Moonlight Dance Academy (Hotshot Book 5) Read online

  Before you go any farther, if you haven’t already subscribed to my reader list, I’d like to offer you two FREE Dev Haskell tales.

  Novella #1: Twinkle Toes is the fast-paced search for an exotic dancer Dev knew in high school as his pink-haired prom date, ‘Twink.’ Twink hasn’t been seen since she went to a photoshoot for a sleazy car dealership, and Dev sets out to find her.

  Novella #2: Dollhouse When Dev’s very close friend Sallie decides to conduct an undercover investigation of the Dollhouse, Dev pitches an uncharacteristic hissy-fit. Sallie’s a big girl, but Dev could be right about this one. The Dollhouse is an adult entertainment establishment with connections to local mob boss Tubby Gustafson.

  Plus a Bonus Excerpt!

  · Russian Roulette – In the FIRST Dev Haskell novel, Dev finds himself smack in the middle of a human trafficking ring, a Russian mobster, the local police, Homeland Security, and an FBI task force.

  Just click on the link below, send me your email address, and I’ll get these to you right away.

  http://www.mikefaricybooks.com/free-gift/

  Moonlight Dance Academy

  Mike Faricy

  Published by Credit River Publishing 2021

  Copyright Mike Faricy 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior and express permission of the copyright owner.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ASIN #B08RYYNCQ9

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people for their help and support:

  Thanks to Lana, Barbara, Roy, and Julie for their creative talent and not slitting their wrists or jumping off a bridge when dealing with my Neanderthal technical capabilities.

  Last, I would like to thank family and friends for their encouragement and unqualified support. Special thanks to Maggie, Jed, Pat, Schatz, Pat, Emily, and Av for not rolling their eyes, at least when I was there, and most of all, to my wife Teresa, whose belief, support, and inspiration has, from day one, never waned.

  Moonlight Dance Academy

  Mike Faricy

  Prologue

  It all started back in Blue Earth, Minnesota, in the days before Hub ‘made’ all his money. Funny thing, there had been all sorts of rumors. You always get that when there’s money involved. But rumors usually have some small basis in fact. There aren’t any real hard facts where Hub’s fortune is concerned. No facts, just rumors. Like the robbery rumor, the sunken treasure off the Florida Coast rumor, the New Orleans rumor, the New York mob rumor. Rumor, it’s the fuel that can power a small town.

  Everybody who knows Hub agrees he’s a hell of a nice guy, but he wasn’t doing much back in those days. Truth be told, he was sort of adrift. He was looking for something, but he had no idea what. About the only sure thing he knew was he hadn’t found what he was looking for. Up to that point, maybe the only real purpose in his life had been to serve as a warning to others.

  The two facts people know are that Hub left town broke, and he came back wealthy. The facts no one but Hub knows are that, along the way, five people died, none of them any too nicely. The mob is still looking for a very large amount of cash, and somewhere, Hub learned to dance, which seemed to get him a very nice lady.

  See what you think.

  Chapter 1

  Friday afternoon, Hub stood at the receptionist’s counter, reading the note for the third time. It was written on a small slip of pink paper with the heading ‘While You Were Out’. The note told him to stop in Jim Nelson’s office at the end of the day. How appropriate it was pink. He guessed he was going to be fired again. After a couple of times, you just get the sense it’s coming. It wasn’t going to be fun. The ‘F’ and the ‘U’ were correct, but fun wasn’t exactly the word.

  “Hey, Hub!” Jim Nelson slapped him on the shoulder before Hub could come out of his fog and look up. “Let’s you and me go across the street to the Legion, grab us a couple of cold ones. What do you say, son?” It wasn’t really an offer to be refused.

  “Yeah, sure, Jim. I got a couple of things to wrap up here. I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes? You have one waiting for me.”

  “Marlene,” Jim said to the blonde seated behind the receptionist’s counter. “You make sure this man gets his tail over to the Legion in thirty minutes, hear? I’m back Monday, ‘less I get really lucky tonight. Hub,” he said, looking down from his 6-foot-6 height, “see you soon, buddy.”

  Hubbard Schneider installed home security systems. He was “Hub” to anyone who knew him, built stocky, in a farm boy sort of way, country solid. He stood a shade under six feet with blonde hair worn a little too long but nothing freaky. He had blue eyes, not bright like movie stars, softer, more like a denim work shirt that had been washed too many times. The color the shirt gets when it’s really comfortable, just before you have to throw it away.

  He was an easy-going sort of guy, laid back at forty-eight, with a failed marriage and a number of less than successful relationships floating in his wake. He didn’t really care about the job. There were plenty more like this one, and that was part of the problem. The big picture was, he’d had four jobs already. Work for the boss, make the world safe for him, and then don’t let the door hit you in the ass. After fifteen years of being bounced around in the home security industry, he had learned the business was just like Minnesota weather, it sucked. If you didn’t like the way things were going, hang on for a minute, because they were bound to get worse. And that was just what was happening now.

  Monica was going to be tough. He’d have to tread lightly there. She’d probably be supportive for the first minute or two, at least with the words she used. But, lately, everything with her seemed to be a double-edged sword. It sounded all right, whatever she said, but somehow there was always a trap. He seemed to find the trap and stumble into the damn thing headfirst.

  Of course, one thing about getting let go four times in fifteen years, you get pretty good at grabbing a little extra on the way out the door. He grabbed some extra tools, extra installation kits, meters, clips, wire, manufacturer manuals, and armloads of everything from the storage area. He grabbed a carton of note pads and pens and four golf shirts, although he hated golf.

  He carried it all out the door without raising an eyebrow. He had no idea what he was going to do with it. Maybe start a business for himself. Maybe get out of home security, once and for all, and start a business training bird dogs or something. He dumped all his extras in the back of his black Ford Ranger and drove down the block to the Legion Hall.

  “Hub, let’s you and me grab a back booth.” Jim Nelson didn’t really wait for an answer. He nodded to the bartender. “Put it on my tab, Becky.” He clamped his paws around two beers and strode toward the back of the room. Hub’s only option was to follow.

  The room was stale from three hundred and sixty-five days a year of cheeseburger grease and the odd spilled drink. The sort of small-town place where you automatically drank your beer from the bottle. Although this was September, the posters on the wall still touted a Coors beer St. Patrick’s Day celebration from the previous March.

  Once they settled into the back booth, Nelson took a half-moment to stretch out and said, “Son, I don’t like it, but I’ve got to let you go, damn it. You’ve never given me a problem. You show up every damn day. But you’re the most recent man hired, and I don’t have to tell you that business has been down. On top of all that, I got those damned, di
mwitted Hanson twins coming on board the beginning of next month.” He drained an inch or two out of his bottle, washing the Hanson twins from his mouth. He’d pretty much said it all right there.

  Chapter 2

  Monica Walsh appreciated all the attention she’d been getting from Dave Collins lately. Certainly, it was more than she seemed to receive from her boyfriend or whatever Hub had become. She’d tried a number of different things to light a fire under him, but none of them had worked. All of a sudden, she was forty and wondering how that had happened?

  Things had gotten sort of bumpy after high school, Hub being her current bump in the road. She knew one thing for sure, she wasn’t going down again. She’d already been through the routine of having to sell a house and put the best spin on things. She wasn’t going to take another lousy vacation to visit her folks up north instead of going someplace fun with friends.

  She’d felt at the end of her rope for the past couple of weeks. She called Home Tech to tell Hub she was going out with some people from the office. There was no point in mentioning to him that Dave Collins would be there, too.

  When he left for the day, Jim Nelson had sent the receptionist an email to post. The email thanked Hub for being a good employee and wished him well with his new opportunity. Marlene figured she could get the word out a lot faster on her cellphone. She made a point of following up the email with a personal phone call to people who would be dying to know exactly what had happened. It was in-between these calls that Monica phoned. Marlene thought it would be a kind thing to do to offer condolences and to wish Monica good luck.

  “You know, Monica, about Hub losing his job and all. He’s such a great guy. We’re all going to miss him. What are you guys going to do?” Marlene asked it sweetly, hoping for a piece of gossip to pass around Monday morning.

  That had done it for Monica. She slammed down the phone, giving Marlene her gossip, and stormed out of her office. It was a toss-up whether she would throw Hub into the street or she would leave.

  It took her less than an hour to cram Hub’s things into a footlocker and musty boxes from the basement. She dragged them out the door and dumped everything in front of the garage. She added a note telling Hub she hated him and wanted him out of her life. Now!

  Just in case he missed the note and his pile of worthless possessions, she emailed him the same message at Home Tech, followed by a laundry list of nineteen separate reasons he was a failure. That accomplished, she hurried back to join the girls from work and Dave Collins.

  Tonight could be the night to get things rolling with Dave. She could start working on her own future, do something for Monica for a change. It was finally going to be her time to shine.

  Chapter 3

  Unfortunately, the beer with Jim Nelson was everything Hub feared, except the whole ordeal took a lot longer. Jim had a check cut for Hub, wages with an additional three weeks tacked on. He gave Hub two hundred dollars’ worth of coupons from his brother-in-law’s pizza joint, ninety miles away up in the Twin Cities.

  “Those Hanson twins, they’re going to drive me crazy, neither one of them worth a damn,” Nelson continued over another beer. “Talk about two steps backward. I’ll have double the service calls just to repair the damage they do, and it’ll be a cold day in hell when we can charge anyone.”

  Hub didn’t see how any of that was really his particular problem, and two beers later, he was back cleaning out his desk. It wasn’t really a desk, rather a grey, plastic desktop with a shelf. On the shelf, he had a small photo of Monica from the State Fair. The photo was stuck into the bottom corner of a framed picture of him goose hunting up in Canada. Right about now, Hub was wishing he was sitting in the Canadian frost, waiting for geese to fly in instead of racking his brain trying to think of what he was going to tell Monica.

  He checked his email one final time. He read the ‘Best Wishes on the new opportunity’ message from the Home Tech family. Then he opened the email from Monica. The list of things he’d done wrong followed right after the opening line about his ‘worthless possessions’ in the driveway. Funny thing, he wasn’t that mad. He actually felt more relieved than anything else. At least now he wouldn’t have to figure a way to tell her he’d been fired again.

  On the drive to the house, he was deep in thought, hoping Monica remembered his goose decoys down in the back corner of the basement. His mind continued to drift, landing on his buddy Val. ‘Worthless Val’ had been Monica’s description.

  Val Harwood had been single, happy, and doing well ever since his last divorce three or four years ago. Maybe he could crash at Val’s, just until he got back on his feet. As he rounded the corner to Monica’s, Hub made the call on the Home Security cell phone he neglected to turn in. He ended up leaving a message.

  He backed the pickup into Monica’s driveway, more than a little relieved not to see her. His decoys rested on top of the pile. He just wanted to get his things and go. It had been a long, lousy day.

  Chapter 4

  Val Harwood was thrilled that he had made it all the way to another Friday. After his credit cards had been maxed out, he’d been living day to day.

  He’d made the big change four years ago from doing what he referred to as sucker work. He’d moved up to St. Paul and sold cars and then life insurance. He switched to water purifiers, went back to cars for a while, fooled on the Internet working at home, and did a dreadful telemarketing gig. Now he was doing consulting.

  He danced a lot, literally. He loved to Foxtrot, Cha-Cha, and Tango, but he was absolutely fanatical about Swing Dancing. It was the one thing he did well. He danced five or six nights a week. It was a great way to meet women, the odds easily twenty-to-one. If you danced well, you’d never have a lonely night.

  That said, he was running on financial fumes, dodging phone calls, and hiding from creditors. He’d even gone so far as to look briefly at re-enlisting in the Air Force, but they really weren’t looking for too many ex-airmen who’d done service twenty years ago.

  He was a dance instructor, helping out evenings at a couple of places he knew. You couldn’t make any real dough, even giving private lessons, unless you actually owned a studio. You had to have your own school, and there were already so many of them in town that everyone was fighting for crumbs.

  His dream was to get down to Florida, take it easy in the sun, and teach rich women how to dance. Work at night, pick up a nice tan during the day, stay in shape, take it easy, and compete for the ‘Holy Grail’ of the dance universe, National Swing Champion.

  He’d always joked, told his friends he was going to tie a snow shovel to the top of his car, drive south until someone asked him, ‘What’s that?’ Then drive ten miles further just to be on the safe side. The way things had been going lately, heading down to Florida didn’t sound like a bad idea. He just had to figure out how he was going to pull it off.

  He was driving a ’57 Chevy. More restored than not, it had become a large part of who he was. A classic pink and black two door ’57 Chevy, with the rear seat sitting in Val’s living room. It was all he had after his BMW had been repossessed.

  Just now, he didn’t have the two hundred bucks required to reinstate his insurance on the ’57 Chevy. He had to come up with something dramatic and fast. He’d eaten through the better part of his two-month rent deposit. He would need eight hundred and fifty bucks for next month’s rent, plus an additional seventeen hundred to make up the deposit. That was two thousand, five hundred and fifty dollars, and it simply wasn’t going to happen. He’d been dining on macaroni and cheese for the past couple of weeks. Twenty-five hundred and fifty dollars, hell, he didn’t have twenty-five dollars and fifty cents.

  Val parked a few blocks from his apartment. Lately, he was in the habit of checking the parking lot and doorway for creditors or, worse, his landlord. Driving a pink and black ’57 Chevy, you stood out like a sore thumb. He checked the number coming through on his cell phone. He hated all the collection calls, and for the past two months,
he never took a call unless he recognized the number.

  He had to hold the small phone at arm’s length to read the incoming number, and by the time he did that, he lost the call. He waited for the message, finger poised to delete if it was another collection call.

  He returned Hub’s call a minute later. “Hey, dumb shit. You need bail money or what?”

  “Na, nothing like that,” Hub said as he headed north to St. Paul. “Looking for a place to land for a couple of days, got let go at Home Tech. And Monica, well, let’s just say I don’t have to sit around next week and get the silent treatment from her. Look, I got paid off with about two hundred bucks worth of pizza coupons from Jim Nelson’s brother-in-law’s joint. How about you and me grabbing some pizza and a couple of beers? I’ll be up around eight tonight. I’m heading your way now, if that’s okay.”

  Val thought pizza and a couple of beers sounded better than another night of eating macaroni and cheese in the dark with the lights off. “Yeah, man, get up here. Let me make some calls, cancel my plans for tonight. See you whenever you arrive. And hey, plan on staying with me. I’ll maybe put together a couple of options for you between now and then.” Val hung up and started thinking long term, two, maybe three weeks down the road. This could be his ticket out of here.

  By the time Hub had driven the twenty-two miles to the Interstate, he was feeling a lot better. Over pizza, Val let Hub in on parts of the plan he had been working out. Actually, he was flying by the seat of his pants, developing the plan as he spoke. It was a bit vague, with a few white lies and a lot of old-fashioned betting on the come.