Death by Chocolate Read Free Page A

thud as
Big Cool Swaggering Cousin Ferris hit the floor, too.
    Rodney felt the weight of
somebody on him, mashing the air out of him. Somebody heavy. Strong hands
grabbed his shoulders and flipped him over onto his belly. His bloody nose
smacked against the floor, and for a moment he saw red and white stars of pain
flashing through his head. The same somebody twisted his hands behind him,
yanking his shoulders and elbows half out of their joints.
    In the corner of his eye he
could see just enough bright yellow and pink flowers to realize.... it was
Grandma!
    He could hear Ferris
yelling, “What? What the hell? What do you think you’re doing, Pops?”
    “Arresting you, numskull.
And don’t call me Pops or I’ll put these cuffs around your neck instead of your
wrists and cinch ‘em down good and tight.”
    “Got another pair of
cuffs?” he heard the woman on top of him say.
    “Nope.”
    “Here’s some duct tape,”
said a male voice from the crowd behind the counter. “Will that do?”
    “Sure. Just wind it around
here if you don’t mind.”
    Rodney heard the rip of the
tape, saw some brightly polished black shoes appear an inch or so from his
forehead. And some gray pinstriped trouser legs.
    The bank manager had been
wearing a pinstriped suit, he recalled, as the gravity of his situation began
to press down upon him.... along with the grandma’s knees in the small of his
back. The old gal had thrown him around like she was some sort of sumo wrestler
or something.
    Shit, Rodney thought. It’s
all on camera.
    By tomorrow the whole
country, everybody he knew or would ever know, would have seen his disgrace:
Old lady and old man take out desperate bank robbers with nothin’ but a fuckin’
walker. Film at eleven.
     
     
    Savannah sat on her sofa,
pen and tablet in hand, jotting down notes furiously as she stared at the
television screen, determined to miss nothing.
    “Gourmet Network again?”
Tammy Hart asked as she bounced across Savannah’s living room to the desk in the
corner that served as “Control Central” for the Moonlight Magnolia Detective
Agency. Not that there was any business to speak of that needed controlling at
the moment.
    “Yeah. Shhhh....” Savannah
said, scribbling ingredients and instructions for the Queen of Chocolate’s
latest creation: Deep Dark Chocolate Passion Layer Cake. “I gotta get this
down. I’m going to make it for you guys tonight when the boys come over for the
weekly briefing.”
    “They’re not coming for the
briefing,” Tammy said as she pulled her long, straight blond hair back with a
scrunchy and sat down at the desk. “It would only take a second to ‘brief’ them
on the phone. ‘Nothing’s happening. No clients. Not a one.’ End of briefing.
They’re coming over for the chocolate.”
    “Of course they are. That’s
why I’m having the briefing.... an excuse to bake something chocolate. At this
point in my life, it’s my foremost fleshly delight.”
    Tammy threw the switch on
the computer and, once it had booted up, began to enter the accounts, brief as
they were. That was one thing Savannah loved about her: Tammy assisted, even
when there was nothing to assist with. And that quality nearly made up for the
fact that Tammy was young, energetic, bouncy, and thin as a runway model.
    “This time, I swear, I’m
going to get it right,” Savannah said. “No more disasters like that Triple
Chocolate Soufflé that turned out more like pudding. I’m going to do it exactly
the way the Queen of Chocolate does, and it’ll be a culinary triumph.”
    “Famous last words,” Tammy
muttered.
     
     
    “This sucks.” Savannah
looked down at the slice of cake on her plate and around the table at her
faithful friends, who had gathered to discuss the non-details of the detective
agency—which Savannah owned, but they all participated in from time to time—and
to sample her latest experiment.
    “It isn’t that bad,
Savannah,” Ryan Stone said—always