Cereal Killer

she said. “Since you’re busy there and—”
    Marietta clicked off the computer. And promptly burst into tears.
    Too late. The escape route is definitely closed now. Savannah sighed and reached for the box of tissues in the desk’s top drawer. And 1 have only myself to blame. She handed the tissues to Marietta, turned, and walked over to her comfy chair. Yes, Savannah, you people-pleasing idiot, you had to ask, didn’t you?
    “I just don’t understand it,” Marietta was saying as she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “This time last night we were layin’ there in each other’s arms, proclaiming our undying love and tonight... tonight he puts me on ‘Ignore.’ ”
    “Ignore?”
    Sniff. “That’s what you do when you’re in a chat room and you don’t even want to see what the other person’s saying. So you click ‘Ignore,’ and they plumb disappear off the screen. That’s what he did to me just now.”
    “Um-m-m. That’s not a good sign.”
    Marietta left the desk and plopped down on the sofa. “How can somebody just up and turn on you like that? I don’t understand it. I thought that what we had was special. A once-in-a-lifetime soul connection.”
    You could be soaking in a bubble bath right now, Savannah told herself as she painted a “concerned and not at all irritated as hell” look on her face. But no-o-o-o! Yo-o-ou had to go and ask her how she was.
    “Did he really tell you that he loved you last night?” she asked.
    “Sure he did.”
    “He actually said the L word?”
    Marietta thought for a moment. “Let’s see now.... I told him that I loved him, and he said, “Thanks.’ That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
    Only if you're a complete dope. “Well... I...”
    “I mean, he was smiling when he said it. He looked grateful and happy.”
    “Were you naked and in bed?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And you hadn’t actually ‘done it’ yet?”
    “Not yet, but we were about to.”
    “Maybe that was why he was smiling, grateful, and happy.”
    Marietta’s face screwed up in pain. “Are you telling me, Savannah Reid, that you think the only reason that man told me he loved me was so that he could have his way with me? Is that what you’re saying?”
    “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that a guy stretched the truth a bit to get laid, Marietta. It happens all the time. You should have figured that out by the time you were fifteen. And besides that, he didn’t actually say ‘love.’ He said, “Thanks.’ That sounds kinda lukewarm to me.” “That just goes to show what you know!” Marietta cried, throwing her used tissues to the floor and jumping up off the sofa. “You don’t know squat about men, Savannah! And you could put everything you know about romance into one of Gran’s sewing thimbles!”
    She stomped across the living room to the foot of the stairs. “And what’s more,” she said, pausing with her hand on the rail, “you’ve got a lot of nerve to sit there in your easy chair like God Almighty and tell me what’s going on in my life! You always have been bossy, Savannah Reid. Bossy and overbearing and critical.” With that, Marietta made her stage exit, straight up the stairs.
    Savannah heard the door to her guest bedroom slam. Then renewed wailing... possibly even the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth.
    As though sensing Savannah’s less than cheerful mood, Diamante and Cleopatra leaped down from their window perch and jumped onto their mistress’s lap. Cleo began to lick her cheek.
    “Why are you so sweet?” Savannah asked the cats as they cuddled warm and soft against her chest. “Is it because you’re spayed? Yes, I think that’s it.” She glanced toward the top of the stairs. “Maybe we could get Marietta spayed... do the world a favor.”
    Diamante meowed and rubbed her face against Savannah’s shoulder.
    ‘Yes, I think you’re right,” she said. “Lover Chat Boy wouldn’t mind if we had her fixed. In fact, we could probably get him to pay for it.”
    But she didn’t have long to luxuriate in the unconditional love of her pets, because less than a minute later the phone rang.
    She grabbed it off the end table and glanced at the Caller ID. It was Dirk. ‘Yeah, who is he?” she said.
    “A scumbag who’s been rousted for everything from peeping to dicky waving. He’s got a thing for big girls.”
    “Was he actually stalking them like Tammy said?”
    “According to the papers he was.”
    Savannah laughed and