“Jared!” she cried, on top now. “Good God, what are you trying to do?”
“Knock some sense into you.”
“I have all the sense I need.” She shaped her hand to his jaw, which hadn’t been shaved in a day and was pleasantly rough. “I just need time. That’s all. A little time to feel totally sure I’m the right one for you.”
He came back with, “What about my being the right one for you?”
She wanted to say that he was, that if she ever married, it would be to him. But she knew that would only spark a renewed why-wait attack, and she had had enough of the argument for a day.
So she grinned and said, “Right? Right may have nothing to do with it. Face it, bud. You’re stuck with me awhile. I’m not goin’ nowhere until I hear more about the Grumpslaw.”
Jared hadn’t thought about the Grumpslaw since the morning he’d talked Savannah to sleep, and he had no intention of thinking about the Grumpslaw now. So if that was what she needed to set her free, he mused with some satisfaction, she was in for a long imprisonment.
***
Imprisonment was a major topic of discussion the following Friday night when Savannah and Jared joined Susan and Sam for dinner at an inn in Wakefield.
“The question is where to hold him,” Sam was explaining to Susan as they finished their salads. “The man’s like grease. He could slide through our fingers and be gone just like the stuff he’s stolen over the years. So we need maximum security, but the facilities are all mobbed, which doesn’t bode well for keeping a close eye on him.”
“Not to mention the havoc he’d play with an overpacked prison population if given the chance,” Savannah added.
Susan wasn’t sure if she believed that. “I’d have thought it would be the other way around. Matty’s a runt. I’d picture him being kicked around—” She caught herself. “I almost said mercilessly, except that he doesn’t deserve any mercy. It’d serve him right to be raped. He’s an animal.”
“But clever, very clever,” Sam said. “He’s been in prison before and no one touched a hair on his head. He can manipulate people when he has to, and they don’t even know he’s done it.”
Savannah had read the reports, too. She knew everything there was to know about Matty Stavanovich, but whether she recognized therealStavanovich was impossible to tell. He was a master of deceit. “We’ve got him, though. The grand jury didn’t have much of a problem returning the indictment.” She had appeared before the grand jury on Wednesday. Stavanovich had been formally charged on Thursday, and bail had been revoked. He was being temporarily held in a federal facility pending a decision on placement. “If necessary, we’ll keep him where he is and push for a speedy trial, which would suit me just fine.”
Jared recalled the incredible amount of work, not to mention the pressure that accompanied the kind of trial Savannah faced. He’d lived through more than one trial like it with Elise. For those days and weeks, he’d been shut out of her life. He knew that Savannah would never do that, still he felt uncomfortable about the burden she would carry. “You talked about three months,” he said. “Will that give you enough time to prepare your case?”
“It should.”
He turned to Sam. “Any leads on the Cat’s accomplice?”
Sam wished there were. He and Hank had been but two of many assigned to the case, and neither the state police nor the FBI, both of which had greater resources than the local police, had had any luck. “He’s probably left the area, but we’ll keep after him. He can only run so far. The drawing the artist came up with after working with Megan has been circulated through departments all over the country. Something may turn up, either on him or on a second accomplice.”
“Second?”
Savannah explained. “Someone went to Mexico. It couldn’t have been Matty, since he was here raping Megan—”
Susan interrupted. “For God’s sake, Savvy, do you have to be so blunt?”
“She was raped,” Savannah said quietly.
“Okay, but don’t repeat it time and again.”
“You were the one who mentioned rape before.”
“I was referring to the Cat, and he deserves it. Meggie didn’t.”
“I know that.”
Sam leaned close to Susan. He knew that Savannah’s words had hit her the wrong way. She was extremely sensitive when it came to Savannah. Though this dinner had originally been Susan’s idea, she’d entertained second thoughts once the invitation had been extended and accepted. Those second thoughts had been cause for more than one neat scotch.
Despite all Sam had said and done to assure her, Susan was convinced that he would see her beside Savannah and decide he had chosen the wrong twin after all. Not that Savannah was available. Still, Susan worried.
Unnecessarily, as far as Sam was concerned.
Opening his hand on her thigh beneath cover of the white linen tablecloth, he asked softly, “Want us to talk about something else?”
