Apples Never Fall

Brooke, intent on using the internet to find out something about Savannah but frustrated because she can’t recall Savannah’s last name, tries using a photo of her and facial recognition software. She gets a hit—a newspaper photo from a cookbook signing at a bookstore with Savannah in the background, where she’s identified as Savannah Smith. A news article from some 15 years earlier shows the same young woman, touting her as a promising ballet dancer in Adelaide. Brooke recognizes the “skinny, almost skeletal girl, her intense, serious-looking little girl with her hair pulled bac so tightly it looked painful, and those intense and sulking eyes” (294). Brooke is sure that the girl in the photo looks familiar, that she met her as a child. Perhaps, she realizes, Savannah’s arrival at the Delaney home wasn’t coincidental.

Meanwhile, Simon—for whom Amy is beginning to have feelings—does a computer search from Australia’s Securities and Exchange investigations and discovers that Savannah, under the name Savannah Smith, was under investigation for scamming fake tennis memorabilia on the internet. The tennis tie can’t be coincidental. Joy is beginning to feel uneasy over the accumulating revelations about Savannah and decides to check out her room while Savannah is out (and although Joy doesn’t know it is “blackmailing” Troy).