Cereal Killer (6 page)

Long ago, Savannah had decided that there were few times in life when a bubble bath, a glass of wine, and a box of chocolates couldn’t make a bad situation a heck of a lot better.

So it was with great expectation that she slipped into the hot tub full of glistening rose-scented bubbles. Who said you couldn’t melt all your cares away? Or at least most of them.

Probably some guy who only believed in showers.

Ah, those manly men just didn’t know what they were missing.

Along the countertop she had placed half a dozen votive candles, and on the wicker hamper beside the tub, comfortably within arm’s reach, sat a china dessert plate covered with a delicate chintz rose pattern and four chocolate truffles: raspberry crème, lemon chiffon, mocha delight, and peach parfait. Pure heaven. And a glass of merlot to wash them down with.

Her wine connoisseur friends, Ryan Stone and John Gibson, might not approve of the combination, but it worked for her.

Usually.

But as she lay there, watching the candlelight shimmer on the bubbles, listening to them popping and feeling them tickle her skin, the typical magic wasn’t working.

And when she bit into the raspberry truffle and didn’t experience the expected culinary orgasm in her mouth, she knew what was wrong: She was thinking about Cait Connor, her beautiful red hair spread out on the jade-green marble floor, her famous turquoise eyes staring up at... what?

What was the last thing Cait had seen before her spirit slipped out of her body and made its way into the hereafter?

Had she died alone?

A sad thought, but like Dirk had said, maybe the best of other unpleasant choices.

Savannah glanced over at the cell phone she had placed on the hamper beside the chocolates and wine. She hated having to get out of the tub to answer the phone. She hated having to get out for any reason. So she habitually brought it into the bathroom with her, just in case.

Call Dirk,
she told herself.
Call him and tell him that you think
....

What?
the more sensible of her multipersonalities asked.
What
do
you think?

That Caitlin Connor didn’t just up and die all by herself. Somebody killed her.

You don’t know that. There’s no reason to think that.

Yes there is. She was
—

Ding dong.

The sound cut through Savannah’s brain waves, interrupting the domestic fight in her head. Also short-circuiting the problem-solving process that had just been on the verge of figuring out... something....

Ding dong.

“Go away,” Savannah said, knowing her unwelcome visitor couldn’t possibly hear her, but hoping they would somehow get the psychic message.

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.

“Tarnation,” she muttered, rising from the sea of bubbles and stepping out of the claw-foot tub onto the plush bath rug... a treat she couldn’t resist from the latest Pottery Barn catalog. “You’d better not be selling window cleaner or magazines at this time of night,” she grumbled as she slipped on her ancient blue terry-cloth robe. “ ’Cause if you are, I just might feed you some of your own products.”

The bell chimed three more times before she could make it down the stairs. As she stepped off the carpet and onto the hardwood floor in the foyer, her wet feet slipped and she nearly fell.

“Hold on!” she shouted as she neared the door, the cats scurrying excitedly around her damp ankles.

“Savannah!” she heard a female voice cry from the other side of the closed door. “Savannah, it’s me! Open up, girl. I ain’t got all day!”

“Me? Who’s me?”

Frantically, her mind searched its memory files for a female voice with a distinctly Southern accent. So many choices presented themselves. So few that she wanted to believe.

As a former Georgian, the oldest of nine siblings, Savannah had plenty of female relatives who seemed to think nothing of dropping by unexpectedly—if you could consider a two thousand mile coast-to-coast trip dropping by.

Savannah flipped on the front porch lights, looked through the door’s peephole and saw... big hair. Stiffly sprayed, meticulously styled, big, big hair.

There was only one person, north
or
south of the Mason-Dixon line, who sported a hairdo that big.

“Marietta!” she exclaimed, flinging the door open and taking her sister in her arms.

‘You’re wet!” Marietta cried as she pulled away. She laughed as she brushed her hands across the front of her shirt ‘You’ll ruin my clothes.”

Savannah looked down at her sister’s shirt, which was adorned with a rhinestone-bespangled tiger’s face. The cat had particularly large eyes that were accented with bright green, marquise-shaped stones.

Lovely
, Savannah thought
Understated elegance... that’s our Mari.

‘You got me out of the bathtub,” she said, pulling her unexpected guest into the house. “That’s why I’m wet.”

She noticed a generic midsize car, which she surmised was a rental, in her driveway and a couple of oversize suitcases on the porch. Sighing inwardly, she walked out the door and picked up one case in each hand.

They were unbelievably heavy.
Must be all the rhinestones,
she thought
Too much to hope she'd just be carrying an overnight bag.

Not that she didn’t welcome visits from her loved ones. Even impromptu visits were nice. But only for about two or three days. Experience had taught her that after a brief window of blissful familial communion, thoughts of homicide tended to dance in her head.

“Are you surprised to see me?” Marietta asked, patting her poofy updo with one hand, the other hand perched jauntily on her hip in what looked like a silver-screen pose of some sort. In Savannah’s opinion, Marietta had watched far too many black-and-white movies where women with overplucked eyebrows puffed on cigarettes while leading good-hearted but hopelessly horny men astray.

“Surprised?” she said. “Yes, I guess so. I had no idea you were coming out to see me. Maybe if you’d called or...

Marietta left Savannah with the suitcases in hand and walked into the living room. She looked around, evaluating with the critical eye of a Fifth Avenue decorator. “Naw, I wanted to surprise you. Besides, I was in the neighborhood.”

“In the neighborhood? What... you took a wrong turn on your way to Wal-Mart and wound up on my doorstep?”

Marietta cut her a quick look that didn’t really reveal anything, but for some reason set Savannah’s nerves on edge. Miss Marietta Reid was up to something.

But then, Marietta was almost always up to something, especially when it came to the men in her life, of whom there had been plenty.

None for very long.

“No-oo,” Marietta said. Another suspicious glance. “But I was coming to West Hollywood, and since that’s practically next door to you...”

“Actually, it’s about an hour or an hour and a half, depending on the traffic.”

“Like I said, nearby, and I thought maybe I could stay here with you, you know, rather than get a motel room that I can’t afford.”

“Sure. I’ve got a spare bedroom you’re welcome to. I’d love to have you. If you’d called first, I’d have dusted the room and changed the sheets.”

Marietta shrugged. “That’s okay. You can do it later. I’m not ready to go to bed yet. I’m all revved up from my flight.”

She walked around the room, checking out Savannah’s knickknacks, her bookshelf, the throw pillows on her sofa. Pausing beside the desk, she scanned the paperwork that Tammy had left beside the computer.

Marietta had never truly understood the concept of respecting another person’s privacy. Unless, of course, it was
her
privacy that needed respecting. That was a different story altogether, Savannah had discovered over the years. On her forehead, Savannah still carried a small scar from the time she had dared to look into Marietta’s “private drawer” to retrieve the sweater her younger sister had borrowed more than two months earlier.

“Boy, I sure hate to fly, don’t you?” Marietta said, picking up one of Tammy’s monthly reports on the agency’s financial status and squinting to read the fine print. “I mean, it’s exciting and all, lookin’ out the window, but once you’re up there, especially after it’s dark, it’s just so boring. I was trying to have a pleasant conversation with this good-looking guy sitting next to me, but he kept reading his stock market magazines. He practically ignored me, he did. Really just downright rude if you ask me.”

Savannah grinned, imagining the horror some weary frequent flier must have experienced when Marietta had tried to engage him in “pleasant conversation.” The poor guy had probably looked forward to a nice, quiet flight where he could catch up on his reading, take a nap, commune quietly with his inner spirit. And then...

Marietta.

Chatty, always on the prowl for a man, big-haired, sparkly shirted... Marietta.

Savannah walked over, took the paper out of her sister’s hand, and stuck it in a drawer. “Are you hungry?” she said. “I think I’ve got some leftover fried chicken in the refrigerator and some potato salad and baked beans. I’d be glad to dish you up a plate.”

Marietta thought for a moment, obviously tempted. Then she shook her head. “Naw. I think I’ll pass this time. I dieted like crazy for the past two weeks to look good for this trip. No point in gaining it all back the minute I get here—before I even see him.”

“See...
him?"

Savannah was afraid to ask. Most of the “hims” in Marietta’s life had brought her grief. And anything that brought Marietta grief soon brought everyone in the family grief. Marietta wasn’t exactly a stiff-upper-lip, bear-it-all-with-quiet-dignity, keep-your-troubles-to-your-self sort of girl.

Marietta’s eyes suddenly lit with the glow of passion, and she instantly halted the examination of her surroundings. She was very clearly, as Savannah liked to call it, in Marietta Loo-Loo Land.

Yep, the worst had happened... again. Marietta Jank Reid was in love.

Lord help us all
, Savannah thought.

* * *

“So, you’ve met Mr. Right?” Savannah resisted the urge to add “again” as she stifled a yawn.

The two sisters sat at Savannah’s dining table beneath her Tiffany-style lamp and sipped their Baileys-laced decaffeinated coffees. In the middle of the table before them sat an empty carton that had—until twenty minutes ago—held Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. In front of each sister sat an empty bowl that was all but licked clean.

Marietta had succumbed to dietary temptation.

Savannah had known she would; it was a Reid genetic thing.

“Oh, this guy is so-o-o-o much more than just my Mr. Right,” Marietta gushed. “He’s my—”

Oh, gawd,
Savannah thought,
please don't tell me he’s your friggin’ soul mate. You’ve had so-o-o-o many soul mates and
—

“Soul mate. Really, he is! I’ve never connected with any man in my life the way I’ve bonded with this man. He’s just so perfect for me in every way. We are just alike, really we are!”

He has big hair? He wears rhinestone tigers on his shirts? Well, you did say he’s in West Hollywood, but...

“Oh?” Savannah buried her nose along with her opinions in her coffee cup.

Her sister had been in her house less than an hour. No point in getting her riled up this soon. Surely their first really big row could wait until tomorrow morning.

But Mari didn’t take offense. Her eyes were still glassy. She was still deep in Love Loo-Loo Land and the inhabitants of that bright place seldom took offense. Even when offense was intended. Insulting such a person, Savannah had learned, could be a highly frustrating experience.

“He’s so handsome and smart and rich and sensitive! That’s the best part, his sensitivity! I never had that with my other two husbands, you know, or with Lester, my last fiancé. Lester had all the sensitivity of a rock, but you know that. You went to our wedding. Well, not our wedding exactly because his wife broke it up with a shotgun, so... but you remember all of that.”

Savannah flashed back on that lovely memory—of her standing between her sister and the raging woman with the shotgun, trying to talk the woman out of perforating Marietta’s hide.

Yes, one seldom forgot such rich life experiences as staring down the double barrel of a shotgun, contemplating the indignity of dying in a peach-colored monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress.

Remember?

Yes, she’d been scarred for life. She now felt nauseous every time she saw peach taffeta.

“So, where did you meet this love of your life?” she asked. “How did you get to know a guy in West Hollywood?”

Marietta’s eyes darted to the right, then the left. She sipped her coffee before answering.