Death by Chocolate

playing with
her long blond hair as she chatted with Ryan, Savannah had to control herself
not to cackle like the wicked witch in the story of Snow White.
    The gal who considered
herself the “fairest of them all” was about to get herself busted—and by Dirk,
who absolutely loved to make an arrest when he felt one was warranted. Savannah
could tell by the smirk on his face as he strode through the sand beside her
that he was overjoyed with this turn of events.
    And several steps behind
them was an equally cheerful Tammy.
    Dirk wasted no time. He
walked up behind Louise, reached down, grabbed her arm, and in one smooth
movement, hauled her to her feet.
    “Hey! What the hell do you
think you’re doing?” she shrieked, wriggling around like a worm on a hot
sidewalk. “Let go of me!”
    But Dirk didn’t let go. He
had grabbed much bigger and meaner characters than Louise and hadn’t let go. In
seconds, he had her hands behind her and her wrists cuffed.
    Ryan stood, brushed the
sand off his legs, and picked up his towel. “I suppose my work is done here,”
he said.
    “Your... your work?” Louise
whirled on him—at least, as well as she could, considering the fact that Dirk
was holding her in a death grip. “What do you mean, ‘work’? Are you part of
this.... this....?”
    “Arrest,” Dirk supplied.
“It’s called a felony arrest.”
    “But we were getting along
really good and—” Louise shook her head, as though unable to absorb the
realities unfolding around her.
    “Actually,” Ryan said, “we
weren’t really clicking as well as you thought. You see”—he looked her up and
down—“you’re just not my type.”
    She looked crushed. “You
don’t like blondes?”
    “Oh, no. I love blondes....
brunettes.... redheads.” He flashed her a breathtaking smile.
    Dirk snorted and Tammy
giggled.
    “I just don’t like you.”
    “But... but...” Louise
looked as if she were going to burst into tears any moment as Ryan tossed his
towel over his shoulder and strolled away.
    “See you guys later,” he said.
“We’ll bring the champagne. About seven this evening?”
    “You got it,” Savannah told
him.
    “Champagne?” Louise tried
to jerk her arm out of Dirk’s grasp and yelped at the pain it cost her.
“Somebody tell me what is going on around here.”
    “I’d be happy to,” Dirk
replied. “I am placing you under arrest for the murder of your mother, Eleanor
Maxwell. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right,
anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”
    “Murder my mother?” Louise
glanced over her shoulder and gave him a hate-filled look. “How could I kill
her? I told you I haven’t even had contact with her for ages.”
    “Yeah, and that was a lie,”
Savannah said. “Thanks to you, she was recently in the hospital, getting her
head sewn up. I’d say that’s some pretty close and personal contact.”
    Dirk continued to read
Louise her rights as he turned her around and pushed her down the beach toward
the path that led back to the house. The second he had finished, she asserted
one of her basic rights.
    “I want my lawyer,” she
said. “I’m not saying a word until I talk to Marty.”
    “You better pick another
lawyer,” Savannah told her. “Marty’s got some serious problems of his own. He’s
in the pokey himself right now.”
    “For what?” she demanded.
    “For stealing all of your
mom’s money,” Dirk told her. “You know—the money you killed her for.”
    “He stole it? How?
You mean, like embezzled it? All of it?”
    She was looking pale under
her tan, and Savannah almost felt sorry for her. Within a space of three minutes
she had been dumped by a gorgeous man she had just met, arrested for murder,
and told she was flat broke.
    But then... Savannah smiled
to herself and flashed forward to an evening of sipping celebratory
champagne.... it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person than Louise
Maxwell.
     
     
    As soon as Dirk left with
Louise in tow, Savannah paid a quick visit to Marie’s cottage and asked her to
take care of Gilly when she got home from school—maybe even for a few days, as
Louise would be “away.” Marie had happily agreed and hadn’t asked the usual,
nosy questions that might have been expected under the circumstances.
    Savannah decided that if
she ever won the lottery and could afford a seaside mansion, she wanted a
housekeeper just like Marie. Discreet and not