Southern Lights: A Novel

Savannah gave Daisy a last hug and got into the car. Daisy and Julianne and the two old servants were waving as she and Tom drove away from Thousand Oaks. Savannah would never have believed it, but she hated to leave Charleston, and what felt now like her second home. Even Luisa hadn’t been able to spoil it for her. Savannah thought that even though she had missed her mother, they were the happiest four months of her life. She had two real parents now and loved them both.

Chapter 19

Savannah’s New York graduation was the antithesis of the one in Charleston. All her friends wore jeans with holes in them, and tank tops and sneakers or flip-flops under their gowns. No one carried flowers or wore pretty white dresses, and the boys wore T-shirts and jeans, and Nikes or flip-flops, but they let out the same wild war whoop of glee the moment they had graduated, and threw their caps in the air, and then tore off the rented gowns.

Everyone had been thrilled to see Savannah, and she had stayed in touch with most of them by e-mail and phone from Charleston. But it felt strange to be back here now. Everything seemed so different in New York. She wasn’t sure where she was most at home now, she loved both. She didn’t say it to her mother, but she really missed Charleston at times.

Turner had come up for her New York graduation, and she showed him all the sights. All her girlfriends thought he was gorgeous and really nice, and even the boys she knew liked him. And her grandmother took them both to lunch, and she showed him her court. Turner was impressed that her grandmother was a judge, and her mother an assistant DA. His own mom had never worked before she died.

“Neither did mine when she was married to my dad,” Savannah explained. “She went to law school after they got divorced, and my grandma went when my grampa died. Sort of to keep busy and not be so sad.” Turner had admitted to her that his father had a twenty-six-year-old girlfriend and was thinking of getting remarried, and he and his brothers were really upset about it. He was lonely without his late wife.

Savannah and Turner did everything they had hoped to in New York. She took him to the top of the Empire State Building, which he wanted to see, they rode on the Staten Island Ferry, and went to the Statue of Liberty and the museum at Ellis Island. And they went to the Bronx Zoo, saw the animals, and felt like little kids again. And they went to Long Island and walked on the beach. They were already figuring out how they were going to spend time in Duke and Princeton with each other in the fall. They had every intention of continuing their romance. And whenever they were apart, even for an hour, they called and texted each other constantly. They both felt like it was going to be an eternity before she came back to Charleston to visit in August, after Europe with her mother. But at least they had the wedding ahead of them. It was ten days away when Turner left New York.

And the day after he left, Savannah found a dress. Alexa had found hers with her mother the day they went shopping at Barney’s. She had bought something totally out of character for her. It was a peach-colored strapless chiffon gown that was low cut and very sexy, and the skirt was long and graceful. She had bought high-heeled silver sandals to wear with it. She tried it on for Savannah and was worried that it was too low cut and too revealing for her.

“Mom,” Savannah scolded her, “you’re thirty-nine years old, not a hundred. You should look sexy.”

“That’s what Grandma said. I don’t know what you two have in mind. Maybe you’re planning to pimp me out. I have nowhere to wear this afterward.” It seemed like a waste of money, but she had fallen in love with it and hadn’t had a dress like it in years.

Savannah was pleased that her mother had bought such a pretty dress. “You’re wearing it to Travis’s wedding. That’s enough. You look beautiful.”

“Maybe I can have it shortened and wear it to the office,” her mother teased. “It’ll look great in court at my next trial.”

“There is more to life than work,” Savannah scolded her again, and Alexa shrugged.

Sam had called her a couple of times to see what she was up to, and they both admitted that there was a letdown after the trial. Everything else seemed so insignificant compared to what they’d been doing. But serial killers with eighteen victims in nine states didn’t come around often in anyone’s career. It was nice to feel they’d made a difference in the world and done their jobs well. The sentencing was scheduled for the day before she left for Europe with Savannah. They were going to Paris, London, and Florence, with maybe a weekend in the South of France. Alexa was planning to splurge, and they were staying for three weeks. And then Savannah would go back to Charleston to see Turner for two weeks. Alexa had agreed to that too. She didn’t want to stand in the way of romance.