11-Corpse Suzette Read online

  Dirk brushed the biscuit crumbs off the front of his shirt and back onto the foil. “Naw. I can’t see her doing anything drastic. But she’s up to no good of some kind. You wait and see.”

  As they left the car and walked to the front door of the building, Savannah thought of Tammy, so kind and well-intentioned. The young woman didn’t have an evil or even cranky bone in her body. It was hard to imagine that she and crabby Abigail were even related. Savannah couldn’t bear the thought that Abigail intended to cause any serious trouble that would bring grief to Tammy, who had only intended to benefit her cousin.

  “Whatever’s gone wrong here,” Savannah said, “I’m sure it has nothing to do with Abigail.”

  “We’ll see,” Dirk replied.

  He opened the front door and held it as Savannah passed through. Savannah liked that about Dirk. He opened doors for women, even in this day and age, and he preferred his ladies well-cushioned—his term, not hers—in all the right places. You could forgive a guy for a lot—cheapness, impatience, and occasional indelicacies—in exchange for opened doors and comments like, “Eh, she’s too skinny for my taste. Looks like she needs a few cheeseburgers and milkshakes.”

  But the moment Savannah stepped inside, she forgot all about Dirk’s virtues—both of them—as she felt herself caught up in an unexpected, magical environs. Sunshine flooded the lobby, streaming golden from enormous skylights overhead. The walls were the same rose-colored granite as the building’s exterior on either side, but straight ahead was a long wall of floor-to-ceiling glass. On the other side of the glass was an atrium, a sunlit fantasy garden of tropical greenery with a misty waterfall, moss-covered rocks... and butterflies. Hundreds of breathtakingly beautiful butterflies flitted from plant to plant, from rock to rock, their iridescent wings glimmering with jewel-rich shades of gold, sapphire, emerald, and amethyst.

  She walked over to the glass and resisted the urge to press her palms and nose against it like a mesmerized child. “Wow,” she said under her breath. “Look at that! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?”

  “Why, thank you,” replied a male voice behind her. And it wasn’t Dirk’s.

  She turned and saw that Dirk had left her and walked over to a desk on the right side of the room. And behind her stood the most truly beautiful man she had ever seen. Probably in his late twenties or early thirties, he had an ethereal quality about him— cream-colored skin that was as flawless as a cover model’s, platinum blond hair, and eyes that were the palest sky blue.

  He was dressed in a long-sleeved, ivory silk shirt and linen slacks of the same color. His build was slight but muscular, and although he was a couple of inches shorter than Savannah, his long legs and proportions made him appear taller.

  He stepped closer to Savannah and gazed into the atrium, his eyes following the flight of one of the butterflies as it fluttered near the glass where they stood. “It’s nice to see people enjoying it,” he said with quiet pride, “taking time to really appreciate it. People don’t take enough time for beauty these days.”

  “That’s true,” she said thoughtfully. He sounded older than his years, and there was a quiet air of wisdom and grace about him that seemed ageless.

  She extended her hand to him. “I’m Savannah,” she said, “and you are...?”

  He took her hand in his and gave it a firm but gentle shake. “I’m Jeremy Lawrence,” he replied, “the stylist here at Emerge.”

  “Stylist?” She glanced at his hair. It was a nice, standard, GQ cut. Nothing too fancy. “You’re the hairdresser?”

  He smiled... a patient smile, like that of a teacher with a student. “No,” he said, “we have another person who does the hairdressing. I’m more of a style consultant. I coach our clients in developing their own unique styles... in all aspects of their lives. Hair and makeup are certainly part of that, but we also offer guidance while they find the best ways to express their inner selves through clothing, jewelry, home furnishings, social etiquette, entertaining, even leisure activities such as music and the arts.”

  “And you do all that?”

  “I help. I guide whenever possible,” he said with quiet humility.

  Savannah glanced over at Dirk, who was having a conversation with a woman at the desk, a highly made-up, overprocessed, sixtyish blonde who looked as though she would have benefited from this young man’s input.

  “May I help you with anything?” Jeremy asked. “Are you a member of the press, or...?”

  Savannah opened her mouth to say, “No, I’m with that guy over there,” but at the last moment, she swallowed the words and decided, on instinct, to lie. “Yes,” she said. “I’m with San Carmelita Today... the magazine in the Sunday paper. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

  “Of course. I read it every weekend.”

  He was lying, too; she could tell. But at least he was blackening his soul in an attempt to be polite. She wasn’t sure why she had given him the cover story. Maybe she was getting too old to trust young men who were prettier than she was.

  “Is he with you?” he asked, nodding toward Dirk.

  “No,” she said, “I overheard him tell the lady there at the desk that he’s a detective with the San Carmelita Police Department.”

  A look of pain crossed Jeremy’s face. “Is he here about Suzette? Did you hear him say if he’s here because she’s...”

  She waited for him to fill in the blank. When he didn’t, she added, “Missing? Yes, I think I heard him say something about that.”

  “I hope nothing’s happened to her,” he said, then he seemed to realize he was talking to a “member of the press” and a guarded look crossed his face. “I suppose you came for the press conference today. I’m afraid you’ve made a trip for nothing. I thought Devon had called everyone to reschedule.”

  “Devon?”

  “Devon Wright, our publicist. I’m surprised you haven’t met Devon. She’s the one who usually deals with the press.”

  His pale blue eyes studied hers with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. Her own eyes were a deep, cobalt blue, and long ago she had learned to focus their laserlike intensity on suspects and make them squirm in their interrogation seats. She wasn’t accustomed to being on the receiving end of such scrutiny.

  “Devon Wright. Ms. Wright. Oh, of course I’ve spoken to her before on the phone. I didn’t know her first name.”

  “And she didn’t call you about the press conference being postponed?”

  “Oh, she probably did. My assistant at the paper is a dingbat intern. Always forgets to give me my messages. Has the news conference been rescheduled?”

  “Here’s Devon now.” He nodded toward a petite young woman who was striding down the hall to the left, coming toward the lobby. “You can ask her directly. I have to be going now. It was nice speaking with you.”

  “And with you.”

  She noticed that he gave Dirk one more sad, anxious look before he retreated down the hallway to the left, passing Devon Wright. He paused to say a couple of words to her before disappearing into one of the doors that lined the corridor.

  As the publicist approached her, Savannah decided rather quickly that she didn’t particularly like Devon Wright. Hyper people got on her nerves... even more so if they were hyper salespeople.

  And Devon was wearing the tissue-thin grin of a salesperson as she scurried up to her, her high-heeled boots clicking on the granite floor. Her brightly embroidered, skintight jeans, fringed leather jacket, and super-short, red-tipped, black hair were, no doubt, intended to announce to the world that she was quite “hip” ... a “with-it” sort of professional.

  But to Savannah, she just looked unprofessional.

  And Savannah was also willing to admit that maybe she, herself, wasn’t all that “hip” or “with-it” anymore.

  Getting older did that to you.

  “Hello, hello!” Devon greeted her, hand outstretched, fake grin broadening. “I understand you’ve come for the press conference. I’m so
rry you weren’t contacted, but we’ve had to postpone it for today.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to learning more about what you’re doing here at Emerge. This is just beee-autiful!”

  Devon’s eyes glistened with a nearly maniacal gleam. Savannah had seen the same fire of enthusiasm in the eyes of vacuum cleaner salesmen on her front doorstep... seconds before she threw them off the porch.

  “Oh, isn’t it though!” Devon gushed. “This place and the work we’ll be doing here is so important! Literally changing lives! Women—well, men, too—will walk through those doors sad and ugly worms, and emerge as the glorious butterflies they were meant to be!”

  “Worms... turning into butterflies... hmmm....” Savannah considered for a moment how Abigail would react to that particular terminology. She hadn’t even warmed up to the idea of being called a fuzzy caterpillar. She’d probably pitch a fit, and Savannah couldn’t blame her.

  “They emerge... as they were meant to be,” Savannah mused, “versus, how they were actually born into this world.”

  “Exactly! Isn’t that a mind-shattering concept! Everyone, even the simplest people in society, being able to come to a place like this and transform themselves, fulfill themselves, live life as the person they always wanted to be!”

  Savannah returned the too-bright smile and adopted the carnival barker tone of voice. “And they only have to take out a second mortgage on the house, sell the kids, and hawk the family pooch to pay for it all! Ya-a-y-y!”

  Devon’s grin vanished, replaced by an aggravated, suspicious scowl. “Emerge offers payment plans for the underprivileged... upon credit approval, of course.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  After several moments of awkward silence, Savannah decided to make a bad situation worse. “I hear that Suzette Du Bois has gone missing,” she said.

  Yes, every vestige of Devon Wright’s faux smile evaporated. “Where did you hear that?” she snapped.

  “I overheard that police detective over there asking your receptionist about her.” She shrugged. “Hey, I am a reporter, after all. I keep my ears open. Of course, I could be persuaded to keep what I heard off the record for the time being....”

  Devon opened and closed her mouth several times as she seemed to search for the right words.

  “That would be... um... nice. I mean, there isn’t really anything to report now anyway.”

  “And in return for my... waiting... you might give me the first phone call when you do have something substantial to report?”

  Devon looked doubtful, but she said, “Okay. Give me your business card, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Business card?

  Savannah paused, thinking fast. The cards in her purse represented her as a private investigator, not a newspaper reporter.

  “I don’t have any with me right now, but I’ll leave my number with your receptionist at the desk.”

  “You don’t have a business card, Ms....?”

  Savannah’s mental gears whirred. “McGill. Savannah McGill.”

  Devon’s eyes narrowed. “And do you have your press pass with you, Ms. McGill?”

  “Darn. No. It’s in my other purse... with my cards... you know, changed pocketbooks last night to go out to dinner at this fancy-schmancy place, forgot to put everything back into my everyday purse. Do you ever do that? I just hate it when I do that.”

  “Maybe you should leave for now, Ms. McGill. Emerge isn’t really open to the public today. You can come back when we have our press conference.”

  “When they find Suzette Du Bois, you mean. When they figure out what’s happened to her.”

  The publicist’s eyes narrowed even more, and Savannah saw a light shining there that made the hackles on her back rise. Devon Wright might be dressed as a bebopping, hip-hopping fluff-head, but underneath the frivolous facade was a dangerous woman.

  “You should go now. Really,” she said. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Savannah glanced over at Dirk, who was still hanging out by the desk, questioning the aging, floozy receptionist. “Thanks, but I can find my way to the door,” she said, “since it’s only twenty feet away. I’m quite resourceful that way. Toodle-ooo. See you later.”

  Devon didn’t reply. Or walk her to the door. But she did stand there and stare after her, boring eyeholes into her back. Savannah half-expected her sweater to burst into flames somewhere between her shoulder blades.

  Savannah willed Dirk not to call out to her, to inquire about her untimely exit. And he didn’t. They had worked together long enough to know that they should save potentially embarrassing questions for behind closed doors.

  Once outside, she returned to her car and waited for him to join her.

  It didn’t take him long. Five minutes later, he rounded the side of the building and walked across the lot to her Mustang. She rolled down the window. “Let’s go somewhere else to talk.”

  He nodded. “The pier?”

  “Sounds good. Follow me over.”

  “Nope. You follow me.”

  “Eh, bite me.”

  She knew he would break at least five major traffic rules to beat her to the pier. Dirk was just... such a guy. He couldn’t help himself.

  Savannah had worked on him for years, trying to smooth out the rough spots. And she had succeeded in a few instances. He no longer propped his feet on her coffee table without first removing his sneakers, and he remembered to lower the toilet seat at her house at least fifty percent of the time. That was about as civilized as Dirk Coulter was ever likely to get.

  But Savannah loved him anyway. When she wasn’t plotting creative ways to murder him and dispose of the body, she appreciated the fact that his bravado, bordering on aggression, masked a heart that was remarkably soft toward the half a dozen people Dirk loved in the world.

  He was as loyal as they came.

  She and Dirk had known each other since way back when. “Back when,” for her, meant “fifteen years and thirty pounds ago.” For him, it meant a bit more hair and less around his middle.

  But one of Dirk’s sweetest qualities, the one that endeared him most to Savannah, was the fact that he hadn’t really noticed those years or pounds. She was pretty sure that, at least in his eyes, she was still that feisty, sexy young cop who had been assigned to work with him... and had agreed to, although everyone else in the department had refused.

  Dirk had always been difficult, rebellious, a pain in the neck... the proverbial loose cannon that everyone wanted to throw overboard. Other men on the force couldn’t stand him. The females had the hots for him, responding to that tough-guy-with-street-smarts appeal, not to mention more than his share of brawn. But none had lasted longer than a couple of days in the field with him... until Savannah.

  She didn’t care if he broke a few rules. She bent plenty herself... especially those she considered stupid. And so what if he leaned a little hard on a particularly unsavory suspect to get to the truth? He had good instincts and didn’t “lean” unless he was sure the guy was a bad one.

  Together they had taken a lot of dangerous criminals off the streets and just as importantly, they had brought justice and closure to a lot of victims. Savannah had decided long ago that was a good way to spend a life. And she had also decided she could put up with most of Dirk’s less pleasant habits to achieve that.

  She reminded herself of that when she pulled into the pier parking lot and saw him sitting there in his Buick, a nasty little smirk on his face.

  He had beaten her there.

  Big whoopty-do.

  The fact that she had lost the unofficial race meant that she would have to join him, rather than vice versa. Sitting in his grubby Buick was the price to pay for law-abiding driving.

  But he had chosen the parking space nearest the beach and the view today was great, so she didn’t mind too much.

  The midmorning sun had broken through the haze and Southern California’s idea of a winter day was simply magni
ficent.

  She got into his car, rolled down her window, turned her face toward the sun and closed her eyes, letting it warm her soul. Palm trees rustled overhead in the onshore breeze. A few seagulls cawed, some children laughed further down the beach, someone’s boom box was playing “California Girls.” All was well with the world and—

  “Did you get a load of that dumb broad back there? Boy, was she a piece of work or what?”

  Savannah tried not to let his words or the grating tone of his voice pollute the purity of her perfect California-Zen moment. “I beg your pardon?” she asked with all the tranquility she could muster.

  “That stupid broad back at Emerge. Talk about a brainless twit! Why she—”

  “Do you know,” she said, eyes still closed, her voice a monotone, “that you are the only man left in the world who still calls women ‘broads’?”

  “So, what’s your point?” he snapped.

  “Point? My point?” Eyes still closed. Still tranquil. Still in the serene consciousness of the moment. “No point. I have no point. It was just a simple observation.”

  “No, you were bitching at me. Criticizing my language, like you always do. I know when I’m being criticized. If I wanted some br... woman to bitch at me, I’d get married.”

  “If you could find some broad who’d have you,” she muttered under her breath, losing the Zen.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She opened her eyes and shook herself back to reality, grim as it might be. “What were you saying? You don’t like somebody. What else is new?”

  “I don’t like that gal who’s the receptionist or secretary or whatever back there at that Emerge place.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “She’s a bimbo. And worse yet, an old bimbo.”

  “Young bimbos are somehow better than old ones? Why? Because they’re easier on the eyes? You don’t mind a woman being an ignoramus as long as she’s firm and perky?”

  “What?” He stared at her for a long moment, obviously confused. “No, it’s not that. Firm and perky? That’s stupid. It’s just that if a gal’s older, she’s had more time to figure out how to smarten up. She doesn’t have any excuse for being a bimbo past... oh, thirty-five or so. After that, she oughta be wiser.”