Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(106)

She gripped the wall for support. She was glad she hadn’t called Sullivan to claim there was a dead body in Dorothy’s basement. She could only imagine how embarrassed she would be, not to mention the police, if they believed her and acted on that information.

I’m an idiot, she texted to Gavin.

What’s going on?

There’s nothing here. We’re totally screwed. Gordon’s getting out of jail.

At least you tried, Savanna. You did all you could. Now let someone else take any risks that need to be taken. I’m tired of worrying about you. :)

I’m leaving, she wrote back. I can’t stay another second in this creepy basement. There’s a dead rat down here.

Gross.

With a frown for her failure, and all it would mean for her and her children, Gordon’s prior victims and any future ones, she did a final sweep with her flashlight. There was no need to get caught here on top of everything else, she decided, and was just turning to go when she spotted a mound that didn’t look entirely natural. Someone could be buried there...

Surely she was wrong again. That pile of rubble was probably where the rats were nesting. If Dorothy wanted to get rid of them, she should also get rid of that, Savanna thought. And then she began to wonder why Dorothy hadn’t. There wasn’t any debris anywhere else...

Just to be thorough, she found a piece of wood lying nearby and used it to poke through the cast-off Sheetrock, wood chunks, dirt and rocks. It’s nothing, she told herself, but before she tossed that piece of wood aside, she struck something that felt different—bigger, more solid, less yielding to her probe.

What is that?

She held her flashlight closer. It wasn’t a body, but it wasn’t simply more debris, either. It was a deep blue backpack.

Why would Dorothy, a woman who never camped and hadn’t been to school in decades, have a backpack? And why would it be buried over here in the corner, where it was very unlikely to be seen?

Savanna kept looking over her shoulder as, trying not to breathe for the stench of that rat, she crept closer. She didn’t want to touch anything down here, but she was curious enough to make herself unzip the top of the backpack. And she was glad she did.

It contained three high school textbooks and several small notebooks filled with assignments. The name on those assignments was Emma Ventnor.





30

“What do I do?” Savanna’s hand shook as she held her phone. She was still standing in Dorothy’s basement, staring at what she’d discovered. But she didn’t know whether she should leave the backpack where it was or take it with her. She was afraid that if she carried it off, it wouldn’t be admissible in court. She wasn’t familiar with the rules of evidence, but she knew, especially after this find, that it was imperative Gordon never go free. They had to do everything right.

Detective Sullivan didn’t respond immediately. She got the impression he was thinking. She’d told him everything, sent him the pictures of the car as well as several shots of the backpack and what she’d found inside.

“Can you think a little faster?” she asked when she felt like she couldn’t wait another second. “My heart’s about to pound out of my chest. I’m breathing in decomposed rat and could be standing on Emma’s grave. If her backpack is here, her body might be, too. I don’t want to discover that.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been studying the pictures you sent. Because the department paid for you to come to Utah, a defense lawyer would argue that you were working with us when you entered Dorothy’s home.”

“That’s not good, right?”

“Not for our side. It means the evidence would likely be suppressed. There are a few exceptions to the rules for illegally obtained evidence, but given how you got into the house, I doubt any of those would apply.”

Savanna was afraid she might throw up. Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard. “But if I leave the backpack here, will you be able to obtain a search warrant before she gets rid of it?”

“She’s not going to get rid of it.”

“How can you be sure? I’m shocked she hasn’t gotten rid of it before now.”

“Anything she throws away is no longer protected by privacy laws. And as far as she knows, we’ve been watching her closely. Leaving it in the basement means she can retain control of it, make sure it doesn’t fall into anyone else’s hands. It might’ve remained there indefinitely if not for you.”

“It might be even simpler than that. Maybe she doesn’t want to touch it. Maybe she found it there and decided to leave it where it was rather than get involved enough to actually dispose of it. Then she could pretend that what it means is none of her business, that she doesn’t have the responsibility to turn in her own son.”

“Could be true. If she touches it and we can prove she did, she could be implicated in covering up Gordon’s crimes. As things stand now, she could claim she had no idea it was in her basement.”

“But she does know. That’s why she freaked out when I mentioned Emma’s name that night at my place in Silver Springs.” Someone had to have set the rattraps in the basement. While doing that, Dorothy had probably stumbled across Emma’s backpack and then recognized the name when she heard it—not from the news reports, since those had, for the most part, happened a year ago, but from seeing the name on Emma’s schoolwork, just as Savanna had. Perhaps she hadn’t been certain what it signified at first, which was why she’d left it where it was. But then Savanna had told her what’d happened to Emma Ventnor, and she’d realized where that backpack had come from and the role the accident had played in a young girl’s kidnapping. So she’d done what she could to cover the damage on her car—since there’d be no way to prove she’d crashed into Gavin’s truck to destroy evidence. She’d also removed her hide-a-key from outside. She wasn’t concerned with theft, wasn’t careful in general. Why else would she bother?