Heart of the Night: A Novel
Page 23
“Where are you going?”
“Boston.”
“Doing anything special?”
In a deliberately high and nasal voice, she said, “All those frivolous little things women like to do.”
“You don’t have to be snide.”
She returned her voice to normal. “Savannah’s waiting.”
“I’d like to see you tonight.”
“I’ve already answered that, too.” She rubbed her damp palm against her silk skirt. “I don’t know when we’ll be back, and if it’s not too late, I’ve got a party to go to.”
“You went to a party last night. Don’t you get tired of them?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not kidding.”
She could hear that he wasn’t. His bluntness was one of the things that made him different. She wasn’t quite as bothered by it as she’d been at first. Still, she said, “Well, you should be. I happen to enjoy parties. I have a large group of friends. I enjoy spending time with them.”
“Is that before or after you’ve had a few drinks?”
Her hand tightened on the receiver. She wanted desperately to hang up, but something kept her from it. “Low blow, Sam.”
“Only because I care.”
She pressed a palm to her chest to ease the sudden tightness she felt there. “Look, I’m all right. It was hard for me being over at Megan’s this week, and seeing her the way we found her didn’t help. I was overtired when I got home. So I had a few drinks and was sick. I’m sorry you were there to see it.”
“I’m not,” he said. “You’d been through a lot. You shouldn’t have been alone. I was glad to be there. It felt good.”
“Not to me. It embarrassed me. It embarrasses me every time I think of it. And every time you call, I think of it. Sammy, Savannah’s waiting.”
“If you’d see me, I’d give you new things to think about.”
“Oh, God, here we go.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. That’s a feeble line.”
“But the thought behind it is sound. I want to see you, Susan.”
“No problem. You’re good at breaking and entering. Surprise me some time.” She hung up, then made a coward’s dash for the door to the garage. The phone rang behind her, but she ignored it, and before long the Jaguar’s purr drowned it out.
As soon as Savannah got into the car, she told Susan about her talk with Megan. Susan immediately suggested they detour into Providence before heading north. “I know you, Savannah. If we don’t make sure she’s all right, you’ll be thinking about it all day, and I don’t want to think about Megan all day. It’s depressing.”
“Talk about depressing, you should have heard Dianne’s theory about the kidnapping. She’s convinced that Megan could have handled being raped better than she did.”
“Dianne’s an imbecile.”
“What was she doing at your house?”
“I’m not really sure. She said something about how ‘cool’ I was last night. She said that Malcolm O’Neill was asking about me after I left. She was probably sniffing around for little tidbits to give him. I’m sure she’s trying to impress him herself.”
“She’s married.”
“Since when has that stopped her? If she sets her eye on Malcolm, a wedding band won’t put her off. And what better cover than acting as a courier between Malcolm and me?”
“Are you interested in him?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then what use do you have for Dianne? It amazes me that you can stand the sight of her, after what she did.”
Susan kept her eyes on the road. “She was just sticking up for her brother.”
“By publicly denouncing you as co-chair for the Sperry fund-raiser? Not that I ever had any fondness for John Sperry; he would have made a lousy senator. But you’d put in a lot of work on that, and you raised plenty of money. Far more so than Dirk, you had a right to be there, taking pride in what you’d done.”
“But you’re right. Sperry would have made a lousy senator.”
“You didn’t think so at the time.”
“Maybe I did but couldn’t admit it. What you fail to realize, Savvy, is that sometimes people have ulterior motives for doing things. You don’t actually believe that the people who organize fund-raisers for charity do it purely out of the goodness of their hearts, do you? They do it for the power it brings. They do it for the publicity, because their names go up in lights alongside that of their cause. They do it for prestige.”
“So that’s why you went all out organizing a party for John Sperry? You did all that work without even believing in the man?” Savannah’s gaze was steady. “I don’t buy it.”
Susan darted her a dry look. “How about I did it because I had nothing else to do?”
“I think you did it because you happen to be really good at that kind of thing. Do you know that there are people who make careers out of planning functions like that? You have a marketable skill.”
“Savannah…”
“I know I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating.”
“I am not going out looking for work.”
“We’re not talking walking the streets, knocking on doors. We’re talking putting out subtle feelers to several large organizations.”
“Uh-huh. And what am I going to put on a résumé? I haven’t held a paying job in my life.”
“You’ll put down the nonpaying ones. You’ve held enough of them.”
“Come on, Savannah. I’m named to the boards of institutions for one reason alone—I give money. Anyone with a little smarts knows that the amount of work involved is zip.”
“You’ve planned at least a dozen affairs comparable to the Sperry one. You could get recommendations in a minute.”
Susan made a face. “Do I really want to get up at the same time every morning, get dressed up, and go to the same office to do the same thing day after day?”
“It wouldn’t be that, and you know it.”
“I don’t want to work.”
“Then that’s that,” Savannah said a little too shortly, but she let it go. She could only point out the possibilities; it was up to Susan to take them from there. She had learned the hard way that if she pushed too hard, Susan went in the opposite direction. The dynamics between them were complex, but that was one thing that was quite reliable.
Susan tossed her a sidelong glance. “Do we really have reservations for two o’clock?”
“Uh-huh. At Aujourd’hui.” She paused. “Do you really have plans for tonight?”
“No. Sam asked me out, but I told him I had a party.”
“Oh, Suse, you could have gone out with Sam.”
“I didn’t want to be rushed getting back. Besides, it won’t do him any harm to wait.”
“Sam isn’t good at playing games like that.”
“Tough,” Susan murmured. Then, unable to resist, she asked, “Who does he usually date?”
“No one special.”
“He must go out.”
“When he can. His job is demanding. You saw what happened this week—on two hours’ notice, he was working for nearly seventy-two hours straight.”
“So now he’s got the whole weekend off. I can’t believe he’s going to spend it alone.”
Savannah shrugged. “You turned him down.”
“Will he rush off and pick up the next best thing in skirts?”
“I don’t really know.”
Susan looked at her and didn’t like what she saw. Savannah seemed perfectly sincere. “If you were to guess, what would you say?”
“I don’t really know, Susan. Sammy and I are friends, but I don’t keep tabs on what he does.”
“Does he pick up secretaries around the office?”
“I’ve seen him talking with them.”
“Do they talk about him afterward?”
“Not to me.”
“Does he have a reputation for being hot?”
“What’s pride got to do with it? The issue is raw, animal lust.”
The words stuck in Savannah’s mind, spawning images of Jared’s body and the rampant desire they’d shared not so long before. There had been pride in it. Then again, they hadn’t made love in a storage closet.
She took an uneven breath. “Sammy strikes me as the kind to savor a woman in the privacy and comfort of his own bed.”
“Where does he live?”
“He just bought a new place on the waterfront.”
“New places on the waterfront are expensive.”
“He’s not a pauper.”
“Cops don’t get paid much.”
“He uses his money wisely.”
That gave Susan something to consider, and in the silence that ensued, Savannah thought about places on the waterfront, then places in town. Again Jared came to mind. She pictured him in her bed, wondered whether he was still sleeping, wondered whether she should have left a note. She’d debated it at the time. But he’d known that she was leaving, had known where she was going. And, anyway, what would she have said?
More than anything, she wondered when she’d see him again.
“You’re looking mellow,” Susan observed.
Savannah darted her a startled look, then turned her eyes back to the window. “Must be this birthday, on top of everything.”
“Mmm.”
“It bothers you, too?”
“I took a good look at my neck the other day. It looks old.”
“If so, it’s the only place on your body that does. You don’t look a day over twenty-six.”
“Where’d you get twenty-six?”
“Anything less doesn’t have enough class.”
Susan smiled. “That’s a novel way of looking at it. Good one, Savvy.” She took a quick breath. “Why were you late this morning?”
Savannah’s heart picked up a beat. She really wanted to tell the truth. Each time she thought of Jared, she bubbled inside. She wanted to share that.
But she didn’t. She knew Susan, knew how Susan felt about Jared’s voice, knew how Susan felt about herself as compared to her twin. One part of her wasn’t completely sure what Susan would do if Savannah told her about Jared, and she didn’t want anything to spoil the day.
Of course, there was still Megan to visit.
Savannah sighed. “I overslept. Everything must have crept up on me.”
“You shouldn’t have gone into the office yesterday. You deserved a day off.”
“No. I’ll deserve a day off when I’ve put away the men who hurt Megan.”
“Not I, Savvy. We. You don’t work in a vacuum there. Isn’t the investigation out of your hands now?”
“In some respects. But I’ll be the one to prosecute, so I want to stay closely involved.”
“You shouldn’t prosecute. You’re too close to the case.”
“I’m the best one to do it.”
“Won’t the defense raise a stink?”
“I’m not a judge. I’m not supposed to be impartial.”
“Still, you can be overzealous.”
“Not me. I know the rules. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the case. But the ones I’m worried about are the guys doing the running around now—the state police and the FBI. Sometimes they get overzealous, and if that happens, an important piece of evidence may later be ruled inadmissable. I don’t want that to happen.”
“So you’re keeping your nose in. Have they come up with anything?”
Savannah hadn’t spoken with anyone since the afternoon before, but she was sure she’d have been notified if any leads had come up. “I think,” she said, “that they’re counting on Megan giving them something.”
“Why won’t she?”
“She’s too upset.”
“Maybe her breaking down on the phone with you is a good sign.”
“Lord, I hope so. For her sake. She’s going to have to get it all out before she can heal. The sooner she starts talking, the better.”
When they arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, though, Will told them that Megan hadn’t said much after she’d handed him back the phone, and she’d requested a sedative soon after. She wasn’t sleeping, just quiet.
“Hi, Meggie,” Savannah said softly.
Megan’s eyes fluttered, then opened, but they were heavy.
Susan grinned. “We couldn’t get going until we’d seen you. Either we’re devoted, or we’re nuts.”
Megan looked from one sister to the other, then closed her eyes and whispered, “You’re nuts.”
Savannah wished she’d seen sign of a smile, but there’d been none. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“Lots of people coming in to visit?”
She opened her eyes. “Can you stop them, Savvy? Tell them to leave me alone? They keep coming and coming and asking questions. I’m so tired of the questions.”
“They’re only trying to help. They want to find the men who did this to you.”
Turning her head away, Megan closed her eyes again. “They won’t find them.”
“Not if they don’t get some help. Can you tell us anything, Meg? There may be something you saw or heard that seems inconsequential to you but may have significance to us. Were they speaking English?”
Without opening her eyes, Megan nodded.
“Did you notice any idiosyncratic speech patterns?”
Megan shook her head.
“Did they sound educated, talk in complete sentences?”
Megan shrugged.
Savannah took a different tack. “Do you have any idea where you were held? Maybe there was some sound, like water or traffic or a banging noise, like machinery?” When there was no response at all, she said, “Did you hear other people talking nearby? That would tell us something.”
Susan scowled. “For God’s sake, Savannah, Megan’s tired of questions. She just said that, now here you go off with a bunch of your own.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You’re always trying to help, but sometimes the best way to help is to back off.”
“But time is important. We’ve already lost so much.”
“If you’ve already lost so much,” Susan said with deliberate slowness, “it won’t hurt to lose a little more.” She patted the air with one slim-fingered hand. “Take a deep breath, Savvy. Relax.”
“Susan—”
“Shhhh,” Megan whispered. They both looked around to find that her eyes were open and pleading. “Don’t argue.”
“We always argue,” Susan reminded her gently.
“But don’t do it today.”
“Why should today be different?”
“It’s your birthday. You should be celebrating.”
“We’ll celebrate when we’re done arguing. We’re going to Boston.”
Savannah leaned closer to Megan and whispered conspiratorially, “If we smuggle in some clothes, will you come with us? You’ve helped us make it through lots of birthdays. We need you now.”
“Not a bad idea,” Susan decided. “We could use a buffer. You’ve always been that.”
But Megan was shaking her head.
“Not today?” Savannah asked.
“No.”
“Another time?”
Megan shrugged.
“We could go to the island,” Savannah suggested. “The three of us, just like we used to do. Those were fun times, weren’t they, Meggie?”
“We were young and innocent,” Megan said sadly.
“Maybe you two were innocent,” Susan interjected, “but not me. I haven’t been innocent since I was fifteen, and that was before we ever went to the island together.”
“Still, it’d be fun to go back,” Savannah said.
“It
would.”
Expectantly they turned to Megan, but she’d turned her head away. They exchanged a look, then Savannah asked softly, “Can we get you anything in Boston?”
Megan shook her head.
“Are you sure?” Susan asked.
Megan nodded.
Savannah covered her hand, which lay limply on the sheet. “Can I stop in again tomorrow?”
“I’m going home tomorrow,” Megan said tonelessly.
“That’s great!”
“Good news!”
Megan didn’t respond to their enthusiasm.
“Then we’ll see you there,” Savannah said. She leaned down and kissed Megan’s cheek. “Take care, y’hear?”
Susan, too, kissed her. Will walked them to the elevator.
“She responds more to you two than to anyone,” he said. “I sometimes wonder why I’m there. I think I make things worse.”
He looked nearly as tortured as he had when Megan had been gone. Savannah ached for him. “She’s been through an ordeal.”
“She’s shutting me out.”
“It’s the nature of the ordeal. She can’t face you.”
“But I’ve told her over and over again that I don’t care. I’ve told her that I love her as much—no, more than I did before. She won’t listen.”
“Just keep saying it. It’ll sink in.”
“No. She’s punishing me. And she’s right. It’s my fault. If the alarm had been working—”
“No, Will,” Savannah said, turning to face him. “You will never know what would or would not have happened if the alarm had been working. It’s done. There’s no point agonizing over that. Megan loves you. She needs to know that you’ll stay by her regardless of what’s gone before. She needs to know that you won’t be put off by her moods.”
“She never used to have moods. She used to be the most even tempered woman in the world.”
Susan came forward. “After what she’s gone through, she has a right to be moody.”
“But she was moody even before the kidnapping. She was worried about—” he waved his hand, “—things. That’s what I’ve done to her.”
Savannah took his hand in both of hers. “She loves you, Will. She loves you. Whatever has happened, you can work it out. Just stick with it.”