Saving Savannah

  It happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Actually, I’m ecstatic. Our baby might be unplanned, but it will be more than welcome. By me, anyhow. Please, please, please tell me that you’re happy, too.

  Gotta go now. I’m writing over my lunch break, and my one o’clock Creative Fiction class is waiting. I’ll write again tomorrow. I just wanted to get this in the mail ASAP.

  Love you forever,

  Savannah

  He could kick himself for not setting up a new email account as soon as he hit Afghanistan, but he hadn’t had time. He’d been immediately engaged in briefings for an upcoming mission, which turned out to be his gateway to hell.

  Ever since he’d come back to the States a month ago, he’d been trying to contact Savannah, but she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. All his mail had been returned Forwarding Order Expired, including the dozens of letters he’d written from the hospital. He couldn’t find a phone number for her or a trace of her current whereabouts on the Internet. Finally, he’d given up, figuring she’d delivered to him the GI’s dreaded silent shaft. It wasn’t her style, but maybe she’d met someone else and didn’t have the nerve to tell him in person. Shit happened.

  And now, just as he was about to go on leave, his commanding officer had handed him this letter. Straightening with determination, he picked up the phone and dialed a certain number.

  “Mom?”

  “Matt! Darlin’!” His mother’s deep Southern drawl was warm with welcome. “When will you be getting here? Your father’s at the club. He’ll be so disappointed to have missed your call.”

  His parents had visited several times while he was at Walter Reed Medical Center, but this would be his first trip back home.

  “I’ll still arrive about seven p.m., but, Mom, I have a question for you. When you came to the hospital, I asked if you knew where Savannah was, and you said no.”

  There was an ominous silence before she said, “That is still true.” She laughed, a fake laugh, if he ever heard one. “I don’t know why you’re still interested in that girl. Good Lord, she didn’t even know her parents. She had no birth name. She was abandoned. An orphan! I shudder to think what might be in her genes. I always said you were too good for—”

  “Enough! I didn’t like you talking Savannah down before, and I don’t like it now.” He shook his head with disgust. Something was fishy here. Slow down and think, he told himself. Sometimes a soldier needs to regroup and try a different tactic. “Mother, did Savannah ever contact you or Dad after I was deployed almost six years ago?”

  The silence was telling.

  “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Her gasp carried through the telephone line. He could just picture her with a hand held delicately to her heart. “Yes, but—”

  He said a foul word that he’d never said in his mother’s presence before. “Did you see the baby?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “A girl. Her name is Katherine Mary Carrington. I told Savannah she had no right to give the baby our name, but she probably used it as a ploy to gain money from us.”

  A little girl. Oh, God! I have a daughter. And she would be . . . five years old already. Oh, God!

  “Did you give her money?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Did she ask for money?”

  “Well, no, not exactly, but—”

  For Savannah to go to his parents for anything, knowing how his mother felt about her, there must have been some emergency. “She was my fiancée. Why would you refuse to help her with anything?”

  “She could have hocked that too-expensive engagement ring you bought her if she had that many troubles.”

  “And did you tell her so?” he asked with brutal calm.

  “I did, indeed. The hussy had the nerve to turn around and walk away. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.”

  Matt saw red. He literally understood for the first time in his life what people meant when they used that hackneyed expression. Through the haze of fire floating in front of his vision, he gritted his teeth, knowing he needed more information before he could end the call. “Are they still in Savannah?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so.”

  “Savannah must have given up her teaching job. I called the school, and all they would tell me was that she was no longer employed there and hadn’t been for years. She loved her teaching job. They wouldn’t have fired her for a pregnancy; that’s against the law. Do you know why she left?”

  “Um . . . I have no idea. I mean, we offered to . . . well, never mind.”

  “You offered what?”

  “We offered to bring up the girl, if you must know, once we were told of the birth by a friend of ours at the hospital. Doctor Morgan. You remember him, don’t you? His daughter Emily used to play tennis with you at the club.”

  “About the baby?” he prodded.

  “Oh. Well, all Savannah had to do was sign the papers, but she tore them up and threw them at us. Can you imagine?”

  “You saw her then? The baby?”

  “Briefly. She looked like you did as an infant, actually. And at that point, as far as we knew, you were probably dead. It would have been our last link with you. Our only child!” She barely stifled a sob.

  Matt was not touched with sympathy for his mother. He knew from experience that she could sob at will when it suited her purposes. And he noticed that she’d referred to her granddaughter as “it.” Some life that child would have had under his mother’s care.

  “You must admit, Matthew, we have much more to offer than a single mother,” his mother continued, apparently recovered from her brief bout of grief, “but Savannah wouldn’t listen. In fact, she had the gall to have a security officer escort us from the hospital.”

  Good for her! “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you realized I was alive?”

  “We didn’t want to worry you. Especially not in the beginning, when you were in the hospital recovering from physical injuries.”

  “And later, when I asked where Savannah was?”

  “We didn’t lie. We don’t know where she is. We even had a court date, several, in fact, and she never showed up.”

  “A court date for what? No, don’t tell me. A custody hearing. No wonder she disappeared.”

  He’d always known his parents were snobs of the highest order, but he’d mostly been amused by their exaggerated sense of self-importance. He’d never thought they could be so deliberately cruel.

  “Did you threaten Savannah?”

  “Of course not. We just offered to take it off her hands.”

  “It? It? Are you referring to my daughter . . . to your grandchild . . . as an ‘it’? Thus far, I’ve heard you call her ‘the girl,’ ‘the baby,’ and ‘it.’ Don’t you have a friggin’ heart?” He was shouting now. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Matthew David Carrington! Don’t you dare take that tone with—”

  For the first time in his life, he hung up on his mother, and he pulled the plug on the land phone when it immediately started ringing.

  Two hours later, he was on a flight to Georgia. In the past, when he was happily on his way home after a long mission, that Gladys Knight song “Midnight Train to Georgia” would play in his head. This time, he for damn sure wasn’t happy. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and looked, for about the thousandth time, at the photo of himself and Savannah taken two weeks before his deployment, on the night he’d asked her to marry him. They looked so happy.

  Was she happy now?

  Had she built a new life for herself without him?

  Where the hell did she think he’d been all this time? He’d forgotten to ask his mother. Probably dead. Yep, he’d bet his stripes that his mother would have told her he was deceased, not MIA.

  Another unwelcome thought came to him. What if she’d married and his little girl was calling another man daddy?

  “Oh, Savannah, w
here are you?” he whispered, pressing the picture to his lips. Tears welled in his eyes, but then he raised his head with determination. “I’m on my way, sweetheart, wherever you are.”

  Some puzzles just take time to solve . . .

  “I JIST CAIN’T understand why she won’t accept my help. I’ve asked her ta come stay here with me,” Tante Lulu told Tee-John as they sat in rockers on her Bayou Black back porch. Tee-John’s five-year-old son Etienne was down at the bayou stream fishing. Or more accurately, scaring away every fish, bird, and small animal within fifty feet with his wild casting technique.

  Tee-John took a draw on his long neck bottle of beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, even though there was a perfectly good St. Jude napkin sitting on the wicker table beside him.

  “She’s afraid, Tante.”

  “Of what?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She gave him a narrow-eyed look, the one that had been working since he was a young’en causing mischief up and down the bayou. “How kin you not be sure?”

  “I’m a detective, not a magician. Besides, I’ve been stickin’ close ta home with Celine bein’ pregnant and all.” She was in the house at the moment, taking a nap on the same cot Tee-John slept on all those years ago when he ran away from his father, Valcour LeDeux, when he got to drinking. That man was meaner than a grizzly with a corncob up its butt.

  Imagine. Tee-John having another chile. And this time he would be around to see the bebe be born. “I hope she has a girl this time.”

  “That would be nice, but Etienne sez it better be a boy or we’re sending it back.”

  She had to smile at that. The little imp! “Back ta Savannah. Fer two weeks, I been goin’ over ta Nawleans ta talk with her. You were right, she’s livin’ in her car. I ain’t et so many chicken dippers in all my life. I think I’m startin’ ta cluck.”

  “Oh, Lord! You’ve been going to that strip joint, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, and I’m learnin’ some good dance moves, too. Didja ever hear of the twerk?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “It involves bendin’ yer knees and spreadin’ them. Sorta like squatin’ ta pee in the woods.”

  “I pee against a tree.”

  She swatted him on the knee with her folded Richard Simmons fan for the interruption. “Then you vibrate yer tushie real fast. You could say it’s like shimmyin’ yer butt. Me and Charmaine been practicin’. When Charmaine showed Rusty how it was done, he almos’ had a heart attack. Then he took her ta bed fer a whole afternoon. Leastways, thass what Charmaine said. Want me ta demonstrate?”

  “Please don’t.” He was staring at her like she was a little bit crazy. Nothing new there. “I bet Savannah is pissed about you bird-doggin’ her.”

  “You could say that. Las’ night, fer example, I followed her around Walmart ’til she stopped and asked what I was doin’ there. I tol’ her there ain’t no law sez I cain’t shop wherever I want. ‘At midnight?’ she asked then. Jeesh! I did buy her little girl a pretty sundress, though.”

  “I’m afraid to ask how you got ta Walmart, presumably in Nawleans, at that ungodly hour. No. Don’t tell me. I’ll be the one havin’ a heart attack then. I’m surprised that Savannah accepted your gift.”

  “She couldn’t not accept. I tore off the tags and ripped up the sales receipt.” She thought for a few moments. “Mebbe we should kidnap the two of ’em.”

  “We are not kidnapping anyone. Get that idea out of yer head right now.”

  “You doan have ta yell.”

  “Sometimes yellin’ is the only thing that will get through yer fool head.”

  “You ain’t helpin’ much.”

  Tee-John shrugged. “I gave you all the info I could find.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “Savannah Jones, born almost thirty years ago at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Savannah, Georgia. No known birth parents. Adoptive parents, James and Ellie Jones, deceased. A graduate of the University of Georgia with high honors. Had been an English teacher at a private school in suburban Savannah. Then suddenly, she resigned and moved to Nawleans where she taught school in the lower ninth ward until Hurricane Katrina. She lost her apartment and her job because of the floods and hasn’t been able to get back on her feet since then.”

  “There’s a puzzle in there somewheres. I jist ain’t figgered out what it is yet.”

  “Oh, I forgot ta tell you. A friend of mine in Georgia dug up something interestin’. Turns out Savannah got engaged to a Captain Matthew Carrington, just before he shipped out for Afghanistan more than five years ago. Todd and Evelyn Carrington, his parents, are big-shot, country-club types. Carrington was a POW for several years, but he escaped about six months ago. That’s all I know.”

  Tante Lulu smacked him on the arm. “You knew that and dint tell me. Sometimes, I swear, you got the brain of a flea.”

  “I was gonna tell you.”

  “Hah! I doan suppose you got any addresses or telephone numbers.”

  He pulled an index card out of his shirt pocket and grinned at her.

  She grinned back.

  “Be careful what you do, auntie. Savannah is runnin’ from somethin’, and it could very well be this guy. Maybe he was abusive. Or maybe he didn’t care about being a father or a husband.”

  “I’ll be careful. Jist you watch me. I know how ta handle people. I’m a people person.”

  Tee-John rolled his eyes.

  She didn’t care if he was skeptical. Tante Lulu had a feeling she was about to solve the puzzle. Thank you, St. Jude.

  Chapter Three

  A good soldier needs a battle plan . . .

  MATT WAS AT HIS parents’ home packing up the rest of his belongings to ship to his Fort Dix apartment. In the meantime, he was staying at a hotel. No way was he going to live at home, not after what his parents had done.

  He was now on leave, and he was meeting this afternoon with a private detective who had a good track record for finding missing persons.

  The phone rang as he was carrying the last of his boxes through the hall and down the steps. He heard his mother answer in the library.

  “Yes, this is the home of Matthew Carrington. Who is this?”

  Glancing in the open doorway, he saw his mother bristle. “I am Evelyn Carrington, if you must know. Why do you wish to speak with my son? Don’t you dare call me an old biddy . . . you . . . you old biddy. I’m going to hang up now.”

  That’s all he needed, his mother screening his calls. Matt put down his box and stepped in the room, signaling his mother to hand him the phone.

  “Hello. Matthew Carrington here.”

  “Thank the Lord!” an elderly sounding voice with a Southern accent exclaimed. “I’m Louise Rivard, but you kin call me Tante Lulu, like everyone does. Are you the Matthew Carrington that was engaged to Savannah Jones?”

  The fine hairs stood out on the back of Matt’s neck, and he felt as if a vice were clamping his heart. He sank down into the desk chair. “Yes,” he replied hesitantly.

  “Boy, you are harder to find than pepper in a pile of pig poop.”

  Is she calling me the pepper or the poop? “Boy? I’m thirty-five years old.”

  “So? I usta play jacks with Moses. What does age have ta do with this?”

  The woman is obviously a wack job. “Yes, I was engaged to Savannah. Do you know where she is?”

  “Sure do.”

  The vice around his heart lessened, and he breathed deeply. “Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s not okay. Would I be callin’ you if she was okay? Jeesh! Some men are dumber ’n a flyin’ brick.”

  The damn vice slammed shut again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. She’s poor as a bayou church mouse, workin’ in a strip joint, and about ta skedaddle off ta live in an igloo or sumpin’.”

  Huh? “And my daughter . . . is she with her?”

  “I declare, the Taliban musta done tha
t water drip torture on yer brain, bless yer heart. And by the way, I ’preciate yer service to our country. I give ta the Wounded Warrior Project all the time.”

  “My daughter . . . ?” he prodded.

  “Of course Katie is with her mother. Ain’t you been listenin’?”

  Katie. Her nickname is Katie. Something else occurred to him then. Savannah is a stripper. He found that hard to believe. They’d made love in the dark, at first, because she was too shy to let him see her naked. “Savannah is actually working in a strip joint?”

  The old lady let out a snort of laughter. “Guess you’ll hafta come and find out.” Then she added, “I find it interestin’ that yer more concerned about her job than the fact she and yer daughter are homeless, living in an ol’ rattletrap of a car.”

  Matt put his face down on the desk and groaned inwardly. This just got worse and worse. “Give me her address, and I’ll be there in . . . wait a minute. Where are you calling from?”

  “Loo-zee-anna.”

  He grinned, suddenly giddy with relief and anticipation. “That’s a big state. Where exactly are Savannah and Katie?”

  “Well, thass the thing. I cain’t tell you ’til I’m sure it’s safe.”

  He stiffened. “What do you mean? Is she with someone else? Did she get married?”

  “Savannah’s still single, but she’s skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs. That girl’s been on the run fer some time. How do I know it’s not you she’s runnin’ from?”

  He swore a blue streak and demanded, “Where the hell is she?”

  “You ain’t gonna accomplish nothin’ with cuss words.”

  “Sorry,” he said, realizing he couldn’t afford to antagonize his only lead to date. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come meet with me so I kin check you out.”

  He resented the idea. Big time. Still he said, “Where?”

  “Bayou Black. Thass outside Houma, Loozeanna. Jist ask anyone fer Tante Lulu’s place.”

  “I’ll be there.” He checked his watch, saw that it was already seven p.m., and added, “Tomorrow morning.”