Fat Free And Fatal. G. A. McKevett

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СКАЧАТЬ Stone, the reason for the dinner and the inspiration for Tammy’s haute couture.

      The tall, dark, and fibrillation-inducing Ryan was turning a year older, and Savannah had invited her closest circle of friends to celebrate—an intimate little sphere that just happened to encompass the members of her Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency and no one else.

      Savannah had never experienced even the slightest difficulty in drawing a line between her work and her personal life. It was quite simple: she had no personal life.

      And other than one sainted grandmother and a batch of crazy siblings, whom she had left behind in Georgia, and the two black cats who were doing figure eights between her ankles, begging for table scraps, the people around her table constituted her family.

      Them…and Dirk, who was conspicuously absent.

      Dirk never passed up the opportunity to eat a free meal, and especially one of Savannah’s.

      “I can’t believe Dirko isn’t here,” Tammy said. “And more than that, I can’t believe I actually miss him.” She washed down the final bite of chicken with a long drink of lemonade, made with real sugar—the plain old, refined, and much maligned white stuff.

      Lots of it.

      Savannah put only slightly less sugar in her lemonade than she did her iced tea.

      Yes, Tammy was compromising her virtue right and left, in honor of Ryan Stone. Like all women between the ages of eight and eighty-eight, Tammy had fallen for Ryan within the first three seconds of setting eyes on him. And his courtly manners, countless kindnesses, and impeccable style did nothing to dispel the enchantment. She was totally, hopelessly hooked and too young to hide it.

      Unlike Savannah, solidly into her forties, who was the epitome of “cool” around him. “Ryan, you darlin’ birthday boy,” she said, shoving an enormous bowl of mashed potatoes under his nose. “You eat up now! I won’t have you fainting dead away from hunger out there in the street after having supper at my house.” Savannah blushed slightly, hearing the adolescent titter in her own voice. He reached for the bowl, his fingers brushed hers, and she nearly dropped the spuds in his lap.

      So much for “cool” in face of male perfection.

      But Ryan was kind, as always, and pretended not to notice. It didn’t become a demigod to react to mere female mortals slavering at his feet.

      “Yes, I’m surprised to find that I miss the old boy, too,” John Gibson agreed. He dabbed at his mustache with his napkin and took a sip of Beaujolais.

      Although John was older than his life partner, Ryan, by quite a few years, he could still stop more than a few hearts himself. With his luxuriant silver hair, his pale blue eyes, and elegant British accent, he had the old-world charm of an English nobleman. But the occasional wicked sparkle in those eyes betrayed a far less than stodgy persona beneath those fine tweed jackets. “When the old boy isn’t around,” he continued, “I long for his insightful observations on the state of humanity, his stirring political exhortations, and provocative philosophical—”

      “Yeah, yeah. More like, you miss sparring with him,” Savannah said.

      John chuckled. “Well, he is rather easily baited.”

      “And you,” Ryan said, “have just enough British bulldog in you that you can’t resist going after him.”

      “All in good fun,” John replied. “All in good fun.”

      “Good fun. That’s what the matador calls a bullfight.” Savannah sighed and shook her head. More than once it had occurred to her that trying to merge her extremely diverse friends into one happy gaggle had resulted in the creation of an extended dysfunctional family.

      The Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency was basically a group of people who loved each other. Every one of them would readily defend the others from a rabid Siberian tiger attack. But even on a good day, not all of them actually liked each other. Especially Dirk and the couple sitting at her table.

      “Dirk caught a case this afternoon. That’s why he isn’t with us,” Savannah said as she stood and began to clear their plates from the table. “A homicide.”

      “The one over at Dona Papalardo’s estate?” Ryan asked.

      “Yes. How did you know about that already? It just happened around noon today. I don’t think even the AP has picked it up yet.”

      Tammy perked up; Nancy Drew was on the case. “What? A murder at Dona Papalardo’s place? No way! What happened?”

      “Apparently her personal assistant was shot and killed right in Dona’s front driveway,” Savannah said. She gave Tammy a sideways smirk. “The gal probably caused Dona’s computer to crash and lose all their billing data.”

      “That wasn’t my fault!” Tammy’s face crumpled into a pout, and she sank lower in her chair. “It’s that stupid new computer you bought. I told you to let me do the consumer research online, pick out the best system, but no…you have to go shopping yourself at some stupid department store and pick out the first thing that—”

      “It wasn’t the first one I saw. It was the third one.”

      “And you bought it because…?”

      “It was blue. The other ones were gray or black. That one was prettier.”

      Tammy sighed. “I rest my case. Anyway, what’s this business about Dona Papalardo’s assistant?”

      “Just that,” Savannah said. “She was shot dead in the driveway of that fancy mansion Dona has up in Spirit Hills, while getting into Dona’s limousine. Dirk seems to think the shooter may have thought she was Dona. She fits Dona’s general description, and Dona had loaned her one of those fancy furs of hers—you know, the ones that PETA was giving her so much grief about?”

      Tammy grimaced. “I don’t blame them. Dona really overdoes that silver-screen actress bit.”

      “And especially for one so young,” John agreed. “She can’t be a day over thirty-five, and yet she dresses like Jean Harlow.”

      Ryan shrugged. “Hey, it’s pure glamour, and it looks good on her.”

      Savannah sniffed. “Yeah, like you’d notice.”

      “I notice.” He laughed. “Notice is all I do, but I notice.”

      “Did you notice my kimono?” Tammy asked, carefully adjusting one of the chopsticks in her hair in a gesture that was so sickeningly girlie that Savannah nearly gagged.

      “Of course. The fabric is gorgeous.” Ryan turned to John. “Don’t you wish we had a few yards of that for throw pillows in the bedroom?”

      Tammy groaned. “Oh, gawd, why do I even bother?”

      “You look lovely, dear,” John said. “And, as Ryan knows all too well, that shade of red is far too bold for our bedroom. He’s just teasing you again.”

      She sighed and shook her head. Then, turning to Savannah, she said, “Just wait until the tabloids get a hold of this! Dona’s been on the front cover of every rag СКАЧАТЬ