“You seem like you’re in an unusually agreeable mood, Buzz.”
“Got busy with the wife last night. First time in a month. I put on a little Pavarotti, she squeezed into something skimpy I got her for Valentine’s Day five years ago, which was the last time I remembered Valentine’s Day, and we rocked the house. The kitchen. Our bed. The dog’s bed. It was something, lemme tell ya.”
“I could’ve definitely gone all day without knowing about the dog’s bed, Buzz.”
“Hey, you asked.”
“So I did. Live and learn.”
“What are you doing in Tahoe, Logan? Tahoe’s for rich people. The beautiful people. Beautiful is not a word that comes readily to mind when I think of your sorry mug.”
“Savannah and I are getting remarried.”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“Say again?”
“We’re getting remarried.”
“To Savannah?”
“Affirmative.”
“The Savannah who dumped you for Arlo Echevarria?”
“One and the same.”
There was a time when Buzz wouldn’t have hesitated to tell me that I’d lost my mind, reconciling with a woman who’d left me for a brother warrior. But for once, he held his tongue.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing, Logan.”
“Makes two of us, buddy.”
He said he’d get back to me with whatever relevant insights he could find on the crashed Beechcraft. I told him I’d be waiting.
The snow was coming down heavier, beginning to blanket the cars in the lot. I envisioned a leisurely breakfast back at Tranquility House with Savannah, followed by a romantic interlude in the privacy of our bungalow with a cozy fire in the fireplace. We’d drive into town after that, take out a marriage license, and exchange vows.
I couldn’t have known that by the time I got back, she’d have gone without so much as a word of good-bye.
SEVEN
Nothing seemed amiss.
The damp washcloth draped over the faucet and the water beaded on the tiled walls of the shower stall told me that Savannah had showered shortly after I’d left our bungalow to meet with Deputy Streeter.
There were two bras and two pairs of panties in the plastic bag she used for dirty laundry. That told me she’d apparently dressed for the day and left — but without her long down coat, which was still hanging in the closet. I knew she wouldn’t have gone for a walk without it, given the weather.
I also knew she hadn’t gone for a run. Her Nikes were still packed in her suitcase, and her iPhone in its pink protective case was still on the nightstand, charging. Savannah never went anywhere without her phone.
I ventured back outside, searching for tracks in the freshly fallen snow, but the only ones I could see were mine. That told me she’d gone before the snow started falling.
“Haven’t seen her all morning,” Johnny Kavitch said when I went into the main house. “She didn’t come in for breakfast. It’s still sitting on the table in the dining room, untouched. Yours, too. Gwen, have you seen Savannah this morning?”
Kavitch’s wife emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a red and white striped dish towel. “Listening to the TV. I’m sorry, were you calling me?”
“Have you seen Savannah this morning?” I asked before Johnny could.
Gwen frowned and stared at the floor for a second, trying to remember. “Come to think of it,” she said, “I can’t say that I have. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere, though. Unless she took your car and decided to go into town.”
“I had the car. What about your son? Where is he?”
“Preston?” Gwen traded a troubling glance with her husband. “Still sleeping. We let him sleep in. His counselor says it’s good therapy.”
The acrid taste of bile rose up in the back of my throat.
“Where’s his bedroom?”
“Upstairs. Why?”
I bounded up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
“That’s our private residence,” Johnny hollered after me. “You can’t go up there! Hey!”
I ignored him.
Preston’s bedroom was down a short hallway decorated with framed family photos, the last door on the left. It was the only one that was locked. I booted it open, splintering the jam, and went in. He bolted upright, shirtless, startled awake. The posters covering his walls were a testament to the blood-fest video games he was apparently into—Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat.
“Get out of my room!”
“Where is she, Preston?”
“Where’s who? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I moved toward him.
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t know where your wife is, man!” He pulled the covers up around his pale, concentration camp survivor chest and cowered against the headboard, trying to get as far from me as he could. “How would I know where she is? I told you. Get out!”
“I’m gonna ask you one more time, Preston, then I’m gonna take you apart, one piece at a time. Now, where… is… she?”
“I told you! I don’t know where she’s at! Dad! DAD!”
“This is definitely not cool!” Johnny said, bounding in with his wife hard on his heels. He was clutching a ski pole like a spear.
“You need to take a deep breath and calm down, Mr. Logan,” Gwen said with her palms outstretched, pleading. “Please. Before someone gets hurt.”
“My wife is missing and I’m wondering if Cujo here knows something he isn’t telling.”
“You have no right to call my son names,” Gwen said.
“Mom, I told him. I don’t know nothing what he’s talking about!”
I might’ve corrected him on his use of double negatives, but intuition told me that was the least of Preston Kavitch’s sins.
Streeter answered his phone on the second ring. I told him that Savannah had disappeared, and that I was worried.
“How long has she been gone?”
“I don’t know. I came back from meeting with you, and she wasn’t here.”
“We don’t usually take missing persons reports until the party’s been gone at least twenty-four hours,” Streeter said.
“Every hour a kidnapping victim remains missing, the chance of recovering that victim alive declines ten percent.”
“How do you know that?”
“It doesn’t matter how I know. I’m asking you to help find her.”
“Does she jog?” Streeter asked.
“Occasionally.”
“OK, so it could be she went jogging. Maybe she stopped for coffee somewhere.”
I told him how her running shoes were still packed away in her suitcase.
“There’s something else you should know,” I said. “She’s pregnant.”
“How far along is she?”
“Couple months.”
Streeter speculated that Savannah may have had a complication with her pregnancy. He said he’d put in a call to the local hospital.
“If there was a medical problem,” I said, “she wouldn’t have just started walking, and definitely not without her coat. She would’ve asked the people we’re staying with for a ride to the hospital. She didn’t do that.”
“Well, there’s probably some logical explanation,” Streeter said. “She’ll be back. You just need to be patient.”
Patience, unfortunately, has never been my strong suit.
“I have a proposition,” I said.
“A proposition?”
“You get a fingerprint tech over here in the next hour and I’ll get you the information you want from that FAA file.”