Bitter Sweets

have to be. Put those back on, sugar. You need to be able to tell the good ones from the bad ones at a distance...while you’ve still got time to run.”

    With a sheepish smile, Tammy slipped the huge glasses onto her small face. Everything about Tammy Hart reminded Savannah of a valentine. Delicate, sentimental, ultrafeminine...but passionate, Tammy had a soft pinkness about her personality that was endearing, but Savannah believed she had the capability to flash fiery red under the right/wrong circumstances.

    “By the way,” Tammy said, running her fingers through her pale blond hair that fell, straight and glossy, to her shoulders. “I’m finished checking out Brian O’Donnell for you. He’s who he says he is. Sounds like a really good guy.”

    “I’m sure you were very thorough,” Savannah said. “Bring your notes into the living room and we’ll go over them. But first things first. I have a cup of mocha blend and a cream cheese Danish with my name on it waiting for me in the kitchen. Would you like a...?” She glanced up and down the young woman’s slender figure. “No, of course not. How silly of me. May I offer you a stalk of celery in a glass of Perrier?”

    Savannah sat in her favorite spot in the world, her overstuffed, wing chair with Diamante in her lap and Cleopatra curled on the footstool at her feet. Both cats were purring contentedly.

    As though she needed anything to make her more cornfortable, she was surrounded with soft, floral print, satin-fringed pillows. Unable to discard the atrocious flowered housedresses that Granny Reid sent to her regularly from Georgia, Savannah had fashioned them into cushions. Sitting among them, she could almost feel as though she were receiving a hug from the octogenarian darling.

    Perched on the edge of the sofa, Tammy sat with her notebook in hand, an alert expression on her pretty face. Eager. Very eager.

    “I checked with the phone company in Orlando to verify the number and address that Brian O’Donnell gave you,” she was saying as she happily rattled away. “And then I called and talked to his family. His wife seemed sweet and happy to speak to me.

    We compared physical descriptions and they matched down to his handlebar mustache. She made it perfectly clear that she supports Brian completely in his search for his sister.”

    “Then she knows he’s here?”

    “Oh, yes. She said he left four days ago for California. I think she said something about him driving and-”

    “Driving? I thought he told me he flew.”

    Tammy pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Oh...okay...maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, she wished us luck in finding Lisa. Said it would mean a lot to them all. Isn’t that nice?”

    “Very.”

    “But there’s something else... .”

    “What’s that?”

    “He has a reason, other than sentimentality, for wanting to find his sister right now.”

    Savannah stopped stroking Diamante and gave Tammy her full attention. “You mean the inheritance money?”

    “Oh, you knew about that already?” Tammy looked a bit disappointed.

    “Brian mentioned it, said it wasn’t much.”

    “Not much? Well... I guess it depends on how you look at it, but fifty thousand seems like a lot to me.”

    Savannah thought of the stack of unpaid bills on her kitchen counter. “Yeah, sounds like a lot to me, too. I wonder why Brother Brian felt the need to underplay that aspect of his story.”

    Tammy shrugged. “Maybe he thought you would look harder if you thought it was only a mission of love.”

    “Perhaps.”

    A prickling of premonition and apprehension ran along the back of Savannah’s neck, a feeling she was well acquainted with, but hated. Mostly, because it had proven to be painfully accurate at portending disasters.

    She tried to push the sensation to the back of her mind, to ignore it. This was her first job as a private detective. It felt wonderful to be working again.

    And she didn’t want anything to interfere with that sense of pride and fulfillment. Shut up! she told it. And go away! You don’t know everything. This could turn out just fine.
    “Is everything okay, Savannah?” Watching Savannah closely, Tammy looked nearly as worried as she felt.

    “Sure.” She gave a little shrug and chuckled, but the sound wasn’t very cheery. “Everything’s fine.”

    But no matter what she told Tammy or herself... that feeling of unease just wouldn’t go away.

    About twenty-five miles out of town, in an isolated