Killer Calories (13 page)

“I'm getting tired of this,” she said, keeping her voice calm and even, in spite of the fact that her pulse was pounding in her ears. “I don't cotton to being spied on. When I find out who you are, I'm going to jerk a knothole in your ass, mark my words.”

No reply. No sound of any kind. No movement.

But she could feel him, her, or them ... watching. She could almost hear their breathing and smell their nervous sweat.

“If watching me walk from one place to another is your idea of entertainment,” she said, “it's a sad commentary on your social life.”

Still nothing.

Most people she knew might have chalked her original misgivings up to an overactive imagination. But long ago, Savannah had learned to trust her instincts about such things. As a cop, her life had depended on it. Occasionally, as a private investigator, it still did.

Once again, she walked away, keeping an eye on her back. As before, her voyeur didn't attempt to contact her—a frustration and relief in one.

She felt eyes watching her until she entered the dormitory and closed the door behind her.

Weird,
she thought.
Very weird.

But it was pretty much in keeping with everything else connected to this case. On the surface, everything appeared straightforward, cut-and-dried. But beneath there was an unsettling feeling that nothing was as it seemed.

She passed through the empty hallway and opened the door to her and Tammy's room. Flipping on the light switch, she glanced down and saw a white envelope lying on the floor. Apparently, someone had shoved it under her door.

The spy in the bushes? Maybe.

At least their room didn't look as though it had been caught up in Dorothy's cyclone and dumped in the Land of Oz.

Maybe it's more money,
she thought excitedly as she ripped open the envelope. But this one was thin, containing only one folded piece of paper.

Oh, well, it wasn't money ... but it
was
an intriguing invitation.

“
O
h, my God ... Savannah, you aren't going to go, are you?” Tammy said as she stood over Savannah's shoulder, staring down at the note she had spread on the bed before her.

“Of course, I'm going to go. How often do I get asked out by a doctor? Granny Reid would be ecstatic.”

“I don't think this counts. He isn't exactly inviting you to dinner and a play.” Tammy sat down on the bed beside Savannah and crossed her legs, yoga-style. Savannah had always secretly hated anyone agile enough to do that. But at the moment she had other, more pressing concerns than flexibility envy.

She read the note for the fifth time. The words had been scribbled with the stereotypical physician's scrawl across a piece of the spa's stationery. It read:

“Hmmm ... I wonder how I should dress,” she mused. “The simple black dress with pearls and heels, or maybe—”

“I think a swimsuit would be more in order. Cottage #4 has an herbal hot tub. Ooo-la-la.” Tammy flopped on her tummy on the bed and began to pluck nervously at the velvet pile of the bedspread. “Unless, of course, romance isn't what's on his mind,” she added. “Maybe he wants to drown you, the way he did Kat.”

“We don't know that he killed Kat.”

“We don't know that he didn't. Besides, you can't even be sure that Dr. Ross was the one who wrote that letter and shoved it under our door.”

“It's his handwriting. I already compared it to the excuse he wrote for me.”

Both women sighed. Savannah picked up the note, folded it twice, and tucked it inside her bra.

“Which swimsuit are you going to wear?” Tammy asked, ever on fashion patrol. “The Victoria's Secret one-piece or your new bikini.”

“Whichever one I can best hide my Beretta in.”

Tammy mulled that one over for a few seconds. “The one-piece,” she decided. “Plus, it shows off your boobs good, and your butt doesn't look too big.”

“Yeah, that's what I figure, too.”

 

Normally, the heady floral fragrance that filled the bathhouse would have put Savannah in a romantic mood. But the smell reminded her of the mud bath where Kat Valentina's body had been found. That not only spoiled the ambience, but the memory prompted her to be careful this evening.

There was more than a chance that Kat Valentina had not died an accidental death. And if there was, at least, a possibility that Dr. Freeman Ross had something to do with it, Savannah had to stay alert and resist any temptation to succumb to fanciful distractions.

“Yoo-hoo,” she called out, looking around the small room.

“Anybody around?”

Her voice echoed off the blue-and-white-tiled walls and bounced back at her. But no one else replied.

Maybe she had been stood up.

Or worse yet, maybe she had been set up.

She could feel the comforting weight of the Baretta in the right pocket of her terry-cloth cover-up. For extra reassurance, she slipped her hand inside and curled her fingers around the grip.

Hearing a noise behind her, she spun around and saw Freeman Ross standing there in a deliciously small and tight swimsuit with a fluffy white towel slung over one shoulder. He tossed the towel onto a redwood bench and gave her a welcoming smile that was warmer—and more appealing—than she had expected.

If he were concealing a weapon, it would have to be a tiny one, she figured, like maybe one of those plastic cocktail toothpicks, shaped like a sword. His all-too-brief briefs scarcely even hid the bare necessities. And, from what she could tell from one quick, ladylike glance, his necessities were more than minimal. Quite a bit more.

He walked toward her, moving more like a professional athlete than a physician. Since when did they make doctors who were all muscle and could pass for Olympic divers in their swimsuits?

A flood of some erotic, exotic hormone hit her system and quivered through her body. It was the closest thing to sex she had experienced in a long time.

Too long,
she decided.

“Savannah, I'm glad you could come,” he told her, holding out his hand.

Come? Well, I didn't actually ... I just
...

“Oh! Yes, well, I couldn't turn down a mysterious invitation slipped under the door like that. Nice dramatic touch.”

He smiled. “I thought it would appeal to the sleuth in you.” She noticed he wasn't wearing his tortoiseshell glasses. With his muscular physique, the transformation from Clark Kent into the Man of Steel was pretty convincing. “I was hoping to find a location more appropriate, like a hidden staircase, a secret room, or even a cloak closet,” he said, “but Royal Palms has pretty mundane floor plans for most of its buildings.”

“And the Chesterfields' bell tower is probably occupied ... by Phoebe.”

“Exactly.”

“Then this will have to do.” She pointed to the spa, a small, intimate, round tub of white tiles, trimmed with royal blue. The center of its bottom glowed with an aqua light, and the water bubbled gently, sending herbal-scented steam into the air.

As Freeman Ross lowered his gorgeous self into the water, Savannah allowed her terry-cloth cover-up to slide off her shoulders. Carefully—while trying to look nonchalant—she placed it on the tiles at the edge of the tub, making sure it would be readily accessible while she was in the water.

She felt his eyes on her, but she couldn't interpret the expression to tell whether the one-piece had been the best choice after all. And when she sat down across from him, she saw he was wearing a strange little smile that she couldn't quite decipher.

“Is that where it is?” he asked, nodding toward her strategically discarded cover-up.

He couldn't know,
she thought.
Or he's guessing.

“Where
what is?”
She batted her blue eyes.

“Your gun.”

Mmmm
...
good guesser.

“Gun? I came out here to have an herbal bubble and a conversation with you. Do I need a gun to do that?”

“Do you answer most questions with another question?”

Bat, bat. “Doesn't everyone?”

He laughed. She couldn't tell if it was nervous laughter or if he was genuinely amused. Although she prided herself on being an astute judge of character, motivation, and intentions, she decided that Dr. Ross wasn't an easy man to read.

“Are you going to shoot me, Savannah?” he asked, still wearing that enigmatic grin.

“Are you going to misbehave?”

“With a woman who's packing a pistol, a lady who has a black belt in karate? Not likely.”

She raised one eyebrow. “How do you know I'm a black belt?”

“I read the papers. You were quite the celebrity around here some time back. A detective lady who—”

She blushed. “I think
infamous
is more like it. Getting myself canned from the police department wasn't exactly my greatest career achievement.”

“You were treated unfairly.”

“I think so, too. But my life is better now, so I'm not complaining. In the long run, they did me a favor.”

“You enjoy being a private detective?”

She didn't like where this was headed. The topic was getting too personal, and she wasn't going to learn anything about him if they sat here and rehashed her ancient history.

“Yeah, I like it. Usually. How about you? Do you like being a doctor?”

“I did ... back when I had a real practice and actually healed people. Now I'm a baby-sitter for the guests at Royal Palms. The most important thing I do around here is examine a twisted ankle from time to time. And most of those are phony.” He sighed and slipped lower into the water. “A fake doctor, doctoring fakes.”

She felt guilty for a moment, as though her own duplicity had added to his sense of futility. “What happened to your practice?” she asked.

“I was brought up on charges and lost my position at the hospital.”

“What charges?”

“One of my patients died under mysterious circumstances,” he said in a straightforward manner that she both respected and mistrusted. What could he possibly gain by being so candid with her?

“They suspected you of murder?”

“That's what they called it.”

“And what did you call it?”

“Physician-assisted suicide. Or, at least, that's what I would have called it, if I had done it. I was cleared, of course, or I wouldn't be practicing medicine.”

“Of course.” She waited for him to continue. When he didn't she said, “Well ... did you do it?”

“She was an elderly woman in her mid-eighties, a cancer patient, in horrible pain. Every day I visited her, and every day she begged me to end the suffering for her.”

“And you did?”

He studied her thoughtfully for a while before answering, as though deciding whether to tell her the truth or not. Finally, he said, “She died, peacefully in her sleep. If she hadn't, I might have helped her.”

“But ‘might have' doesn't count ... legally, that is.”

“Thankfully, no. If they jailed you for ‘might-haves,' 90 percent of us would be behind bars.”

For a long time, they sat there with the bubbles and fragrant warmth rising around them, while Savannah tried to determine whether or not he had just lied to her. Damn, where was a polygraph expert when you needed one?

“If I hadn't intended to tell you the truth, Savannah,” he said, “I wouldn't have brought up the subject in the first place.”

“That's sorta what I was thinking. And I was wondering why you asked me here this evening.”

He grinned and glanced quickly down at her chest, which was floating nicely on top of the scented water. “Can't a man ask a beautiful woman to join him in a spa without him having an ulterior motive?”

“No. Men always have ulterior motives ... especially when they're wearing skimpy swimsuits.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “So, you noticed.”

“I'm a sighted female between the ages of eight and eighty. Of course I noticed.” She mentally checked the position of her cover-up and the Beretta. “So, does that mean you invited me here to seduce me?”

“Not entirely.”

“I didn't think so.”

“Although if
you
tried to
seduce me,
I certainly wouldn't object.”

“I don't think so.”

“Hmmm.” He frowned. “Then the swimsuit didn't work as well as I'd hoped.”

“It works very well. If you didn't wear it to seduce me, I'd say you wore it to distract me while you pump me for information. And, if that's true, you made an excellent choice. I'm definitely distracted.”

Again, he laughed, but this time he looked a bit embarrassed, which told her that her instincts had been right. “How did you know?” he asked.

“Because that's why I chose this particular suit.” She pointed to her abundant cleavage. “Is it working?”

“So well that I'm going to have to wait a while before I can climb out of this tub without embarrassing myself.”

In the interest of keeping a clear head, she didn't dare think about the brevity of his swimsuit or the consequences of any male reactions to her charms.

“Enough pleasantries,” she said. “You invited me here to find out something. What is it?”

“I'd like to know why you're here.”

“You already asked me that.”

“Yes, you said it was to drop some pounds and get into shape.”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“For you? Yes. You're already in great shape, and I have a feeling you're one of those rare, lucky people who actually likes themselves ... every single pound. Am I right?”

She laughed. “Yes and no. I do like myself ... all of me. But luck had nothing to do with it. Believe me, in a society that insists a grown woman have the body of a prepubescent girl, you have to work hard to achieve any degree of self-acceptance. Appreciation of your own flesh isn't something you attain by ‘lucking out.' ”

Finished with her soliloquy, she drew a deep breath and waited for his reply. He smiled at her, thoughtfully, then said, “I stand corrected. But you haven't changed my opinion of why you're here.”

“Which is?”

“I think you're visiting the Royal Palms in an official capacity. It's just a bit too coincidental that within forty-eight hours of Kat's death, a former police detective and current private investigator shows up.”

Her mind ran through a list of several untruths to tell him. They varied from little white fibs to downright dirty black lies. But she knew he wouldn't believe any of them, so what was the point?

“The only question is ... ” he continued, “... who hired you? Are you working for some individual, the insurance company, or your ex-partner—the guy who questioned me all afternoon?”

He even knew that Dirk was her ex-partner. Savannah found this a bit unsettling. She much preferred to know other people's business to having them know hers. Dr. Ross was a tad too informed for comfort where she was concerned.