Poisoned Tarts. G. A. McKevett

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СКАЧАТЬ you’d think so. We may wind up having to toss her out of there if we can’t settle her down.”

      “The thought of ‘tossing’ a worried mother anywhere doesn’t exactly agree with me,” Savannah said. “If I had kids and one went missing, I’d be beside myself. I lost one of my kid sisters—I think it was Atlanta—in a Wal-Mart one Sunday afternoon for twenty minutes, and I about went out of my mind imagining what might have happened to her.”

      “Yeah, that’s just gotta be the worst. The absolutely worst thing that can happen to a parent…having a kid go missing. But this gal will turn up. I can feel it.”

      She sniffed. “Oh yes, the infamous, infallible Coulter intuition.”

      “Hey, don’t knock it. My instinct has gotten you out of some nasty jams over the years.”

      “And gotten me into plenty of them, too.”

      “Be that as it may.”

      They rounded a curve, and on a separate hill above them and to the left was the most magnificent mansion Savannah had ever seen. Crowning the hill, the palatial home looked like a cross between a Tuscan country villa and the Acropolis.

      Illuminated by exquisitely placed architectural lighting, the limestone façade glowed golden against the darkening twilit sky. Arched and shuttered windows, some two and three stories tall, reached to ornate eaves and a red-tiled roof.

      They drove through an avenue of giant, mature oaks that momentarily obscured the view of the house. Something about their black, gnarled trunks and the way their thick foliage blocked out even the last rays of the fading sunlight gave Savannah a creepy feeling. She felt like she was watching the prelude to some sort of horror movie as they passed between them.

      But the sense of foreboding left the moment they exited the oaks and entered the circular motor court. Giant palm trees danced in the evening breeze, throwing lacy shadows across the front of the mansion, and in the center of the court, a four-tiered marble fountain was lit with golden floodlights. The water that cascaded from layer to layer sparkled like streams of liquid topaz.

      “Wow, I heard about this place when they were building it two years ago,” she said, “but I had no idea it was so grand! Glory be, what a spread!”

      “Eh,” Dirk replied. “My trailer looks this good when the neighbor’s mutt runs too close to my front door and the outdoor security light flips on. It’s all done with lighting.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      They parked in the court between a new Porsche convertible and an older rusty and dented minivan. On the van’s bumper was a faded sticker that read “My Kid Is On the S.C.H.S. Honor Roll.”

      “Something tells me that van belongs to Daisy O’Neil’s mom,” Savannah said. “I can’t imagine the guy who lives in this place driving it. And I’m sure they’d expect any servants who owned that to park around back and out of sight.”

      Dirk nodded. “And from what I’ve read about her, I don’t think Miss Tiffy would be caught dead in any vehicle that didn’t cost as much as your house and my trailer combined.”

      Savannah recalled the appraised value of her own house on her last tax statement and added twenty-five cents for Dirk’s single-wide monstrosity that still had vestiges of dinosaur poop on its tires. “No,” she said, “I doubt that she would.”

      They left the Buick and walked across the granite-paved courtyard, through a gracefully arched colonnade, to a wrought iron double door. The delicate iron work formed two letters—a T on the left and a D on the right.

      “Andrew Dante,” Savannah mumbled, mulling the initials over in her mind. “Should be an A, not a T.”

      They both looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “He put his kid’s initials on his door?”

      “Maybe his wife’s name is Tiffy, or something equally stupid that starts with a T.”

      “Or he’s a doting father. An extremely doting father.”

      “That would explain some of the stories I’ve read in the tabloids. To hear them tell it, she’s a brat who gets everything she wants and then some.”

      Savannah pushed the button next to the door and heard the Westminster Chimes echo inside. “Ah, don’t believe everything you read. Rich people get a bad rap just because everybody’s jealous of them. Some of the nicest, most humble, and most generous people I’ve ever known were rich.”

      “Naw. I hate ’em all. You can’t be a decent person and be rich.”

      She shook her head and sighed. “Coulter…there isn’t one single solitary group of people under the sun that you trust, respect, or like.”

      “That isn’t true.”

      “Is, too.”

      “Is not. I like dogs.”

      The door opened, and a tiny woman in her early twenties stood there in a black and white maid’s uniform. Her thick dark hair flowed around her shoulders in a manner that struck Savannah as impractical for the active work of a housekeeper. And the skirt on her uniform was so short that should she need to bend over, she would have to squat ever so gracefully so as not to expose her diminutive derriere.

      It also struck Savannah that both the person who had designed this costume, as well as the one who had decided that this young lady should wear it, were well aware of the clothing’s limitations—or benefits.

      Savannah gave Dirk a sideways glance and saw his eyes flit, ever so briefly, over the outfit and then lock on the maid’s face. She had to give the guy some major points for professionalism. Better than anyone, she knew his predilection for French maid and cheerleader garb.

      “Hello. May I help you?” the maid asked in a breathless, half-panting voice that sounded like it was straight from an 800-Call-to-Talk-Dirty phone line. She ran her fingers through her long hair and then shifted her weight from one foot to another, sticking her hip out to one side in what she undoubtedly thought was a sexy pose.

      A quick look at Dirk told Savannah that he thought so, too.

      His eyes bugged out just a bit as he looked her up and down one more time. But he cleared his throat, and apparently his mind, because he managed to dig out his badge, flip it open under her nose, and say with only the slightest squeak, “I’m Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter, San Carmelita Police Department. This is my colleague, Savannah Reid. We received a call that you have a problem here tonight. Is there a Ms. O’Neil around?”

      The maid glanced uneasily over her shoulder. “Uh, yes, but…”

      Savannah could hear a woman’s angry voice deep inside the house, and a man’s, too. They sounded as though they were arguing.

      Dirk looked past the maid and tried to see into the massive foyer behind her. “Is that Ms. O’Neil I hear?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I need to talk to her right now.”

      He gave his best, most authoritative cop wave of the hand, and predictably, the young woman stood aside to allow them in. Savannah decided then and there that the maid СКАЧАТЬ