Angel's Dance (17 page)

Grant knew there was something wrong
with Clear and he suspected she wanted to stay longer, probably to
sort out all of the stuff she was picking up, so when Ms. Chofsky
went to turn the lights off, he began asking questions.

“
This is a really small
room. How many dancers would typically practice in here at a
time?”

“
No more than three or
four. Often only one. That is why it is a
private
room.” She rolled her eyes
at the question.

“
And did Donna use it by
herself?”

“
Mmm… probably not.” Ms.
Chofsky murmured quickly. “I don’t really know though as I wasn’t
in here with her.”

“
Who would have been in
here with her?” He didn’t really know where he was going with the
questioning, but it obviously made her uncomfortable so he kept
firing.

“
As I said, I don’t really
know. I was not a part of the show. She would probably have been in
here with her dance partner… any small group dance partners… and..
well of course, Mr. Lando.”

“
Do you know the names of
any of the people she was dancing with?” Clear asked suddenly off
to the side. She was kneeling on the ground, looking at a spot.
“Anyone she might have fought with?”

There was a haunted look in the
woman’s eye as she responded, “How could you… how could I know?”
she muttered, staring hard at Clear. “What are you
doing?”

Clear waved Grant over and he looked
down. “Well now, who would use bleach on a fine hard wood floor
like this? And what could possibly be worth getting out so much
that it was worth ruining the floor?” He looked at the woman, but
Clear answered.

“
Blood.”

“
And that is a lot of
blood, judging from the bleach stain,” Grant muttered, looking at
Ms. Chofsky. The woman had gone white as a sheet. He was on to
something here and she knew about it. “Now, ballet doesn’t seem
like much of a contact sport to me. Any theories ma’am?” He looked
at her pointedly.

“
I… people get injured…
sometimes…” She looked away from the bleach stains and straight
into Grant’s face, pulling herself together. “As I said, I don’t
really use this studio. You would have to speak with Mr. Lando
about what might have happened here.” She turned on her heel
quickly and exited the room. Grant looked to Clear and she gave one
short tight nod, before rising and following the woman out. What
had Clear seen with her gift? Was it enough to move this case
along? He needed to find his daughter, and the intense need briefly
overwhelmed him. Taking a deep breath, he forced the pain back
down. He couldn’t focus if he gave in to the overwhelming fear and
despair. Squaring his shoulders, Grant quickly followed the women
back out to the lobby.

Clear hated being confined to the
lobby. There was so much more to see and sense here, and she knew
it. The blood in that dance room had been Belladonna’s. She had
sensed it. But she didn’t know how it had happened. There was no
visual attached to Bella’s memory, just the immense pain associated
with it.

After Grant’s pushing, Ms. Chofsky had
brought them back up to the front and told them the receptionist
would help them get in touch with Mr. Lando. The receptionist was
less than helpful. She informed them that Mr. Lando would not be in
for several hours and said that she had no way of getting in touch
with him.

Clear wanted to walk around and see
what else she might find, but the receptionist insisted that they
could not just let people “wander around” and that Ms. Chofsky had
a lesson and could not escort them. It seemed that after Ms.
Chofsky’s hurried little chat, no one was available to show them
around.

Grant was pacing the lobby and Clear
knew that his mood was getting more foul by the minute. She was
tempted to suggest that maybe they should go somewhere else for a
while, but at the same time her gut said that this is where they
needed to look to find out what had happened to Belladonna and Kat.
She felt that somehow Mr. Lando would be able to give them more to
go on, even though the picture looked nothing like the man from her
vision of Kat and Bella before.

Yet, that vision bothered her. No one
could look as hideous as that man. She was fairly certain that the
image was clouded with Kat’s negative feelings about the person,
but at Kat’s age the image should still be based on some sort of
semblance of the real person. Perspective was such a tricky thing.
If Kat had such negative feelings about the man, she wouldn’t have
gone off with him willingly. But it was hard to tell what was going
on here. Chasing her thoughts was doing no good.

She was just about to suggest to Grant
that they go somewhere else and come back later when an older
gentleman breezed in the door. Immediately Clear knew that this was
Mr. Lando. He was a good ten years older than his portrait in the
lobby, but she could feel that this was him. He walked right past
Clear and Grant, up to the receptionist and grabbed the stack of
mail. When the young woman started to speak, he held his hand up
cutting her off. She sat quietly as he continued to thumb through
the mail. Clear gave Grant a meaningful look and he immediately
approached the man.

“
Excuse me, Mr. Lando?” he
said politely. The man rudely held up a hand and said, without even
looking at Grant, “Make an appointment my dear boy, I am a busy
man.”

Clear watched the storm cloud cross
Grant’s features, but when he spoke his voice was calm and
authoritative. “Yes sir, as am I.” He pulled out his badge and held
it up. “So I would appreciate it if you would put the mail down and
take five seconds to determine if you are really too busy to speak
to me now.”

The man looked up at Grant, saw the
badge, shrugged and set the mail down. He was extraordinarily calm
under the circumstances. “Oh my, the police,” he said drolly.
“Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.” He waved for Grant to follow
him and said to the secretary. “Do push back my meetings, dear.
This is, I am sure, highly important.” Clear could feel the
sarcasm, but was not sure anyone else heard it. Slightly in awe of
the man, she followed Grant into a corner office.

The man turned abruptly,
eyed her and smiled. It was a very predatory smile that made
Clear’s skin crawl. “Well, now aren’t you absolutely lovely,” he
murmured, approaching her. It took everything she had not to cringe
back away from him. Her gut instinct said he would have enjoyed
that too much. “Such a lovely neckline… and those arms… hmmm…
you
must
be a
dancer.”

“
Sorry to disappoint you,”
Grant murmured. “She is my partner.” Clear did not miss the very
territorial sound in his voice, but at the moment she was too
uncomfortable by Mr. Lando’s interest to really object.

“
Indeed,” Mr. Lando stated
as if the subject were closed. “A police officer? Such a waste of a
perfect silhouette,” he practically purred. “Now… you are not local
police. I know all of them. Let me see that badge
again?”

Grant shrugged, handing
the badge over. Mr. Lando scrutinized it thoroughly. “Montana? Now
who could possibly be interested in
me
in Montana?” He gave Grant a smug
look. “Of course, you realize that you really have no authority
here.”

“
Well, be that as it may,
if you call Detective Bryce with Chicago PD, he will vouch that I
am here helping him on a case. A case that has led us to your
doorstep.”

“
Detective Bryce? Isn’t
that the fellow who was looking into my dancer who had run off?
What was her name?”

Clear felt a surge of nausea. This man
was not a good man! She just couldn’t quite put her finger on what
it was about him that was so… oily, skeezy…. What was it? She tried
to peg down the feelings while also following the line of
questioning.

“
Belladonna Johnson,”
Grant supplied caustically.

The man snapped his fingers. “Ah yes,
that was it. Beautiful girl, wonderful lines. Not a bad dancer…
hmm… She ran away in Chicago after the performance, as I recall.
How can we assist you?”

“
We aren’t so sure she ran
away,” Grant stated calmly. “Another dancer has gone missing under
very similar circumstances.”

Clear felt the spike of interest in
the man, but absolutely no guilt or fear. Either he truly didn’t
know anything about this or he was a sociopath. In which case, this
line of talk wasn’t going to get her anywhere!

“
Well, it wasn’t one of
our dancers. I’m sure I would have heard by now. So what is your
interest in our studio? Unless you are just retracing everything,
same as that other detective.” He flicked his fingers in
distain.

“
You don’t think it is
strange that two female dancers of similar age disappeared?” Grant
challenged.

“
To be honest? Not really.
These girls are all so young and reckless. The good ones don’t want
to wait to reach stardom. Dancing has a very small marketability
after a girl turns 30, you know. Have you tried looking for them in
New York? Well, that is presuming the other girl was any good. That
is where most of them head. More work available.”

“
Let’s just focus on
Belladonna, for now? We were informed that you were giving her
private instruction.”

The man didn’t bat an eyelash and
didn’t confirm nor deny.

“
Is that true?”

“
I suppose technically,
yes. She was in the show and needed some extra work. Several of
them were receiving extra training because they could not keep up.
Not uncommon.”

“
All of them were getting
this extra training from you?” Grant needled.

“
Well, of course. I was
the director! Can’t have an amateur show, can we?”

“
Why would you cast people
who would need extra work?” Clear asked, seemingly
innocently.

“
Ah, my dear girl. We all
need some more work, don’t we? But the show is not an open
audition. All the performers come directly from my school. Sort of
a way to showcase our talent and to promote the school. Some of my
projects are… a little more… ambitious than all of the students can
handle. We pick the very best and even then, some fall short of our
expectations.” He shrugged as if in apology.

“
So, Ms. Johnson fell
short?” Grant pried.

“
I suppose that depends on
how you look at it. She was very good for her age. She had the raw
talent. She did not have the time to devote to personal
development, what with school and all. She ended up doing passably
well, considering. But it took a lot of extra work.”

“
Yes, about that work.
Another one of your teachers showed us the dance room used for
private instruction. Interesting stain on the floor,” Grant
probed.

“
Stain? Oh, from the
blood. Right mess, that. I am going to have to replace the whole
damn floor!” Mr. Lando replied glibly.

Clear groaned inwardly. Nothing seemed
to ruffle this man.

“
Care to explain how you
got blood on your dance floor?” Grant challenged.

The man scoffed at him,
“Oh, I see, you are one of
those
people! My dear boy, dancing is a very difficult
and demanding sport. You can glower at me all you want, but dancers
go through as rigorous training as any other athlete. They break
bones and bleed for the dance. Literally. Check any of our upper
level dancers and you will find most of them have bloody toes and
have broken plenty of bones.”

Grant arched his eyebrow at the man.
“That is more blood than from a couple of toes. Are you telling me
you don’t remember how it happened?”

“
To be honest, I wasn’t
there when it happened. My guess is a broken nose, but no one will
fess up to it. If they did, I would make them pay for the damn
floor.”

“
Wait, let me get this
straight. Someone used your private studio without your knowledge
and you come in the next day to all that blood and just shrug it
off?” Clear demanded incredulously. She was getting very flustered
by her seeming inability to read this man.

“
There was no blood. They
cleaned up after themselves. The bleach ruined the floor. Do you
think I should have called the police over such a trivial thing as
a ruined floor?”