Just Desserts (32 page)

Bowman lifted his fingers to his mouth, chewed a hangnail for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Ah... no, she didn’t say anything like that.”

“Did anyone follow you here just now, Eric? Or did you even bother to check?” he asked, still staring out the window.

“No... I mean, nobody tried or I would have seen them. I’m good at spotting tails.”

“Thank you for coming to tell me this,” Paul said, turning abruptly from the window and walking toward the door.

“Then you’re not pissed, about the letter or anything?”

“Of course not. As you said, you didn’t write it. Why should I be upset?”

“Oh, okay ... thanks a lot. I really appreciate this, Mr. Connors.”

“Think nothing of it, Eric. You just run along home now, have a couple of six-packs, and relax. I hear they’re running
Terminator
and
Predator
tonight on cable.”

“Really? Neat! Thanks for the tip.”

“No problem. Have a nice evening.”

The moment the quintet saw Eric Bowman walk out the door they sighed.

“Damn,” Savannah said, “Connors didn’t say anything particularly incriminating.”

“Perhaps not,” Gibson replied, “but your young man was rather vocal about his activities.”

“But she isn’t worried about getting Bowman,” Tammy said, her pretty face pained with guilt. “It’s my boss she’s after.”

“Then she’s going to get her wish,” Ryan said thoughtfully as he stared at the silent figure on the screen. Paul Connors had returned to his desk and his paperwork.

“What do you mean?” Savannah asked.

“Look at him,” he said, placing the tip of his finger over Connors’s face. “He’s got the look. He’s going to try to kill Bowman.” He turned to Savannah. “What do you say, Savannah? Would that be enough to satisfy your need for justice? If you can’t get him on murder... how about attempted murder?”

Savannah stared at the screen, but not for long. “Sure,” she said. “I could live with that.”

“
D
o you ever feel like you’ve spent your life in closets?” Savannah shifted, trying to find room to breathe without stepping on Ryan’s feet or mashing Tammy any farther back into the cubicle.

“Actually, I decided to come out a long time ago,” Ryan said with a chuckle. “Closets are terribly stifling.”

“Very funny.”

“What?” Tammy could hardly be heard through the muffler of dirty, greasy-smelling clothes that were hung, stacked, and thrown into Eric Bowman’s utility closet.

“Never mind,” Savannah said. “It’s a long ... very sad story.”

“Well, I think it’s very exciting, trying to catch a killer.” Tammy moved closer to Savannah, her voice low and menacing, like a bad vaudeville villain. “Even if he is my boss,” she added sadly.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Ryan whispered. “I know it’s difficult because you feel as if you’re betraying a friend. But it has to be done.”

“How did you get to be so wise about these things?” she asked.

Savannah could hear the gush in her voice. It made her want to barf, especially when she could recall sounding the same way a couple of days ago.

“Most guys I know are real bastards,” Tammy continued, “but you’re so... so sensitive.”

“He’s got an inside track,” Savannah muttered.

She peered through the crack in the door and saw Eric, sitting exactly where they had placed him—in front of the television watching
Terminator,
a beer in his hand, a not-particularly-convincing casual look on his face.

“It wasn’t so hard to talk him into it,” she mused, remembering Eric’s conversation with Dirk, who was now hidden behind the broken-down entertainment center. “Even a guy who’s on his way to prison for the rest of his life needs a little ‘protection’ just to make sure he gets there in one piece.”

“I think you’re wrong about Mr. Connors,” Tammy said wistfully. “I mean, I know he hired Eric to kill those people, but I don’t believe he could actually do it himself.”

“Well,” Savannah said, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

As if responding to her cue, a knock sounded at the door.

Eric jumped as though someone had shoved a cherry bomb up his butt.

She saw Dirk’s hand, waving to him above the stereo, motioning him to go ahead and answer. Slowly, with a furtive look at the closet door, he did so.

“Who is it?” he asked, voice shaking.

“Paul Connors. I need to talk to you, just for a minute. There’s something I forgot to tell you... about the letter, that is.”

Cautiously, Eric eased the door open. Savannah reached for her Beretta. She could hear the soft, subtle sound of Ryan turning on his video camcorder.

“What is it?” Eric said as he stepped aside and allowed Connors to walk into the living room.

“I forgot to tell you that I never received any letter from anyone. Savannah Reid lied to you. She didn’t send it, and you didn’t either. There was no letter. Now does it make sense?”

The look of confusion that Eric gave Connors was genuine and profound. God, she thought,
he still doesn’t get it!

“I don’t get it,” Eric said.

Savannah shook her head in amazement.
Geez, I must be turning psychic!

“I know you don’t, Eric,” Paul Connors said wearily. “And that’s the problem. They’ve figured out it was you who committed the murders, but they suspect I put you up to it. Savannah Reid was just shaking you up a bit so you’d come running to me. And that’s just what you did. You may have led her straight to me. If it didn’t happen this round, it’s only a matter of time.”

Connors reached into his jacket and pulled out a small snub-nosed pistol. “I’m really sorry, Eric. This is all my fault. I should have hired someone a lot smarter than you for the job, but I couldn’t exactly go shopping in the Yellow Pages.”

Finally Eric
got
it. The color drained from his face as fast as it probably had from his victims’.

He glanced quickly at the entertainment center, a look that spoke volumes—and Connors heard every word.

“Damn you, you little—” He spun around toward the center, his gun held in both shaking hands. “Come out of there,” he yelled, “or I’ll fire one into the stereo.”

Dirk made a slight sound, enough to unnerve Connors even further. Savannah knew that he was creating a diversion for her.

Silently, she slipped from the closet. The squirt of WD-40 beforehand had done its job well; there was no sound at all.

“I said, ‘Come out of there!’ Right now!”

His voice was so shaky, Savannah knew that the slightest miscalculation on her part might cost Dirk his life.

Fortunately, they had played this scenario many times, and she had the necessary high level of self-confidence—attained by past successes.

She continued to creep forward, placing her feet lightly on the wooden floor to keep the old boards from creaking. Her attention, her vision narrowed to only one object in the entire universe: the gun in Paul’s hand.

Slowly, Dirk began to rise from behind the stereo. Again, drawing Connors’s attention away from her and to himself.

“Don’t shoot,” Dirk said. “You don’t want to do that. It isn’t necessary, really.

Using the fact that he was preoccupied with Dirk, Savannah sneaked up beside him, swinging one leg forward and in a sweeping arc around the side of him.

As intended, her foot connected with the gun and sent it flying against a far wall.

In the same instant Dirk swooped down on Eric, who looked as though nothing would make him happier than being somewhere else.
Anywhere
else. Three seconds later both suspects were in cuffs.

Connors appeared to be deeply confused. “But no one tailed me here. I made double, triple sure of it. I
wasn’t
followed.”

“We didn’t need to follow you,” Dirk said, brushing the behind-the-furniture dust bunnies from his slacks. “We just knew you were coming. And, bless your little pea-pickin’ heart, you didn’t let us down.”

Ryan and Tammy had emerged from the closet, Ryan attending his equipment, Tammy looking miserable.

“You?” Connors’s eyes grew wide. “You helped them do this to me? Tammy, why?”

Tammy couldn’t seem to say anything. Savannah’s heart went out to her; she was obviously in a lot of pain.

“You were responsible for two people’s deaths. And you were trying for a third,” Savannah told him. “You didn’t leave her much choice.”

A few minutes later the entire troop filed out of the small apartment and down the walkway to the cars in the lot.

Once the prisoners had been neatly tucked into backseats, Savannah turned to Dirk. “By the way... ‘your little pea-pickin’ heart’? Where the hell did you hear that?”

“You.”

“Mmm-mmm... I just might make a rebel of you yet, Yankee boy.”

Savannah took a sip of the cognac and felt its warm vapor roll across her tongue and through her head before it burned a deliciously warm trail to her stomach. Then she nibbled just a bit from the tiny square of French dark chocolate, straight from Lyons. It was without a doubt the nicest she had ever tasted—and when it came to chocolate, she had thought she had tried them all.

“Like the combination?” Beverly asked from her seat on the chaise lounge nearby. Flames flickered orange and blue in the fireplace, bathing the library in a surreal amber glow.

Ah,
Savannah thought, soaking in the ambience,
I could get used to this.
But common sense told her not to. After all, she was a retired cop who—
Get real, kid. You’re an unemployed, fired cop. You’ll be doing good to buy macaroni and cheese, let alone fine chocolate and cognac.

But as quickly as the disturbingly accurate thoughts appeared, she took another sip of the cognac and sent them on their way. There would be plenty of time to worry about the mundane concerns of life tomorrow. For tonight she was sitting in luxury’s very comfortable lap, and she intended to enjoy it.

“You did a good job, Savannah,” Beverly said. “I’m very grateful to you.”

In spite of her words Savannah could hear the sadness behind them. “I wish the outcome had been less painful for you,” she said.

Beverly shrugged. “I wish I had been wiser. I wish I had followed my better judgment and not fallen in love with someone other than my husband. I wish I had seen how much Paul loved me and what he was capable of doing. I wish I could have prevented him from harming Jonathan and Fiona. I wish...”

Savannah gave her what she hoped was a comforting smile. “You did your best, Beverly. In the end, that’s all any of us can do. And as far as wishing goes... I save my wishes for things that can still come true. There’s no point in wasting them on the past.”

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh as she stood and brought over the crystal decanter and the golden foil box with its elegant delicacies nestled in white and black papers. She poured a dollop of the cognac into Savannah’s snifter and offered her another chocolate.

Rather than hurt her hostess’s feelings, she took two.

Beverly returned to the chaise and stretched out again; she looked tired, exhausted. The ordeal had taken so much out of her. Savannah hated to see the loss of such valuable life energy.

“I just can’t believe I didn’t see it,” Beverly continued. “Paul lent Jonathan all that money just to bail him out of trouble—and help me—and then Jonathan intended to skip with it all. I thought he was a better man than that.”

She paused and took a deep breath. Savannah knew that the tears were very near the surface. Even a strong woman like Beverly Winston had her limits.

“And Paul... even after he found out that I was seeing Norman, he was still loyal to me. Hiring Bowman to kill Jonathan and Fiona, having him follow you around and make sure that you found that videotape in Jonathan’s apartment. Even having him attack you... in his own sick way, I think it was all done out of loyalty to me. He wanted to hurt those who were betraying me.”

“True,” Savannah said, “but don’t forget, he wanted his money back, too.”

Beverly nodded. “If it isn’t sex, it’s money. Why is it always one of the two?”

Savannah looked down at the check that Beverly had pressed into her hand along with the chocolates. With the generous tip there was enough here to pay several months of living expenses, and maybe buy a little something from Victoria’s Secret.

“Hey, they make the world go ’round. I’d like to believe it’s love, but it’s money and sex.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

Savannah grinned. Maybe now that this mess was all over, she’d invite Dirk up to “see her sometime.”

“Because they’re both rather nice, don’t you think?”

Beverly’s face lit up with a youthful smile that dissolved some of the stress from her handsome features. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Oh, well, I’ve lost my life’s work, but what the hell, I still have Norman. And I have all of this ...” She waved her hand, indicating the opulence of the room. “Could be worse.”

Savannah considered her own assets: Dirk’s love and loyalty, new friendships with Ryan, Gibson, and Tammy, a fresh direction in a job that she loved ... only this time she was her own boss.

“Yep,” she said, thoughtfully. “Could be a lot worse.”

Atlanta stood, suitcases in hand, a mournful look on her face. This time the pimps and perverts in LAX were keeping their distance. She didn’t look like a fresh Georgia peach, ripe for the picking. She looked like a young woman who had grown up a lot in only a few weeks.

“I’ll miss you,” Savannah said, giving her and her assorted luggage a collective hug.

“Yeah, sure,” she replied doubtfully. “You’ll miss me like a briar in your butt.”

“No, ’Lanta, I’ll miss your pretty face, your singing around the house, the smiles you gave me when I came home... usually.”

“Me, too.”

Atlanta bit her lip and glanced over at the line of passengers who were disappearing through the gate.

“Gotta go, sweetie,” Savannah told her.

“I know. But there’s something I want you to know before I leave.”

“Sure, what’s that?”