Bitter Sweets

the Camaro, Savannah studied the surrounding parking lot, play area, and laundry room. No one was stirring. All was silent and still. With the first pink and lavender rays of dawn tinting the sky, it seemed hard to believe that anything sinister was likely to happen soon. Seven-thirty , she decided. With a child in the house, she’ll prob’ ably be up and about by then.

    After drinking a cup of coffee or two, Lisa would be fortified, at least a bit, to hear the bad tidings.

    Checking everything once more, Savannah headed home. She intended to spend the next two hours combing the information that she and Tammy had uncovered...or the misinformation, as it had turned out to be. She needed to see what had gone wrong and how she might redeem the situation.

    But another shock greeted her as she hurried up the walkway to her house. At first she thought it was Earl Mallock, standing there on her front porch, partially hidden by the bougainvillea. The red hair, the slender build, were all too familiar.

    But when the man turned toward her and she could see his face, she had an instant idea who her early morning visitor was.

    “I’m sorry for the early hour,” he began, “but-”

    “It’s all right. Let me guess,” she said dryly, holding out her hand to him. “You’re Brian O’Donnell. The real one, that is.”

    He looked genuinely confused as he accepted her hand’ shake. “I beg your pardon?”

    “Your sister’s name is Lisa Mallock, and I’ll just bet you’re looking for her. Right?”

    “How did you know?”

    “Just a lucky guess.” With a tired, defeated sigh she opened her front door. “Come inside, Mr. O’Donnell. It’s about time you and I put our heads together.”

    Savannah offered the man one of the wing chairs in her office, and she sat in the other opposite him. There was no time to mess with coffee, cookies, or Southern hospitality. “Talk about a creepy sense of deja vu ,” she muttered as she stared at the redhaired man across from her.

    “What?”

    “Never mind. Let me ask you a question,” she said. “First, why were you on my doorstep so early in the morning?”

    “I couldn’t sleep. I was worried.” The dark circles under his eyes attested to the fact that he was weary, but Savannah wasn’t ready to believe anything too readily anymore.

    “It’s a condition that’s going around,” she replied. “Why were you worried?”

    “I talked to my wife, back in Orlando, Florida, last evening, about eight o’clock Pacific time. She told me that you, or someone from your office, called her.”

    “That’s true.”

    “She said that someone who looks like me came here and asked you to find my sister.”

    “Someone did. We called her to verify that it was you, and we compared physical descriptions. She confirmed that you were in San Carmelita, searching for your sister, and that she wasn’t surprised you had contacted a private investigator. I’m very sorry, Mr. O’Donnell, if that’s who you really are. Everyone thought our visitor was who he claimed to be...specifically, you.”

    “I think I might know who he was,” Brian O’Donnell said.

    Yeah, you and me both, Savannah thought, but she kept it to herself. “Who?” she asked.

    “I’m afraid it might be Lisa’s ex-husband, a guy by the name of Earl.”

    “Is that right?” Savannah cleared her throat. “And why do you think that?”

    “Because I’m afraid I may have made a mistake by talking to him about her. You see, I’ve been searching for my sister for a long time and about eight months ago I traced her here to San Carmelita. I contacted her husband-he’s her ex now, but I didn’t know it then-and asked him about her. He didn’t let on that they were even separated, let alone divorced. He said that if I’d come to town, he might convince her to see me.”

    “You came then...eight months ago?”

    “Yes. I flew right out, and he met me at LAX. We had a drink there in one of the lounges and he told me that she refused to see me. He asked me a lot of questions about our childhood, my life, our family. I was flattered that he was such an interested brother-in-law, considering that my sister wouldn’t even see me.”

    “Yes. He can be quite convincing,” Savannah agreed, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. “Please, go on.”

    “We continued to correspond, and when my father died recently, I asked him to talk to my sister again, to tell her how important it was that I see