Right Where We Belong

by Brenda Novak

  You need to get some sleep, Savanna. I know you’ve been too anxious to get much rest lately.

  It’ll be another short night, she wrote. But I can’t let Gordon get away with what he’s done, not without a fight. I owe it to his victims. I owe it to my children. And I owe it to myself.

  Please be careful.

  She returned to the hotel she’d rented before going to Walmart. It was right next to the airport, so it wasn’t a far drive from downtown Salt Lake, where Dorothy lived. Savanna was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and yet she couldn’t seem to unwind.

  She took a hot bath before climbing into bed, where she finally drifted off. But then she dreamed of getting trapped in Dorothy’s basement, of being unable to breathe, of Gordon coming down holding that knife the police found in his duffel bag, of waking up to find that she was covered in blood.

  When she finally gasped awake, she interrupted a nightmare where spiders were crawling all over her bruised and battered body.

  * * *

  Gavin was at work when Detective Sullivan called him.

  “What’s going on? Have you heard from Savanna?” he asked without preamble.

  Gavin had been trying to fix the boiler in one of the dormitories. Dropping the screwdriver he held, he sat up. “She’s heading home today, as expected.”

  “Where’d she go last night?”

  “She drove to Salt Lake, couldn’t bear to stay in Nephi any longer.”

  “She could’ve called me. Or Detective March. We’ve tried to reach her several times.”

  “Maybe she thought it was pointless to tell you what you already know. She couldn’t get anything out of Gordon. Surely, you’ve listened to the recordings of her visit by now.”

  “Of course. Still, we thought she’d check in, follow up.”

  “She’s probably upset. This can’t be easy for her. You realize that.”

  “Of course I realize it. But how hard would it be for her to give one of us a quick call?”

  “She’s been through a lot. Just leave her alone,” he said. “She’ll contact you if and when she’s ready.”

  “You two are seeing each other, right?” he asked before Gavin could hang up. “You’re romantically involved?”

  Gavin didn’t have time for this guy’s nosiness, couldn’t imagine how his relationship with Savanna figured into anything. “What business is that of yours?”

  “None,” he admitted. “But if Gordon gets out of jail, you might want to keep an eye out,” he said, and hung up.

  Gavin cursed as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. Savanna had asked him not to tell the detectives what she was up to, so he was keeping his mouth shut.

  But he knew he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her as a result...

  * * *

  Although Dorothy was gone, Savanna couldn’t be sure Gordon’s mother was at her job. Normally, Dorothy worked full-time. Had to in order to survive. But that could’ve changed. Maybe she’d been fired. Or she’d quit. She’d been far more stable in recent years than ever before, but Savanna supposed anything was possible. She could only hope that wherever Dorothy had gone, she’d stay away long enough for Savanna to get in and out of the house.

  It was a hot day for mid-May. Savanna could feel sweat rolling down her back as she approached Dorothy’s house from the rear.

  Dorothy’s car was gone, but three small children were playing in the fenced yard of the neighbor closest to her garage. There was also a pit bull at the house kitty-corner to Dorothy’s off the alley. But neither the kids nor the dog paid Savanna any mind. She told herself to walk confidently, as if she belonged in the area and had every right to be doing what she was doing, and that seemed to work. She arrived at the door leading into Dorothy’s tiny laundry room without incident.

  The door was locked, but Dorothy had always left a key out for Gordon so he could get in if he ever stopped by when she wasn’t there. Savanna had been with Gordon once when he used it. She was relying on that key to get her in, but when she checked under the rock where Dorothy typically kept it, there wasn’t anything there.

  “Shoot,” she murmured, and began to circle the house to see if she couldn’t find another way in.

  She checked the front door. It was locked, too, but the weather was warm enough that Savanna found several windows open. One was in the bathroom, too small to squeeze through. Another was in the living room, where she could be seen by any car that drove by. The last was in Dorothy’s bedroom, which looked out on the neighbor’s side yard. Savanna didn’t have a lot of cover there, should that neighbor come around the corner doing yard work or whatever, but it was her best option.

  Putting on her gloves, so that she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, she tried to remove the screen and couldn’t. Finally, in desperation, she took out the pocketknife she’d bought when she got her clothes and other supplies and cut the edges.

  She bent the screen back, forced the window up higher and managed to wiggle through the small hole, although she fell on the dresser and knocked off the lamp.

  Fortunately, the lamp didn’t break. Savanna recovered as quickly as she could and righted everything before beginning a quick and dirty search of every drawer, closet, nook or cranny in Dorothy’s house.

  Before too long, she realized she was lucky the house was so messy. Thanks to the garbage, discarded clothes and worthless knickknacks that were strewn everywhere, Dorothy would be much less likely to notice that she’d had a visitor—although she would wonder about the cut screen, if she saw it. Savanna wasn’t sure what to do about that. She thought she might use the duct tape she’d seen out in the garage to tape it shut on the outside. With Dorothy’s lack of attention to detail, and the messy house in general, she might never notice.

  Savanna searched every room before approaching the door leading to the basement. She’d been hoping to find something that would make going down there unnecessary. But other than confirming that Dorothy was indeed one of the filthiest housekeepers she’d ever seen, and that her mother-in-law still had alcohol in her cupboards, Savanna had come up with nothing, other than a few more letters from Gordon. The accusations contained in some of those letters were simply ridiculous. He claimed that Savanna had wasted his money on furniture and clothes and frivolous purchases or they would’ve had more savings, that it was her idea to take out a second mortgage on the house, that she’d colluded with the police to get him out of her life so she wouldn’t have to share her inheritance. Those letters upset her, but no one else would care about them. They certainly wouldn’t keep him in jail.

  She had to keep looking. And that meant...the basement.

  She checked the time on her phone. She’d been at Dorothy’s for over an hour already. She’d been working as fast as possible, but leaving everything as she found it took time, and the more time she spent in this house, the more anxious she became. She was dying to get out. If she didn’t leave right away, she’d miss her flight. That meant a sizable fee—this time, one she’d have to pick up herself—another reschedule, alerting Gavin and trying to figure out what to do with the kids until she could get back.

  Those concerns were almost enough to make her give up. But she knew she’d have to answer—to herself, if no one else—for not doing more while she had the chance.

  Think of Emma Ventnor, and Meredith Caine, who felt you should’ve done more. Well, now you’re doing it.

  She had to force the door. As old as it was, it’d been repainted so many times it no longer fit the opening properly. But she got it unstuck with a reverberated wham-am-am-am and flipped the switch at the top of the stairs.

  One bulb couldn’t illuminate the darkest reaches of the damp and musty basement, couldn’t reach around the corners to reveal what might be shoved or buried there, couldn’t ease all of Savanna’s misgivings
. So she used the flashlight on her phone, too.

  Taking a deep breath, she started down.

  The stairs creaked beneath her weight and the smell that greeted her turned her stomach. It was far worse than she remembered—bad enough to make her fear she might find more than she’d bargained for. Could Emma Ventnor’s body be down here? Other killers had buried their victims under their houses. John Wayne Gacy had done that with at least twenty-five people, if she remembered right. She’d seen a documentary on him. She’d also heard a news report years ago about an old lady in Sacramento who buried several of her boarders in her backyard and continued to collect their social security checks.

  Savanna felt weak and shaky by the time she reached the bottom. Finding a body would be a good thing, she told herself. That would prove Gordon was responsible for Emma’s death. But she didn’t want to uncover something that gruesome, still wanted to believe that Emma was alive.

  Stopping in the middle of the basement, she turned in a tight circle, training her light on everything around her. She’d already found Dorothy’s storage pile. It was in disarray, like all of Dorothy’s things. Savanna wasn’t going to waste her time going through that now. She feared she’d wasted too much time trying to find something upstairs.

  When nothing struck her as odd or out of place, she examined the floor instead of the walls, thinking she might find evidence of the dirt having been disturbed. She saw nothing that would lead her to believe a body or anything else had been buried down here—except that sickening stench. She wished she could tell Sullivan about it, that it would get him out here with a whole team of forensics specialists. On TV, she’d seen police search the ground with some type of penetrating radar, but would reporting the smell be enough?

  She had only one chance. She had to get more while she was here.

  “Emma, are you down here?” Thinking of the girl as being alive and needing her help made it possible for her to swallow her revulsion and press on, into that small area where she had to stoop over because the ceiling was so low.

  There the stench was far worse. She’d never smelled a decomposing body, so she couldn’t be certain, but this smell had to be similar. Was it Emma?

  Her hand shook as she used her flashlight to go over the ground inch by inch. She should’ve brought a bigger flashlight, but she hadn’t wanted to carry a lot of things. She’d felt she might need to be nimble, and she’d proved that when she’d had to climb through the window. But in this small room, she couldn’t see anything that fell outside the six-inch diameter of her little flashlight, and that terrified her. A spider could drop on her at any moment, or she could accidentally step on a human hand jutting out of the ground—

  Quit freaking yourself out, she admonished. There are policemen and forensics people who have to do this all the time. But the second her light hit the rotting carcass she’d smelled, she screamed and bumped her head as she jumped back, dropping her phone.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered as she went to her knees. She had to get her phone, couldn’t leave it there and run. But once her hand landed on the hard plastic rectangle, she forced herself to take another look at what she’d found and realized it wasn’t a human body. It was a dead rodent, caught in a mousetrap. That was what had caused the smell.

  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 e
nough 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?

  “But you said you need probable cause to get a search warrant,” she said. “Without this backpack, we don’t have anything we didn’t have before.”

  “Yes, we do. Thanks to you, we have the Celica.”

  Unable to tolerate the stench any longer, Savanna zipped the backpack and edged away, to where she could stand at her full height. She was reluctant to go any farther, though. She hated to leave what she’d found because of what it meant. Gordon was guilty. He knew where Emma was, whether she was alive. How could she walk away and leave such proof behind?

  And yet the detective was telling her she had to do exactly that.

  “You think the Celica’s enough?” She needed more reassurance after all she’d done.