Chapter 11
When Savannah and Dirk entered the library, they found the Moonlight gang had assembled, just as requested. They had arranged a semicircle of chairs in front of an enormous window and were enjoying the view of the village and its busy waterway.
But their festive mood turned somber the moment they saw Savannah’s and Dirk’s faces.
John jumped up from his chair and offered it to Savannah. “What’s up with you two?” he asked.
Granny reached over and put her hand on Savannah’s knee. “What’s the matter, Savannah girl? You look like you’ve lost your best friend.”
“Not my best friend exactly,” Savannah told her. “But I’ve misplaced my client, her husband, and her personal assistant. Their suite was empty this morning and no one’s seen them, including their fancy dandy butler.”
“We found another of those threatening letters in the bathroom garbage can,” Dirk told them.
“Oh, no,” Granny said. “That can’t be good no matter how you slice it.”
For the next ten minutes, they filled everyone in on the depressing new developments. Savannah noticed that, while each member of the group took the news seriously and with concern, it was Tammy who appeared to be the most upset.
But then, Savannah had noticed that her young friend appeared distraught even when she and Dirk had first entered the room.
She cast a quick glance at her brother and realized that he was watching her. More accurately, he was watching her watch Tammy. Savannah quirked one eyebrow and gave him a questioning, big sister look.
He shook his head slightly, then looked down at the floor, as though to warn her against saying anything.
A new fear, even sharper than the one she was feeling for Natasha Van Cleef, sliced through her.
The baby? she thought. There can’t be anything wrong with the baby. That would just be too, too terrible.
With a tremendous effort, she pulled her attention back to the business at hand.
Dirk was handing out assignments. “Ryan, John, and you, Dad . . . how would you feel about taking Bellissimo duty again? Find him if you can, trail him, and see what he’s up to.”
“You’ve got it,” Ryan agreed.
“Done.” Richard might have been retired from the police force for quite a while, but Savannah observed that the expression on his face, so like his son’s, was all “cop.”
Only John looked the slightest bit reluctant. “With luck we won’t find it necessary to actually lay hands on himself. A fierce big bloke he is, and no doubt nasty tempered as well.” He glanced around at the others, then shrugged, looking a bit sheepish. “You understand, of course, I wouldn’t be concerned if we were carrying any weapons. Even a small Taser would be a comfort under the circumstances.”
“I understand completely,” Savannah said. “Don’t take any chances. If there’s a problem, contact the local authorities. Let them deal with him.”
“Yeah,” Dirk added. “They’re used to wrestling grizzly bears. They have wolf steak for dinner. What’s one measly mobster from Los Angeles when your family pet is a wolverine?”
Ryan chuckled. “Exactly. In a rugged, masculine place like this, Frank Bellissimo isn’t the top of the food chain anymore.”
Savannah tried not to make it obvious that she was worried about Tammy when she said, “Waycross and Tammy, would you mind very much staying here on the ship? It would be very helpful if you would hang out in the atrium and watch the security checkpoints. We need to know if any of these people return to the ship.”
“Sure, Sis,” Waycross replied. “No problem. We’d be happy to.”
Instead of her usual, over-the-top, bubbly response, Tammy simply stared down at her hands, which were folded demurely in her lap, and gave a little nod.
“Thanks,” Dirk said. Savannah noticed that he was staring at Tammy, too.
In fact, everyone in the group was watching her and looking most concerned.
After a long, awkward pause, Dirk turned to his mother and Granny. “Mom, would you and Gran go ashore and see if you can get a line on Olive? Just ask around, try to find someone who noticed her, who can tell you what she was doing. She’s a distinctive gal. Men in particular would probably remember her if they saw her.”
Savannah said, “Everybody keep an eye out for Patricia Chumley, too, Natasha’s editor. She’s the one with the dark hair and black eyeglasses.”
Dirk added, “On the security video she appeared to be pretty happy, just leaving the ship to have a good time. So she’s probably out shopping for smoked salmon to take back to the relatives. But let us know if you see her.”
“We have pictures of all these people.” Savannah began sending the photos to their phones. “They’re courtesy of a security guard who treated us like gold this morning, unlike that stinky Poole fella. Her name’s Marcia. If you see her, give her a big hug.”
Dirk grimaced. “She’s kidding.”
“No, she’s not,” Gran said. “She’s Southern. We hug good folks. Tight. Kiss ’em, too. Sometimes whether they want it or not.” She turned to Dora. “Let’s hit the shore, girlfriend. Raise a ruckus if we can.”
Dora jumped to her feet. “Let’s do. This sounds like fun. If we find her right away, we could go shopping for some cheap souvenirs or take one of those free historical walking tours. Or would you like to have lunch at one of those exotic eateries, Gran? One with reasonable prices, of course. I can’t imagine myself eating a bear burger, but I’d try a moose steak, if it was on the menu. Would you, Granny? I would if you would, even though I’ve never—”
“I’d try just about anything once,” Granny said, interrupting the flow of words that would have, undoubtedly, gone on for a very long time.
Savannah was most grateful. This new friendship that was forming between her grandmother and Dirk’s mom was proving to be beneficial in more ways than one.
Granny turned to Tammy and Waycross. “If you want, we can come back to the ship after an hour and trade off duties with you. That way you’ll get a chance to walk around town, too. Soak in the local atmosphere and all that good stuff.”
“No, that’s okay,” Tammy said, still staring down at her hands. “We’ll be fine here, surveilling the security station. You go ahead.”
Yes, there’s something wrong, Savannah thought. Very wrong.
Since when did her little Nancy Drew wanna-be prefer the boredom of surveillance duty to hardcore “sleuthing,” as she liked to call it?
The other members of the team were gathering their things, forming their groups, and leaving the library, so Savannah stood and picked up her purse.
She said to Waycross, “I’m fixin’ to go over there to the coffee bar across the room and grab a few cups. I’ll see if they have some chai for our Mom-to-Be. Would you give me a hand?”
He gave her a half smile that showed he hadn’t bought her ruse for a moment, but he joined her anyway.
No sooner did she have him out of Tammy’s earshot than she began the interrogation. “What the heck’s wrong with Tamitha? She’s droopier than Colonel Beauregard’s face. Did you two have a fight? Is there something going on with the baby?”
“No,” he said sadly. “Nothing as bad as all that. But she’s in a dither, for sure. She finally got her folks on the phone this morning. Couldn’t get them to return her call for months now. At first she was all happy to talk to them, but then, her and them, they had a . . . Well, I reckon you’d call it a fight.”
Tammy fighting with someone? Savannah couldn’t imagine it. Other than the occasional testy, siblinglike banter between her and Dirk, Savannah had never heard Tammy utter a cross word to anyone for any reason.
“What about?” Savannah asked, realizing she was being too nosy, but unable to help herself.
Waycross shrugged his broad shoulders and hung his head. “I reckon I shouldn’t say. She’d probably talk to you about it if you asked her.”
Savannah was torn. One of the half dozen people closest to her heart was in pain, and she didn’t have time to even talk to her about it.
“I can’t, Waycross,” she said helplessly. “I have to—”
“Of course you do,” he said. “You can’t be worrying about stuff like that. That author lady could be in bad trouble right this minute.”
He glanced ahead at the coffee bar. “Did you really want to get coffee?” he asked. “Or was it a lame excuse?”
“A lame excuse.”
“That’s what I figured. Let me see if they have some green tea for her and then we’ll go on down to watch that checkpoint for you.”
“I’ll make sure you get some shore time, too.”
“Don’t worry about us, Sis. You got enough on your hands as it is. You just take care o’ business, hear?”
Savannah stood on tiptoe and kissed his ruddy, freckled cheek. “I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you, too, Savannah,” he said, his eyes shining with affection and respect. “Hightail it outta here. Go get your bad guy and let me take care of Tammy. That’s what you do best, and taking care of my girl and our baby is what I do best.”
“You got it, sugar.”
She left him by the coffee vendor and hurried over to Dirk. Grabbing him by the arm, she said, “Let’s get going, Mr. Detective, sir. Time’s a’wastin’.”
* * *
“This isn’t the way I’d envisioned my bucket list visit to Alaska,” Savannah told Dirk as they made their way down the gangway. “I was supposed to be all a’twitter with excitement, not filled to the gills with dread.”
“I hear ya,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and giving her a little squeeze. “Maybe we’ll have to do this again sometime, when we aren’t worried about people getting murdered and stuff like that.”
“Yes, that crap’s a bit of a buzz-kill.”
“Think how bummed out we’ll be if we spend our whole day walking around this place, looking for them, and can’t find them.”
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I can think of worse things.”
“Me too. But I’m trying not to.”
They made their way past the Visitor Center with its long line of tourists, waiting to ask their questions and collect their maps and brochures.
They threaded a zigzag path through a multitude of tour operators, holding signs that advertised bus tours, floatplane tours, hiking tours, and the occasional lumberjack show, all calling out the virtues of their particular adventure, like barkers at a carnival.
“Do you suppose we should poke our heads into the nearest station house and give local law enforcement a heads-up?” Dirk asked.
“And say what? Some passengers who left a cruise ship are probably walking around your town! God knows what they’re up to! Put out an APB! ASAP!”
“Smart-ass.” He cleared his throat. “But if we told them about the threatening letters . . .”
“Celebrity gets weird letters from a fan. News story at eleven!”
He reached over and ruffled her hair. “It’s good for you that you’ve got dimples and a cute, big butt. Otherwise, I wouldn’t put up with all this abuse.”
She grinned up at him, employing those high-ticket dimples. “Yeah, you got it bad, boy. You suffer.”
“In silence.”
“Never, never in silence. Just ain’t your style, Coulter. Never was.”
They paused on the sidewalk and looked up and down the street, lined with quaint stores and eateries.
“Where do you suppose they went?” Dirk asked.
Savannah shrugged. “They passed up a gourmet breakfast, prepared by the executive chef, so they couldn’t have been too hungry.”
“True. Maybe they wanted to go shopping.”
“They’re millionaires. What would they need that they could buy here?”
“Smoked salmon?”
“They’d have it shipped in from Scotland.”
“Furs?”
“If Natasha wears fur, I’d imagine it would be a full-length mink. I can’t picture her in a beaver-lined Elmer Fudd hat.”
“Also true. So, what does that leave?”
Savannah glanced around at all of the eager tour operators. “Sightseeing.”
“If you had a lot of money, like the Van Cleefs, would you get on a bus full of tourists to ride around and look at the scenery?”
“No way. I’d hire a private car.”
They both looked around at the traffic driving by, the nearby parking lots, and the taxi queue halfway down the block.
“Not a luxury limo in sight,” Dirk said, stating the obvious. “Next idea?”
“In a pinch, I’d get a cab. I’d hire the driver to take me wherever I wanted to go.”
“That’s a lousy idea. A long shot at best.”
“Have you got a better one?”
“Nope.”
“Then that makes my idea positively sterling.”
He rolled his eyes, reached down, and grabbed her hand. As they walked toward the taxi queue, she squeezed his fingers and said, “One of these days, darlin’, your eyeballs are gonna roll right outta your head. Then you’re not going to be able to find them, ’cause you have a hard enough time finding things with your eyeballs in their sockets, let alone with them rolling around on the floor.”
Placing a kiss on the top of her hair, he said, “No problem. I have a wonderful wife who’s great at finding things.”
“Like your toothbrush when you leave it in the toaster?”
“Absolutely.”
* * *
They spent the next half hour leaning into taxis with open windows and questioning the cabbies. They showed them the pictures of Natasha and Colin and asked if they had seen either or both of them that morning.
The answers had been nothing but a string of depressing nos.
They were considering taking another tack, when at long last they were surprised and delighted to get a yes.
An older female cabbie, wearing a green and blue plaid shirt that was three sizes too large for her, said, “Saw them earlier this morning. Right about here, as a matter of fact, waiting for a ride.”
“Did you give them one?” Dirk asked.
“No. But the guy behind me in number 436 did.”
“Bless you!” Savannah gushed.
The cabbie gave her a wry smile. “That’s mighty kind of you. Blessings are nice. Cash spends better though.”
Dirk pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket, reached through the window, and handed it to her.
“Gee,” she said, shoving it into her oversized shirt pocket. “Now I can buy that vacation home in Florida I’ve been dreaming of.”
Giving her a curt little salute and bright smile, Dirk said, “That’s wonderful. I feel like a fairy godfather.”
She growled under her breath, then moved her cab forward, nearly running over their toes.
They hurried to the next taxi in the queue. Instead of leaning through the passenger’s window, they rushed around to the driver’s side.
“Hang back a few steps and let me take this one,” Savannah said, when she saw that the cabbie was a fellow who was probably in his fifties.
She did well with guys in their fifties, sixties, and upward. She wasn’t particularly sure why, and she wasn’t especially proud of it. But she’d decided long ago that, when you’ve been given a natural talent, it’s your duty to use it to full advantage.
She leaned down just enough to expose a bit of cleavage—yet another natural gift that had been bestowed upon her. She deepened her dimples with a cutesy smile and said in a sorghum sweet voice, “Why, hi there, sugar! As it turns out, you are just the man I been lookin’ for!”
He looked at her. Her ample bosom. Her bright blue eyes. Her ample bosom. Her deep dimples. Her ample bosom.
Grinning from ear to ear, like a roadkill-possum on a hot Georgia highway, he said, “Really? Then I guess this is my lucky day!”