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  Sitting in her cushy, wing-back chair with its cabbage rose-print chintz, her feet propped on the matching ottoman and warmed by two black cats, one on each side, Savannah was at peace with the world. Or at least, she would have been except for the pile of past-due bills in her lap that needed attention. Unfortunately, they needed more than just her attention; they needed paying. The creditors had already sent the polite green and yellow versions. But more than one of these not-so-friendly reminders bore threats in bold red ink and the occasional exclamation mark—all designed to strike terror in the heart of the delinquent bill-payer.

  But Savannah wasn’t terrified. When sitting in her favorite chair, feet warmed by purring, sleeping cats, the most she could muster in the way of negative feelings was mild depression and a modicum of embarrassment. Someday this private investigation business of hers would start to pay off. Someday. Some way. Somewhere... over the rainbow.

  Looking across her living room, she watched as Tammy Hart, her friend, assistant, and crime detection protégée sat studiously at the computer on the rolltop desk in the corner and surfed the Internet. Tammy seemed to think that if she searched long and hard enough, she would eventually find some jobs for the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency.

  Not knowing diddly-squat about the Internet, Savannah had her doubts that Tammy’s efforts would pan out, but if the kid wanted to look, she was welcome to it Long ago, Savannah had realized that Tammy didn’t hang around for the occasional moneys Savannah was able to shuffle her way. Like Savannah, Tammy truly enjoyed the work, when it came along. Tracking down missing kids, locating long-lost loved ones, and occasionally getting to nab a really bad guy made the dry times worth it.

  Besides the joys of nailing a bad boy, and occasionally a bad girl, the two women had something else in common—an unexpected friendship. Unexpected because they couldn’t have been more different.

  Ten years younger than Savannah, Tammy was a California golden girl, with sun-bleached, long blond hair and lean, tanned limbs. She was also a computer whiz and a rabid health nut.

  On the other hand, Savannah had dark curly hair and a peaches-and-cream complexion and was both technologically and dietetically challenged. Savannah’s definition of a megabyte was a mouthful of See’s cantly or a Mrs. Fields cookie. As a result, her limbs weren’t particularly lean... or any other part of her for that matter.

  Once, years ago, she had hated Tammy for wearing a size zero and a half. But Savannah had come to terms with her own overly voluptuous body and now only hated Tammy occasionally... like when they were trying on clothes in the Victoria’s Secret dressing rooms.

  “So, Dirko’s coming over tonight, huh?” Tammy asked without turning away from her screen.

  “Sure he is. There’s a heavyweight bout on HBO at nine. He’ll show up at eight, hoping that I’ll feed him.”

  ‘You’ll feed him. You feed every living thing within a mile of you.”

  Savannah chuckled. It was true; Southern hospitality demanded that nobody grow faint from hunger in the presence of a Reid woman.

  “Why doesn’t Dirko watch the fight on his own TV?” Tammy wanted to know. “He mooches off you too much.”

  “It would only be mooching if I minded. I don’t mind. Usually,” she added, thinking of all the times Dirk had finagled her out of a free burger or hot dog when they’d worked the streets together. “Besides, Dirk doesn’t have HBO. He doesn’t even have cable, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot. No-frills Dirk.”

  “Eh, what do you expect from a guy who thinks that the ultimate experience in fine dining is supersizing his burger and fry order?”

  Tammy glanced at her watch. “Seven-thirty... I think I’ll split.”

  “Don’t want to hang out and watch two men beat the crap out of each other?”

  Tammy shuddered. “And listen to Dirk screaming at the top of his lungs about jabs, cuts, and head butts? No, thanks.”

  Savannah watched her shut down the computer. “No luck finding work?”

  “Not unless we’re ready to become bounty hunters, chasing dirtbags who’ve jumped bail. There seem to be a few openings for those if your name’s Bubba and you’re six feet four and weigh three hundred pounds.”

  “Shows what you know about bounty hunting. Sure, there are some big, nasty hunters named Bubba, but I’ve met others who were female and looked like you, girlie-girl. And they weren’t chasing just the dirtbags. Most hard-core criminals know the drill, and they’ll show up for court. They’ve been through it all before, done their time, got out, re-offended, and landed back in the system. It’s the scared welfare mother who wrote bad checks for groceries who takes off. She’s terrified, not knowing what to expect, thinking her life’s over. Let somebody else track her down. I’m not that desperate yet.”

  She glanced down at the stack of bills in her lap, then around her modest house. The lights were on. In the kitchen and in the bathroom the water was running. The mortgage payment was only three days late, and the refrigerator was well stocked.

  Something was bound to come along soon. It always did.

  “Thanks for coming over,” Savannah said, rising and walking Tammy to the door. “Sure you don’t wanna hang around and say hi to Dirk?”

  Tammy made a face, reminding Savannah of a kindergartner who had just heard the name of her seven-year-old brother mentioned. ‘Just tell him I said, ‘Sit on a tack... or a railroad track.’ Tell him to eat an apple with a big worm in it and chew thoroughly. Tell him—”

  “Okay, okay. I gotcha. I’ll give him your warmest regards.”

  Tammy stuck up her middle finger.

  “Yes, yes...” Savannah sighed. “Without the sign language, though, if you don’t mind. I am a lady.”

  Tammy snickered. “A lady who’s not above sitting on a perp’s head if necessary to hold him down or jamming her fingers down his throat to get the drug evidence he’s trying to swallow.”

  She shrugged and grinned. “Whatever the job requires.”

  Just as she was opening the door for Tammy, she heard the phone ring behind her.

  “That’s probably Dirk now,” Tammy said, “wanting to know if you’ll make a pot of your homemade chili and cornbread for him.”

  “Hmm... good idea. Except for the beans. I do have to spend the evening with the guy.”

  She waved Tammy out the door, then hurried to the telephone. As Tammy had predicted, it was Dirk. But he didn’t sound hungry. He sounded harried.

  “I’m gonna have to take a rain check on dinner tonight,” he said.

  “I didn’t invite you for dinner yet, just the fight.”

  “Whatever. I’m gonna miss that, too.”

  “What’s up? Where are you?”

  “I’m still at the station house. I was trying to get out of here after processing those idiots from the park, and I caught a case.”

  Savannah perked up. She couldn’t help herself; it was in her blood. “What’s the case?”

  “Dead body. Some gal’s down in one of those fancy houses on the beach. Gotta go check it out. Sounds like it was a heart attack—a fat chick who was exercising too much or something. But she’s young, so I have to go down there with CSU and make sure it’s nothing kinky.”

  Savannah bristled at the “fat chick” reference, but thoughts of watching the Crime Scene Unit technicians in action made her put the offense away for the time being. Besides, other than the occasional ill-chosen adjective, Dirk showed an endearing degree of sensitivity when it came to weight issues.

  “Want company?” she asked.

  “Sure. The address is number one Seagull Lane. Must be right on the water.”

  An overweight young woman, exercising too much, who lived at a prestigious beachfront address... A bell rang in Savannah’s memory banks.

  “The DB’s name wouldn’t happen to be Caitlin Connor, would it?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  “How’d you know?”

  Images flashed
across Savannah’s mental screen: a beautiful woman with long flowing red hair, turquoise eyes, flawless skin, and a dazzling smile—a full-figured woman who showed the world that beauty could come in generous packages as well as petite ones. Cait Connor’s face and figure had sold magazines, plus-sized clothing, makeup, fragrances, and even home furnishings for the past few years, enticing generously proportioned women to enter her world of grace and fashion.

  “Caitlin’s dead?” she said, still unable to believe that such beauty, such vibrancy was gone.

  “Yeah, sorry. Were you a friend of hers?” Dirk asked with more compassion and warmth than he was known to display under most circumstances.

  “No. I never met her,” Savannah replied. “I’m just a fan. One of many.” Suddenly Savannah felt older, more tired, more aware of the fragility of life. “I’ll meet you there in ten,” she said.

  There probably wasn’t a damned thing that she or anyone else could do for Caitlin Connor at this point.

  But she’d try.

  Chapter

  2

  The sun was dipping into the Pacific, staining the waves with a gold and coral patina, as Savannah drove her Mustang down Shore Boulevard toward the San Carmelita waterfront. Definitely on the “right” side of the tracks, the beach area wasn’t a section of town where Savannah had spent a lot of time in her law enforcement days. Normally a person could walk their dog at two in the morning in that neighborhood without fear. And the pooch didn’t have to be a pit bull either.

  Savannah lived in midtown, in a moderately priced stucco house with a red Spanish tile roof. Private detectives and former police officers didn’t live on the hillsides with their panoramic views. And they certainly couldn’t afford to live on the beaches. In her price range, you didn’t even get a one-bedroom cottage within walking distance of the water, let alone one of the mansions that sat directly on the beach.

  But if Savannah wasn’t the type to gripe about the extra padding on her fanny, she certainly wasn’t going to complain to the universal powers that she was beach-less. When the occasional Pacific storm hit the West Coast and the surf flooded the first five blocks of the waterfront and the glass-fronted houses on the muddy hills started slipping off their foundations, sliding down into their neighbors’ swimming pools, she sat in her dry, stable bungalow and felt terribly superior. She was poor and glad of it.

  A little pseudo-arrogance went a long way toward fostering pseudo-contentment.

  The streets narrowed to little more than alleys as she got closer to the beach. With property being assessed by the square inch, parking in this area was at a premium. Large signs were posted on garage doors, at the edges of postage stamp-sized lots, and in driveways that threatened everything from towing and fines to decapitation and dismemberment if you dared to leave your family’s SUV on their private property when you took your kiddies to the beach.

  For the most part, those who could afford to live here amid the sand and surf had little tolerance for their nonbeach townsmen, and even less for the tourist hoards from Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley that descended on the community every summer.

  Passing street after street with their quaint, nautically themed names, Savannah quickly found Seagull Lane between Heron and Pelican. Cait Connor’s house wasn’t hard to spot. On a street lined with luxury homes, it stood out for its sheer size alone. A contemporary structure, it looked more like a giant glass box, a sort of arboretum, than a private home. The ocean-facing front half of the house was constructed almost entirely of triangular panes of bronze-tinted glass.

  The back half of the building was a warm, terra-cotta colored stucco, again with massive windows. The effect was spectacular as each glass pane caught the golden-red rays of the setting sun and glowed with its own individual fire.

  Savannah had noticed the house before when she had visited the beach, and she had heard that Cait Connor and her husband lived on the waterfront, but she had never put the two together.

  Apparently, plus-sized modeling paid well. At least if you were in the supermodel category with the likes of Caitlin Connor.

  She parked across the street from the house, defying a sign that threatened her not to, next to Dirk’s Buick and a black-and-white patrol car. A Jaguar S-Type sat in the Connor driveway, along with a silver Maserati Coupe GT. Savannah did a quick calculation and decided that both cars cost more than her house.

  After looking around for the Crime Scene Unit’s van and seeing nothing, Savannah decided they hadn’t arrived yet. She was glad. She liked to check out the scene before they arrived and cluttered the place with all of their equipment, disturbing what she called the “subtle, dark vibes” of the area.

  Not that Cait Connor’s house was a crime scene. She certainly hoped it wasn’t. If there was anything worse than a young person dying unexpectedly, it was finding out that foul play was involved. That made any tragedy a hundred times more painful for the deceased person’s loved ones.

  Yes, in spite of the yellow tape that Dirk had strung around the driveway and across the door, Savannah prayed that pretty Cait Connor with her long red hair; and turquoise eyes had died of a natural—or at worst, accidental—cause.

  No sooner had she stepped over the tape and started up the walk to the front door than it opened and a handsome, uniformed officer came out. Savannah recognized Mike Bosco by the stern, terribly officious look on his young face. But the moment he recognized Savannah, he grinned broadly. “Hey, girl,” he said. “Long time no see.” He strode down the brick walkway and put out his hand. “Should have known you’d be along sooner or later, since Dirk’s caught the case. Good to see you.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Mike. What’s shakin’, darlin’?” she asked, pumping his hand and nodding toward the house.

  “Gal’s down in the bathroom. Dirk’s checking her out.”

  “She’s... gone?” Savannah knew the answer, but she couldn’t help asking, couldn’t help hoping just a little.

  “Oh, yeah. Has been for a while. Dirk said there’s some rigor already set in.”

  “Mmm. How does it look?”

  “No signs of violence to the body. Doesn’t look like anything’s been disturbed in the house.”

  “Were you first on the scene?”

  “Yes. I’ve been here about forty-five minutes. Dirk just got here, had me string up the tape.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “The husband. Called 911 about an hour ago. Says he came home from work and found her on the bathroom floor.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Yes. He’s a mess. When I first got here, I had a hard time calming him down enough to get anything out of him. I guess it was a big shock, her being young and healthy. Except for”—his eyes swept briefly over Savannah’s figure—“you know... her being... chunky.”

  Chunky? A dozen of Cait’s magazine and catalog cover shots flashed through Savannah’s mind. She recalled the videos of the redhead walking a runway, modeling the latest in full-figured fashions. A lot of words came to mind when she thought of Cait Connor: graceful, sultry, feminine, lovely. “Chunky” wasn’t one of them.

  Mike must have read her thoughts because he quickly added, “She had a pretty face, though.”

  Savannah decided to go inside before the urge to slap Mike stupid completely overwhelmed her. Anger management... she was getting better at it all the time.

  “I’m gonna go find Dirk,” she told him as she brushed by him and into the house. “Let us know when CSU gets here, okay?”

  “Sure.” He looked relieved. “No problem.”

  The moment Savannah entered the foyer of the house, she forgot all about Mike and society’s insensitivity to what she preferred to think of as the “horizontally enhanced.”

  Caitlin Connor’s seaside mansion was something! else.

  Savannah wasn’t sure what, but it was certainly something different than she had ever seen before.

  Either Cait or an overly enthusiastic professional
decorator had obviously been in love with the tropics. The interior struck Savannah as a grossly overdone version of “The Caribbean Meets Las Vegas.”

  If the structure looked like an arboretum from the outside, it looked even more so inside. Enormous jungle plants, the size of full-grown trees, reached the three-story ceiling of the living room. After a double take, Savannah decided they were a combination of silk and] plastic. Oh, well... everybody didn’t have a green thumb.

  The artificial trees were filled with colorful parrots. It took Savannah a few seconds to realize—with a shudder of disgust—that they, too, were fake. Or, at least, she preferred to think they were fake, because the alternative was to consider that they were dead and stuffed by a taxidermist. And that was an even bigger shudder.

  What seemed like miles of brilliantly colored batik fabrics draped the walls and formed canopies over rattan furniture, whose cushions were also covered in eye-assaulting shades of red, turquoise, yellow, purple, and hot pink, all splashed together in dizzying prints.

  Savannah thought of every TV commercial she had ever seen, designed to lure tourists to the tropics. She half expected a sexy hunk named Carlos to appear with a pineapple and rum drink in one hand and a bottle of tanning oil in the other, wearing skimpy swim briefs and a “Come to me, señorita” grin on his handsome face.

  “Oh, well, the waterfall’s cool,” she whispered to herself. The far wall was covered in natural stone and water trickled from its highest point near the ceiling down the stones, over moss and exotic plants—probably plastic—to the shallow pond below. The soothing sound lent yet another sensual layer to the tropical fantasy.

  Okay,Savannah decided, maybe Granny Reid would call it trashy gaudy. But she thought it was still pretty neat... in a gaudy, trashy sort of way.

  She crossed the living room to a dining area, which was also resplendent in tropical foliage with a chrome and glass table and chairs. A carved wooden bowl in the middle of the table overflowed with beaded fruit.