Line Dancing Can Be Murder (3 page)

Donna cracked a smile.

“What about the kids? Can they help out if you’re in a bind?” Donna and Chad had two adult children, both married and doing well.

“I won’t ask them and don’t want them to worry. They have their own families and responsibilities. I’ll get by. I’m just feeling guilty about spending so much money for my own pleasure.” A tear slipped from her eye.

I hugged her, knowing guilt tugged at her. I’d had to delve into my own savings to pay for the trip, but I felt I deserved it. “Chad would want you to do something nice for yourself. You were a good wife to him for close to twenty-eight years. You stuck by him, through better or worse, richer or poorer, in health and in sickness, all the way to the end. You earned this vacation.”

After a few moments, she hugged me back. “You’re absolutely right. For these nine days, I’m going to put aside my worries about the future and have fun. That’s why I’m here.”

“That’s why we’re all here.” I saw concern still etched on her face.

“Maybe when we get home, I’ll ask for a raise at work,” she mused. “I haven’t had one in years.” Donna was the office secretary for the high school we attended. “Or I’ll start playing the lotto and filling out those Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes forms when they come in the mail. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“Your chances might be better with a one-armed bandit downstairs,” I said, wishing she had more realistic options for her financial future.

After we’d freshened up, we met the others in the lobby and unanimously decided to walk the strip. We were anxious to view landmarks we’d always heard about and seen on television.

The fountains and water ballet outside the Bellagio were as pretty as I’d expected. We also saw the volcano at the Mirage, Caesars Palace where Celine Dion performs, and the famous Little White Wedding Chapel. Juggling all of our digital cameras, another tourist took our picture together in front of the forty-foot waving neon cowboy. After we checked out the lobby of every fabulous hotel along the strip, we strolled through the Bonanza, the world’s largest gift shop, where Jackie insisted on buying us each a tacky souvenir.

“It must be one hundred degrees in the shade,” Crystal complained two hours later as we continued to trudge over hot pavement and jostle our way through crowds. My feet and legs hurt from all the walking and knew she must have been suffering. She was forty pounds heavier than me. Perspiration rolled down her cheeks, and her short hair was as damp as if she’d just gotten out of the shower.

“How long is this strip?” Kim asked.

“The brochure I picked up at the hotel says 4.2 miles,” Annette answered, thumbing through a crumpled flyer.

“Four miles? Whose brilliant idea was it to walk the whole thing?” Crystal groaned. “I need a cold drink or I’m going to die.”

“We don’t have to walk any further,” I decided, also hot and thirsty. “We’ve seen about everything. Let’s get something to drink and then take the free shuttle back to the hotel. Is that okay with everyone?”

“Yes,” they sighed in unison.

“The pool is calling my name,” Jackie said. “I bought several new swimsuits for this trip that I’m eager to try out.”

After refreshing ourselves with soft drinks from a sidewalk cart, we wearily climbed aboard a shuttle. I was dabbing my damp face with a Kleenex and gazing around for a seat when I heard a male voice shout out.

“Hey girls! There are seats back here. Come sit with us.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Plaid golf cap man and baseball cap man were waving their hands off again. What were the chances? There were three empty bench seats near them that the six of us made a beeline for. Annette and I flopped into the seat in front of the men and then turned around to say hello.

Plaid golf cap man, AKA Romeo, didn’t bother to hide his interest. His open gaze moved from our faces to our bosoms. Although neither Annette nor I wore revealing clothes, we were both in tank tops and must have looked pretty hot and sexy to the old geezer. We were hot, all right. Sweat dripped down my armpits, and my whole body felt like a furnace.

“Funny meeting you here,” he said. “We didn’t get a chance to tell you our names back at the welcome reception, or find out yours.” He pointed to the nametag on his shirt pocket. “I’m Chuck and this is Bill. We’re both retired teachers from Cincinnati.”

“Nice to meet you fellows. I’m Teresa and this is my friend, Annette.” I nodded toward the other girls across the aisle. “And that’s Jackie, Kim, Crystal and Donna. We’re all from Illinois.”

“What brought you ladies on this tour?” Bill asked in a soft voice.

I liked him. He had warm eyes and a sweet smile. As I regarded the two men more closely, their features were so similar I thought they could have been brothers.

“My birthday is this week on Sunday,” Annette answered. “We decided to take this tour as a way to celebrate our upcoming year of birthdays. We’re lifelong friends, and I’m the first of us to turn fifty.”

It surprised me to hear her mention her impending age so casually. After we’d booked the trip, she’d admitted to me that she hated the idea of becoming fifty. She’d been feeling old and unattractive and wasn’t buying the saying: fifty is the new forty. Now she was smiling proudly. Maybe talking to spry men in their seventies brought the whole age thing into perspective for her.

“We’ll have to let Keith know about your birthday so he can find a cake,” Bill said.

“What a nice idea,” Annette replied.

Chuck winked. “I’ll be the first in line to give you a birthday kiss.”

Annette chuckled. “Sorry. I’m a married woman.”

Chuck frowned. “Darn. Those things always get in the way.”

Just then, someone’s cell phone rang, which was apparently a reminder for Kim. I heard her say she should call Eddie. Her face twisted into a grimace as she dug through her purse. “My cell phone’s not here! Oh, crap. I hope I haven’t lost it.”

“You probably left it in the room,” Jackie suggested. “I saw it on the bathroom counter when I was brushing my teeth.”

Kim snapped her purse shut and chewed her lip. “I hope you’re right. If it’s gone, I’m going to have to buy a disposable one. There’s no way I can be out of contact with Eddie for nine days.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Kim

Kim’s greatest desire was to be married. She was one of those girls who had dreamed of her wedding since she was a little girl and had every detail planned out, from the color scheme (red and gold) to the flavor of the cake (red velvet) to the flowers (red roses, of course).

Unfortunately, Eddie, the man she’d been living with for ten years had no intention of tying the knot with her. As my mother used to say, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Everyone seemed to know this about Eddie except Kim. Every birthday, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas for the past eight years, she’d worked herself into a frenzy thinking
that
was the day he was going to propose, only to be disappointed over and over again. My heart broke each time she’d show me a deluxe iron or a three-way lamp or the Fruit of the Month membership he’d bought her.

“I do like oranges and grapefruit, but dammit, all I really want is a little black box from Kay Jewelers!” she cried last Christmas, smashing an orange on her kitchen counter.

One time the fool got her a weed whacker for her birthday! He thought it made sense because the house belonged to Kim and she was the one who mowed the grass and kept the hedges trimmed. For years, his excuse for not helping out with the yard work has been a bad back. The day she showed the weed whacker to me in the garage, she heaved the biggest sobs on my shoulder, and I had the maniacal urge to storm inside the house and whack off one of Eddie’s appendages.

As a single woman who enjoys outdoor work, I keep my property maintained myself. But Kim works around the clock at the salon. Every weekend, Eddie sits around her house watching whatever sports is on television and ignoring her, except to grunt like a caveman for her to grab him a beer.

“Why do you continue to put up with such poor treatment?” I asked Kim one day. “There are other fish in the sea, you know.” With her shiny dark hair and big brown eyes, I could think of a couple of single men in town who would jump at the chance to date her.

“Nobody knows me like Eddie,” she said simply.

That may be true. In the past six months, I’ve begun to suspect I don’t know Kim as well as I imagined. It was during our last New Year’s Eve party, held at her house, when the revelation hit me big time.

I’d developed a severe headache and needed to leave early. Eddie told me he’d hung our jackets in the extra bedroom closet. Of course, like the oaf he is, he didn’t offer to get my coat for me, so I went myself. When I flung open the closet door, a big box dropped over the edge of the shelf and almost knocked me out. When the box hit the floor, it landed on its side and the flaps flew open. The things that tumbled out shocked me at first, and then sent me into a spiral of confusion.

The box was full of CD’s, makeup, lip gloss, jewelry (some expensive, some costume), sexy underwear, unopened packs of cigarettes (Kim doesn’t smoke), full perfume bottles, and even some common things like an electric toothbrush, disposable razors, candy bars, kitchen utensils, and ballpoint pens.

I’d barely had time to contemplate what it meant when I heard the bedroom door close. “What are you doing with that?” Kim’s enlarged eyes met mine.

“Nothing. I was getting my coat and the dang box fell off the shelf and about decapitated me.”

She knelt and furiously scooped everything into the box. Then she slammed the flaps down, heaved the box to her hip, lifted it in the air, and shoved it onto the shelf, pushing it back as far as it would go.

“What is all that stuff?” I asked.

I’d never seen a more guilty looking face in my life. But Kim recovered quickly. “You know how my situation with Eddie can sometimes get me down?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Well, when he really makes me angry, I feel better after I’ve had a little retail therapy. That’s all. I hide the stuff in here so he doesn’t ask questions. He never comes in this room.” Her smile was stiff, and she wrenched her hands together so tightly I thought she’d break some bones.

“Oh.” Kim’s explanation made sense, because I’d probably be bankrupt from revenge shopping if Eddie was my man. But suspicion niggled under my skin. I believed her about as far as I could throw her. My head pounded and I wanted to go home, so despite my sixth sense that she was into something deeper than she would admit, I didn’t try forcing the truth from her. I’m not her mother. But I
am
her friend, and friends have each other’s back. No matter how I’ve tried since then, I can’t seem to get that stupid box off my mind.

“Where’d you get that swimsuit?” Kim asked Jackie. We were all relaxing around the hotel pool before dinner. I noticed a few of the ladies from our tour group strolling around the pool. I knew they were with the National Parks Wonders Tour because, unlike us, they were wearing their nametags. They waved, and we waved back.

“I don’t remember,” Jackie said. “Why?”

“I like it and thought I might look for a similar one when we get home.”

Jackie wrenched off her sunglasses. “You can’t afford this suit, Kim. Anyway, I thought Eddie only allowed you to shop at Walmart.”

Kim smiled, but I could see tension pull at her lips. “That’s just a joke. I can buy whatever I want, wherever I want. I don’t do hair as a hobby, you know. I earn a good living. And Eddie doesn’t own me.”

“Could have fooled me,” Crystal blurted.

Kim’s fists clenched at her sides. We were supposed to be relaxing, but she was wound tighter than a banjo string.

“Did you find your cell phone?” I asked to change the subject.

She held it up. “Yes, thank goodness. It was on the bathroom counter just as Jackie had thought.”

I was about to ask the group what time they wanted to eat dinner when a familiar voice sounded behind us. “How’s the water, ladies?”

We all turned our heads in tandem. There stood Keith, barefoot and in a pair of lightweight trunks and a tee shirt. A white towel was slung over one broad shoulder. His teeth practically sparkled in the sunlight when he smiled.

“The water’s fine,” Kim said, not knowing how the water was. She hadn’t even dipped a toe in. “Going for a swim before dinner, Keith?” she asked, blinking like she did when she was nervous.

“Just a quick one,” he answered, dropping the towel onto the lounger next to Crystal. When he winked at her, Crystal’s face turned ten shades of pink. “I try to do some form of exercise every day, even when I’m on a tour. Gotta stay in shape, you know.”

We all watched with our mouths hanging open as he stripped off the tee shirt and displayed a six-pack of rippled abs. No one seemed immune to his impressive physique, including me. Even the old ladies on the other side of the pool openly stared when he stepped onto the diving board and scored a flawless jackknife dive and an equally perfect splash. After swimming a half-dozen laps, he surfaced from the water and plowed his hands through his wet hair. When he pushed himself up and over the side of the pool, I thought every woman there was going to have a seizure.

Water rolled off his glistening body. “Boy, that water is refreshing!” he exclaimed. “You girls should join me.”

“We’re hardly girls anymore,” Annette said, laying her paperback book in her lap and peering over her sunglasses.

“That’s for sure,” Crystal said. “Annette’s birthday is Sunday. She turns fifty.”

Annette fired Crystal a look that would have made her head vaporize had Annette’s eyeballs been laser beams.

“But she doesn’t look it, does she?” Crystal added quickly.

Keith’s eyebrows lifted, and his gaze locked on Annette. “No, I would have guessed a youthful forty at the most.”

A shy expression washed over Annette’s face and she smiled, obviously pleased.

Keith moved toward us, sprinkling us with water drops when he shook his head. “I like to celebrate when we have someone on tour with a birthday. We’ll be in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Sunday. How would you like to have a picnic in a beautiful park for your birthday, Annette?”