Cereal Killer

grinned down at her. “Of course we have.”
    “But... but you’re gay!"
    He shrugged. “So? Gay people are curious, too. Are you going to tell me that you and Tammy haven’t speculated about us?”
    An instant replay of several fairly bawdy conversations between herself and her assistant flickered across Savannah’s mental screen. Feeling a blush warming her cheeks, she chose not to answer him, but continued on down the hall.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, as he watched her counting the fingers of her left hand, then some on her right.
    “Figuring out how many months it is until Christmas,” she replied.
    “Christmas? Why?”
    “Because that’s the soonest that I can legitimately get another kiss from you, boy. You know... mistletoe and all that.”
    They walked a few more yards.
    “So... how many months is it?” he finally asked.
    “Five... and a half.”
    “That’s a long time.”
    She sighed. “Tell me about it.”
     

Chapter
    18
    A t one in the morning, when Ryan and John brought Savannah and Tammy back to Savannah’s house, they found Dirk sitting in his Buick out front. Savannah wasn’t surprised, since he had called her three times during the party on her cell phone, wanting to know what was going on.
    She told him about the amazing house. She told him about the food. She told him they had planted the recorder.
    She didn’t mention the fact that she had kissed Ryan.
    What Dirk didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him—and he couldn’t bug the daylights out of her as long as she didn’t tell him.
    Having listened to their tape on the way home in the car, they were brimming with excitement when they hurried into the house, a disgruntled Dirk in their wake.
    Savannah was surprised, though not exactly shocked, to find Marietta planted on her sofa, the telephone in her hand. Marietta had always been a person who required more than a nudge. Strong-armed force had usually been needed to get her to do anything that she didn’t choose to do on her own.
     “Could I speak to you, alone, for a moment?” Savannah said to her. Then she turned to her compatriots. “Go ahead and make yourselves at home there in the kitchen,” she told them, “and I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.” A petulant and reluctant Marietta followed Savannah upstairs. She led her into the guest bedroom and closed the door behind them.
    “I thought we had an understanding,” Savannah told her. “I thought you might have respected my wishes and been gone by the time I got home.”
    Marietta lifted her chin and placed both hands on her hips. “I thought you were surely joking about throwing me out. After all, I’m your kin.”
    “Yes, you are. And has it occurred to you that, because you are, it wasn’t easy for me to ask you to leave?”
    “Nobody made you. You’re just doing it out of meanness.”
    Savannah suddenly felt tired. Her high heels were pinching her toes, and her head ached from the unaccustomed quantity of champagne she had consumed. “Listen to me, Marietta. I promised a policeman today that I would make sure you wouldn’t harass that Donaldson guy anymore. The cop was going to come here and give you a talkin’ to, but I convinced him it wasn’t necessary. I swore to him that you’d behave. Now you’re making a liar out of me.”
    “I am not!”
    “So, you weren’t talking to your cyberguy when I walked in just now?”
    “No.”
    “Then who were you talking to?”
    “It’s none of your business.”
    “Who’s paying for the call, Marietta? Whose phone were you using? Whose door is going to get knocked on at four in the morning because you aren’t acting like a lady?”
    “I wasn’t talking to Bill. If you must know, I was talking to his brother, James.”
    “And how did you get hold of his brother’s number? The same way you got his work number and his father’s? Did you get that information out of his address book when you were at his house?”
    Marietta’s eyes blazed. “You’re somebody to be criticizing somebody else for doing something underhanded. You, who sneaks around and spies on folks for a living!”
    Savannah noticed that her sister was still holding the phone in her right hand. She reached for it. “Give me that telephone.”
    “No, I will not!”
    “It’s my telephone, dammit.”
    “But I have one more call to make before I go to bed.”
    “To your boys or to Gran?”
    “Well...”
    “That’s what I thought. Hand it over before you’re a minute