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“Well, sort of.”
She had a slight smile on her face, but even so, Savvy thought she looked worried. “Why did you ask him that?”
She shrugged. “He’s just always so together, y’know. I just kinda wanted to get him, I guess. Everything is so rational in Hale’s world.”
“That’s not why you did it.”
Kristina’s pale blue eyes met hers for the space of two heartbeats, and then she looked away. “I’ve just been feeling so off.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened . . . nothing specific, anyway.”
“Well, how did this start? This off feeling?”
“It just . . .” She pushed away from the counter and paced to the sunroom door. “Maybe it’s just fear of the future. I mean, when this little guy gets here, everything’s going to be different. Up all night. Diapers. Formula. Total upheaval. Panic time, you know?”
“You’re having second thoughts?”
“No, no, no.” Kristina shot back to the kitchen again and said earnestly, “I can’t wait for this baby. I just can’t wait! Once he’s here, everything’s going to be okay. Maybe there is some panic in there, sure, but I so want this baby. I’ve just never been as good as you are about keeping a lid on my own craziness.”
“I don’t know
about that.”
“You know how put together you are. You’ve got a great governor on your emotions. You always have. Me? Not so much.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Never mind. I’m just tired and acting nutty. Forget everything I said.”
Nope, this was definitely not the time to reinterview Kristina about the Donatellas, either. And contrary to all her protestations, Kristina was having second thoughts. Something sure as hell was going on. Savvy was really getting worried that Kristina and Hale’s marriage might be in serious trouble, and this little baby inside her, the one she was beginning to feel very protective of, wasn’t going to save it.
She tried to draw more out of her sister, hoping to deduce exactly what was bothering her, what the “baggage” was, but it was as if Kristina had expended all her energy and had just kinda shut down, seating herself on one of the bar stools, not really offering up much more in conversation. Half an hour later Savannah was out the door and driving south to her home, no wiser to Kristina’s issues. Her sister was an enigma, plain and simple.
The rain had turned to a fine mist, and it was dark as midnight. Savannah drove carefully as winds buffeted the SUV, making it shudder and feel loose on the road, and she let out a pent-up breath when she finally pulled into the driveway of the little gray ranch perched on the east side of 101, with a surprisingly spectacular view north to the Pacific. Tonight, however, the ocean was a black expanse, and as she hit the garage-door button, she was glad for the automatic light that came on as the door slid upward. Driving inside the garage, she shut the door with another push of the button, eased her shape out of the driver’s door and around the car, then trudged up the two wooden steps that led into the kitchen. Dropping her coat on a chair, she saw the plate that held traces of her earlier peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For one moment she debated about having another one, even though she’d just eaten Gino’s linguine.
Better not, she decided regretfully and headed through the living room to her second bedroom, which functioned as a den. Her laptop lay open on the desktop, plugged in, its green light on. She woke it from hibernation and waited to connect to the Internet, annoyed that her mind was still on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
She sat for a moment, shrugging off her unsettling meeting with Kristina with an effort, concentrating instead on her earlier interview with Catherine. Thinking of Catherine sent her thoughts to Maggie/Cassandra, and she Googled “Cassandra” and “seer” and found scads of links to information about the mythical princess who could predict the future. She also learned that when Cassandra rejected the advances of the god Apollo, she was cursed to never have anyone believe her.
Cassandra sees things, but they’re not always accurate....
Was that the truth? Catherine’s body language had belied her words, but did that mean Maggie/Cassandra Rutledge . . . Beeman—or whatever the hell her name was—could actually see the future?
“Bullshit.”
Savannah decided to put thoughts of Catherine and Maggie/Cassandra aside as well, but first she checked out the story of the Hydra, a mythical beast whose heads grew back every time they were cut off. The Hydra was one of Hercules’s seven labors and was finally defeated after Hercules cut off one of its heads, then burned the neck right afterward, cauterizing the wound and thereby making the head unable to regrow.
Burning. Fire. Had Maggie/Cassandra told that story because fire was all that would stop the man who was coming for them?
She laid her hands on her stomach and said aloud, “Now, you’re just getting freaky.”
Shutting down her computer, she considered the women of Siren Song with their gifts, some of them dark gifts. Hearing a floorboard squeak, she jerked around, her eyes searching the dark corners of the room.
Nothing there.
“Creepy,” she said, mad at herself for her attack of nerves. A moment later she decided she needed that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, after all.
The following morning Savannah stopped off for a vanilla yogurt, a banana, and a cup of decaf coffee at the Sands of Thyme Bakery, where she collected her breakfast items, then grabbed a white mug from the pyramid stack next to the “serve yourself” thermoses. She poured her mug full, added a dash of cream, and picked up a spoon before finding a table at the far end of the room.
Sipping her decaf, she peeled the banana and slowly ate it. She wasn’t that big of a banana fan, but it was loaded with potassium, and she’d been told it would be a good thing for her to eat as many as possible. So be it. She was a short timer, and she didn’t want to do anything to screw things up at this late date. Still, it was downright amazing how much food she could put away and how much she thought about eating.
