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“Meeting with someone like that is dangerous,” he said next, echoing Calvin’s own view of the situation.
“I know,” Victoria said. “But I had Calvin downstairs, so I figured I would be safe enough.”
A brief pause as the police chief sent my husband a disapproving glance, as if to tell him he’d really dropped the ball by agreeing to be part of such a dodgy scheme. Calvin, luckily, was one of those people who could remain utterly impassive no matter what might be going on around him, so he didn’t even respond, only continued to gaze back at Henry without so much as a blink.
“All right,” Henry said dryly. “So you thought you had backup. Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”
She swallowed. “I think I need some water.”
“I’ll get it,” I offered, and headed for the door, which we’d left open to the hallway, then went out into the studio’s primary space. Although the layout of the kitchen had changed a little, I still quickly located a glass and poured Victoria some water from the pitcher in the fridge. Once I was done with that task, I went back to the room where everyone was waiting for me. I handed her the water, and she took a sip.
“The blackmailer sent me a letter saying he was going to meet me here at ten o’clock today,” she said.
“Do you have this letter?” Henry asked.
She nodded. “It’s in my office across the hall. Do you want me to get it?”
“Not right now,” he replied immediately. “You can hand it over as evidence once we’re done with this interview. So, the blackmailer demanded a meeting. Was this the first time you’d heard from him?”
“No,” she said. “He sent a letter to Archie’s studio a couple of days earlier, but it wasn’t as specific.”
“What did it say?”
For a moment, she hesitated, her gaze moving to Calvin for just the barest second. He gave her a very small nod, as if to let her know she might as well tell Henry what the first letter had contained, since he was going to find out soon enough, anyway.
“It said, ‘I know you’re not who you pretend to be.’”
One of Henry’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. “Any idea what that was supposed to mean?”
Victoria crossed her arms. The vintage diamond Archie had given her twinkled from her left hand, reminding me — and probably Calvin as well — that this had to be some of the worst timing ever.
“No,” she said. Her gaze was forthright, and again, I would have completely bought her story if I hadn’t known exactly what she and Archie were keeping secret from the rest of the world. “But we think it might have something to do with his dance studio, with all the dance tournaments we’ve competed in. Usually, it takes years and years before people turn pro and become instructors, but Archie did it in less than a year and a half.”
“I had no idea he was such a prodigy,” Henry remarked, lip curling ever so slightly.
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I would have shot him a disapproving look at that disparaging remark. As it was, I could only stand there and hope I was being as stony-faced as my husband.
“He’s a remarkable dancer,” Victoria said, with an admirable evenness to her tone. “He had dance lessons from an early age, so his turning pro in that time span only seems unbelievable to people who don’t know his history. Anyway, we thought the first letter was someone just trying to mess with him, to put him off balance so he might make a mistake in our next competition.”
Henry shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his expression still nothing more than mildly curious. “But then you got the second letter from the blackmailer, the one asking to meet with you.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Mr. Bradshaw about it?”
“No,” she responded, and once again, the police chief lifted an eyebrow.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want to upset him, not with our wedding so close,” Victoria said. “I thought that with Calvin and Selena here as backup, I’d be able to handle whatever happened.”
“Apparently not,” Henry commented, still in a tone as dry as the dusty hills outside town.
Victoria drew in a breath and looked as if she wanted to make some kind of tart reply. But then she seemed to realize that snapping at Henry Lewis wasn’t a very good idea, so she just released the breath she’d pulled in a second earlier and said, “No, I guess not.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
She hesitated for a moment, then said, “The man got here a little after ten.”
