A Decadent Way to Die by G.A. McKevett Read Free Book Online Page A

of affection for her employer, she wasn’t expecting the phone to jingle any time soon with a call from the housekeeper.
Savannah reached for Dirk’s arm and gave him a little tug. “Let’s get going, big boy,” she whispered to him.
“Chickens,” he said, resisting.
She pulled harder. “I don’t see you turning your nose up at the fried chicken I serve on my granny’s blue china platter every Sunday afternoon.”
He acquiesced and fell into step beside her. “Southern fried drumsticks don’t bite.”
“Neither do nice little hens. They just lay eggs and—”
“Roosters bite … and claw … and scratch … and jump up on your shoulder and flap their wings all over your head and scare the crap outta you!”
She gave him a quick, sideways glance and saw the unadulterated terror in his eyes. “Wow,” she said. “That sort of heartfelt conviction comes from personal experience, I’d say.”
“Damn right, it does, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“When did it happen? Were you a little kid? Wow … that must have been traumatic for a youngster to—”
“I said, I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“That kind of thing can be so awful for a youngun. Did you have nightmares about it for years?”
“Still do.”
“That’s plum awful. I’m so sorry. I feel so bad when things like that happen to helpless, little, impressionable children.”
“Yeah, well … whatever.” He shuddered. “How was I supposed to know that perp would have a rooster the size of a school bus for a guard dog when I chased him into the backyard?”
“Perp?”
He shot her a wary look. “I told you, I don’t wanna talk about it. Just drop it, okay?”
“You were on the job? You were a grown up?”
“It was a really, really big frickin’ chicken! Just shut up about it.”
She swallowed a snicker. “Okay.”
They walked along in silence a little way.
Finally, he said, “That’s part of why I really like to eat your Southern fried chicken legs on Sunday afternoons.”
“Every bite is a kind of revenge?”
“Exactly.”
“And here I thought it was my granny’s blue-ribbon recipe.”
“That, too.”
They had entered a garden filled with wild flowers, artistically placed rockery, and a pond brimming with water lilies.
The smell of lavender and star jasmine scented the air, and Savannah had to pause and savor the experience.
“Ah,” she said, breathing deeply, taking it all in, “it just makes life worth living, a moment like this.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he replied. “I’d probably get more out of it if I wasn’t going to a henhouse.”
“And speaking of … there it is.”
She pointed ahead, through some trees, to a tiny structure that looked like a playhouse for children. Like the main house and the cottages, it was festooned with decorative gingerbread and even had shutters and window boxes.
But having been raised in a rural area, Savannah recognized the telltale signs that identified it as a bonafide chicken coop: the miniature gangplank leading up to a small door, the yard surrounded by wire fencing and covered with protective netting.
Not to mention the four red hens and three white ones pecking and scratching contentedly among the scattered straw in the yard.
“I don’t see a rooster,” Dirk said with so much relief in his voice that Savannah couldn’t help giggling.
They did, however, see a young Latino, walking toward the henhouse, carrying a fresh bale of hay.
He was an attractive man with a strong jaw, pronounced cheekbones, thick hair, and a physique that appeared to be naturally muscular, the result of hard work rather than hours spent at a gym.
When he saw them, it occurred to Savannah that he didn’t appear particularly pleased or at all surprised.
Since the advent of cell phones, she had found it harder and harder to sneak up on people.
“ Hola ,” Dirk greeted him.
He tossed the bale onto the ground next to the coop’s wire fence and dusted his palms on his jeans. “ Hola ,” he replied