Chapter Sixty-Three Savannah
| Sixty-Three |
Savannah
She picked up the items one by one. A lipstick.
A gold barrette. A hairbrush with blond hairs in it.
A hoop earring. A chill ran through her as she allowed herself to consider what she had been denying all this time.
Trophies. The thought made her sick. What else around the house had belonged to one of these poor women?
She fingered the bracelet on her left wrist. Had this belonged to one of them?
And if they were dead, where were they? Despite what it looked like on television and film, it wasn’t easy to get rid of a body. What kind of a madman had she married?
The doorbell rang, startling her. Finn ran to the front door, barking, and Savannah followed. She looked out from the side window. Isabel. She opened the door.
“Everything okay?” Isabel asked as she entered, a worried look on her face.
Savannah closed the door. “Not really. Come on in.”
Finn’s tail began to wag, and Isabel reached out to pet him. “Hi, boy! I’ve missed you.”
“I got into the office.”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding! How?”
“Found a key. Come on.” She grabbed Isabel’s hand and pulled her down the hall and into the office.
“This was in his desk.” She pointed to the box. Isabel walked over and looked at the items Savannah had laid out on the desk.
“Oh my God. What are these?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I also found a three-hundred-dollar scarf that belonged to Angela. I don’t think she would have left it. Look,” Savannah said, handing Isabel the phone with Angela’s picture. “That’s a screenshot from her Facebook.”
“Where was the scarf?”
“On the coat rack in the mudroom under a jacket of Bennett’s.”
Suddenly Finn started barking furiously and ran to the front door.
“I’ll be right back,” Savannah said.
She ran down the hall and looked out the window. “What the—” Savannah said, as from the window she saw a man in a dark hoodie holding a box approach the house.
“Who is it?” Savannah called through the door.
“Uber Eats. I’ll leave it here.”
After she watched the man walk away, Savannah opened the door and picked up the box and went back to the office where Isabel was waiting.
“Who was it?”
“Uber Eats. Bennett must have had it sent. He brings me fudge every once in a while, as a treat. He’s gone, so he must have ordered this. That was so sweet.” She opened the box and pulled out the peanut butter fudge. For a moment she forgot that she was investigating her husband for murder.
Isabel grabbed the box from her hands and put it down on the hallway table. “We have more important things to do than eat fudge. Like search this office!”
“I already went through the desk. The computer’s password-protected,” Savannah said.
“Did you look in the closet?” Isabel asked.
Savannah shook her head, suddenly worried she’d find a body in there. “You look.”
She walked behind Isabel as she opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Boxes piled up, one on top of the other. Isabel pulled the first one down and opened it.
“Manuscript printouts of his book drafts. I guess he was afraid to throw them out.”
She began to pull each one out and open the lids, finding more of the same.
Savannah noticed something on the top shelf. It looked like a leather briefcase. Isabel pulled it down.
“Nothing in it,” she said, showing Savannah. “Wait. Something’s behind it,” Isabel said as she stretched and reached up. She turned to Savannah, holding out her hand. “Old cell phones. I guess he really doesn’t throw anything away.”
“Let me see them,” Savannah said. She had a bad feeling. Both were iPhones, a few generations back. “Let’s charge them.”
They went into the kitchen and Savannah pulled her charger out of the drawer. It didn’t fit. “Hold on, I have a wireless pad.” She ran upstairs to get it.
When she returned, Isabel was pacing the floor. Savannah put one of the phones on the charging pad.
“We still don’t really know anything,” she said to Isabel.
“Savannah. Your ring, can I see it?”
She slipped it off her finger and handed it to Isabel.
Isabel turned it around in her hand, examining it, and held it up to the light.
“Do you see this?” She pointed to a faint scratch on the outside of the band.
“Yes.”
“This is the same ring he gave to Poppy. I remember how upset she was when she forgot to take it off before working on one of her pieces and it got scratched.”
Savannah felt sick. “You think it’s the same ring he gave to Angela and Devon?”
“Maybe.”
A sudden ding got their attention. The phone. Savannah ran over and picked it up. A WhatsApp message preview lit up the screen.
Devon, please call me. I’m worried sick.
The message was from Devon’s father. She looked at Isabel in horror. “Devon’s phone. If Bennett has her phone, that has to mean—”
“He killed her,” Isabel finished.