Murder A'la Mode. G. A. McKevett

      

      MURDER ON ICE

      Savannah stepped inside the freezer and instantly felt a chill that made her shiver underneath her silk nightclothes. But her shudder had nothing to do with the temperature inside the walk-in.

      On the floor to her left lay a body, sprawled on its back, staring with glazed eyes at the ceiling.

      “Lance, take a look at this,” she called.

      A few seconds later, Lance appeared at her side. He gasped when he saw the body. “Oh, my god. What…what happened?”

      “I don’t know,” Savannah replied, but the mental computer inside her head was already clicking away, processing the possibilities.

      “Should we….?” Lance said, reaching a hand toward the body, then withdrawing it. “I’ll go call 9-1-1, have them send an ambulance.”

      “No point in that,” Savannah said.

      “You mean…?”

      “Yes.” Savannah had seen enough corpses in her life to know this person was no longer among the living. And while the head was covered with blood and the face contorted with whatever pain the victim had felt when exiting the world, the orange hair and tangerine suit were unmistakable.

      “Tess is dead,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do for her now…except call the coroner.”

      Books by G.A. McKevett

      JUST DESSERTS

      BITTER SWEETS

      KILLER CALORIES

      COOKED GOOSE

      SUGAR AND SPITE

      SOUR GRAPES

      PEACHES AND SCREAMS

      DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

      CEREAL KILLER

      MURDER À LA MODE

      CORPSE SUZETTE

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      G.A. McKevett

      Murder à la Mode

      A SAVANNAH REID MYSTERY

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      This book is dedicated to

      Lady Antonette “The First”

      who reminds us that life goes on

      and is beautiful!

      Contents

      Murder on Ice

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      About the Author

      Chapter

      1

      As Raff, the swarthy pirate king, pulled Lady Wimblety against him, she could feel the depth, and more impressively, the length, of his rising need, pressing against her thigh. Or it might have been his sword, she wasn’t sure; nor did she care. She was far beyond caring. Trembling—Lady Wimblety that is, not his fingers, because Raff the pirate king’s fingers never trembled—his rough, battle-scarred fingers tugged at the lacing on her bodice and—

      “I wish you wouldn’t read those stupid books when you’re on stakeouts with me,” Dirk mumbled as he nudged Savannah in the ribs hard enough to make her drop her paperback novel onto the sand beside her.

      Swatting his hand away, she reached for the book and brushed away the wet, cold grit, making sure not to smudge the image on the cover. After all, it was the cover art that had enticed her to buy the novel in the first place.

      Raff the pirate king in all of his raven-locked, bulging-biceped, sapphire-eyed, burgeoning-manhooded glory had once again seduced her into forking over her hard-earned money. She had run into her local drugstore for a bottle of aspirin and come out with two paperbacks: Love’s Tempestuous Tempest and Flickering Tongues of Flaming Passion.

      She simply couldn’t help herself; the same male model graced both covers. And whether Lance Roman was dressed—or pretty much undressed, as the case might be—as a ravaging pirate who was ravishing a lust-besotted gentlelady with a ripped bodice, or as a New York City fireman rescuing a damsel with scorched hair and ripped T-shirt, he was positively irresistible. If Lance Roman was on the cover, Savannah Reid bought the book. Savannah and a million other faithful, some might say fanatical, admirers.

      So, when Detective Dirk Coulter, Savannah’s friend and former partner on the police force, called and asked her to accompany him on a beach stakeout, she had welcomed the chance to catch up on her reading.

      She brought Tempestuous Tempest, knowing that Dirk would never let her live down Flickering Tongues. It was the lesser of two evils.

      “You’re supposed to be keeping a heads-up with me,” Dirk said, “watching out for these punks. But you’re sitting there, getting off on that junk and ignoring me.”

      She glanced over at the little pile of goodies he had brought along to while away the boring stakeout hours. On his ragged, Harley-Davidson beach towel lay two empty soda cans, a deflated tortilla chip bag, a CD player and two Grateful Dead CDs.

      “You forgot to bring your boxing and wrestling magazines, didn’t you?” she observed.

      He scowled and nodded, “And I just got the latest edition of The Ring, too.”

      “So, now I’m supposed to sit here and entertain you?”

      He reached down and zipped up the front of his leather bomber jacket. The beach weather had been cool all afternoon by Southern California standards, and with the sun setting, the temperature was dropping to downright chilly. “You don’t gotta entertain me,” he said. “You’re just supposed to be helping me keep an eye out for these thugs, not reading about Muscleman Goldilocks there.”

      Savannah laughed. “He’s no Goldilocks. Lance’s hair is ebony black, and you’re just jealous.”

      “Jealous? Of what? I got muscles like that.”

      Savannah could have pointed out that Dirk used to have muscles like that. But in the years she had known him, he had gone from “ripped” to…well…“not so ripped.” But she didn’t care. He had never minded her extra poundage. True buddies never noticed such things.

      “And the dude’s hair looks like a girl’s,” he continued, poking a finger at the cover, “hangin’ down in his eyes like that.”

      Again, Savannah took the high road and decided not to mention that Dirk’s hair didn’t exactly hang down anywhere. His remaining precious strands were carefully combed to make the most of an ever-decreasing population.

      Lovingly,