Savannah turned to find Susan approaching. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans with an oversized sweatshirt emblazoned with rhinestones that made her face look pale. Her hair had been hastily drawn into a loose, voluminous pony tail. She wore socks but no shoes. Savannah guessed she had just woken up.
“I heard the bell,” she said in a groggy voice. Hesitantly, even a bit painfully, she looked from Savannah to Sam. “Anything new?”
He shook his head in silence. He was intently studying her face.
Uncomfortable with that, she turned to Savannah. “So we just wait?”
Savannah nodded.
“Will you stay here?”
“I’ll be back and forth to the office. I’ve got a couple of appointments I can’t change, and, anyway, there are a load of phone calls I can more easily make from there.”
Susan accepted that. She looked too tired and worried to argue. Stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she said, “It’s spooky here. Megan’s everywhere. I kept waking up, thinking about her.”
“So did I, and I was across town.”
“Is it better or worse the longer they keep her?”
“I don’t know,” Savannah said. She looked questioningly at Sam, but he couldn’t help her out.
“A kidnapping is a kidnapping,” he said. “She’s been gone for little over a day. We have to assume it’ll be at least two or three before she’s back. If the exchange hasn’t been made by next week, ask me again.”
Susan shot him a look of annoyance.
“What did I do?” he asked.
“You could have been a little more encouraging.”
“You want me to lie?”
She faced him head-on. “At this hour, and with the night I just had, yes.”
“You look pretty good.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie. I look like death warmed over.”
“No,” he insisted. “You look good. I like you without makeup.” Barely pausing, he said, “How about some breakfast?”
She made a face. “How can you think of eating at a time like this?”
“I’m hungry. Dinner was a long time ago, and delicious as that rum cake was—”
“I thought I said to lie.” She turned to Savannah and said in a prim voice, “The cake fell. I don’t know what happened to it. I’ve never had that experience before in my life.”
Savannah wasn’t about to ask how many rum cakes Susan had made before. She suspected about as many as she had made herself, which was none. She could understand the attempt, though. Doing something would be better than doing nothing, and since the cupboards were full, why not? “Maybe something’s wrong with the oven,” she suggested.
Sam smirked.
Susan frowned.
Sensing she’d better quit while she was ahead, Savannah said, “I’m on my way to the office. I’ll talk with you later.”
***
The news at the office was no more encouraging. “Nothing from the lab,” Savannah told Paul when he stopped by shortly after nine. “Nothing from Ginny and Chris. Nothing from the people we put on the phones. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the Cat struck again.”
“What does the Cat have to do with this case?”
