Just Desserts (19 page)

“Hello-o-o,” she said in her most charming, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth tone.

She was glad she had answered it; the caller was Beverly Winston, wanting to know how things were going.

“Do you know anything about Jonathan hiring a bodyguard?” she asked her. “A Ryan somebody?”

“Only that his first name was Ryan,” Beverly replied, “and he was gorgeous.”

“Hmmm ... so I’ve been told. You wouldn’t have a last name on him, would you? Or maybe the name of his agency?”

“Sorry, no. Jonathan and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms when he hired him. A bodyguard ... to protect himself from me ... can you imagine?”

“How do you know it was protection from you?”

“He said so, made sure everyone knew it.” Savannah heard Beverly draw a long, shaking breath. “To be honest, I think it was just one of Jonathan’s stupid games to embarrass and hurt me. He knew I didn’t mean it.”

“Didn’t mean what?”

“That I was going to kill him. It was just a figure of speech, you know....”

Savannah twisted the phone cord around her index finger and tried to imagine Beverly Winston saying those words, figuratively or otherwise. “Beverly, did anyone else hear you make that threat?”

“Oh, sure. I said it in front of the entire country club one evening last month. Not smart, huh?”

Savannah thought of the next detective who would be assigned the case. Bloss would have to appoint someone. And that somebody would have to conduct some sort of investigation. He would be sure to run across at least some of the same information she had. And all paths seemed to lead back to Beverly Winston.

“No, Bev,” Savannah said softly, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’re right. It wasn’t too smart.”

“
A
re you mad at me, or what?” Atlanta stood with her hands on her slender hips, an indignant pout on her freshly scrubbed face. She stared down at Savannah, who sat in the middle of the living-room floor, surrounded by stacks of Jonathan Winston’s private papers.

“Ah ... what?” Savannah pulled her attention away from the task at hand and glanced up at her younger sister. Then did a fast double take. Damn! The kid was wearing her terry-cloth robe. Old Faithful on someone else’s body. Even worse, a much thinner body.

“I want to know if you’re mad at me. I’ve been standing here for five minutes and you haven’t said a word to me.” She flounced over to the sofa and stretched out on it, carefully arranging each fold of the robe to best accentuate her newly curvaceous figure.

Dear lard,
Savannah thought,
was I ever that vain?
The resounding answer was, “Yes, maybe more.” Which was probably why she found the behavior so irritating.

“I’m not trying to ignore you, Atlanta,” she said with as much patience as she could muster. “But, whether it looks like it or not, I’m trying to work here.”

“Once a cop, always a cop,” the girl replied in a singsong tone, rolling her eyes heavenward.

“Not necessarily,” Savannah muttered. She supposed she should tell Atlanta that she had been canned. But she had always taken a small comfort in thinking the kid looked up to her, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to climb down off the pedestal yet.

“What are you looking for?” Atlanta asked, exhibiting more interest than Savannah would have expected.

“A gorgeous guy named Ryan.”

“Really?” She perked up and leaned over the coffee table, looking down at the mess on the floor. “Want some help?”

A refusal was on the tip of Savannah’s tongue, but she swallowed it. Why not? She had been staring at these papers so long, her eyeballs were about to roll out onto her cheeks. Might as well put some of that youthful energy to use.

“Okay, get down here on the floor and help me. If you help me find something, I’ll buy you a carton of your own Chunky Monkey ... since you already ate all of mine,” she added rather mournfully.

“Oh, sorry.” She slid off the sofa and onto the rug beside Savannah. Glancing up at her, Savannah was surprised to see that she appeared genuinely remorseful. Not suicide-watch sorry, but mildly repentant. “Was that like ... your favorite or something?”

“Everything that has calories in my kitchen is my favorite, ‘Lanta. Don’t worry about it. Just ask next time before you eat me out of house and home, okay?”

“Okay, what are we looking for, really?”

Savannah tossed her a stack of canceled checks. “Anything with a Ryan on it. Or maybe the name of a business that sounds I like it could be a security service or something like that. I don’t know what the guy’s last name is. He was my victim’s bodyguard, and I figure if he guarded his body, he must have paid him something for it.”

“He could have paid him cash.”

Savannah sighed. “I can think up discouraging thoughts like that all by myself, dear heart.”

“Well, cheer up; I have some good news.” She began to shuffle through her stack, while Savannah did the same.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve got a job already.”

Savannah was astounded. All that eating and she had found time to job hunt, too? Maybe she had underestimated this kid.

“Doing what?”

“Going on dates.”

Alarm bells went off in Savannah’s brain. No. Surely not...

“What do you mean, going on dates?”

“I saw it in the paper. The ad said they wanted attractive young women to escort gentlemen around town, go to fancy parties with them, show them the sights, stuff like that.” She paused to fluff her hair, which Savannah could swear was a couple of shades brighter than it had been last night at the airport. “I’ve got an interview at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon with the lady who runs the agency. It’s called Twilight Paradiso. That means ‘Twilight Paradise.’ Romantic and classy, huh?”

She didn’t wait for Savannah, who was still trying to recover her composure, to say anything before nattering on, full steam ahead. “Which reminds me ... can I borrow some money to get a new outfit? I don’t have anything sophisticated enough, and I can’t take anything out of
your
closet because you’re so much bigger than me now that you’ve gained weight.”

“Of course not,” Savannah replied dryly, picking up another stack of checks and shoving them at her.

“Does that mean, ‘Of course not,’ I can’t wear your stuff, or ‘Of course not,’ I can’t borrow the money?”

“Both.”

“Oh.”

Savannah set her work aside for the moment. This parenting stuff took a lot more intense concentration than she would have thought. “Atlanta,” she said, considering her words well before speaking. The last thing she wanted under these circumstances was to alienate the girl again as she had in the airport. “I’m going to tell you something, and I need you to believe me, whether you want to or not.”

She said nothing, but nodded.

“These escort services—they aren’t what you think. You won’t just be going on nice dates to nice places with nice gentlemen. Those are fronts for prostitution. You would be expected to do a lot more than just walk into a high-society ball on their arm. Believe me. I busted dozens of them back when I worked vice.”

Savannah watched as a series of emotions crossed her sister’s face: irritation and self-righteous indignation, followed by some sappy look that was probably supposed to be benevolent understanding born of infinite wisdom.

“Sa-va-a-annah,” she said with a gentle shake of her head, “you are so suspicious. But I understand why; it’s because you’re a police officer and they pay you to be suspicious. But this is the real world, with
real
people in it. This is
my
world, and it’s very different from yours. Believe it or not, in
my
world not everyone is a criminal.”

Savannah dropped the checks and stared at the girl, dumbfounded. The real world? What the hell was she—?

“I don’t hold it against you, Savannah,” she continued, in that insipid, condescending tone that made Savannah want to reach over and pull out a handful of her overprocessed hair. “You can’t help being the way you are. But you have to learn to trust my judgment. I’m far more mature than you realize. For instance ... it occurred to me that this might not be legitimate, so I asked the woman, right out, if I’d have to do anything dirty with the guys. And she said, ‘Of course not, dear.’ She called me ‘dear.’ I think she’s from England or France ... someplace where they have those fancy accents. She said that all I had to do was go on the date for three hours for a hundred and fifty bucks, and after the date whatever I did was my own business.”

“And what do you think you’re going to be doing ... after the date?”

With a demure batting of her lashes Atlanta dipped her head and smiled coquettishly. “I’ll just shake his hand and tell him what a nice time I had. Unless he’s cute, of course, and then I might let him kiss me.”

“A kiss? You’re going to give him a little kiss?” Savannah’s control snapped. “So, tell me, Miss Priss, how do you feel about blow jobs, group gropes, bondage, and anal sex?”

“Wh—wha—what?” She shot up from the floor, canceled checks fluttering around her like a flock of startled pigeons in a city park. “Savannah! You—you have a filthy, filthy mind! Why, I never heard such a ...”

Her voice trailed away as she disappeared up the stairs, the long ends of the robe’s sash dragging behind her.

“Atlanta!” she shouted after her. “Atlanta Reid, don’t you go anywhere near that place tomorrow! You hear me, girl?”

“What are you going to do?” she yelled back. “Take a switch to my backside?”

“I might. You get too big for your britches, I just might do that! Don’t you go thinkin’ you’re too grown up for a whoopin’. I could still bend you over my knee and set your bee-hind afire!”

Savannah heard the exaggerated Southern accent in her own voice and flashed back to her mother saying the same words to her. Obnoxious words, to be sure. But they made a lot more sense at that moment than ever before.

Feeling sad and defeated, she shook her head. No, Atlanta didn’t need a “whoopin’.” She needed some common sense. And, unfortunately, that wasn’t something Savannah could just open the top of her head and pour in. The only way a person learned was through trial and error. Experience had to teach her, and Experience wasn’t nearly as compassionate an instructor as her mother or family. She would learn that the hard way.

“Damn,” she said tiredly as she stared down at the scattered checks with bleary eyes.

Through the haze of fatigue and unshed tears, Savannah saw it ... there on the floor at her feet. A check ... made out to one Ryan Stone. In the lower left corner on the memo line Winston had scribbled two words. “Personal Protection.”

“Well, Mr. Ryan Stone,” she said softly, “my little sister found you for me.”

But as Savannah looked up toward the staircase, she didn’t feel even half the thrill she usually felt when she experienced a breakthrough like this.

Somehow, with her younger sister sobbing upstairs, this minor victory didn’t seem to matter nearly so much.

The little white lies that Savannah had been forced to tell in the course of law-enforcement duties had bothered her. But without the instant access afforded by her badge, she’d had to resort to a garbage-truck load of big, rotten, black ones. Her tongue was definitely in mortal danger, not to mention her soul.

In the past twenty-four hours she had acquired a bevy of new relatives. Just now she had told the woman at the apartment office that she was Ryan Stone’s sister, in order to gain admittance through the security gate. She had been his aunt when finagling his address, and his ex-roommate for the telephone number.

There were definite handicaps in being a civilian. But in spite of the challenging odds, she had persevered all day and here she was, approaching Ryan Stone’s apartment. She glanced down at her watch. Nine
P
.
M
.
Not too bad. It had only taken her twenty-six hours to find him.

The complex was one of those Southern California hillside developments that seemed to defy the law of gravity. Perched precariously on the steep slope, it provided its occupants with breathtaking views of the town and the Pacific.

Savannah contemplated exactly how breathtaking the experience might be in the midst of an earthquake. Would the building stop rolling when it hit the courthouse below, or just keep sliding—taking everything with it—until it reached the town dock and the water?

As she formulated her theory, she glanced around at the immaculately kept, romantically lit pool, surrounded by full palmettos that waved in the night breeze with a paper-crisp crackle. They, too, were illuminated with blue, pink, and gold accent lights, buried in the lawn and shining upward through the foliage.

Nice place. She considered the feasibility of becoming a bodyguard instead of a private investigator. Being overweight didn’t appear to disqualify one for the position, judging from the potbellied Neanderthals she had seen escorting celebrities on television. Hell, a few more Black Forest cakes, a bit more facial hair, and a shirt that was two sizes too small around her midriff ... such a minor investment to begin a new business.