Savanna had never been inside a jail. She’d seen the sheriff’s office where the jail was located on occasion, but not often. Although it was only eight minutes from the heart of Nephi, she rarely had reason to drive that far south. There was a Mormon church out that way and some gravel pits, but everything of any importance, at least to her, lay to the north, in the Provo/Orem or Salt Lake area. After Gordon was arrested, she almost could’ve ignored the fact that he was so close, except for the shock and all the publicity, of course.
Her palms were sweating on the steering wheel as she pulled into the parking lot. Somehow, Detective Sullivan had made a mistake thinking that visiting hours were in the morning. As it turned out, she couldn’t see Gordon until seven in the evening, so they’d had to make several adjustments, like renting her motel room for another night, having the caregiver for her children stay over again and asking Gavin to pick her up on Thursday instead of Wednesday.
Savanna wasn’t sure how Sullivan had blown it like that. He said he wasn’t sure, either, except he didn’t have to go to the jail during visiting hours and had just briefly glanced at the website. But arriving so early had given her far too much time to think. Because she hadn’t wanted to be seen, hadn’t wanted to bump into anyone she knew and be recognized, she’d stayed inside, waiting and worrying while the TV played program after program.
Now she was jittery because she’d been too nervous to go out and eat but had gone too long without food. The last thing she’d had was the free breakfast offered by the motel. She’d ducked into the dining area just before mealtime ended and grabbed a waffle, some yogurt and an apple, which she’d carried back to her room.
“This will only last fifteen minutes,” she promised herself.
As she turned off her engine, she rehearsed, once again, everything Detective Sullivan had told her in their little coaching session last night. Just get him talking. Get him to commit to a sequence of events. Express some doubt. Provoke him into trying to reassure or convince you. With any luck, he’ll offer some kind of proof that he could not have been involved.
They were hoping he’d trip himself up, of course. That they would be able to disprove whatever he said and catch him in his own words. But if it went the other way, and he could prove he wasn’t responsible in the Emma Ventnor case, where would that leave Savanna? Sullivan hadn’t been able to find any new evidence on the three rapes. Barring a miracle, the DA would drop the charges, and soon. They’d been stalling, hoping her visit might make all the difference. If it didn’t, Gordon would go free.
She shuddered at the thought. God help me.
Her phone signaled an incoming text as she got out. You’ve got this.
Gavin. She’d spoken to him several times since she’d left. He always tried to reassure her.
There now. Going in. Wish me luck. She’d spent part of the time waiting in the motel room reading up on what to expect when visiting an inmate, but the Juab County Jail was such a small facility—capable of housing only fifty or so inmates—that she didn’t have to put her purse and other personal belongings in a locker, go through a metal detector or suffer an invasive pat-down. She merely waited in line behind ten other people, filled out a visitation form, provided her ID and allowed her purse to be searched. After that, she was admitted into a nonsecure area to wait her turn.
Problem was, the jail had only two visitation rooms, and each visitation could last as long as twenty minutes. Just what I need—another hour and forty minutes to wait...
She stared up at a television mounted on the wall. There was no sound, just subtitles, but it was all she had to help pass the time. She didn’t care to talk to the others who were waiting to get in. She was far too nervous for small talk.
Fortunately, some of those who went ahead of her didn’t take up all of their allotted time. It was only an hour before she was taken back to a small cubicle where she’d be allowed to speak with Gordon, when he arrived, via telephone while separated by a piece of Plexiglas.
Her heart began to pound as she sat down. She could feel each distinct thump in her throat. Not only was she frightened by what he’d done—what she now saw him to be—she was terrified of what he might do when he was released.
Savanna tried to even out her breathing, to settle down. She needed to be able to think straight. But the longer she waited, the more anxious she became. Where was he?
For a few seconds, she thought he might be refusing her visit. The way they’d gotten along, on the whole, over the past several months, even before he’d been arrested, she could understand why he might. But then she saw him, wearing the standard orange jumpsuit issued to all county inmates.
He looked like he’d lost some weight. He’d definitely lost a lot of color. Or maybe it was the lights that hummed overhead that made him look so washed-out. They seemed to cast everything in a bluish tint.
He didn’t smile when their eyes met. He stared at her for several seconds. Then he sat down and picked up the phone.
Savanna claimed the handset on her side of the glass. “You don’t seem happy to see me,” she said.
“You haven’t been supportive since I’ve been in here.”
“I put some money on your commissary account. That’s not supportive?”
“I’ve been in jail for two months, Savanna. What else have you done, except make everything worse?”
She gripped the phone tighter. After the letters she’d sent, she’d thought he might be more conciliatory, more hopeful of putting their marriage back together. Now she knew that was not the case, she had to prepare herself for a combative twenty minutes. That changed things, gave her even less leverage. “The past two months have been pretty crummy for me, too.”
“Until you fell into the sweet, loving arms of Gavin Turner, right?”
Savanna froze. “That was nothing,” she lied.
“You fucked him. I wouldn’t call that nothing.”
She loved Gavin, which was far more significant. But even if she were willing to divulge that, Gordon wouldn’t understand because he had no idea what true love meant, didn’t seem to possess the capacity for love.
She couldn’t let on, regardless. There was too much riding on this meeting. “A onetime thing.”
He leaned toward the glass. “Are you sure? My mother said you live on the same street. It’s just the two of you out in the middle of nowhere. That provides a hell of a lot of opportunity.”
When she’d mentioned Gavin, Savanna had been saying whatever she could to get a rise out of Gordon, as she’d been instructed to do. But it had been a mistake brought on by nerves and emotion to mention his name, and that mistake had been compounded when her mother-in-law wrecked into Gavin’s truck, thus becoming familiar not only with his first name but his last and where he lived. “Are we really going to do this?” she asked. “Make this about how I’ve wronged you?”
“What have I ever done?” he said, but then he smiled as if he found that to be quite the clever joke.
His reaction was so out of sync with what the situation called for that Savanna could only gape at him. He wasn’t distraught that he’d harmed innocent people, or upset by what he’d been through or even relieved that he’d be getting out. He considered this a game, of sorts, was not only proud of what he’d done but that he was going to get away with it. He thought he’d outsmarted everyone. That the game was almost over.
It was her job to keep it in play, or he would get away with everything.
She curled the fingernails of her free hand into her palm. “So are you going to sign the divorce papers?”
“Aha! Now we get to the real reason you’ve finally shown up.”
That wasn’t the reason, but she could understand why he’d find it much more believable than the reconciliation she’d tried to establish in those letters. “You thought I’d simply wait until you got around to it?”
“What’s the rush?”
“I’d rather not have a rapist in my life. That’s the rush.”
He started laughing. “You deserve to be raped yourself, or worse.”
“You think it’s funny to talk like that?”
“It’s funny to imagine it. It’s also funny to think you believed a few letters making nice and a hundred dollars on my commissary account were going to make me forget everything else.”
“What reason do you have to hang on to me, Gordon? You obviously don’t love me.”
She thought he’d at least mention the kids, but he didn’t. “It’s not about love. It’s about money.”
“We were barely able to pay our bills every month. The only money I have is what’s left of my inheritance.”
“So? I deserve a big chunk of that.”
“How do you figure?” she asked.
“For years I made more than you did, which means I contributed more.”
“That isn’t true! I took care of the house and kids. You never lifted a finger to help. What kind of a dollar amount should we attach to all the child-rearing, cooking and cleaning I did while you were out attacking women?”
“I’m not attaching any dollar amount to it, and neither will the judge.”
She sat back and folded her arms. “I see.”
“You see what?”
“You still think you’re getting out.”
At last, that smug expression slid from his face. “I am getting out. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t believe it. My attorney told me yesterday that the DA has no evidence left, none that will result in a conviction. He’d be a fool to proceed. I’m surprised he hasn’t already dropped the charges.”
Savanna was the reason the DA hadn’t acted yet, and she knew it. “They might not have the evidence they need on the three rapes, but they’re getting what they need on Emma Ventnor.”
He gave her a speculative look. “What are you talking about?”
“They have tire impression evidence.”
“No, they don’t. If they had that, I’d have heard about it by now. Emma went missing a year ago.”
“And they found a tire track on the side of the road, but it was too faint. The pictures they took didn’t show the ridge detail they needed. But some guy has figured out how to do enhancements on the computer and build a 3-D model from there. They’re having him help, will be testing the enhanced impression against the tires on your van in a few weeks.”
His eyes narrowed. “Good for them. Won’t change anything. I had nothing to do with the Emma Ventnor case.”
“You weren’t at work when she went missing.”
“I was getting a bite to eat.”
“Where?”
That cocky smile reappeared. “Hell if I know. All the details from that day are fuzzy.”
“What happened, Gordon? Was she screaming, fighting? You couldn’t subdue her even with your super athletic and tricky wrestling holds? You had to kill her?”
She was taunting him, knew how quickly he could get incensed from gibes of that sort.
“I wouldn’t make fun of those holds, if I were you,” he gritted out. “I could choke you out in a matter of seconds.”
“Is that what you did to her? Choked her out? Why did you pick her as one of your victims? Did you see her coming out of the school and start to follow her? Spot her in traffic and decide to wreck into her car to get her to pull over?”
“You’re an idiot,” he said. “If I wrecked into her car, there would’ve been damage on my van, right? Did you ever see any damage?”
The warning in his voice let her know she was going too far—that she was making an enemy for life. Gordon wasn’t the forgiving sort. But Savanna didn’t dare back off. This was the moment. She had to pull out all the stops, do everything she could. “Bumpers don’t always show damage, Gordon. That van was like a tank.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and stood.
Savanna’s nails bit deeper into her palm. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my cell. I’d rather be sitting there, dreaming of taking off your clothes and—” he ran a hand over his neck “—doing what I like to do in bed than see you sitting here, doing everything you can to help the police.”
He meant he’d rather be in his cell, dreaming of choking her. She understood the allusion, but he could easily claim he meant something else, so that did nothing to help the case against him. He hadn’t stated it such that the recording would shock or appall a jury. Even that brief touch to the neck, so meaningful a gesture to her, could be construed as though he just happened to be touching his neck.
Savanna was still hanging on to the phone when he hung up on his side and walked away.
Shit. She’d blown it, gotten nothing.
* * *
Gavin had been waiting to hear from Savanna for nearly four hours. He’d texted her and tried to call. He’d even checked in with Detectives March and Sullivan. They hadn’t heard anything, either. Sullivan said that not long after visiting hours, he’d driven by and didn’t see her car in the lot. He indicated it wasn’t at the motel, either.
Gavin didn’t hear back from Savanna until ten-thirty, which was eleven-thirty Utah time. “Are you okay?” he asked. Branson and Alia were in bed and the babysitter was watching TV, so he’d returned to his house for the night. He’d been sitting in his living room, watching the basketball playoff game he’d recorded earlier, pausing every so often to check his phone and try to reach her.
“I think so.”
She didn’t sound okay. She sounded rattled, upset. “Are you sure?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
He’d been lying down. Sitting up, he muted the television. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me right away?”
“I had my phone turned off.”
“While you were doing what?”
“Nothing. Driving.”
“Where?”
“Aimlessly.”
He let his breath go in a sigh. “It must not have gone well.”
“It didn’t,” she admitted, and he listened without comment as she repeated the conversation she’d had with Gordon.
“Damn,” he said when she was done.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“So where are you now?” he asked.
“Driving aimlessly soon turned into a dedicated effort to reach Salt Lake as soon as possible. I couldn’t bear to stay another night in Nephi. I was going to catch the first flight out, come home right away instead of waiting until morning.”
“But...”
“But by the time I got here, it was too late. The last flight left at ten.”
“Does that mean you’re going to stay over in Salt Lake and catch your scheduled flight in the morning?”
“No. I need to get something later.”
He’d been so sure she’d say yes that he’d turned the game back on. “Wait, no?” He silenced the TV again. “Why would you need a later flight? I thought you were in a hurry to get out of there.”
“I was. I am. But I can’t face that Gordon will be getting out, know he’ll make our lives a living hell. I have to do something.”
“Like what?”
“He said if he wrecked into Emma Ventnor’s car there’d be damage on the van, right?”
“March told us it was a small enough dent that there might not be. That sort of thing happens all the time. That’s why she felt safe going with the fake tire track evidence.”
“I know, but the tire impression stuff didn’t seem to worry him, either.”
“So maybe he’s innocent.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You seem more certain now than you’ve been recently.”
“I vacillate. But when I saw him, I got the creepiest feeling. He did rape those women. It was almost as if he wanted me to know it—that he didn’t care enough to hide it from me anymore, since he felt he was no longer in danger of going to prison, and he knows I’m not interested in patching up our marriage. Someone who’s been wrongly accused wouldn’t act that way.”
“That concern goes well beyond us.”
“I know. But while I’ve been sitting here—”
“Where?”
“In the airport.”
“If all the planes to California have left, why are you still there?”
“I’ve been thinking, trying to figure out what to do.”
“There’s nothing more you can do.”
“There might be. Certain things have occurred to me. When Dorothy came to my house after Gordon was arrested, and I had to call the cops to have them take her away, there was some damage on the front right panel of her car. I didn’t think anything of it, because her car is a piece of junk, anyway, and the damage had been there for a while, but now I’m beginning to wonder how long ago that accident occurred.”
Gavin scooted forward. “You’re thinking Gordon might’ve been driving her car when he kidnapped Emma Ventnor?”
“It’s a possibility. He stayed with her every once in a while. Stands to reason if his van broke down—and it did give him some trouble last year, although I can’t recall the exact dates—he might have borrowed her car for the day.”
“Maybe the police need to take a look at it, see if they can find any paint transfer that might prove it was the one that collided with Emma’s.”
“Except she wrecked into you when she came out here, remember?”
He fell back. “That’s right. Damn it. We can’t catch a break.”
“What if she did that on purpose, Gavin?”
“Hit my truck?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t until I mentioned Emma Ventnor that she started to act strange, remember? Before that, she was determined to start a fight with me. After, she backed away and took off. I’m wondering if she was remembering Gordon coming home a year earlier with some story about how he accidentally hit something with her car.”
“And by crashing it into my truck, she was able to report it and have it repaired.”
“Maybe she hasn’t had it repaired. It’s very possible she hasn’t had the money to pay the deductible. But hitting you helps, right? Now she has a legitimate excuse for the damage, should anyone ask, and chances are no one will be able to say exactly what that panel looked like before.”
“That gives me chills.”
“Me, too. I have to go over there, see if it’s fixed. If it’s not, I’ll take some pictures and send them to Sullivan and March, in case there is something remaining from Emma’s car. I asked Sullivan to search Dorothy’s house once already, told him that Gordon stayed there on occasion and could easily have hidden trophies or other evidence in her garage or basement, and he said he couldn’t get a judge to sign off on the warrant. Maybe this will change things.”
“Whoa, wait. Don’t go over there alone.”
“Dorothy’s twenty-two years older than I am.”
Gavin had heard enough about Gordon’s mother to believe she was also a little unstable. “That doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous. She could...hit you with something or who knows what.”
“I’ll only take a peek in her garage. She won’t even know I’m there.”
“Savanna...”
“I have to do something, Gavin. What we tried didn’t work. That means, in a very short time, a very dangerous man will be dumped back into society. Gordon’s release feels so imminent that I’m more afraid of seeing that happen than I am of facing down Dorothy.”
Gavin hated the thought of her being up there on her own. “I should’ve come with you.”
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry. Her garage isn’t even attached to the house. I’ll slip in tonight while she’s sleeping, use the flashlight on my phone to check the car, take all the pics I might need and get out.”
“Then why can’t you catch your flight in the morning?”
There was a slight pause before she said, “Oh, that.”
Gavin felt a fresh wave of concern. “Yes, that. You’re making me nervous. What do you have planned?”
“I’m also going to take a look through the house once she leaves for work. She freaked out when I brought up Emma Ventnor’s name. I have to figure out why.”