Cereal Killer

came to her family members.
    Bad guys were one thing. She had no problem threatening them with manual castration or death by slow strangulation. But when it came to her sisters...
    Tammy had discreetly removed herself from the living room and taken refuge in the kitchen, where she sat at the table, quietly working on her computer. But she wasn’t fooling Savannah. She was absorbing every detail of this drama. Having come from a relatively sane family herself, Tammy found the dynamics between the Reid sisters a never-ending source of amazement and amusement.
    “Finally, I have a chance at happiness,” Marietta wailed. “And you just can’t stand it. I’ve got a man who loves me, a good man, and you’re so jealous that you’re throwin’ a monkey wrench into the works by making me go home.”
    Savannah scooped Diamante up onto her lap and began to pet the cat. She’d heard that stroking an animal could lower your blood pressure. And judging from the pulse pounding in her temples, hers needed lowering.
    “I’m not making you go home,” she said calmly. “I’m just telling you that if you intend to stay here in California and make a blamed fool of yourself over a man who doesn’t want any part of you... you’ll have to do it someplace other than my house.”
    “But I can’t afford a motel room! I already told you that! Why else do you think I’d stay here?”
    Savannah winced, wishing there was a form of bulletproof vest that could fend off darts from your so-called loved ones. “I don’t know...” she said. “Maybe because you wanted to see me, to spend time with me?”
    “Doing what? Listening to you put me down, tell me how stupid I am, and how I’m always messing up? Gee, that’s a lot of fun.”
    In her peripheral vision, Savannah could see Tammy peek around the corner, a look of concern on her face. Maybe she could trade Sister Marietta in on a sister like Tammy—someone who didn’t shoot poisoned verbal arrows.
    “You’re right, Marietta,” she said as she stood and set the cat on the floor. “You’re a grown woman, and your life is your own. I’ve taken liberties, expressing my opinions to you when you didn’t ask for them. I apologize for that. Please forgive me.”
    Marietta looked relieved, then confused. “So... what does that mean?” she asked. “Can I stay here with you? At least for a few more days while I work out these little problems with Bill?”
    “No. You can’t stay.”
    “But—but you just admitted that you were wrong.’
    “I was wrong to give you advice that you didn't want. But you still have to go.”
    “But where? Where will I go if I can’t stay here?”
    “Home to your boys, maybe?”
    “There you go, judging me again. That was advice... and a statement about me not being a good mother.” Savannah’s remaining nerve snapped. “Dammit, Mari! You asked me. You asked me a specific question, and I answered it You can go home or you can go check into a cheap hotel. Lord knows there are plenty of them in your so-called boyfriend’s neighborhood. You can go fly a kite on the beach and sleep in your rented car. I don’t care what you do! But if you’re going to act stupider than stupid, you’re not going to do it around me, ’cause I have better things to do than watch it.”
    At that moment, she was once again saved by a bell; the telephone rang. As usual, it was resting on the coffee table, and both she and Marietta dove for it.
    “Don’t you touch that stinkin’ telephone!” she shouted at her sister. “It’s my dad-gummed phone, and if you so much as lay a finger on it, I swear, I’ll beat you to a frazzle with it!”
    Marietta must have believed her, because she backed off—all the way to the other side of the living room— and stood there sulking.
    “Hello!” Savannah said into the phone with a vehemence rarely used for a simple telephone greeting unless one was expecting a telephone solicitor.
    “Hi. Is everything okay?” asked a velvet voice that could only belong to Ryan Stone.
    She instantly melted. “Ryan. I’m so glad to hear from you.” He had no idea how glad, but someday she might tell him the sad, sad story of how she had thrown her sister out onto the cold, cold street and ruined forever any chance she had of finding her One True Love.
    “I’m calling to ask you out on a date,” he said, a touch of humor in his words.
    “Yeah, right. Don’t toy with me, boy. My heart’s a fragile thing where you’re