Buried In Buttercream

seemed a lot heavier.
    She opened it and saw the gleam of her 9mm Beretta.
    “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I forgot I put that in there.” She pulled out the weapon.
    The guy on the ground gagged when he saw it and held up his hands in front of his face. “Don’t!” he yelled. “Don’t let her shoot me!” he said to Dirk. “I’m telling you, she’s crazy!”
    “Naw, she ain’t crazy,” Dirk said as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from behind his back and rolled his prisoner onto his face in the dirt. “She’s just been stressed out lately. She’s a bride-to-be. And you know how they get. It’s a wonder she didn’t shoot you.”
    “I’d forgotten I was packin’ or I would’ve,” Savannah told him, replacing her gun in her purse. “Believe you me.”
    Dirk snapped the cuffs on him, then yanked him to his feet. “Dude, if it weren’t for you,” he told him, “right now I’d be gettin’ a piece o’—” He glanced at Savannah. “I mean ... enjoying the bliss of my nuptial union.”
    “What?” The guy looked genuinely confused. “What’s that?”
    “Something you ain’t never gonna know nothin’ about.” Dirk started down the hill, his detainee in tow.
    “Unless you establish a close, meaningful relationship with your prison cellmate ... which is a strong possibility,” Savannah added, following close behind.
    In the ever-deepening darkness, they had to choose their footing more carefully as they descended the path.
    “Be careful, Savannah,” Dirk said over his shoulder. “Watch your step through here.”
    For a moment, her temper flared. She made a mental note to have a serious sit-down with her groom-to-be. He was going to have to pull back on this overprotective crap, or they’d never make it through their honeymoon. She could already hear the chickie-pooh on the evening news: “Bride bludgeons groom senseless with bouquet! Film at eleven!”
    She surveyed the scene below them—the exhausted firefighters, still battling in vain to save the community center, the spectators, some of whom were wondering if it would spread into their neighborhood and consume their homes. No doubt, countless animals were running for their lives, their own habitats destroyed.
    She told herself that this guy’s crimes had far more devastating consequences than just her postponed ceremony.
    But when she thought of her beautiful wedding gown, now nothing but a pile of black ash inside that burning building, she had more than a passing fancy to plant her foot on that skinny little nerd’s butt and send him tumbling down the cactus-strewn hill.
    “Ruin my wedding day, would ya,” she muttered. And instead, gave him a smack on the back of the head.
    “Hey! What was that for?” he whined, trying to turn around to look at her while Dirk dragged him along with even less tender loving kindness than was usually offered by members of the San Carmelita Police Department.
    “Oh, shut up,” she said, “you dim-witted, devil-worshippin’, fire-startin’ pestilence. And keep movin’.”

Chapter 2
    H aving checked their prisoner into the San Carmelita Hotel and Resort, furnished with one steel-framed cot, decorated in neutral shades of gray—bars on windows and doors, no extra charge—Savannah and Dirk were homeward bound.
    He drove the battered old Buick through the middle-class streets of her neighborhood, which seemed so serene in comparison to the other side of town, where they had just been.
    But Savannah knew the peace and quiet were temporary. Chaos awaited her. Pure, unadulterated bedlam reigned within the walls of her humble home.
    Oh, goody. She could hardly wait.
    “You dreading going home, sugar?” Dirk said, obviously reading her mind.
    “You have no idea,” she said with a sigh. “It’s been hard enough with the whole motley crew there for the past few days. But now ... with what’s happened today ... they’re gonna be busting at the seams with the sheer drama of it all.”
    He reached over, took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “It was your wedding that got flushed down the toilet. Not your sisters’ and brothers’.”
    “Yeah, but you don’t understand. Coming all the way out here to Southern California ... this is the social high point of their lives.”
    “Well, what I don’t understand—and sure don’t approve of—is all eight of them and their kids piling in on you, all in that little house of yours. Don’t they have motels in McGill, Georgia? I was only there