Sour Grapes

over at Ryan and noticed, for the first time, that he looked almost as tired as she felt. His usual, outdoorsy tan was more pale than golden, and he, too, had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Apparently, he had gotten the same amount of sleep that she had... none. And Savannah knew how seriously Ryan took his work, especially when it involved young people and their safety.
    In a fit of self-sacrifice, she offered him her precious apple fritter.
    Realizing the depth of her generosity, he gave her a warm smile and shook his head. “No thanks. You need it more than I do; John brought me fresh bagels with lox, cream cheese, and capers.”
    Savannah sighed. “Ahhh, lox and bagels...John Gibson, would you do me the honor of being my husband?”
    John took her hand and lifted it to his lips, tickling her with his mustache as he kissed her knuckles that were dusted with powdered sugar. “My dear Savannah, I assure you... should I decide to take a bride, you would be the first lady on my short and exclusive list.” Ryan laughed, Tammy giggled, and Dirk snorted, but for once he kept his comments to himself. “So,” he said, “what’s the game plan?”
    “We’re here to help,” John told him. “Put us to work wherever you like.”
    Tammy began to practically hop up and down in her well-worn running shoes, so eager that Savannah had to resist the temptation to do her bodily harm; it was that “morning person” thing again. “I’ve already talked to Mrs. Lippincott,” she said. “And she specifically asked me if I would go along with some of the girls who want to take a morning jog around the property, look at the vineyards and all that.”
    “That’s good, and I need to call Barbie’s parents again,” Savannah said. “When I spoke to them last night on the phone, her mother didn’t seem terribly concerned that her daughter was missing. I got the idea i this disappearing act might be Barbie’s standard MO.”
    “Did you tell Mrs. Matthews about the blood on the bed?” Ryan asked.
    “I just told her that the room had been vandalized. She didn’t ask for details, so I didn’t elaborate.”
    Dirk grabbed Savannah’s coffee and took a long drink of it. “Yeah, you don’t want the old lady thinking that her daughter got nabbed by some voodoo cult. She’ll start worryin’ that the kid might be stretched out naked on some sacrificial altar somewhere with her throat cut, a big, upside-down pentacle painted on her chest in blood.”
    Savannah nearly choked on her fritter. “Well, thank you very much, Detective Coulter, for that lovely visual. Personally, the worst I had imagined was the girl lying, raped and murdered, out among the grapevines.” Wearily, Ryan ran his fingers through his hair. Savannah was fairly sure it was the first time she had ever seen it mussed. She hated to think what her own dripping-wet mop must look like. “So, this is what we’re going to do,” he said. “Savannah, you call the parents. Tammy, take the girls for their run. John and I will search the grounds again. Now that it’s light out, maybe we’ll see something we missed earlier.”
    “I’ll go with you,” Dirk said, returning Savannah’s coffee and snatching one of the Long Johns out of her bag. “I wanna check that parking lot again. It was so dark out there last night, you couldn’t see squat.”
    As Savannah watched the team disperse, she felt a wave of sadness. Mostly, she felt that way because with every hour that passed, the hope grew dimmer that this disappearance would have a happy outcome. And partly because Dirk was walking away with the rest of her breakfast. Two pastries and half a cup of coffee just didn’t contain enough chemical stimuli to make up for a day’s fasting and a night without sleep. She decided to hit the kitchen on her way to the telephone. What the heck—the Matthews clan wouldn’t want to be awakened this early anyway.

    “I think you might want to come out to Villa Rosa,” Savannah had told Mrs. Matthews on the telephone. “I really do. We’d like to ask you and your husband a few questions about Barbie’s... habits... and we don’t want to interrupt our search here.”
    This time, Mom Matthews had seemed more concerned and assured Savannah that she and Pop Matthews and Sis Matthews were on their way.
    And they were—promptly. Less than twenty minutes after Savannah called them, they came screeching up to the front door of the complex in their late-model Volvo