Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(108)

As soon as she came through to the kitchen, it would all be over...

Although her first inclination was to hide, Savanna forced herself to climb the noisy stairs. She could only rely on that phone conversation to keep Dorothy preoccupied. Savanna had to get to that door, had to close it, or who could say what would happen. At a minimum, the backpack evidence would be spoiled. Dorothy would try to get rid of it, and without Emma’s schoolwork, Gordon would very likely go free. Savanna had little confidence in the “bits of white” Sullivan claimed to see in the Celica pictures, since she hadn’t seen any of that herself. She had a feeling he was stretching the truth in order to get a search warrant.

“I told you, I have nothing to say to you...No, you need to leave me alone...That’s ridiculous! You can’t force me to testify against my own son!”

Dorothy was talking to Sullivan, Savanna realized. As soon as they’d hung up, he’d called Dorothy, was purposely hassling her in an attempt to create a diversion.

Savanna quickly weighed the chances of sneaking out the back. Would she make it?

She didn’t see much hope. The house was too small. Dorothy would hear her or see her, especially if she had any trouble with the lock on the back door. And she could tell the conversation wasn’t going to last but a few more seconds. Dorothy was adamant about not talking to the police. All Savanna could do was remain in the basement, pull the door closed, turn off the light and pray Dorothy wasn’t home for the day. Otherwise, Savanna would have quite a wait before she could get out of the house.

The door didn’t want to close all the way, not without a great deal of pressure, and Savanna didn’t dare pull it that hard.

She closed it as well as she could without making a lot of noise and waited.

Sure enough, Dorothy hung up almost immediately. “Bastard,” she muttered as she came into the kitchen.

Since Dorothy was right on the other side of the basement door, Savanna could hear her rummaging around in the drawers and cupboards and possibly the fridge.

“You won’t get anything out of me,” Dorothy added as if she was still talking to Sullivan.

Taking measured breaths to control her fear, Savanna clung to the knob of the basement door, in case Dorothy spotted that irregularity and tried to open it. Holding it wouldn’t keep her from being discovered, but it might save her from being shoved down the stairs. She wasn’t in the best position to protect herself should Dorothy get physical.

Don’t look this way. Finish what you’re doing and go.

Dorothy’s phone rang again. “You can’t harass me like this,” she told the caller, which made Savanna guess that it was, once again, Sullivan, trying to help.

“No, I won’t meet you for coffee...What? I’ve never shoplifted in my life! I don’t care what you’ve got on video. That has to be someone else.”

There was a long pause while she was, presumably, listening to Sullivan make a case for meeting him.

“I’m telling you that wasn’t me.”

They argued a bit more. Finally, Sullivan must’ve prevailed, because after she hung up, Dorothy swore a blue streak and went out the front.

Savanna listened carefully to see if Dorothy might return. She couldn’t hear any evidence of that, but she forced herself to wait five minutes before charging out of the basement. To close the door tightly behind her, she had to use her shoulder like a battering ram, but as soon as she accomplished that, she let herself out the back, retrieved the duct tape from the garage and fixed the screen on Dorothy’s bedroom window so that the damage could not be seen from inside the house.

Once she finally reached her rental car, she sent a text to Sullivan. Thank you. I’m out.

Great. I’ll let Dorothy know that it won’t be necessary for her to drive down to meet me, after all.

Savanna couldn’t help chuckling at what he’d written. You told her you had her on video, shoplifting?

Yeah. But now that I’ve taken a closer look, I can see it isn’t her. :)

*

“She’s okay?” Aiyana asked.

Gavin glanced up from the text that had interrupted their conversation. “Yes. Thank God. She’s on her way to the airport.”

“What took her so long to let you know?”

“She hasn’t said.” What happened? he wrote to Savanna.

I’ll have to tell you when I get home. I’d rather not do it over the phone.

Is everything okay?

With any luck, everything will be better than okay. I’ll let you know what time to pick me up as soon as I make the arrangements for my new flight. I can’t wait to see you. XOXO

I’ll be waiting.

He drew a deep breath as he set his phone aside. “Sounds like whatever happened was good,” he told his mother.

*

It took Sullivan until Friday to get the search warrant. Waiting for that to come through, and waiting for what the search of Dorothy’s house would reveal, made Savanna almost as nervous as when she’d been snooping around that house herself—and nearly been caught. She kept thinking that maybe Dorothy had realized someone had been in her house, that she’d seen the tape on the screen and disposed of Emma’s backpack, so they’d wind up with nothing to tie Gordon to Emma’s disappearance, after all.

But that didn’t turn out to be the case. When Gavin was at work, and Branson and Alia were playing in the kiddie pool they liked so much, Savanna received the call from Sullivan that she’d been waiting for.