Cooked Goose

any particular reason to think he might come after her?”
    His usually florid face blushed even redder. She could tell she was really pissing him off. She couldn’t be more pleased. “Look, Reid,” he snapped. “You know as much about this case as I do. I just figure it’s a good idea at this point for her to stay at your place. I can’t keep paying for a hotel room and all that room service.”
    “Oh, I see,” she said sarcastically. “It’s an issue of eco- nomics.
    “It’s an issue of my daughter getting on with her life. She won’t stay cooped up in a hotel room anymore.”
    “And you need a baby-sitter.”
    “I’ll pay you.”
    “How much?”
    He named an amount that was larger than she had anticipated, a sum that would make a tidy difference in her overdrawn bank account.
    “That’s not nearly enough.”
    He upped his offer by fifty percent. But she was feeling perverse.
    “I don’t want your damned money. I want you to bring a couple of bags of groceries over—all her favorite stuff.”
    “I don’t know what she likes.”
    Savannah shook her head. “What a sorry excuse for a father you are. Ask her. Tell her to make a list and you go shopping and you deliver it to my door. I want to make sure she’s got everything she wants to eat. Nobody’s ever fainted from hunger in the Reid household.”
    “Obviously.”
    “Up yours.”
    “So, you’ll pick her up right away and take her home with you?”
    Savannah nodded. “And you’ll drop off the groceries this afternoon?”
    He agreed. As he walked away, he said over his shoulder, “Watch out for her, you hear? I don’t want anything happening to that kid.”
    As Savannah watched him leave, she lifted one eyebrow and mumbled, “You’d better be careful, Captain. There for a second, I thought I saw a flicker of humanity.”
    Then she reconsidered. “Naw.”

    * * *

    9:42 A.M.

    When Margie opened her hotel-room door and saw Savannah standing there, she nearly “cut a rug” as Savannah’s Granny Reid described the little dance done by extremely happy people.
    “ Savannah ! Hi!” She threw the door open wide and practically pulled Savannah inside. “I thought it was my dumb dad. Come on in.”
    “You should have looked through the peephole first, and then you would have known who it was,” Savannah told her. “And you oughta stop calling him your dumb dad.”
    “Why? He is.”
    “Because it confuses me... makes me think you’ve got a smart one around somewhere.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind.” Savannah sat on the edge of the bed that was littered with deflated potato chip bags, an empty pizza box, makeup and lots of new clothes that looked like they had been purchased at the gift shop downstairs. Yeah, Harvey Bloss was going to have a four-figure bill to pay. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
    “The point is,” Savannah continued, “he’s still your father, and where I come from, you don’t talk that way about your elders... no matter what their I.Q.... or lack thereof.” Margie plopped down on the other side of the bed and put on a sourpuss. “I thought you came by to see me, maybe to hang out. But I guess you’re here to lecture me about respecting my parents.”
    Savannah grinned. It was always fun to make somebody’s day- “No,” she said. “I came by to spring you outta this joint. The parole board granted you a pardon.”
    Margie jumped up from the bed, scattering bottles of blue and black nail polish. “No kidding?”
    “I kid you not, kiddo. Get your stuff packed.”
    “All right!” Then she looked suspicious. “Where am I going? Not back to my house.”
    “Nope. Back to my house.”
    “He’s going to let me stay with you? He actually agreed to that?”
    “He did, indeed. Said he thought you’d feel safer at my place. See there, the old far-... fella... does something right once in awhile.”
    “Fantastic! I asked him if I could... well... actually, I threw a fit... but he said no way, because he really, really hates you, no offense.”
    “None taken.”
    “I can’t believe he said yes. This is just too cool!“
    “Seems your father put your feelings and desires ahead of his own this time.” Savannah nearly gagged on the words. It really grumped her butt to say anything nice about that s.o.b., but she sensed his daughter needed to have some positive thoughts toward the man who had sired her.
    Margie started throwing her new clothes and makeup into shopping bags.