiting for Detective Giordano.

An image of Detective Richard Giordano accosts me at the thought of him, and I give myself over to it while I wait.  Even in the midst of all the gore on my stage, he made an impression.  He is tall and fit, definitely over six feet, with thick, wavy, dark hair.  The blue in his eyes is so apparent even across the stage that I found myself entrapped by them.  His lashes are so thick it was almost as if he was wearing eyeliner and mascara.  I wasn’t surprised when I learned his last name was Giordano.  He has classic Italian features with a sculpted face that appears carved from marble when coupled with his olive skin.

His partner, on the other hand, Steve Beauregard, is attractive enough, for a smarmy guy who knows he looks good.  We are about the same height, but heels would have given me a slight advantage.  His face and build aren’t anything spectacular, not ugly, just not my tastes.  His musculature is healthy, something you notice when you work with athletes every day.  But he has teeny, tiny, little eyes and for me that is a deal breaker.  Not that he really ever stood a chance.

“Filthy, dirty pig scum!” brings me out of my head.  My eyes focus back on reality just in time to see a lanky twenty-something head-butt one of the cops.  The cop releases him and he takes off for the door. 
How stupid can some people be?
  Two cops quickly tackle and throw the kid before handcuffing him.  It becomes obvious to me that he is high on something when they bring him back to his feet. 
Hope the instant bravado was worth it. 
An amused smile toys with the corners of my mouth as my head shakes at the lunacy playing out in front of me.

“Find something funny, miss?”  I’m fairly confident in the owner of that voice, even though I’ve never heard it, and push the lock of hair over my ear again to peer over my shoulder. 
Suspicions confirmed
.

“Not at all, Detective Giordano.”  His eyes bulge when he sees my face and Beauregard, who is standing just behind Detective Giordano’s shoulder, mumbles something under his breath. “I was hoping to talk to you.  Is there somewhere we can go,
alone
?”

Richard Giordano: 57
th
Precinct

Holy shit!  What is she doing here?
  She disappeared from the theater, and Worthy refused to tell me where she went.  Em, the elusive choreographer, is the last woman I expect to see after the desk cop told me a young woman is waiting for me.  I barely register Steve mumbling when she glances over her shoulder at us, but his curse is loud and clear when she states that she has been waiting for me.

Steve nudges me in the back with his shoulder, a not so subtle reminder that I haven’t answered her.  “Yeah, um, of course, we can talk.  If you’ll follow me, Mrs.?”

“Delacroix,” Steve and Em reply together.  “And it’s Ms., detective,” she adds.

I motion for her to walk with me.  I have no idea where I am leading her at first.  We walk aimlessly while I remind myself that she fled a crime scene and is currently my main person of interest in the murder of the chorus girl. 
Get it together.  Don’t let a pair of eyes and legs keep you from admitting she’s currently your prime suspect.
  During my self-reprimand, she stops without my noticing and I continue a few steps.  My name slides off her tongue, sending a shiver I can’t control down my spine.  “Detective Giordano, do you have any idea
where
we are going?”

A perplexed expression with a hint of amusement sits on her face, which is cocked to the side when I look back at her. 
Where are we going?
  In order to get this exchange back on track, I remind myself she is a suspect, whether she came to me willingly or not.  We speak to suspects in an interrogation room.

“Yeah, sorry.”  The water cooler catches my eye, “Would you like something to drink first, Ms. Delacroix?”  A sparkle glints in each of her eyes as she arches an eyebrow and smirks at me.

I escort her to an interrogation room after getting our water.  She brushes past me through the door and immediately sits at the table.  I shut the door, turn off the camera and microphone, and close the blinds before joining her.  “Ms. Delacroix …”

“Please, call me Em.” she interrupts.

“Alright, Em,”

“Do you prefer Dick, Rich, or Richard?” she asks, again interrupting me.

That shocks me. I typically don’t get on a first name basis with suspects.  I had been purposely staring at the notepad on the table but the way she says Richard brings my head up.  No one
ever
calls me Richard.  That lock of hair is hanging across her face again, and it takes every ounce of strength I own not to reach across the table to tuck it back behind her ear.  She is quick to put it back in place before I get a chance.

“Ah, most people call me Rich.”

A thoughtful expression settles on her features and during the silence it feels as if she is examining my soul.  “I prefer Richard, if that’s all right with you?”

How can just the sound of your own name rolling off a person’s tongue feel so intimate?  This woman makes me feel as self-conscious as a teenager.  I clear my throat and zero back in on the note pad.  “So, Ms. Delacroix…”

“Em.”

“Em, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

I jump when she cups her hand over mine.  “Relax, Richard, I’m not going to bite.  I want to talk to you about why you shouldn’t consider me as your prime suspect.”

“Who says I am?”  Luckily, my voice doesn’t betray the pounding of my heart.

“
Richard?
” she purrs.

This is a bad idea.  I shouldn’t be alone with this woman because I can’t focus on the task, leaving her with the upper hand.  She says my name again as she ducks her head down, capturing my undivided attention. 
It’s time to remember who the detective is and who’s not
.  My eyelids slide closed while I steel my resolve before lifting my chin to meet her gaze.

“Why wouldn’t you,” Em acknowledges with a smile.  “I’m sure you were told I dismissed the chorus ten minutes before the rig fell, crushing poor Annie.  Just as I’m sure you heard I was the one who discovered the accident alone, though, at the time I didn’t know she was under the mess.  And my disappearance probably did nothing to sway you of my innocence, as Tom offered no cooperation as to my whereabouts.  Am I right so far?”  I just nod my head in stunned silence.  “Good, then please be aware I came here willingly and waited for
you
.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because your partner wasn’t interested in that information when he hit on me by way of questioning me.”  I can’t help but smile.  “Because I assume you have some questions for me you never got the opportunity to ask.  Because…”  Her eyes drop to our hands.  Mine follow to discover that my hand has shifted to hold hers, and I become embarrassed.  She doesn’t pull away, though, so neither do I.

I let out a deep breath and return my gaze to hers, yet her face is not what I expect.  It is blank with her sight turned inwards, making her eerily appear dead.  Only her shallow breaths tell me that she isn’t.  “Ms. Delacroix?”  Nothing.  My grip on her hand intensifies.  “Em?”  The fog slowly lifts from them after a blink of her eyes.  She quickly takes in her location and me.  Her eyes dart all around the room before resting on the door as she jerks her hand out of mine, placing both of them in her lap.

What I intend to say is silenced when the door swings open revealing my captain standing in the doorway.  He is an older man with a receding hairline and what he has left is gray.  Even though he is no longer pounding the pavement, so to speak, he still looks like he could best most men in a fight.  “There you are, Giordano.  Can you step outside a moment?”

“Yes, sir.”

The minute the door closes the captain starts in.  “You want to tell me why you’re alone, in an interrogation room, with a female suspect in a murder investigation?  Why the cameras and microphone are turned off?  Why your partner came and got me when he went into the observation room to find the blinds closed?”

When presented like that, the situation looks pretty bad.  “Sir, she came to us.  I just found out she was shuffled out of the theater by Mr. Worthy to seek out his attorney.”  The captain’s mouth bursts open ready to yell at me so I quickly press on, putting my hands up in a defensive position.  “You don’t have to say it, sir, but she hasn’t asked for a lawyer at all.  Everything I’ve told you she has offered. I haven’t asked a single question.  That’s why I didn’t think it necessary for the cameras and microphones.  My gut tells me she’s on the up and up and I would like to continue as I have been.”

“Your gut?  You’re sure about that?”  I stay silent, not quite following his meaning.  “Not your dick?  From what I hear, she’s entranced the attention of the whole damn department.”  The deep cut of the captain’s words shows when I straighten up to tower over his smaller frame with my hands fisted at my sides.

“Pack it away, Rich.  You wouldn’t be the first detective to get caught up in a skirt.  Truth is, I’m impressed it’s taken you this long to do so.  From the glimpse I got of her, I wouldn’t think any less of you.”

“My gut, sir.”  The words come out deliberately.  I understand where he is coming from. It’s not unheard of for a cop to end up pursuing a pretty face - hell, my partner is famous for it - but the unspoken rule is that she is cleared of suspicion first.

“Good to hear because her boyfriend is demanding I take your head since you’re interviewing her without the big shot attorney standing next to him.” 
Shit, Worthy is here!  He’s Em’s boyfriend!
  “You want to hear her out, great. Just let me go in and hear her say she doesn’t want an attorney, wants to talk to you, and is comfortable being alone with you.  That way, your ass is covered.  Capiche?”

“Yup,” I spit.  Em and Worthy. 
More like Worthless!

I reclaim control over this interview after the captain gets what he needs to cover my ass.  “Ms. Delacroix,” she opens her mouth to argue but I barrel over her.  I have suffered enough today from the mistakes I’ve made because I am too wrapped up in her.  “I think we need to keep this professional. So let’s take a seat and get this over with.”

We spend the next half hour going through her statement.  The timing of the break was coincidence and it was only supposed to last fifteen minutes.  She always goes back into the theater five minutes ahead of anyone else.  Her confidence fills every fact even as she tersely finishes every sentence with a tart “
detective
.”  She provides me with a list of theater veterans she works with, including one Tom Worthy, whom, she informs me, is not her boyfriend, who will vouch that this is her consistent pattern and how she works every show.