Free Savannah Reid 12 - Fat Free and Fatal by G. A. McKevett Page A

truly effective. And when she had passed through the foyer, it had been turned off. She was surprised that Dirk hadn’t been on top of that himself. He might not be the most detail-conscious guy on the planet, but he usually took care of business when it came to security.
    At the top of the stairs, she saw two long hallways, branching off in either direction. Mary Jo led her down the one to the right.
    “Your room is here,” she said, “second one on the left. Mine is across the hall.”
    “Oh, you’re staying here, too?”
    Mary Jo tensed and gave her a quick, defensive, and angry look. “Yeah. So?”
    Savannah made a mental note to consider later what that might mean. “No problem,” she said. “It’s nice to know I have a roommate right across the hall. You know, if I need to get up in the middle of the night for a bowl of ice cream, you can join me.”
    Mary Jo gave her a long, confused look, as though the concept of late-night snacking was completely foreign to her.
    A gal in need of a banana split with extra fudge topping and whipped cream , Savannah added to her former assessment of Mary Jo Livermore.
    Mary Jo opened the door to the room, and Savannah stifled a gasp. It might not be “cool” to be overly impressed with one’s accommodations, but it was hard not to be.
    The room was larger than Savannah’s living room and dining room combined and was a delicious shade of the palest, smoky pink. From the watered silk that covered the walls to the matching moiré draperies, and the bed curtains hanging from the canopy bed, it was a feminine delight—the sort of room Savannah adored, and the kind that would keep a “manly man” like Dirk awake all night.
    And underlying the glamour of the room was that lovely, distinctive scent of Dona Papalardo’s perfume, adding the final touch of elegance to the setting.
    “Do you like it?” Mary Jo asked.
    “It’s gorgeous .” Savannah walked over to the old-fashioned dressing table and ran her fingers over a matching silver comb, brush, and mirror. Beside the antique set was a perfume bottle—a pale-pink art deco design with a series of triangles and arches, creating a pleasing geometric pattern. Savannah lifted the glass stopper and sniffed. Instantly, the rich, complex scent enveloped her, sending her mental pictures of sunlit gardens and grand ladies in white dresses with parasols.
    “Very nice,” she said.
    “It’s Dona’s own custom scent. She has it mixed for her every time she goes to Paris,” Mary Jo said.
    Savannah chuckled and said, “Well, don’t we all?” as she reluctantly placed the stopper into the bottle and turned her attention to the other items on the tabletop.
    Arranged on a lace doily was a series of small gilded picture frames, containing sepia-tone photos of women dressed in flapper attire. Savannah thought of a picture she had seen of her own great-grandmother, wearing a similar, if more modest, outfit. She wondered if those days had been half as much fun as they looked. Probably not.
    Lighting the table was an exquisite lamp, a delicate porcelain creation that was obviously very old. It featured a man and woman dressed in eighteenth-century attire with powdered wigs, hair ribbons, and ruffles galore. The lady sat at a harpsichord, apparently trying to play, as the gentleman distracted her with a lover’s embrace. Above them, the shade dripped with layer upon layer of beautiful handmade lace.
    “That lamp is quite special,” Mary Jo said when she saw Savannah studying it. “Dona loves it. She found it at an estate sale. It once belonged to Norma Shearer.”
    “Norma Shearer?”
    “Norma was an actress who was married to one of the uppityups at MGM during the golden age of the silver screen. She and William Randolph Hearst’s honey, Marion Davies, competed for roles back then.”
    “Dona is into the Roaring Twenties, I see,” Savannah observed.
    “Dona is into old Hollywood, period.” Mary Jo walked over to a