“You’rethe one who can do that. Not me.”
“Yes, you. Come on, Suse. You have an incredible opportunity here. You love Sam, don’t you?”
“If I didn’t, I’d have been long gone by now.”
“So if you love him, you’ll make things work.”
“You’re nothearingme, Savannah. I don’t knowhowto make things work.”
“You’ll learn. You’ll take one day at a time. You’ll feel your way along.”
“Yeah. Right along the ground in the dirt. And I’m apt to bring Sam and Courtney right down there with me.”
“You candoit, Suse. I’m telling you. You candoit!”
“I’m glad someone believes in me.”
“Sam does. Otherwise, he’d never have brought you along. He needs your help. And don’t you see? This is your chance to show him that you can do what needs to be done. It’s your chance to showyourselfthat you’re perfectly capable of being what Sam wants.” She hesitated, then spoke more softly. “I’m envious of you. You can really have it all.”
Of the many words Savannah had said that night, those were the ones that lingered longest with Susan.
CHAPTER21
Megan had admired Savannah from the very first of their academy days. While Susan was the more gregarious, perhaps the more exciting of the two, Savannah had been the one with the level head on her shoulders. She was the one the others sought out when things got rough, and Megan had done her share of the seeking.
Technically, Megan was bright, and she knew it. What she didn’t always know was how to channel that intelligence along the most productive lines. Savannah, on the other hand, was a master of the overview. She could stand back and analyze a situation, then suggest the best course of action.
Megan had consciously studied Savannah’s approach. She firmly believed that if she could master it, she’d have the world in the palm of her hands, and for a while, it looked as though she’d done it. She graduated from the academy near the top of her class, went through college with similar ranking, and landed a plum of a job as the mathematical consultant to an electronics conglomerate headquartered in Boston. While she had no intention of working her life away, her job gave her exposure to some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Northeast.
She hadn’t made the most of that situation. Though she was a math whiz, she was far less sure of herself socially. She’d been intimidated by some of the men she’d met, turned off by others. When, totally out of the professional context, she met gentle, unimposing William Vandermeer, she readily fell in love.
For several years, she was unabashedly happy. She didn’t work, and she didn’t miss it. Then the business began to flounder. She helped Will out where she could, but the downward spiral continued. When things got so bad that Will was taking pills to sleep and she spent half the night worrying herself sick, she took a leaf from Savannah’s book, analyzed the situation, and came up with the one solution that seemed to hold hope of returning things to where they’d been.
It would have worked had it not been for Matty Stavanovich.
Now Matty was in prison awaiting trial, and Megan felt a measure of satisfaction in that. She was furious whenever she thought of him, and when she wasn’t furious, she was afraid. She’d covered her tracks; she was sure of it. But she didn’t trust Stavanovich. She’d done that once. She wasn’t making the same mistake twice.
Between fear, anger, and a guilt that never left her for long, she wasn’t good for much of anything but wandering aimlessly through the house. She didn’t want to go out, didn’t want to be seen. Everyone in town knew what had happened. She couldn’t bear the thought of their stares. So she stayed within the protective walls of her house and agonized.
Stand back. Look at things from a distance.That was what Savannah always said, and Megan tried to do it, but she’d never had to face anything like this before.
Take it step by step, day by day.Savannah always said that, too, and while Megan was a little more successful there, she still found it hard.
For one thing, she couldn’t talk with Will as she used to. He treated her with kid gloves, and she let him. At times she wished he’d get angry, so that she could blurt out the truth. After all, what she’d done, she’d done for love. But he never raised his voice to her, and she couldn’t make herself tell him. He was overtaxed as it was, since the business was in worse shape than ever.
For another thing, the rest of the world seemed to be merrily making its way through May and into June. Friends of theirs were busy opening summer homes on Nantucket or in Bar Harbor. Others were in the final stages of planning trips that Megan would have given anything to take, if only to get her out of Rhode Island and away from the mess of her life.
Even Susan was on the move. Understandably, her time was in short supply, but since she was spending so much more of it at Sam’s place in Providence, she saw Megan often. Usually she had Courtney with her, and though she talked on the sly of being a lousy mother, Megan couldn’t see any sign of that. More often than not, Susan sent home the woman Sam had insisted she hire and took care of the child herself. She clearly loved the little girl, clearly loved Sam. Megan was sure they would marry one day.
Savannah, too, visited often, but her visits were as much business as pleasure, since she brought the latest news on the case against Matty. Most often, that news concerned one pretrial motion or another that had been filed, argued, won, or lost. At other times, the news was more pithy.
There was the day when Savannah told Megan that a witness had been found who saw a Mercedes leave Matty’s shop at midnight on the night of the kidnapping. And the day when she told Megan that of four Mercedeses in Matty’s shop at the time, one of the owners, who’d left her car for the week while she’d been in Palm Beach, claimed that the odometer read ten miles less when she picked it up than when she’d left it, which suggested tampering. Then, of course, there was the day when Savannah triumphantly announced that Matty’s alibi had been broken. Susan’s hunch had been right; the Mexican guide who’d spent the better part of a day shuttling a Matty Stavanovich from one ruin to another was vehement that the man he’d driven around was not the same as the one in the picture shown him by the police.
Still, Megan’s testimony was the key to the case. That meant Savannah’s reviewing it with her again and again and again. Once would have been too much for Megan; the repetition nearly drove her wild. But it served its purpose. With each run through of the questions that either Savannah or the defense attorney might ask, Megan grew more sure of her script. Indeed, there were times when she began to imagine that her testimony was the whole truth and nothing but.
It was the other times that got to her, though, the times when fear took over. Those were the times when, in the dark of night, she picked up the phone and called Jared.
He was wonderful. He no longer asked her name, but he recognized her voice and was incredibly gentle. Yes, he coaxed her to tell him what was wrong. She’d have been disappointed if he hadn’t. He wanted to help, but unless she told him the truth, he couldn’t do that.
