Death by Chocolate

when we get back
to your place and—”
    “Thanks but no thanks,”
Savannah interjected. “My hair and I are pretty good as is. Really.”
    Cordele shrugged and gave
her sister a slightly wounded but terribly patient smile. “I understand. Not
everybody can do it. I had to grow to the point where I could truly let go.”
    Savannah felt her guts
growling deep inside. This was going to be a long, long... how long did she say
she was staying?
    “How long did you say
you’re staying?” she asked. Again, Cordele gave her the “patient smile.” The
smile of a highly evolved soul tolerating the less enlightened. “As long as it
takes, Savannah. As long as it takes.” She turned back toward the carousel and
watched the parade of luggage passing by.
    Savannah sighed. “O-o-okay. Whatever.”
    Cordele’s saintly smile
evaporated, and she turned to face Savannah. The sisters were practically nose
to nose.
    “I have to tell you right
now,” Cordele said, “that having someone say, ‘whatever’ to me pushes one of my
major emotional buttons. I mean, I feel like I’ve just been disrespected and my
opinion dismissed when someone says that. It really, really, deeply upsets me,
and I think you should know that.”
    Savannah stared at her
sister. Bit her tongue. Counted to ten. But it didn’t help. She still said it:
“Okay. Whatever.”
     
     
    “Don’t take this wrong,
Savannah,” Tammy whispered, “but I can’t stand your sister.”
    Savannah stood in her
living room, strapping on her shoulder holster. She glanced quickly toward the
kitchen, where Cordele was eating some of Tammy’s yogurt, having found nothing
else in Savannah’s refrigerator that was “it for human consumption” as she had
not so tactfully worded it.
    “Don’t feel bad. I don’t
know anybody except Gran who does.”
    “Your grandmother likes
her?”
    “Well, I don’t know if she actually likes her, but she loves her. She has to; she’s her grandmother. It’s
like a grandma rule.”
    Tammy smirked. “Isn’t there
a sister rule like that, too?”
    “Nope. No such law on the
books.”
    Savannah opened the coat
closet door and reached up to the top shelf for her Beretta.
    Tammy tugged at her sleeve.
“You’re not really going to leave me here with her all day, are you?
Entertaining your nutso relatives is just so-o-o not a part of my job
description.”
    “Take off. Go on over to
the Maxwell estate and wait for me outside by the gate. I’ll be along shortly
and you can help me help Dirk.”
    “Really?” A look of relief
flooded her face. “Oh, that would be so great!”
    “Go.”
    Tammy nodded toward the
kitchen. “Does she know you’re leaving her to go to work?”
    “Nope. Haven’t broken the
news to her yet. She thinks we’re going to spend the afternoon rehashing old
family grievances.”
    “Are you going to tell her
now?”
    Savannah drew a deep breath
of resolve. “Yep.” ‘Then I’m outta here, right now.”
    Savannah watched as Tammy
hightailed it out the front door. “Chickenshit,” she mumbled after her.
    She strolled into the
kitchen, where Cordele was scraping the bottom of her yogurt cup. “Is that
enough lunch for you?” she asked. “I’d be happy to make you a sandwich, warm up
some soup, or....”
    “No, this is plenty for
me.” Cordele gave Savannah’s figure a quick glance up and down. “I worked
through my food issues long ago. I no longer use it as an anesthetic to dull
the pain of my childhood woundings. It’s nothing more than fuel to me now.”
    Bully for you, Savannah
thought, but she smiled and said, “That’s lovely, dear. Then I won’t feel
obliged to rush home and make fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner.
I’ll just throw together a salad and pick up a quart of brown rice from the
local Chinese takeout.”
    Cordele scowled. Then her
scowl deepened. “What do you mean ‘rush home’? Where are you going?”
    “To work.”
    “When?” She seemed to
notice the Beretta in its holster for the first time. “Now?”
    “Yes.” Savannah fought to
keep the anger out of her voice but wasn’t at all successful. “I should have
been working this morning, but I wasn’t. So I may be out until late tonight. I
hope you don’t mind entertaining yourself while I’m—”
    “ Entertaining myself? Do you think I spent six hundred dollars for plane fare and came all
the way out here for entertainment?”
    Savannah walked over to the
sink, grabbed a tumbler out of