Death by Chocolate

when I
was your age, I was always in bed and snoring by eight-thirty.”
    Gilly surveyed Savannah’s
figure. “Is that when you grew big the other way, too?”
    Savannah laughed and shook
her head. “No, darlin’. I grew tall by sleeping, but I got wide by eating your
grandmother’s raspberry truffles.... and a lot of other yummy things.”
    She took the child’s small,
warm hand in her own and walked her across the lawn to the road. Pointing her
toward the gatekeeper’s cottage, she said, “You scoot along home now and get to
sleep as soon as you can. You’ve still got a lot of growing to do.”
    “Will you be around
tomorrow?” Gilly asked as she skipped backward down the road, swinging her arms
like a clumsy albatross chick trying to fly.
    “I hope so.”
    “Me too. See you then.”
    Savannah waved. “Later,
gator.”
    Once the child was safe
inside the cottage, door closed behind her, Savannah continued down the road to
the mansion and Grandma.... Grandma who smelled bad like booze, talked weird,
and had told her sweet grandchild to “get lost.”
    “Oh, goodie, all this and
Hitler, Satan, and Killer, too,” Savannah muttered to the oleander shrubs on
either side of the road. “And how much do you wanna bet that Grandma will throw
me out of her kitchen.... chocolateless.”
     
     
    Savannah didn’t have to be
told that this time she should go to the back door of the mansion rather than
the front. Knocking on the front door was an honor that only free agents were
afforded. Since this afternoon, she had joined the unhappy rank of servants at
Chateau Eleanor. So much for things like respect or courtesy.
    And she wasn’t surprised
when no one answered her knock, other than the dreaded threesome, whom she
could hear growling and yipping on the other side of the door. Their tiny
toenails scraped as they clawed at the woodwork while snuffling along the edges
of the door, trying to get her scent.
    “Watch it, hairballs,” she
muttered. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
    Determined to get inside
despite the ravaging canines, she tried the knob and was both relieved and
concerned when the door opened.
    Why hire a bodyguard if you
don’t bother to lock-your doors at night? she thought as she stepped into a
small room that served as a utility room and pantry. In an instant, the dogs
were upon her, the bolder of them-burying his fangs in the toe of her loafer,
which he had perforated earlier in the afternoon.
    She reached down and
snatched him off the floor, holding him by the scruff of the neck. The bit of
fluff snarled and snapped as he dangled from her hand. Holding him only inches
from her face, she looked straight into his beady little bugged eyes and said,
‘The next time you bite me, you foul creature, I’m going to smack you with the
Sunday edition of the L.A. Times, and you’ll be flatter than a fritter.”
    To emphasize her point she
tightened her grip and gave him a slight shake, like a mother dog would give a
naughty pup. Instantly, the terrier realized he had been demoted from alpha
dog, and he seemed to deflate in her hand. At her feet, the other two appeared
to sense the shift of power, and their growls changed to whimpers.
    Gently, she placed him on
the floor at her feet and gave him a soothing scratch behind his ear. “There,
there... now you’re not such a bad boy after all,” she told him as she knelt
and stroked first one, then the other of his companions. “And neither are you.
You fellas just need to be reminded that you aren’t rottweilers or Dobies,
that’s all.”
    When she stood, she glanced
up and saw Eleanor Maxwell standing in the door that led to the kitchen,
watching her with a slightly amused look on her face and a large glass of red
wine in her hand. For once, the hard nastiness was gone from her face, and
Savannah caught a glimpse of a woman she could actually like. Then she decided
the warmth on Eleanor’s face was nothing more than a drunk, sappy grin.
Savannah had seen the expression many times on her own mother’s face, a mother
who had spent most of her days—and nights— perched on a bar stool.
    “You like dogs?” Eleanor
asked. ‘You look like an animal lover.”
    “Some of my best friends
have been cats and dogs,” she replied. ‘They’re kinder than most people. They
listen better, and are a helluva lot more loyal and faithful.”
    “More faithful.... that’s
for sure.”
    Savannah heard it: that
distinct note of pain in