doinâ good.â
Old didnât matter so much.
Most of the time.
Savannah rolled down the Buickâs window and breathed the sweet, moist night air. âDo you think weâre old yet?â she asked Dirk.
He turned to look at her, a surprised expression on his face. âWhat?â
âDo you think weâre old? I mean, I know we arenât old-old yet, butâ¦do you think of me as old?â
âYou? Hell, no. Youâre not old, Van. Youâre no different than you were when I first met you. Itâs not like youâre a guyâ¦losing your hair and crap like that.â
Poor Dirk , she thought. Always with the hair. The world began and ended with The Hair.
Dirk could lose every tooth in his head and gain three hundred pounds, and all he would worry about was whether his hair had thinned in the past two months.
â Iâm getting older,â he said. âI can feel it in my body, especially the day after Iâve gone a few rounds with some street punk. But youâ¦â He shot her a flirtatious grin that, she had to admit, made her heart beat just a bit faster. ââ¦youâre fresh as a sun-warmed Georgia peach and twice as tasty.â
Yeap, the pulse rate is definitely up , she thought. âWhen you look at me like that,â she told him, âyou remind me of that guy I met years ago, the one I had to fight off a time or two on stakeouts when we first got assigned together.â
He bristled. âWho? Somebody got fresh with you? You shouldâve told me. I wouldâveââ
âI meant you , dimwit.â
âOh.â He cleared his throat and stared straight ahead, suddenly intent on the road. Finally, he said, âItâs been so long since Iâve tried to get into your knickers that Iâd forgotten. And that just goes to show you how old Iâm getting.â
âNaw.â She reached over and thumped him on the shoulder. âYouâre still a virile horndog. Youâre just tired, run down a little. Theyâve been working you too hard.â
âThey have been. Iâve got five cases on my desk already, and now they throw this one at me. Iâm telling you, if that girl turns up dead, Iâm screwed.â
Good olâ Dirk. Always thinking of others, she thought.
âIâll help you find her,â she said.
He brightened. âReally?â
âSure. Sadly, I donât have any clients at the moment. I want to enjoy my visit with Gran while sheâs here, but I should still have plenty of time to help you track her down.â
Breathing a sigh of relief, fatigue, or depressionâwith him, it was hard to tell whichâhe said, âSo, you think sheâs all right, this girl? You think sheâs still alive?â
Savannah thought of how many times Granny Reid had warned her about saying negative things. âA body has to watch what comes out of their mouth,â sheâd said. âYour words float out into the universe, and who knows where theyâll land. You can speak things into being, so be careful what you say.â
âAlive?â she said. âSure. Daisyâs still alive. Sheâs just off somewhere, getting into something she shouldnât, like any other teenager.â
Savannah thought of Pam OâNeil, of how her motherâs intuition was telling her that something terrible had happened to her precious daughter.
She thought of Kiki Wallaceâs downcast, guilt-filled eyes.
She thought of Robyn Dante, the so-called queen of the castle, who had answered Savannahâs questions with clipped, curt responses. And even those answers had been contradictory.
No, Daisy hadnât been there at all yesterday. Okay, she was there, but not for long.
No, she hadnât talked to her. Well, yes, Daisy had mentioned to her that she was excited about taping the sitcom.
No, Robyn couldnât imagine why Daisy had gone missing. She was
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley