She believed that a private investigator who wasn’t gifted with an inquisitive nose wasn’t worth taking behind the barn and shooting.
That was one of her most cherished mottos, and she lived by it. It was right up there with, “Don’t flip on a light switch with wet hands or climb out on the roof to adjust the TV antenna during a Georgia thunderstorm.”
As she wound her way down a stone path through the thick, mature plant growth, she saw that there were, indeed, three young females ahead of her. They were lounging around an Oriental fish pond on chaises like any other trio of teenagers, hanging out with friends, chatting and laughing, enjoying each other’s company.
Except that as she drew closer, Savannah could hear a tone in their voices that didn’t sound all that friendly. Although she could only catch a word, then a phrase here and there, their conversation didn’t seem to be lighthearted chitchat about boys or the latest fashion trends.
“. . . she’ll miss her big shoot... boo hoo...”
“Eh...won’t embarrass herself...”
“I couldn’t believe it was going to happen anyway.”
“Tiff, you so should have... way better... just disgusting!”
“. . . doesn’t matter now ...she...”
“Who did she think she was ...? If my dad ... nothing. If I hadn’t felt sorry for her, she never would have even...”
Savannah strained to hear, but bits and pieces were all she could catch, and as she took a few steps closer, she heard one of them say, “Sh-h-h, somebody’s out there.”
“Where?”
“Over there... coming this way.”
Rather than waiting to be “discovered” snooping among the banana plants, Savannah stepped into the clearing around the pond.
“Good evening, ladies,” she said brightly. “I was hoping I’d find you back here somewhere.”
One of the girls, a thin gal with long, blond hair, jumped up from one of the chaises and rushed toward Savannah. Even with only the dim glow of the property’s accent lights to see, Savannah knew it was the girl whose picture hung over the fireplace.
Savannah also recognized her face from the grocery store magazine displays. This was the tabloid queen Tiffany Dante in all of her Skeleton Key rail-thin glory.
The first thing that struck Savannah was how petite the girl was. Somehow, Savannah had imagined her to be much taller. Maybe it was the perpetual high-high heels that she wore. Even now, dressed casually in pink silk pajama bottoms and a lacy camisole with rhinestones across the chest that proclaimed her to be, “HOT! HOT! HOT!,” she was wearing ankle strap sandals with four-inch heels.
Her heels clicked out a fast staccato on the stone walkway as the young woman hurried up to Savannah with an ill-tempered frown on her face. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And why were you spying on us?”
“Spying? Who was spying? I was just coming out here to talk to you. You’re Tiffany Dante, right?”
The girl rolled her eyes and gave Savannah an indignant, “Well, yeah . . . duh.”
Savannah chuckled.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing,” Savannah said evenly. “I just didn’t realize that people still say, ‘Duh.’ That’s all.” She held out her hand to the girl. “My name is Savannah Reid. I came with Detective Sergeant Coulter. He’s a San Carmelita police officer. We’re investigating the disappearance of one of your friends, Daisy O’Neil.”
Tiffany Dante did not shake Savannah’s hand. Instead, she gave her a quick once-over, head to toe, then lifted her nose slightly as though she had just sniffed something unpleasant.
Savannah withdrew her hand and resisted the urge to lift her middle finger in salute to the disrespectful girl.
Granny Reid wouldn’t have approved.
Tiffy glanced over her shoulder at her friends, a pretty brunette and an almond-eyed beauty with waist-long black hair.
“Daisy... disappeared?” Tiffy said. “I wouldn’t say she’s ‘disappeared.’ Would you?” she asked the girls. They simply shrugged, shook their heads.
Turning back to Savannah, she said coyly, “I mean, Daisy probably just decided to take off for a week or two and not mention it to her mom. We do that kind of thing all the time. Don’t we?” Again, she turned to her friends for some sort of affirmation.
“Yeah,” said the brunette. She stood and walked over to Savannah and Tiffy. Savannah noticed that she was wearing the same exact pajamas as Tiffy, only in bright blue. And according to the rhinestone embellishment, she was equally, “HOT! HOT! HOT!”
The girl continued in the same cocky tone as her blond friend. “We take off all the time, like to South Beach or Cancun or Aspen, you know, to party a little when we’re really stressed out about something. And Daisy’s a bit weird. She does crazy stuff sometimes. I don’t think anything . . . like . . . bad . . . has happened to her.”
The brunette shot Tiffy a quick glance, as though looking for her approval, and smiled when the blonde gave her a slight nod.
“And you are...?” Savannah asked, thinking that this girl couldn’t be a day over sixteen.
Savannah remembered reading something about Tiffy’s garish, outlandish high school graduation party last year. But this teen looked more like a sophomore at most.
And Savannah remembered that this girl had some sort of silly name, too. She just couldn’t recall what it was. Kitty? Puppy? Chickie-pooh?
“I’m Bunny Greenaway,” she said. “I’m a friend of Tiffy’s. We’re the Skeleton Key Three. The three of us, that is. You’ve probably heard of us. We’re like... famous, you know.”
Savannah smiled and nodded. “Of course, I’ve heard of you. Anybody who buys groceries knows about you three. How very exciting for you to be so well-known, and at such a young age.” She mentally added, And for having done absolutely nothing but starve yourselves to death and wear designer clothing and spend your parents’ money with wild, vulgar abandon.
Tiffy shrugged and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “It’s not that great, really. You have to put up with all the paparazzi all the time. I mean, we can’t go anywhere or do anything without getting our pictures taken. Especially me. A lot of people probably think it’s fun being me, but it’s really a pain in the ass sometimes, having to look good everywhere you go. It’s actually quite a lot of work and responsibility.”
Savannah wondered if this young woman would ever grow up and realize how very transparent her conceit was to others and learn to at least tone it down a bit.
Something told her that Tiffy’s strong sense of herself and her indispensability to the world at large was firmly in place and was going to remain so throughout her life.
Savannah also decided that someone had done Tiffany Dante a terrible injustice, teaching her that she was extraordinarily valuable while neglecting to mention that every other being on God’s green earth was equally precious.
Savannah couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. But she felt a lot sorrier for any husband or children this girl might have down the road.
Savannah looked beyond Tiffy and Bunny to the almond-eyed, black-haired girl who remained seated on a chaise, staring down at her own high-heeled sandals. Her silk pajamas and lace camisole were bright yellow, and her rhinestones declared her, “GORGEOUS!”
Savannah had to agree. Of the three of them, this girl was by far the prettiest. Her exotic looks made Savannah wonder if maybe she had both Asian and African ancestors. Her skin was an exquisite golden tan, her lips full and sensuous, her eyes tilted upward at the edges, giving her an almost feline beauty. She appeared to be around the same age as Tiffy—maybe eighteen or nineteen.
Savannah walked over to her. “And you are...?” she asked, unable to remember what this third Key member was named. Biffy? Dippy? Sneezy or Goofy?
“Kiley Wallace,” she said softly. “But everyone calls me Kiki.”
The girl glanced up at Savannah but just as quickly, looked away. In spite of her reluctance to make eye
contact, she didn’t strike Savannah as a particularly shy girl, which made Savannah wonder if perhaps she had something to hide. Something she wasn’t proud of?
Savannah decided she simply must have some serious private time with Kiki Wallace.
Experience had taught her that if she could find one person in a group who had a tender conscience, they could be the key to solving a case.
“And how about you, Kiki?” Savannah asked. “Is Daisy a friend of yours, too?”
Kiki replied, but in a voice so low that Savannah couldn’t hear her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, ‘Yes, Daisy is my friend.’”
“And do you think that she would have just gone off, disappeared without telling anybody—her mother, any of you girls—where she’d gone?”
Kiki shot a questioning look over at Tiffy, then shrugged her thin shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah, I guess so,” she said.
“Would you do that? Would you just take off somewhere without telling anybody?” Savannah asked her.
“I don’t know. I might.”
Kiki looked like she was about to start crying. Yes, Savannah decided. I’m definitely going to have to get Kiki here alone. Maybe hold her upside down by her high heels and see what I can shake out of her.
Tiffy hurried over to them and stood between Savannah and Kiki. “Do you have, like, a warrant or something? My dad doesn’t usually let cops on his property unless they have a warrant or something.”
“No, I don’t have a warrant...or something. I don’t need one. I’m not even a police officer.”
“Then what are you doing on our property?”
“I was invited.” Savannah didn’t feel the need to mention it was the maid who had let them in. “I’m sure everyone, including your father, is concerned about Daisy’s disappearance and would be relieved if we could find her safe and sound. I’m sure you would like that, too, right?”
Tiffy locked eyes with Savannah and gave her what, no doubt, was intended to be an intimidating glare. But since in the course of Savannah’s career, she had been glared at by hardcore street thugs, members of organized crime, a serial killer, and a rabid pit bull, she didn’t scare easily.
In fact, she decided to get a little rough with Tiff.
“I understand that Daisy came over here yesterday afternoon,” she said with all the steadfast authority of a practiced liar. “In fact, I hear that you girls were the last people to see her alive.”
“We were not! No, we weren’t! I mean,” Tiffy stammered, “we couldn’t have been the last ones to see her ...what do you mean ‘alive’? She’s not dead!”
“She’s not?”
“No!”
“Then where is she?”
“How would I know?”
“Well, if you’re so sure that she isn’t dead, you must know where she is.”
Tiffy took one step backward and nearly lost her balance, teetering precariously on her four-inch heels. “This is all just stupid,” she said. “ I’ll bet that it’s Daisy’s stupid mom who put you up to all of this, isn’t it? She just doesn’t like us, and she blames us any time anything goes wrong with her precious little baby Daisy.”
“Like what?” Savannah wanted to know.
“Like when Daisy’s boyfriend dumped her, and Daisy got all depressed and went around moping about it for months. Pam blamed that on me! Said I took him away from her daughter, lured him away with my feminine charms or something stupid like that.” She chuckled, and Savannah thought that she had heard warmer laughter rippling through the city jail cells. “He dumped Daisy because she got fat, that’s all. But no-o-o-o. Neither Daisy nor her mom wanted to face the truth. God forbid that Daisy would go on a diet!”
“You should say fatter,” Bunny added.
“What?” Savannah turned on Bunny.
“I was correcting Tiffy. Daisy didn’t get fat—she was already fat. She got fatter. And, I mean, like what guy is into that? It’s just so gross.”
Savannah flashed back on some delicious chapters in her own history book: sultry summer evenings in Tommy Stafford’s old ’56 Chevy, parked in moonlit Georgia orchards, the fragrance of fresh peaches scenting the night air.
Ah, yes...Tommy and few others since him had more than enjoyed her own ample curves.
She gave Bunny a sly grin. “Oh, you’d be surprised what guys like. What they really, really like. But that’s neither here nor there. I want to know what happened here yesterday afternoon when Daisy dropped by.”
“Daisy wasn’t here,” Bunny said a little too desperately. “Really! She wasn’t—”
“Okay, okay, so she was here for a little while,” Tiffy interjected. “She dropped by and asked me for a favor—like she always does—and when I didn’t come running to her rescue as usual, she left in a huff.”
“And what favor was that?”
Tiffy sighed and tossed her head in an impatient, It-Isn’t-About-Me-So-I-Can’t-Be-Bothered move. “She wanted me to go over her stupid lines with her. She was supposed to be on this stupid sitcom thing, and she had four friggen lines. Four! And, oh my gawd, you’d think she was going to be giving an Oscar-winning performance the way she was going on and on and on about it.”
“And did you, help her with her lines, that is?” Savannah asked.
“No way. I had things to do. I’m having a big Halloween party, and the party planner is screwing it up bigtime. She hasn’t even hired the fortune teller, or the belly dancers, or the makeup artist yet! I don’t have time to mess with stupid Daisy and her stupid lines.”
Savannah quirked one eyebrow as she contemplated the pleasure of tattooing the word STUPID across Tiffany Dante’s forehead. “You wouldn’t be just a wee little bit jealous now, would you?” she asked her.
“Jealous? Jealous? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t stoop to doing some stupid sitcom! I’m a real actress. I’ve trained with Beverly Diamond and Malcolm Whitmore! Do you know who they are?”
“Not a clue.”
“Well, that figures because you aren’t in the business. They are the most prestigious acting coaches in the world. And I studied under both of them last July. I have an agent, and a Screen Actors Guild card, and fantastic head shots and everything! Stupid Daisy wouldn’t even have this little sitcom walk-on if it weren’t for me! Jealous of Daisy O’Neil, that fat, no talent cow? That’ll be the day!”
Savannah listened to the tirade, watched the young woman’s face contort with pure, hot rage. And Savannah asked herself the standard question she always asked when interviewing potential suspects:
Is this person capable of hurting someone...really, seriously harming another human being?
Tiffany Dante was only three degrees away from frothing at the mouth, from having her eyes bug out of her head like a cartoon character.
Yes, Savannah thought. This spoiled rotten little brat could hurt another person. Badly.
Or pay someone to.
She looked at the two girls, Bunny and Kiki. Especially Bunny, who so obviously ached to be a Tiffy clone.
Savannah thought, Tiffany Dante is perfectly capable of doing it herself, paying someone . . . or manipulating others to do harm to a perceived enemy. No doubt about it.
Deep in her gut, Savannah felt a stirring of very real fear. Fear for Daisy O’Neil. Fear for her worried mother. Fear that this girl in front of her, a child who had apparently been raised without boundaries or empathy, could have done something truly terrible.
She stepped closer to Tiffany, deliberately invading her space, and fixed her with a laser stare that had melted far harder-bitten characters than Tiffy Dante would ever be. This time it was Tiffany who looked away, breaking eye contact.
“I’m going to find Daisy O’Neil,” Savannah said, her voice low and even, but with an ominous underlying tone. “I’m not going to rest until I find her. And when I do, she had better be alive and healthy. Or someone is going to pay a very, very dear price for hurting her
.”
The girls said nothing. But Savannah carefully noted all three of their facial expressions. Tiffany looked cocky, as usual. Bunny seemed a bit nervous, maybe worried.
But it was the look in Kiki’s eyes that bothered Savannah most. Kiley Wallace looked sad, deeply sad... and guilty.
And that didn’t bode well for Daisy O’Neil.
Savannah left the girls to ponder her threat and headed back to the house. Entering by the same door she had exited in the breakfast room, she could hear male voices in a nearby room. And from the tone of those voices, she surmised that Dirk’s interview with Andrew Dante was going even worse than before.
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