Sugar and Spite (3 page)

“Wouldn’t go in there right now,” he said, his ugly snaggled grin widening.

“Yeah, why not?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Let’s just say, he’s already got hisself some company.” He waggled one bushy gray eyebrow suggestively. “I think three’d make a crowd, if you catch my drift.”

“Well, catch mine, you old coot. Mind your own business.”

“Or then… maybe you three are into that kinky stuff…”

“And maybe you’re a dork with a dirty mind and a grubby undershirt.”

Leaving Mr. Biddle behind to mutter obscenities into his beer can, Savannah strode to the door of Dirk’s trailer and rapped a shave-and-a-hair-cut greeting. Might as well be friendly. Might as well be casual. Might as well pretend she wasn’t there to snoop.

Dirk might even believe it.

He didn’t. She could tell right away by the irritated look on his face when he opened the door. Considering his less than cordial mood, she pushed past him before he could ask her to enter… or to leave, which was far more likely.

“Gee, I hate to drop in on you unannounced like this but…”

Savannah’s voice trailed away when she saw who was sitting on Dirk’s 1973 vintage, beige-and-gold-plaid sofa. It was the last person she expected to see.

The former Mrs. Dirk.

The hated and often maligned—though not often enough in Savannah’s book—ex-wife who had run away with a shaggy-haired, twentysomething rock-and-roll drummer several years ago.

“Polly!” Savannah replaced her look of shock with a carefully constructed facade of nonchalance. The act probably would have been more convincing if she hadn’t been choking her own spit. “What are you doing… I mean… what a surprise. I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

“You mean, you
hoped
you’d never see me again.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Polly leaned back and propped her arm along the top of the sofa. She looked as casual as Savannah was pretending to be. Her long legs were stretched out before her, every inch of them bared by her short-short shorts. Savannah noted with just a bit of catty satisfaction that her knees were starting to sag a little.

So was her heavily made-up face. Foundation applied with a trowel, spider eyelashes, red lips that had been painted too far outside the natural Upline to fool anyone… except some fool like Dirk. He had admitted to Savannah that he had actually thought Polly was a real blonde for the first year of their relationship. Savannah could spot Golden Sun Frost a mile away… especially when it was on a swarthy-skinned woman who, undoubtedly, had been born with dark brown hair.

Like most of the men who had crossed Polly’s path, Dirk had been taken in… in more ways than one… by a used-to-be-pretty face and a not-too-bad body, and lots of skillfully worded female flattery. Those had always been Polly’s greatest weapons when hunting.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Savannah said smoothly. She was pretty sure by the frustration on Dirk’s face and the way he was pacing the ten-foot span of trailer floor that she had. If she hung around long enough, she might just put a stop to this nonsense all together.

Some might call it interference; she called it charity. The guy needed to be saved from himself. On a nearby TV tray lay a single red rose. Probably a pre-Valentine gift from her to him or from him to her. The thought completely irked Savannah… either way.

“No problem,” Polly said smoothly. “I’m sure you’ll be leaving soon. Right? I mean, now that you see Dirk has company…”

“And now that you’ve seen who that company is,” Dirk growled as he nodded, not so subtly toward the door.

In her peripheral vision, Savannah could see Dirk’s cell phone sitting on top of the television set in the corner. She sauntered across the room in that direction.

“Actually, I had a good reason for dropping by, old pal,” she told Dirk. “I brought you something. It’s in my car.”

She craned her neck to look out the window at her Camaro. As she had hoped, they did the same and she took the opportunity to sweep the cell phone into her jacket pocket.

“What is it?” Dirk said. She could hear the suspicion in his voice. She didn’t really expect him to buy this pitch. The best she could hope for was that he would be a gentleman and not call her “liar, liar, pants on fire” to her face.

“Your cell phone,” she replied. “You left it at my house. I figured you’d need it.”

Dirk shot her a “yeah, right” look and glanced around the room. He didn’t see his phone. But that wasn’t unusual for Dirk. The guy would lose his rear end if it weren’t stapled to his tailbone.

“So where is it?”

“In my car.”

“Why didn’t you bring it in with you, Savannah?” Polly asked, flipping her lush golden mane of split ends back behind one shoulder.

“Forgot.” Savannah held out her car keys to Dirk. “Why don’t you go get it. I think I left it on the passenger’s seat.”

He grumbled under his breath and headed for the door. “Aren’t you coming with me?” he said, not bothering to hide his anger.

“In a minute, darlin’,” she said, much too sweetly. “You go ahead. I’ll be along shortly.”

He looked from her to Polly and back, then shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you two broads alone.”

“Go on, Dirk,” Polly said, stroking one of her legs as though checking for razor stubble. “I’m not afraid of Savannah. We’re old friends, right?”

“You may be old,” Savannah replied. “I’m barely middle-aged. And just for the record, you and I have never been friends.” She tossed the keys to Dirk. “Go get your phone. I’ll be right out.”

Reluctantly, he exited the trailer, leaving the door ajar. Savannah waited until he was out of earshot. Then she took a few steps closer to Polly.

In spite of what Polly had said, she did look a bit worried, just enough to satisfy Savannah’s perverse streak.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” Savannah said. “After the number you did on Dirk, I can’t imagine why you would come back into his life, or why he would allow you to. But if you use him and hurt him again, like you did before, I swear I’ll beat the tar outta you. And if you think I mean that figuratively, you’re wrong.”

A flicker of fear crossed Polly’s eyes; then she reached for the pack of cigarettes on a nearby TV tray and lit up. She blew a long puff of smoke in Savannah’s direction before answering. “Now what is this I hear? Do I detect a note of jealousy? Was I right all those years ago… you really do have a thing for Dirk?”

“Yeah, I have a thing for Dirk. It’s called friendship. Loyalty. Concern for his well-being… all things you wouldn’t know about.”

“I think you want him all to yourself.” Polly released more smoke through her nose.

How perfectly lovely
, Savannah thought.
Quintessential femininity. I’d like to snatch her bald.

Savannah reached over and, before Polly knew what was happening, grabbed the cigarette out of her hand. She crumbled it between her fingers and dropped the remains into a glass of white wine that was sitting next to the ashtray and a bottle of half-drunk beer on the TV tray. Dirk’s beer, no doubt. Polly’s wine.

“If you hurt Dirk again,” Savannah said, using a voice she usually reserved for suspected murderers and child molesters, “I’ll hurt you. My interest is not romantic; it’s self-preservation. I’m not going to listen to him bellyache for two long, miserable years like he did when you left him before. If I have to pick up the pieces of Dirk, Miss Priss Pot, somebody’s going to have to pick up pieces of you. You got that?”

Polly didn’t answer. But Savannah could tell by the wide-ness of her spider eyes and the way her too-lipsticked mouth was hanging open that she had heard and believed… at least a little.

Savannah left the trailer, slamming the door behind her, and nearly ran, chest first, into Dirk.

“My cell phone isn’t in your car,” he said, his nose inches from hers, his voice as low and ominous as hers had been a moment before. “But then, neither one of us really expected it to be, right, Van?”

Savannah reached into her left jacket pocket and took out his phone; hers was still in her right. “Oh, silly me,” she said. “Here it is. I guess I remembered to bring it in with me after all.”

When she handed it to him, he looked puzzled and apologetic enough to make her feel a little guilty. “Oh, you really… oh, thanks, Van.”

“No problem. Watch yourself, buddy, with that gal.” She nodded toward the trailer. “Remember last time?”

“Yeah, I remember. But it ain’t like that this time. She just wants me to help her, to take care of somethin’ for her.”

“That’s all she’s ever wanted, Dirk, from anyone. She’s a leech. That’s the problem.”

“Naw. I can take care of it. Don’t worry.”

Don’t
worry, yeah, sure
, she thought as she left him, got in her Camaro, and drove away. Dirk wasn’t stupid—not by a long shot. But he had a blind spot where women were concerned… especially women he loved.

Why else would he buy a stupid story about a cell phone?

Savannah had no idea what line of bull Polly was going to try to sell him, but she was pretty sure he’d buy it, too.

* * *

Savannah felt a lot older than her forty-plus-a-few years as she walked from her driveway up the walk to her house. The place needed a lot of work. The white stucco could use a coat of paint. Some of the red Spanish tiles were crumbling on the roof. And the bougainvillea—affectionately named Bogey—that had once graced the front porch was a tangled, red-and-green jungle. The mess definitely needed to be hacked back. At one time a pair of ladies’ garden shears would have done the job. Now a macho machete would be required.

And she wasn’t in the mood for home improvement.

Or catching wanna-be-Nazi adolescents.

Or playing the role of codependent rescuer to a guy whose main problem in relationships was that he was a codependent rescuer.

She was in the mood for a hot bubble bath, a hot chocolate topped with mounds of whipped cream, and a hot, steamy romance novel… with a subplot involving mounds covered with whipped cream.

As she walked through the door, her two cats—pampered, four-legged children wearing glossy black fur and rhinestone-studded collars—wrapped themselves affectionately around her ankles. “Cleopatra, Diamante,” she cooed to them as she stroked the ebony fur and was rewarded with motorboat purrs.

“Anybody home?” she called as she tossed her purse and keys onto the piecrust table in the foyer and kicked off her loafers. “Tammy, are you still here?”

“In the office,” came the reply from what had once been Savannah’s sunporch, before she had been kicked off the police force, before she had formed the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency… back when she had been gainfully employed and could afford cheese with her macaroni and cheese dinners. Ah, those were the days.

Savannah entered the room just in time to see Tammy whip a pair of reading glasses off her face and into the desk drawer. She stifled a giggle as she watched her assistant squirm a bit in her chair, squinting at the computer monitor in front of her.

“Screen fuzzy again?” Savannah asked, unable to resist.

“Yeah… kinda.” Tammy donned her most officious, computer-expert face and tone. “I think it might be a problem with the connector cord or…”

“Or a simple case of premature myopia or astigmatism, combined with a narcissistic personality disorder?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Savannah sat in her favorite floral-chintz chair. The piece of furniture was a tad faded, a bit frayed around the edges, more than a little overstuffed, curvaceous, and comfy. Savannah related, reveling in their similarities.

“Anything new?” Savannah asked. She peered at the computer screen, but as usual, she didn’t understand what she was looking at. It was all a bunch of gobbledygook to her. That was why she desperately needed someone like Tammy Hart. A sweet, hardworking airhead who happened to also be a computer whiz kid. A strange combination, but in Tammy, it worked.

And Tammy worked. Hard. And cheap.

At first, Savannah had assumed it was because she had read too many Nancy Drew books as a girl and had some misguided notion that if she hung out with Savannah long enough, she’d become a real, live detective. But now Savannah knew Tammy was there out of love and loyalty. And if she helped nail a bad guy once in a while or find somebody’s runaway teen, all the better.

“I was scanning some of the message boards on-line today,” Tammy said, clicking away on the keyboard and moving the little white arrow all over the screen with a gadget she called a “mouse”.

Savannah nodded, pretending to have some vague notion as to what she was talking about. “I see.”

Tammy shot her a doubtful, sideways grin. “You do?”

“Nope, but go on. I’ll probably be able to jump in somewhere along the way.”

“And I saw that someone had posted a message about you.”

“Oh, yeah? On the Internet?”

“Yep. Somebody’s looking for you.” Someone hunting for
her
. That didn’t sit well with Savannah. She was far more comfortable with doing the hunting.

“Who was it?”

“Here, let me sign on again, and I’ll find it for you.”

Savannah stood and walked over to stand behind Tammy. She rested her hands on the young woman’s shoulders as Tammy worked her magic with the keyboard and mouse. Rude sounds, a series of irritating beeps and hisses, spewed from the computer’s speakers as it communicated with the world. Seconds later, Savannah saw a message displayed across the screen.

I am searching for a woman by the name of Savannah Reid, please contact me at the following address. She is Caucasian, in her early forties, approximately 5’8”, 135 lbs., and has dark brown hair and blue eyes.

She is from the Atlanta, Georgia, area and was last believed to be on the West Coast, possibly Southern California. If anyone knows the whereabouts of this person would they please contact me at the following e-mail address…

“Do you recognize the address?” Tammy asked.

Savannah shook her head. “No. Does it say who posted it?”