Just Desserts (29 page)

“I meant,” Savannah said, “who the person is who’s considering killing someone.”

“I’m sorry; I just can’t tell you that until I’m sure. I don’t want to be responsible for destroying a person who’s ... never mind. Thank you for listening.”

“Any time,” Savannah said. “Any time at all. Please, do call back.” But by then the woman had already hung up the phone.

For a little while Savannah sat there, holding the receiver in her hand, wondering what to do. She didn’t want to go running across town, barging in on Fiona, and scaring the crap out of her for no reason. And yet... like the lady from New York... Savannah couldn’t bear the thought of letting something horrible happen to Fiona if she could prevent it.

Crawling out of bed, she retrieved her address book from a dresser drawer and flipped it open to Fiona’s name and number.

As she dialed, Savannah mentally rehearsed her apology. I’m
sorry
for calling so late, but
... No, she couldn’t tell her the truth. The singer had looked frazzled enough the last time she had seen her. No point in sending her over the edge.

... but I forgot to ask you one little question. Exactly where did you and Jonathan first meet?

It was a pretty lousy line, but she didn’t have to use it. Fiona didn’t answer the phone.

A man did, after about ten rings. “Hello?”

“Dirk?” She couldn’t quite believe it. What the hell was he doing at ...

“Van?”

“Yeah. What’s going on?”

“You mean, you don’t ... oh, I thought you were calling because you knew.”

The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach plunged all the way down to her feet, leaving her knees weak and shaky as it passed.
No, God, please, not already. I just found out. I can’t be too late,

“Is she...?”

Dirk hesitated a beat too long. It was true.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Don’t know for sure. But she’s fresh. Dr. Liu is here, and she figures within the last couple of hours, more or less.”

“How?”

“The doctor figures it was the shotgun blast that sent her on her way. But it’s a little hard to tell for sure; there are quite a few ... other injuries. Looks like somebody was trying to get something out of her.”

Savannah thought back to those huge sums that had been withdrawn from Jonathan’s business over the past year or so. People had killed for a hell of a lot less.

“Do you think the killer got what he was after?” she asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

“God, I hope so. A terrible waste of a beautiful woman. I’d hate to think it was all for nothing.”

Neither of them said anything as Savannah regained her composure. Good ol’ Dirk; he had always appreciated the value of a comfortable silence and didn’t seem to need to sully it with worthless chitchat.

“Do you want to come down?” he finally asked.

“No. But I will anyway. See you in a few.”

Hanging up the phone, she looked at the board, which she had dropped onto the bed, and the attached sticky note that named Fiona O’Neal as Murder Suspect Number Three.

With a sick ache that hurt all the way through, Savannah reached for the note and moved it to the lower right-hand corner of the board. Next to Jonathan’s.

For some reason, long ago, she had decided that was the proper corner... to stick the dead ones.

F
iona O’Neal’s apartment might have seemed dreary before when Savannah had visited, but she found it far more depressing the second time around. The place had been torn to pieces by someone who was either extremely angry, extremely curious, or both. The vandal had left nothing intact, from the eviscerated sofa and recliner to the cardboard boxes, whose contents had been dumped on the floor.

But the destruction to the room was nothing compared to what had been done to Fiona O’Neal herself.

“Oh, God ...” As always, Savannah had braced herself before entering a homicide scene, but no amount of preparation was enough when the victim was someone you knew.

“Pretty bad, huh, Van?” Dirk stood beside her, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his old bomber jacket, looking more tired than she had seen him in a long time.

“Yeah, pretty wicked. Just like Jonathan Winston,” she said as she watched Dr. Jennifer Liu kneel beside the body and make a small incision in the abdomen. A few seconds later the coroner thrust a long thermometer through the opening and into the liver.

“Really? Like her ex?” Dirk seemed surprised and acutely interested.

“Oh, that’s right... you didn’t see the Winston scene.”

Savannah walked closer to the body, forcing herself to take a better look. Jennifer looked up and nodded briefly to her. Savannah returned the solemn acknowledgment.

“Exactly like her ex,” Savannah told him.

“Unfortunately,” Jennifer interjected, “I’m afraid that isn’t totally true. I think the lady went through a lot more before she died than Mr. Winston did.”

She pointed to the ropes that were still tied around Fiona’s wrists and ankles, the laceration of both Achilles tendons, and the bruising and abrasions on her hands that looked as though someone had carefully and deliberately mangled each finger.

But, like Jonathan, it was the shotgun blast to the head that would have dispatched her into the next world.

Savannah realized sadly that the end must have been a relief.

“He was trying to get her to tell,” Savannah whispered. “And she wouldn’t. It was all she had left of Jonathan; she never would have told him if he hadn’t...”

“To tell what?” Dirk asked.

“He wanted to know where the money was. The money that she was holding for Jonathan; the money he had embezzled from his own business.”

“You can’t embezzle from yourself.” Dirk walked over to one of the piles, dumped from a cardboard box, and knelt to examine the contents.

“You can if you’re planning to run away with your ex-wife and you don’t want to divide your worldly goods with your present wife. At least, that’s what Fiona told me when I saw her last.”

“Dr. Liu, have you taken all your pictures yet?” Dirk asked before he moved any of the items on the floor.

“All finished,” she replied, reading the temperature on the thermometer.

He pointed to one of the many paperback books that lay open. “Look at this, Van.”

As he held the book out to her, she instantly saw what he meant. Someone had cut a rectangular space out of the pages, leaving a convenient hole in which to hide something. Something that was gone now.

“What do you figure,” he asked, “a drug stash?”

“Wouldn’t be the first I’ve seen like that.” Savannah lifted another box, revealing a heap of books that had been similarly mutilated. As she checked them one by one, she found they were all empty.

“If it was dope, there was a lot of it,” she said as she searched the room, finding more and more of the same.

As she made her way through the living and dining areas, she spotted a couple more boxes in the kitchen, partially concealed behind a trash can. These appeared to still be intact, their contents undisturbed.

“Here we go,” she mumbled under her breath. “Don’t let it be pots and pans... please....”

She eased open the lid and looked inside. Stephen King, Janet Dailey, Norman Mailer, Dean Koontz, even Charles Dickens. Fiona must have been a voracious reader with eclectic tastes.

She picked up a copy of Little Women and opened the cover.

“Ah... Dirk...”

“Yeah?”

“In here.”

He appeared at the door. “What ’cha got?”

Holding the book open for his perusal, she said, “It wasn’t drugs.”

He whistled, long and low. “No shit. Are there more?”

One by one, she opened
Cujo
,
The Great Alone, White Fang,
and
The Firm.

Every single book had been hollowed out, then filled with hundred dollar bills. So much for the mystery of Jonathan Winston’s missing money.

“Whoever he was, he didn’t get it all,” Dirk commented.

Savannah walked slowly back into the living room, glanced down at the empty, gutted books, and then at what remained of the red-haired, Irish singer who had wanted to be Connie Francis when she grew up. “I’d say he got enough to make it worth his time. The bastard.”

“Van, I suppose this isn’t the time to lay something else on you, but...”

Savannah paused, her hand on the Camaro door handle. “What is it now?” she asked Dirk, who had followed her from Fiona’s apartment.

“I had a feeling about your buddy, the Stone guy,” he began. She could tell by the almost apologetic look on his face that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

“Spit it out,” she said.

“I ran a little background check on him... specifically that stuff about having been a fed.”

“Let me guess; you’re going to tell me that he was never—”

“No, he was. But they didn’t think as highly of him as you seem to.”

Jealousy does not become you, my old friend,
she thought. But her heart was thudding with anticipation mixed with dread, and she wanted to know. Now.

“I said, spit it out, Dirk! If you’ve got some nasty little news, let me have it.”

“They kicked him out. Discharged. Dishonorably.”

She said nothing but glared at him, hating what he had just said, nearly hating him. For a moment she related to what Atlanta must have felt when her idol had been yanked off his plastic pedestal.

“I just thought you should know,” he added with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“Sure, Dirk, I can tell you’re just eaten up with remorse. Thanks so much for the enlightenment. I owe you one.”

Dirk shook his head as she drove away, nearly peeling rubber. “One what?” he asked. “Lunch, a beer... a bullet between the
eyes?”

Savannah didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when she heard the heavy footsteps inside Ryan Stone’s apartment, coming to answer her knock on the door. Normally she wasn’t a woman who considered ignorance to be bliss. Usually she wanted to know the facts, pretty or ugly, so long as she knew what was real.

But, lately, she had had so damned many shocks, a few too many eye-opening experiences. Enough was enough.

Unconsciously she reached up to smooth her flyaway curls. Not that she cared what he thought of her anymore. He had lied to her, and his damned goose was cooked. Well, maybe he hadn’t actually
lied,
but he hadn’t told her—

The door opened and she found herself face to face with ... John Gibson. He was wearing casual black slacks and slippers and an elegant smoking jacket made of dove gray satin brocade. The color complemented his silver hair, which was slicked back, every strand in place. In his hand he held a highly polished briarwood pipe. The perfect British gentleman.

“My dear!” he exclaimed, throwing the door open wide. “How de-e-light-ful to see you. Do come in.”

“Actually, I was just dropping by to speak to Ryan. Ummmmm ... is he home?” she asked as she tried to peer over his shoulder.

“He is, he is, indeed. But I’m afraid you’ve caught him in the shower. Come inside, have a seat, and make yourself comfortable, love. I’m sure he’ll be out straightaway.”

She stepped into the apartment and felt as though she had entered the library of a Tudor mansion. The heavy leather furniture, the carved dark wood, the bookcases with their fine classic volumes of literature, even a painting of a hunt over the fireplace.

Nice
, she thought. Just what she would have expected Ryan’s home to be.

Gibson hurried to an ornately carved bar at one end of the room. “What may I get for you, Miss Reid? If you enjoy cognac, I have some Remy Martin that I would recommend.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Gibson, I—”

“Please, please.” He held up one hand, as though directing traffic in Piccadilly Circus. “Just Gibson, or John, whichever you prefer.”

“Okay... Gibson,” she replied, feeling a bit shy at calling a servant by his last name. It seemed so aristocratic, so deliciously snobbish.

“So, what is your position here with Mr. Stone?” she asked, feeling ignorant of such things as European social hierarchy.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry, I mean... are you his chauffeur, his butler, or...?”

He smiled. “Oh, yes. My position, as it were. Well, I consider myself more of a—”

“Savannah!” Ryan stood in the doorway leading to a hall, a towel wrapped around his waist. Water beaded on his bronzed skin and in the light dusting of hair across his chest that was ... dear lord ... even more muscular than she had dreamed. “I thought I heard the doorbell ring. I’m so glad to see you.”

He hurried toward her and held out his hand. Mesmerized by his near-nakedness, she slipped her fingers into his and felt the contact all the way up to her shoulder.

When he sat on the sofa beside her, wearing nothing but that towel and a breathtaking smile, the warmth traveled into much more sensitive areas of her constitution.

“Why are you here?” he asked, his green eyes locked with hers, his dimples framing that sensuous mouth.

“Here ...” She thought for a moment, but her mind was blank. Apparently, all of her blood had rushed south, leaving her brain dead. “Yes, here...” Then she remembered, and the sexual attraction dimmed.

She glanced over at Gibson, who was still standing at the bar, holding a snifter of cognac in one hand, looking like a magazine ad for the latest in smoking apparel.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but could we ... could we speak privately ... just for a moment? I apologize, Gibson, but this is... uh ... private.”

Why did she always lose half of her vocabulary when she was in the presence of someone with a British accent? The English were just so elegant, so sophisticated and urbane, so damned intimidating.

“Think nothing of it, my dear,” he said, toasting her with his snifter. “My favorite BBC mystery series will be on the telly any minute now, and in the last episode my hero was in desperate straits.”

When Gibson, his pipe, and the cognac had left the room Savannah said, “I didn’t realize that Gibson was a ‘live-in’ servant. I suppose we Americans aren’t used to that kind of thing.”