THE DANCING GIRLS

AN ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING CRIME THRILLER WITH NAIL-BITING SUSPENSE

M.M. CHOUINARD

BOOKS BY M.M. CHOUINARD

DETECTIVE JO FOURNIER NOVELS

1. The Dancing Girls

2. Taken to the Grave

3. Her Daughter’s Cry

4. The Other Mothers

5. Her Silent Prayer

The Vacation

Available in audio

DETECTIVE JO FOURNIER NOVELS

The Dancing Girls (Available in the UK and the US)

Taken to the Grave (Available in the UK and the US)

Her Daughter’s Cry (Available in the UK and the US)

The Other Mothers (Available in the UK and the US)

The Vacation (Available in the UK and the US)

CONTENTS

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part II

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Part III

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Taken to the Grave

M.M. Chouinard’s Email Sign-Up

Books by M.M. Chouinard

A Letter from M.M. Chouinard

Her Daughter’s Cry

The Other Mothers

Her Silent Prayer

The Vacation

Acknowledgements

For Mrs. Israel, and other teachers who encourage young writers to reach for their dreams.

PART 1

NOVEMBER 2012

Jeanine Hammond

CHAPTER ONE

The man adjusted his fedora as he collapsed into the hotel room. The woman with him stumbled and laughed as they pushed through the door, unaware she’d finished their bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon alone. He pulled her into an embrace, teased her with a long kiss, then whispered in her ear, “Where’s the switch?”

Her hand slid along the wall until light filled the room.

He gauged her lack of coordination. She tossed her purse onto the laminate nightstand a little too hard, then teetered and almost fell while kicking off her heels. He nodded to himself, loosened his tie, and eased toward the bed.

“Come here.” His most charming smile slid over his face and he extended his hand. “I can’t wait anymore.”

She met his gaze through lowered lashes and reached back to the zipper of her dress.

“No, my love, I want to undress you.”

She ambled toward him, head tilted, and raised her hand to his.

Humming a snippet of the last song they’d danced to at dinner, he twirled her in a slow circle, then drew her into his arms, her back to his chest. A soft moan escaped her lips as he kissed her neck and ran his hands down the sides of her body, then trailed a hand back up the smooth aubergine silk to cradle her breast. She gasped as he caressed her nipple.

He pulled his tie past her cheek, smooth fingers stroking her skin as they slid by, and his teeth tugged at her earlobe. He gathered the thin, blond hair off the nape of her neck with a single finger, brushed his lips against her exposed skin, then paused to drink in the woodsy notes of her perfume mingling with the floral scent of her hair.

His hand slipped from her breast to her elbow, and he pressed her closer, closing his eyes to relish the softness and warmth of her abdomen.

“Ouch, darling, that’s too tight.” She gave a throaty laugh.

He made no move to loosen the grip. With a pickpocket’s light touch, he wound the tie, now draped around her neck, through the fingers of his free hand.

Then he twisted, with one fierce, swift pull.

She tried to call out, but only managed a hoarse hiss. His wrist wrenched the joined ends a second time with a practiced swivel, then a third, driving the fabric deep into her flesh.

Her body tensed and jerked, seeking any escape. First, she tried to pull away, then pushed back against him—futile movements, with her arms pinioned against her sides. When she tried to kick backward, he smiled—he’d positioned her mere inches from the bed, without enough distance to gain purchase and damage him. She tried to push off from the bed frame, desperate to angle enough leverage, and failed.

A sublime sense of power surged through him.

He pulled his attention from her struggle to the side of her face. He memorized her expression, the panic in her brown eyes, let the faint sound of her stifled grunts imprint their melody on his brain. Then he shifted to the delicious tension in her muscles and waited for it to drain away, his signal that her oxygen had run out and her world had dimmed.

He remained in place for several minutes after she went limp, to make sure. He closed his eyes again and used the time to savor the weight of her limp body in his arms and his complete control of her fate. You danced at my command. Ate and drank according to my whims. Rose to a fever pitch of desire because I willed it. And now, finally, you die.

And you never suspected.

His erection pushed against his trousers.

He twirled her body around to face him and held her right hand up and out. Cursing her extra pounds, he lifted her slightly and placed his feet under hers. He whistled the opening strains of ‘Roses from the South,’ then glided forward, swaying her through the steps in his makeshift ballroom.

Dance, my marionette, because I will it. Compliant. For my pleasure alone.

Her head lolled back, a grotesque caricature of a traditional closed hold. The accident delighted him, swelling his erection so painfully he was forced to stop.

Laughing, he brought her back to the side of the bed, dropped his arms and stepped back, allowing her to slide down the bed and onto the floor. He untangled his tie from her neck and smoothed it out, then put it back under his collar. He knelt beside her, slipped off her wedding ring, and put it into his breast pocket. Then he pushed her right arm out at an angle, left hand back toward her body, and recreated the accidental loll of her head. He stood back up and considered. She could just as easily be a ballerina as a ballroom dancer—but it would do. He captured a freeze-frame into his mind.

Then he scanned the room, running his mental eye over every movement he made since entering. He hadn’t touched anything. He hadn’t dropped anything. Nothing to clean up.

Satisfied, he pulled a tissue out of the box in the bathroom, used it to open the door, and stepped into the hallway. As the lock clicked into place behind him, he tucked the tissue into his pocket on top of the ring, then pulled his fedora down again and angled his head so the security camera wouldn’t capture his face.

The man kept his face down and his hat angled even after reaching his rental car. The parking lot had no cameras—he’d done his research—but the devil was in the details.

He laughed at the accidental irony of the cliché.

He slid behind the wheel of the car and eased out of the parking lot. Under the cover of darkness, the cloyingly quintessential New England college town was far easier for him to stomach—this way, the gabled Georgians and flat-faced colonials held an air of mystery as they clung to the splotches of street light, stretching away from the inky woods that crept up on them. But the university was better lit, and as he drove through the mixture of quaint red-brick federal buildings and clashing uber-modern architecture, he fought the temptation to hunch down. Students were far more likely to notice a bent-over creeper than someone simply going about their business. He watched a student pick up a leaf from the sidewalk, twirl it to show off the golden-red color, and hand it to the girl holding his hand. She smiled, then thanked her beau with a long kiss.

His eyebrows rose in admiration. A simple, easy trick for charming a girl—he’d stash that away for future use.

He turned onto the highway leaving Massachusetts, then glanced at his watch. Just before midnight, right on schedule. The drive to Syracuse should take about four hours this time of night, even with a long enough detour to safely fill up the tank. Then he’d return the car, grab something to eat at the airport, and sleep on the flight home.

He double-checked the timing and ticked each step off his mental list. When the car pulled onto the nearly empty highway, he tossed the fedora over to the passenger seat and ran his fingers through his squashed brown hair.

The delay was agonizing but vital. No matter how much he assured himself the police would never know his actual name, he’d be haunted by flashes of it listed on flight manifests and Avis rental records. His mind was a terrier that couldn’t release that type of bone—a blessing and a curse—and he’d toss and turn for weeks, covered in sweat as he tried to sleep. Driving the entire way was also out of the question; it would take days, and exhaust him. Either way, he wouldn’t be able to savor the kill properly after the fact.

This was the compromise. No records left in the target area but fast enough to get home within a day. Tomorrow he’d be safe, everything would be tended to, and he’d linger over the reward in his own bed.