Poisoned Tarts (4 page)

Andrew Dante had it all.

Or at least, one might say more than his share of it all.

If it just hadn't been for the pink walls.

They weren't a delicate, apple blossom pink. They weren't a hint of smoky pink.

Nope, not even close to anything that could be called classy,
Savannah thought. The walls were the color of the medicine that Granny Reid had dispensed by the bottleful over the years, curing everything from stomachaches to adolescent crabbiness. And while it might have been a welcome color to a person suffering from what Gran called “the green apple quick step,” it didn't belong on walls. And certainly not the walls of a magnificent mansion.

They passed through the foyer and into a great room, following the ever escalating sound of the argument. Again, Savannah was struck by the sheer enormity of the room. The fireplace to her right was large enough for even a tall person to stand inside. And she could see at least three distinct seating groupings: one around the hearth, another near an ornately carved bar to the left, and another at the far end of the room, close to a nine-foot concert grand piano.

But for all its grandeur, the pink curse seemed to have infected this room as well. The walls were a slightly less vulgar shade of pink, but the furniture was upholstered in shockingly bright raspberry velvet.

Again, Savannah wondered who might be the source of this decorating nightmare. But her curiosity was satisfied when she saw a life-sized painting that hung over the fireplace.

The oil was of a pretty, if somewhat haughty-looking, young woman in a ball gown, her platinum blond hair spilling over her bare shoulders. The voluminous dress gave the impression that its wearer was floating in a cloud of organza…bright pink, of course. And in the painting's background was a garden of roses, again every unnatural shade of pink imaginable.

Something told Savannah that the teenager in the painting had been responsible for choosing the color scheme for this palatial home.

And definitely should not have been,
she added to herself, as they hurried past islands of velvet, diamond-tucked furniture to the other end of the room where the woman and man stood arguing beside the piano.

“The cops are going to be here any minute now,” the tall, blond Viking of a man was telling a tiny redhead who glared up at him with clenched fists and a look of fury on her tear-wet face. “And I'm going to have you arrested for…oh, I don't know…disturbing my peace or something like that. I told you to get out of here or—”

“I am not leaving here until I've spoken to that no-good brat of a daughter of yours. I want to know what she's done with my Daisy, and don't tell me she isn't here because I saw her look out her upstairs bedroom window when I drove up.”

“It wasn't her,” he said. “It was probably one of her friends or a maid or whatever. And it doesn't matter anyhow whether she's here or not because I've already talked to her, and she said she doesn't have a clue where Daisy is.”

“She's a liar! A rotten, spoiled brat, dirty little liar. She's hurt Daisy. Those girls have hurt her and—”

The blond man was handsome, his features fine and chiseled, his physique muscular beneath his polo shirt and designer jeans, but his face turned ugly with anger at the insult. He took a step closer to the redhead just as Dirk and Savannah reached them. “You better watch your mouth when you're talking about my daughter! Tiffy's a good person who's done a lot for your kid! A whole lot! And you don't appreciate it! Why I ought to—”

“No! Hold it right there!” Dirk said as he took hold of the man's arm. With his other hand, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his badge, and held it practically under the man's nose. “You called the police? Well, we're here. So everybody just settle down till we get this all ironed out. What's going on around here?”

“My daughter is missing,” the red-haired woman said as she started to cry. She covered her eyes with her hands for a moment and let the sobs overtake her. Then, after ten seconds or so, she recovered herself and managed to say, “My Daisy is gone, and she would
never
have just disappeared on her own like this. Those girls she hangs out with…those pampered, rotten girls…they've done something bad to her. I just know it! They've always treated her like dirt, made fun of her, used her, and acted like they were way better than her because she doesn't have
their
money. And now, now I know they've hurt her. They've done something horrible to her. I can just feel it.”

When she dissolved into tears again, Dirk gave Savannah a helpless look—the one he always gave her when he had a crying female on his hands.

Dirk didn't particularly mind if a male perpetrator was screaming with fury or blubbering like a kindergartner who had just been told there was no Santa. But when it came to weeping women, Dirk caved every time.

Savannah reached for the distraught mother and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “Now, now,” she said. “Why don't you and I come over here and sit down and talk for a while. You tell me all about Daisy and what's been going on with her, and we'll leave Detective Coulter with…uh…is it Mr. Andrew Dante?”

Dante nodded, his pale blue eyes sweeping over Savannah's curvaceous figure with practiced skill, missing nothing.

Savannah glanced down, saw the wedding ring on his left hand, and decided that she didn't like him much. Curves or no curves, married men had no business noticing…or at least, being quite so darned obvious about it.

“Yes,” he said, giving her a slightly lascivious smile. “I'm Andrew Dante. And you are…?”

“Savannah Reid,” Dirk barked. “She's with me. And you and I need to have a little talk. Come along.”

Dirk directed Dante out of the room as Savannah led Daisy O'Neil's mother to the nearest sofa and sat her down.

Fishing some tissues out of her purse, Savannah handed them to her and said, “I'm so sorry, Ms. O'Neil. I really am. I can't even imagine what you must be going through, but I'm sure it's just awful.”

She nodded and sniffed. “It is. I'm just worried sick. I didn't get a wink of sleep last night, and I'm shaking like a leaf inside
and
out.”

“Have you eaten anything today?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don't think so.”

“We'll get you something to eat as soon as we finish talking here,” Savannah promised her. “You have to rest and eat at least enough to keep your strength up, or you won't be able to help Daisy.”

As the woman wiped her eyes and blew her nose, Savannah gave her a quick glance over. She might be attractive if her eyes weren't red and swollen, her bright red hair was combed, and her simple cotton shirt and jeans didn't look as though she'd slept in them.

Savannah judged her to be in her early forties, but she seemed to have experienced some rather difficult years. The deep lines on her tanned face and the roughness of her hands suggested that she worked outside in the sun with little time for feminine niceties like salon manicures.

Reaching over and placing her hand on the woman's freckled forearm, Savannah said, “Ms. O'Neil, please tell me about your Daisy.”

The mother ran a trembling hand through her tousled hair. “What do you want to know?”

“What sort of girl is she? Has she ever run away before? Things like that.”

“No. Daisy's a very good kid. She's never given me a bit of trouble. She was on the honor role at school, and she's always hung out with nice kids. Well…until she went to a fancy club in Hollywood one night to celebrate a friend's birthday. That's when she got hooked up with this gang, these Skeleton Key girls.”

“So, you don't consider the Skeleton Key Three good kids?”

The mother gave her a disgusted look. “Oh, come on. You read the tabloids, or at least see them on the stands and read the headlines. They're trashy, these girls.” Looking around the opulent room, she added, “Having a ton of money doesn't make you classy…just more interesting to the media, I guess.”

Savannah smiled. “Well, what's more interesting than an extremely rich person? A rich person who behaves worse than we do. A rich person we can feel superior to.”

“Yeah, I guess that's a large part of the appeal.”

Savannah remembered some of the tabloid headlines she'd read, about how the cops had been called to hotel rooms where the Three had been throwing wild sex and drug parties. She thought of this good kid, this honor role student who had never given her mother a moment of trouble. She cleared her throat and asked one of the most obvious and difficult questions. “Have you ever had any reason to believe that Daisy does drugs of any kind?”

“No. Well, I think maybe some of these girls smoke pot or maybe take some of those party drugs when they go to clubs. But I don't let Daisy club hop with them…for that very reason.”

“Does Daisy attend their private parties, parties here at the mansion or…um…in hotels?”

Ms. O'Neil gave her a guarded, unhappy look. “She doesn't attend
those
parties. The ones you've read about in the paper.”

“Okay.” Savannah wasn't sure she believed that one, but apparently, Daisy's mom did. “Does she have a steady boyfriend? One she might have run away with? Or an ex-boyfriend she might be having problems with?”

“No one now. She had a boyfriend for a long time…over a year. She liked him a lot. But a couple of months ago, this Tiffy Dante made eyes at him or—more likely—flashed him some body part, and he dropped Daisy cold.”

“So, would you say that Daisy was depressed?”

The mother considered her answer a while before giving it. “No, not really. She was earlier this year. But Tiffy started taking acting lessons at a studio in Hollywood, and she let Daisy tag along—to keep her company on the drive, I suppose. And even though Tiffy wasn't doing all that well, Daisy took to it like you wouldn't believe! She's great. A natural actress. The teacher recommended her to an agent, and he landed a bit part for her in a sitcom. They start filming tomorrow, and she was so excited about it. That's why I know there's just no way possible that she would run away. She was like a kid counting the hours before Christmas morning.”

Savannah thought of her youngest sister, Atlanta, and her obsession with being a movie star someday. Or a country-singing Nashville hit. Or a runway model or…

“Yes, I'm sure she was
very
excited to have a part on a TV show,” she told the mother. “Most people would be jazzed about that, but especially a teenager.”

A rather ugly thought ran through Savannah's mind. “Uh, how did Tiffy and the other girls feel about Daisy's good fortune?”

“Tiffy was tiffed. Big time. But then, Tiffy's always miffed and throwing a temper tantrum about something. She couldn't understand why they would cast Daisy for a part when she's…well…she's not as slender as the other Skeleton Key Three. Daisy is…how do they say it? Pleasingly plump.”

“A full-figured beauty. Like me.” Savannah smiled.

The woman gave Savannah a quick look. “My Daisy is larger than you. And she's beautiful.”

With those words, the woman started to cry again, and Savannah searched her purse for more tissues.

“When was the last time you saw Daisy, Ms. O'Neil?”

She sniffed. “You can call me Pam,” she said. “And the last time I saw my daughter was when she left yesterday afternoon to come over here. She said she was going to be studying her lines with Tiffy, Kiki, and Bunny, that they'd offered to help her. That'll be the day, when
those
girls want to actually help my Daisy.”

“What time did she leave your house?”

She thought for a moment. “It must have been about four. I had only been home from work a few minutes when she told me she was leaving.”

“Where do you work, Pam?”

“I have a job with the city—road repair and maintenance. I'm a flagman. So you can see why my daughter is so enthralled with all this crap.” She waved her hand, indicating the house and its furnishings.

“Well, money on this kind of scale can turn anybody's head,” Savannah said softly, “especially an impressionable teenager.”

Reaching into her purse and pulling out her notebook and pen, Savannah asked, “Other than these girls, Tiffy, Bunny, and Kiki, does Daisy have any other friends she spends time with?”

“No. These girls just sort of absorbed her. She doesn't have time anymore for anybody or anything. Just hanging around here or tagging along behind them, when they allow her to, when they need somebody to make fun of and feel superior to.”

Glancing again at the ostentatious painting over the fireplace, it occurred to Savannah that Tiffy Dante probably felt superior to almost everyone. But if what Pam O'Neil was saying was true, it certainly did sound as though Daisy was the Omega dog in a pretty ruthless pack.