He snapped the phone shut.
“Teenager didn’t make it home last night?” Savannah asked.
“Yeah, an eighteen-year-old named Daisy O’Neil. She’s a friend of that Dante kid….” He thought for a moment. “You know, that gal that’s always in the tabloids, the skinny one.”
“Tiffy Dante.” Tammy turned to Gran. “She’s sort of a local celebrity around here, she and her friends. Her dad is filthy rich, and she and her high society girlfriends are always getting into some sort of trouble.”
Gran waved a dismissive hand. “Oh please. I know who Tiffy Dante and her girlfriends are—the Skeleton Key Three. I read the papers and watch some TV. I mean, we may live out in the toolies there in Georgia, and McGill may be nothing but a wide spot in the road. But I’ll bet you that more girls at McGill High School know who Tiffy Dante is than know the name of the first lady of the United States of America. Sorry state of affairs, but true.”
“Oh yeah,” Dirk said. “I’ve heard of them, too. Read something about some sex–drug parties they were having there at her father’s mansion last year when…oh…sorry, Mrs. Reid.”
Gran gave him a wry look. “We know about sex and drugs there in McGill, Georgia, too.” She grinned. “Not that we’d have nothin’ to do with either one.”
“No, of course not.” Savannah turned to Dirk. “So, who did you say is missing? Tiffy? Bunny? Or the third one…what’s her name…?”
“Kiki,” Tammy supplied. “The third one’s name is Kiki.”
“But it’s Daisy O’Neil who’s missing,” Dirk reminded them.
“Where do they get these names?” Gran said. “Can you imagine sticking a perfectly sweet, innocent little baby with a stupid tag like Kiki for the rest of her life?”
Savannah bit her tongue and decided not to mention that Gran had named one of her sons Sebastian and one of her daughters Annameena. Gran might be over eighty, but she still had a fast hand, and Savannah was within slapping distance.
“So,” Savannah said, “if the Skeleton Key Three is Tiffy Dante and her friends Bunny and Kiki, who is Daisy O’Neil?”
Tammy was fast with the answer. “Daisy is sort of a hanger-on, an appendage to the Key Three. She’s not as rich and certainly not as thin as the others. I’ve seen her pictured many times with them. She’s never quite as put together as they are. Though I must say, she’s the prettiest of the group, in my opinion.”
“Well,” Dirk said, rising from the rug and shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Whether she’s rich or thin or good-looking, I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that she didn’t come home last night and her mother is worried about her, and Tiffy’s dad, Andrew Dante, is raising a stink about us looking for her.”
“And when you’ve got the kind of wealth that Andrew Dante has,” John said, “it’s enough to make certain that your complaint is heard.”
“Yeah, the chief is after the captain to get after me. So, I’ll have to call it a night here.” He turned to Savannah. “Thanks for the good dinner, Van.”
She didn’t even bother to ask; she just started to wrap up some brownies and fudge in a napkin to go.
More than anything, she was itching to tag along. But Gran had only arrived from Georgia two days before, and with her other guests there, it would just be too rude. Southern hospitality just didn’t allow for such things.
She knew Dirk was thinking the same thing as he glanced around the room, then gave her a questioning look.
“Oh, go ahead and go,” Gran said, standing up and offering a hand up to Savannah. “You know you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” she lied.
“You do, too. It’s as plain as the fudge on your face.” Gran reached down and wiped a smear of chocolate off her granddaughter’s lip. “Don’t stick around on my account. I’ll be trottin’ off to bed in a minute anyway. Gotta read my Bible and my True Informer. There’ll probably be something in there about this missing girl. You know how they beat everybody else to the scoop.”
Gran’s unwavering confidence in the True Informer’s journalistic integrity had always amazed Savannah. Whether something was written between the well-worn leather covers of her King James Bible or within the pulp mill pages of the national tabloid, it was gospel, according to Gran.
“Go ahead and go with him, Savannah,” Ryan said as he stood and stretched his long limbs. “John and I have an early tee time at the club tomorrow morning. We’ll be getting going ourselves.”
Only Tammy appeared to mind. Her lower lip protruded in predictable fashion. Tammy didn’t mind the fact that Savannah would be leaving as much as that she wouldn’t be accompanying her.
Savannah felt for her, but not enough to invite her along. There was a limit to how many civilians Dirk could bring with him when he was on the job. And since Savannah brought along carbo-rich goodies and Tammy irritated him to distraction, Savannah was always his first choice.
“You coming?” he asked her.
She grinned, winked at him, and out of respect for her grandmother, decided not to give him her usual X-rated reply to that question. “Absolutely,” she said. “Let me get my weapon and—”
“You won’t need it,” he said with a smirk. “I’ve got mine. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “I’ll just bring along my own, if you don’t mind. I’ve seen you at the target range.”
Chapter 2
Savannah gazed out the window as they passed one mansion after another after another in the exclusive enclave of Spirit Hills. As they drove deeper into the valley, each estate seemed grander than the last. Here in the heart of the canyon, the trees grew thicker, and the road curved more tightly and rose in elevation with each twist and turn. And with every crook in the road, more and more of the panoramic view was revealed.
If you lived in San Carmelita and were rich enough, you could afford to live in Spirit Hills. If you were filthy, stinking rich, you could afford to live on one of the hillsides at the end of the canyon, overlooking the valley, the town, and the Pacific Ocean. And you could feel pretty darned good about it.
Or at least, Savannah figured they should feel pretty good about it. Heck, if she lived here, she would!
In McGill, the little rural town where she had been born, most people had looked down on her immediate family. Her barfly mom and never home trucker dad had made pretty sure of that. Their deeds and misdeeds had secured the family’s reputation as white trash in the better part of three counties. Other than turning out a new baby every year and naming each one after a town in Georgia, neither of them had accomplished anything that would have garnered any respect from their neighbors.
But Granny Reid was respected and deeply loved by all who knew her—with the possible exception of Leon Hafner, who respected her but harbored precious little affection for her since the skillet incident. And when the courts had taken Savannah and her brothers and sisters away from her parents and put them in Gran’s care, their lives had taken a decided turn for the better.
But not before Savannah had learned the pain of having people look down on you. Way down. And she had to think that living here on what seemed like the top of the world and literally looking down on everyone else…that would go a long way toward healing any inferiority complexes one might have incurred during a rocky childhood.
“Do you ever wonder what they eat in joints like this?”