Killer Calories

consider. And something to check out.
    “I think I need to find Lou Hanks and have a talk with him tomorrow,” she said. “I just have to finagle it without him getting suspicious.”
    “Too late,” Tammy said. “I meant to tell you... he was looking for you this afternoon, heard you had checked in. Seems he’s already wondering why you’re here. I guess he knows you’re a detective and all.”
    “Great.” Savannah sighed, plopped onto her back, and stared up at the ugly light fixture. “There’s nothing quite like going undercover... when everybody and their dog knows who you are.”

    “What the hell!” Savannah bolted upright in bed, her ears ringing from the rude alarm that was sounding up and down the hallway. “What is that! A fire bell?”
    A sleepy Tammy stirred in the bed next to hers. “No, that’s just the wake-up call.” She yawned, stretched, then bounced off the bed, fully rejuvenated. “We’ve got ten minutes to get dressed and outside for warm-up exercises.”
    “What? Who said anything about exercising? Where’s my coffee? I need a Danish ... or two,” Savannah grumbled, her heart pounding in her throat.
    Tammy hopped around the room, flinging off her flannel jammies and donning a shapeless gray workout suit. She tossed Savannah ’s to her.
    “Act alive!” she pealed. “Shake a leg now, or we’ll be late.”
    Savannah shot her a dark look as she climbed into the ugly uniform. The last time she had gotten up this early and dressed this badly to do exercises, she had been in the police academy. And that had been before the decline and fall of the Roman Empire , give or take a year or two.
    “Shake a leg, my ass,” she grumbled. “I’ll shake you, until your teeth rattle, if you start that perky ‘morning’ shit with me again.”
    “Ah, Sa- a-v - aaa -nah! Give me just one little good-morning smile. Come on... just for me...!”
    Savannah bared her teeth and growled.
    “Now that’s better. Let’s go. We’ve only got two minutes !“

    Savannah didn’t mind the exercises half as much as she had anticipated. Even the cross-country run around the perimeter of the spa’s property wasn’t so bad, she decided. If only Tammy had mentioned that the exercise session was led by Dion Zeller, Kat Valentina’s leading man in Disco Diva, she might have jogged to the exercise field more eagerly.
    There was nothing to compare with following those cute little bouncing buns around to clean those “nasty toxins” out of her system and make her feel like a “new woman” just as Tammy had predicted.
    Yes, there were worse ways to spend a morning than looking at the backside of Dion Zeller. Her eyes were likely to be as sore the next day as her long-dormant, newly awakened muscles.
    Their exercise class had boasted only six students, including Savannah and Tammy. This did appear to be a slow time for the Royal Palms. Their four classmates were all older people, three women and a man, who had dropped out of the routine soon after the workout. They had declined the joy of the hillside run, leaving only Tammy and Savannah to join Dion.
    With a not-so-subtle nod of her head, Savannah had indicated to Tammy that she should make her own exit. Reluctantly, she had, leaving Savannah to run behind Dion with an unobstructed view of the marguerite daisies, the sage scrub, and—most importantly—Dion’s electric blue running shorts.
    On a wide straightaway across the top of the arroyo, she caught up with him and jogged beside him.
    “So, how long have you been working at Royal Palms?” she asked, dryly congratulating herself on the originality of the line. Perhaps she should make her humiliation complete and ask when he got off and if he came there often.
    “Since I decided to start earning my keep,” he replied with the somber face of a golden-haired Greek god. “I’ve been living here off and on since the Disco Diva money ran out. Kat was kind enough to let me stay.”
    She had to give him a perfect score of 10.0 for honesty.
    Long, curly blond hair, a physique to die for, patrician features, turquoise eyes... and a penchant toward honesty and humility.
    Not bad.
    “You were a good friend of Kat’s then?” she asked.
    Their feet churned a lot of dust on the dry unpaved path before he finally answered. When he did, his voice was husky with emotion. “Kat was a good friend to me. I don’t know how good a friend I was to her.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” Savannah