Poisoned Tarts. G. A. McKevett

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.

      But that was no great surprise. Dirk was highly skilled at leaning on street thugs and threatening the truth out of them. He was a lot less accomplished in dealing with “regular” folk.

      In fact, most regular folk considered Dirk Coulter boorish, overbearing, and antagonistic, and they spent as little time as possible in his presence. And while Savannah agreed with their evaluation of him, she also knew that most of his less than gracious behavior sprang from his deep concern for crime victims and his passion to find justice for them.

      And realizing that, she had decided long ago to cut the guy a lot of slack. She felt the same way he did about crime solving, and for the same reasons. She just had slightly better manners, having been raised by a Southern granny.

      Except for abusive jerks in grocery stores.

      And cocky, arrogant teenagers.

      And the occasional street punk who rubbed her the wrong way and…

      Okay, so maybe she wasn’t all that much better behaved than Dirk. She could live with that.

      As she walked from the breakfast room into the kitchen, she heard Dirk saying something about search warrants, and Dante reply with the name of a powerful, prestigious local attorney.

      No, things weren’t going all that well in the Coulter-Dante interview.

      Any business of her own that she wanted to conclude had to be done right away. She had a feeling she and Dirk were due to be tossed out on their backsides at any moment.

      Hoping she would run into the maid again, she walked through the formal dining room and back into the great room. But instead of the maid, she ran into yet another young woman.

      Sitting at the grand piano, running the fingers of one hand lightly over the keys in a practiced scale, the woman appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She also looked deeply sad. With a pretty, heart-shaped face, enormous blue eyes, and extremely short, platinum blond hair, she had a fey quality about her, exuding fragility and vulnerability.

      She, too, was abnormally slender, but instead of the Skeleton Key silk pajamas uniform, she was wearing an exquisite dressing gown of silver jacquard. And even though the fabric was most complimentary to her figure and coloring, the style seemed more be-fitting to an older woman.

      She looked a little like a kid playing dress up in her mother’s clothes.

      Except that she appeared anything but playful. Her big blue eyes were filled with tears, and her head was bowed in a defeatist pose as she practiced her scale with first one hand and then the other.

      Savannah took a few steps closer, and the woman noticed her. She ended her playing instantly and stood.

      “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. I…uh…you probably want to see Tiffany. I’ll go get her for you.”

      “No, that’s okay, thanks,” Savannah replied, thinking that even though this woman was wearing a dressing gown, she must be a visitor, probably another friend of Tiffy’s. No one would feel this ill at ease in their own home. She seemed painfully out of place.

      “But she’s been expecting you,” she said, holding her robe tightly closed in front of her. “She was really upset that you weren’t here earlier, and you know how she gets when, well, you know.”

      “I’m sorry. Obviously, you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” Savannah held out her hand. “My name is Savannah Reid. And you are…?”

      “Savannah…? Oh, I thought you were the party coordinator. You aren’t here about Tiffy’s Halloween party?”

      “No, I’m with Detective Coulter.” She nodded in the direction of the raised male voices. “We’re investigating the disappearance of one of Tiffany’s friends, Daisy O’Neil.”

      Savannah watched the woman’s eyes closely to see what effect her words might have. But nothing seemed to register, beyond the sadness she had already shown.

      “Daisy is missing? What do you mean, ‘missing’? Is that why her mother was here?”

      Apparently, this member of the entourage is seriously out of the loop, Savannah thought.

      “Yes. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon. Didn’t come home last night, and hasn’t contacted her mother in over twenty-four hours. Pam O’Neil is terribly worried.”

      “I’m sure she is. That isn’t like Daisy at all. Daisy’s a sweet girl, very responsible. And she and her mom are really close.”

      The genuine concern and compassion in the young woman’s eyes made Savannah think that maybe all of Tiffy Dante’s friends weren’t shallow, callous brats.

      “I didn’t catch your name,” Savannah said.

      The woman extended her hand. When Savannah took it in her own, she noticed how cold and damp it was. “I’m Robyn Dante,” she said.

      Savannah searched her mental infobanks, trying to recall if the tabloids had ever mentioned Tiffany Dante having an older sister. The name did seem familiar, but she just couldn’t…

      “Robyn,” she murmured, trying to remember.

      “Yes.” The woman looked slightly embarrassed and once again, out of place and ill at ease. “I’m Robyn Dante…Mrs. Andrew Dante.”

      Again, her eyes flooded with tears. She blinked and looked away. “You know,” she said with a bitter tone, “queen of the castle. The mistress of al-l-l this.”

      She gave a wide sweep with her arm, encompassing the bright pink room, the garish, raspberry velvet furniture, the enormous painting of her stepdaughter that dominated the room from its place of honor over the fireplace.

      Mrs. Andrew Dante sighed, shook her head, and added, “Lucky me.”