Death by Chocolate
Page 25
He stood and looked toward Marie’s gardener’s cottage where his daughter was. Tears filled his eyes and spilled down his face. “And who’s going to help Gilly once I’m gone?”
“I will,” Savannah told him. “I’m sure that Marie will. We’ll do everything we can for her.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I give you a ride to the station?”
He nodded.
“Then, let’s go.”
Chapter
25
The champagne was cold, the food good, the company excellent... but as Savannah looked around her dinner table at her Moonlight Magnolia cohorts, she couldn’t say she was in a particularly celebratory mood.
Sitting next to her at the table, John seemed to sense her sadness. He turned to her, reached for her hand, and enclosed it between his. “What’s wrong, love?” he said, searching her eyes. “You’re usually in a cheery state of mind when you’ve nabbed a scoundrel. You seem rather melancholy this evening.”
“I guess that’s because I don’t really consider this guy a scoundrel. Just a man who did something very wrong and very foolish.”
From across the table, Cordele was watching and listening. She seemed to have something to say, but was holding back.
“Go on.... spit it out,” Savannah told her. “Obviously you have an opinion on the subject.”
Cordele shrugged. “I was just thinking about a conversation you and I had about how important justice is. You seemed to think then that the only way to have justice was to punish the criminal. Looks like maybe you’ve changed your mind.”
The rest of the table fell silent, and Savannah could feel Dirk and Tammy staring at her, maybe waiting for a Reid family fight to break out.
But she was too tired and too depressed to fight.
“I haven’t changed my mind, Cordele,” she said. “Sydney Linton took a life, and he’ll get what he deserves. I just feel sorry for little Gilly. She’ll find out about all of this sooner or later, and—as you would put it—she’ll have some major issues to work out because of it.”
“I thought you talked to Angela Herriot about Gilly this afternoon,” Tammy said.
“I did. She said she’d send a social worker right out to evaluate the situation. And I also talked to Burt Maxwell about his daughter’s drug problems and the need for a stable, healthy environment for his granddaughter—especially now that Sydney won’t be on the scene.”
“What did he say?” Ryan asked.
“He assured me that he’ll look into getting custody of Gilly. He also said that he’ll make sure Louise doesn’t fire Marie. Apparently he has financial resources of his own that Martin Streck hadn’t plundered. He may even move back to the mansion and keep Gilly there. I got the idea that he and Kaitlin might be considering something permanent in the way of a relationship.”
“That’d be good for the kid, too,” Dirk said.
“That’s what I figured.”
“She’s going to be fine, love,” John said, squeezing her hand. “You worry too much.”
Cordele gave Savannah a warm smile across the table that she wasn’t expecting. “My older sister has a big heart where kids are concerned,” she said. “Always has had. She and my grandmother practically raised us, you know.”
Savannah held her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop... the part about how awful everything had been in spite of her and Gran’s efforts. But it didn’t. Cordele ended her statement there, on that rare note of praise.
“How fortunate for you that—” Ryan’s words were interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door.
Savannah glanced at her watch. It was nine o’clock. A little late for company. Especially visitors that practically knocked your door off its hinges.
“Who the heck is that?” she said, getting to her feet.
Three more volleys resounded through the house before Savannah could reach the door and open it. Standing there on her porch was a red-faced, furious Louise Maxwell.
Savannah opened the screen and stepped outside. She certainly didn’t intend to invite any sort of Louise into her house, let alone an angry one.
“What do you want, and why are you bothering me at my home?” she demanded.
Louise shook an angry finger in her face. “You... are trying to get my kid taken away from me! A social worker came out to my place this afternoon. Said he was working for Child Protective Services, investigating a complaint that Gilly isn’t being properly taken care of.”
“Is everything all right out there?” Dirk said from just inside the door.
From the corner of her eye, Savannah could see all her friends and Cordele standing behind him with serious, ready-to-do-battle looks on their faces.
“Everything’s just fine,” she said. “Louise here isn’t happy that I reported her to the CPS.”
“Then it was you!” Louise was practically spitting, she was so furious. She took a step closer to Savannah. “He wouldn’t tell me who reported me, but my dad says you called him, too, this afternoon and complained about the way I take care of my kid.”
“You don’t take care of your kid. That’s the problem. Gilly’s taking care of herself. She—”
Crack.
Savannah saw it coming. And for a split second, she considered blocking the hand that reached out and slapped her across the cheek. With her karate skills, she could have easily grabbed Louise’s arm in mid-strike, twisted it, and sent her to the porch deck with one easy movement.
But sometimes... karate just wasn’t enough.
She let Louise slap her.
Then she pulled back her arm, made a fist, and let it fly. A moment later, Louise was doing a graceful somersault off the porch and onto the sidewalk. Her landing, however, was far less elegant than her flight.
Louise ended up flat on her back, where she rolled around on the ground, shrieking in pain and holding her jaw. From the cracking sound Savannah had heard when she’d made contact, she guessed was at least dislocated, if not broken.
“I’m going to sue you,” Louise yelled as she scrambled to her feet, still holding her face with both hands. “I’m going to have you arrested, you lousy bitch. I’m going to—”
“Oh, shut up and go home,” Savannah told her. Then she chuckled. ‘You might wanna stop by the hospital on the way, though, and get that jaw x-rayed.”
It wasn’t until Savannah was back in her house with the door closed behind her, her friends and sister gathered around her, that she started to genuinely feel happy again.
Maybe she’d gotten a guy arrested today for murder, a guy that she really liked. But she’d also had the privilege of decking Louise Maxwell.
The day wasn’t a complete write-off.
* * *
After the Magnolia team had finished celebrating and had gone home, Savannah sat in the living room with Cordele, who seemed a bit less morose than usual. It was a welcome change.
“I was thinking of going home tomorrow,” she said as she reached for Diamante and pulled the cat onto the sofa beside her. “Classes start up again in about a week and a half, and I’ve got things to do at home.”
“That’s too bad,” Savannah said, stretching her legs out on the ottoman and settling back in her chair. “I was thinking that since my case is closed, I’m pretty much free and clear for a few days.”
Cordele perked up. “Yes.... and....?”
“And I was thinking that since my sister is visiting me all the way from Georgia, maybe we could spend some quality time together. We could hop in the Mustang and head up the Pacific Coast Highway. Drive up to Big Sur, hike around in the woods up there, walk on the beach, hang out, you know.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m not exactly rolling in the dough, so we’ll have to stay in cheap motels and eat fast food.... or cheap produce, if you prefer.”
“Fast food’s okay, once in a while.”
“Sound good?”
“Sounds great!”
&
nbsp; “There’s just one thing.”
Cordele’s smile evaporated. “I know, I know... no talking about the past.”
“No talking about bad things in the past. We can’t pretend that our childhoods were rosy, but we can set them aside for a few days and get to know each other all over again in the present, can’t we?”
Cordele studied Savannah’s face for a long time, then said, ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? You just ‘set it aside.’ That’s how you cope with what happened to us.”
“I have to, Cordele. It’s the only way I can live.”
”Then you’ve really forgiven them—Mom and Dad?”
“If you mean, have I forgotten what happened? No. I remember. But I deliberately make myself not dwell on it. It’s over.”
“Don’t you feel like....” Cordele paused, searching for the words. “Like they still owe you somehow for what they did... for what they didn’t do?”
“No. They don’t owe me squat. To want something from them is to be tied to them, waiting for something I’m never going to get. Why bother?”
Cordele sniffed and reached for the box of tissues on the end table. “I wonder if Mom and Dad did their best. I wonder if they were lousy parents because they didn’t know any better or just didn’t give a damn.”
“Who knows? Who cares?”
When Savannah saw the look of pain cross her sister’s face, she left her chair and moved over to the sofa to sit beside her.
“I care,” Cordele said. ‘That’s who.”
Savannah took her in her arms and rocked her, as she had when she was a child. She smoothed the short dark hair. “I know you care, sweetie,” she said. “I know you want to know. But hell, they probably don’t even know. At this rate, you’re going to spend your whole life trying to figure out what was inside somebody else’s head. You’re going to take all those classes and read all those books, and search your memory and your soul and you’re still never going to know.”
Cordele pulled back enough to look into her sister’s eyes. “So what do I do?” she asked. “How do I stop?”
“One day, one moment at a time. As many times as you need to, tell yourself, ‘It’s over. It’s gone. It doesn’t matter anymore.’ Just like you do with those books you love so much, you turn the page. Same book, okay, but new chapter.”
Cordele dried her eyes and blew her nose. A faint smile played across her face. “Can we really go on a road trip up the coast?”
“You’re damned tootin’! First thing tomorrow morning, right after breakfast. Okay?”
Cordele’s smile broadened, and Savannah caught a glimpse of a little girl she had known long ago in Georgia, one she still loved dearly.
“Okay,” Cordele said. She drew a deep breath of resolve. “And we’re going to turn the page and write a new chapter.”
Savannah kissed her sister’s tear-damp cheeks. “Sugar darlin’, the best is yet to come!”
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