Declan laughed. “You’re hoping she’ll only take me out?”
“No. I was thinking she might want to be more stealthy than her usual splashy boobytrap. Maybe make it look more like an accident so people don’t take a better look at her doppelganger? Maybe the guy this morning was practice.”
Stephanie shook her head. “I doubt it. It doesn’t matter if your deaths are suspicious. Guess who would never be a suspect?”
“The woman in prison,” said Charlotte.
Stephanie tapped the tip of her nose. “Ding. Ding. Ding.”
Chapter Nine
Darla and Mariska stood on the sidewalk outside Darla’s home watching their friend Gloria’s new Mercedes roll down the road toward them. Their old neighbor had moved from Pineapple Port to the beach only a few months ago after a sudden windfall.
“Do you think this was a good idea?” asked Mariska.
Gloria waved, her eyes wide and wild. Darla waved back, suffering her own first wave of doubt. Seeing Gloria again in the flesh reminded her how bonkers the woman could be once activated. When it came to righting what she perceived as a wrong, she was unstoppable.
Darla felt a little like she’d dropped a nuclear bomb to kill an annoying mosquito.
Using Gloria’s unique revenge skills against the hoarding snowbirds had seemed like a good idea at the time, but having a third margarita had also seemed like a good idea at the time.
What doesn’t seem like a good idea on margarita number three?
“I still don’t understand why she’s here,” said Mariska through her teeth as she smiled and waved her greeting. “Did she call you?”
Darla adopted the same frozen ventriloquist smile. “Not exactly.”
By not exactly, she meant she’d called Gloria. It only took Mariska a moment to realize it.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“I thought she called you, asking to stay.”
“Not exactly.”
Mariska grunted. “Remember when the grocery store fired her? She hid dead lizards in their fruit salads.”
Darla snickered. It seemed funny at the time...didn’t it?
“I buy fruit salads,” hissed Mariska.
Darla felt her shoulders slump. “I just wanted to get back at the snowbirds.”
“Oh you have. And all the rest of us, too.”
Now, with a clearer head, Darla remembered she’d been a little horrified by Gloria’s tricks.
What have I done?
Gloria’s front tires bounced against the curb, her trunk slanted into the street. She didn’t adjust. Instead, she parked and hopped out of her car to jog around the back, still waving. She popped the trunk and hefted out a giant cube of toilet paper rolls, more than half her tiny body hidden behind the tissue.
Darla gaped.
Well, there’s an upside.
Mariska and Darla hustled forward to grab the cube before Gloria toppled over. She looked like a squirrel trying to carry a basketball.
“I thought you’d like this better than a bottle of wine,” she said.
Darla nodded. Strange as it was, she did.
“Though I brought wine, too!” Gloria jerked a bottle from the trunk and held it up as if she’d just won the Tour de France.
Gloria lowered the bottle and motioned at her trunk until Mariska and Darla peered inside at a case of wine. Gloria moved to the front of the car to grab her suitcase from the passenger seat, making it clear she expected the other ladies to carry the wine.
“I’m surprised you were free to come visit,” said Mariska, trying to wrestle the box out of the trunk. “Charlotte told me you have a boyfriend now.”
Gloria rolled her buggy eyes. “We’re having a disagreement. I thought I’d give him some time to think about what he did wrong.”
“God help that man,” mumbled Darla.
Mariska hefted the case of wine from the trunk and waddled it toward Darla’s porch. Gloria opened her passenger door and then walked away from it. Interpreting the message, Darla grabbed the suitcase from the back seat, groaning as she lifted it out of the car.
“Is your boyfriend’s body in here?” asked Darla.
Gloria laughed. “No. I’d decompose him in the tub with acid if it came to that.”
Darla and Mariska exchanged a look.
Gloria shrugged. “You can never overpack.”
Darla dragged the suitcase toward the door. “Oh, I think you can...”
Gloria twisted her expression into a tight squinty ball in the middle of her face. “So where are these awful snowbirds?”
“You already told her?” asked Mariska.
Darla swallowed.
Oh boy.
She set down the suitcase to get a better grip. “Well, I drove around this morning and I think I’ve located a particularly bad one over in Silver Lake.”
Mariska’s worried expression relaxed. She hated Silver Lake people. They all did.
Snobs.
Pineapple Port had been in a simmering war with Silver Lake ever since the latter erected sale signs claiming the new community was better than their neighbors across the street. Penny Sambrooke, owner of Pineapple Port, had retaliated by spreading rumors Silver Lake tricked residents with hidden fees and that their community pool temperature ran ten degrees lower. She refused to call Silver Lake’s owner, her twin sister, Tabby, by any other name than Pussy Galore.
“Show me,” said Gloria.
Darla pointed toward Silver Lake. “It’s right across the street. We can walk.”
Leaving Gloria’s gifts and suitcase inside the door, the women headed for Silver Lake. As she walked, Gloria held out her arms so her upscale, flowy caftan fluttered in her self-generated breeze.
Darla noted the undeniable spring in her old friend’s step.
This woman loves revenge.
Gloria grabbed Darla’s shirt, her eyes wide, her pupils rimmed with white, her overall appearance reminiscent of a Pomeranian dog who’d asked a genie to turn it into a sixty-five-year-old woman.
“It is so good to see you both,” she said, giving each of them a spontaneous hug as they stopped to wait for the light.
“You too.”
Gloria rubbed her hands together. “Tell me more about the snowbirds.”
