Cereal Killer

had a couple of affairs over the years, but that was water under the bridge. They’d both done the forgive-and-forget business and agreed to be faithful from then on. So when Cait found out about his honey there at work, she was hurt and mad. Told him that she was going to divorce him.”
    “You know this for sure?”
    “Yes. She said so herself. She told me and Kameeka and Tesla at a shoot about a week and a half ago. Those two told her she was doing the right thing, kicking him out, that it was high time she gave him his walking papers.”
    “Did you agree with them?”
    She shrugged and gave a dismissive wave with her hand and her cigarette. “I don’t know. I don’t get involved in crap like that. It’s none of my business.”
    Savannah stood, watching Desiree La Port—if, indeed, her name was Desiree La Port and not something like Debbie or Linda Smith—and she wondered how much Desiree had benefited from the disappearance and deaths of her three major competitors.
    “Cait’s problems with her husband might not have been your business,” Savannah said, “but I’d say that your career has made a jump forward this past week.”
    Desiree dropped her spent cigarette onto the porch and stubbed it out with the toe of her house slipper. She smiled brightly, and for a moment she looked a bit like that model who had been giggling and mincing for the camera by the pool the other day.
    “Oh, well.” She lit up another cigarette and took a long, long drag. She released the smoke into the air and watched it disappear on the afternoon breeze. She looked content, totally at peace with the world—almost pretty. “What can you say?” she added. “Sometimes you just get lucky.”
     
    * * *
     
    By the time Savannah arrived home again, it was well past her dinnertime, and she hadn’t even had lunch yet. Missing one meal could make her cranky. But doing without two in a row could plunge her into a simmering, homicidal rage.
    Her mood hadn’t been improved by a quick visit to the police station to see Dirk. His disposition was as dismal as her own. He had spent hours interviewing the families of the dead and missing girls... always a depressing job.
    And other than expressing their sorrow and anger, the friends and relatives had given him absolutely nothing new to aid in the investigation.
    Since Dirk was a generous sort of guy, he had been kind enough to share his depression, pessimism, and ill temper with her. So by the time she pulled up to her house and saw her sister’s rental car still occupying both parking spaces in her driveway, she was solidly in a murderous state of mind.
    As she walked up the sidewalk to her front door, she could hear her grandmother’s kindly voice whispering in the back of her mind. Don ’t kill your sister, Savannah girl, just because you've had a bad day. Strangling Marietta might seem like the thing to do, but it’s wicked.
    But Gran, she silently argued with the voice of reason, it wasn't just a bad day. I hardly got any sleep last night, next to no food today, and Marietta's whining about men is driving me nuts. You know how she can be sometimes.
    That’s true. Marietta’s a royal pain in the ass. Go ahead and kill her. Savannah stopped cold in the middle of her porch and shook her head. That wasn’t Gran’s voice. Gran didn’t say “ass.” She probably didn’t even think it.
    No doubt about it, Savannah thought, I’m hearing strange voices... and they don ’t like Marietta either.
    She decided she’d better get some food and some sleep in that order before barking dogs started telling her that she should dance the hootchie-kootchie naked on the courthouse steps.
    But when she walked into her house, it wasn’t a whining, sniveling Marietta who was sitting on her sofa, happily chatting on the phone. It was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, sunny-faced alien who had taken over her sister’s body.
    “Okay, darlin’,” she was saying. “Yes, I miss you, too. Can’t wait to see you again and... well... I can’t talk now ’cause Savannah just came in. Yeah, she’s the same as ever.” She cut a sideways look at Savannah and said, “That’s about right.”
    Savannah scowled. She trusted this cheerful version of Marietta less than she had the whinin’-and-moanin’ one. At least the old one had been familiar, and as Gran said, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
    Marietta was making obscene kissy sounds into the phone. Savannah walked