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Time to go. I skim my gaze over the office one last time, skipping the wedding picture. Then I slip out, close the door behind me, and hurry down the back stairwell. A quick check of my phone shows Savannah walking around the pond. Good.
I exit the building and head for my car, keeping to the lengthening shadows. She might have taken the provenance letters home. Maybe I can get in and search before she returns.
I make the short drive to her neighborhood and park a block from her cottage. But the blue dot is heading back now. She’ll be home in just a few minutes. I’ll need to wait until she’s asleep.
Another jolt of adrenaline hits my bloodstream, and it’s much stronger this time. What exactly will I do if she wakes while I’m in her home?
Chapter 3
Savannah’s eyes popped open in her bedroom. The room was quiet except for Marley’s low growl, and the only light was from her bedside clock shining out the time of almost three in the morning. Her Aussie always let her know if anyone stepped foot in the yard. Her frozen muscles finally released, and she sat up to reach for Marley’s soft fur. He stood on the floor beside the bed, his attention focused on the window.
She licked dry lips. “What is it, boy?” she whispered.
He uttered another growl. Her room was at the back of the small shotgun-style home and looked out on a small pond. Marley and Boo Radley had a mutual hatred for each other, and she stepped to the window to see if the gator had wandered into the yard. She peeked through the blinds and saw nothing but the moonlight glimmering on the koi pond and nearby bench. Nothing moved.
The floor creaked down the hall toward the kitchen, and her pulse rocketed again. Marley’s attention never wavered from the window, so she tried to tell herself she was alone in the house, but that didn’t comfort her.
She flipped on the lights, and the glow pushed back the shadows. Her neat bedroom looked exactly the same. The small desk area where she worked was the only spot of disarray with its stacks of homework folders. Was the picture of her and Hez with Ella out of place?
“Come,” she told Marley. With the dog beside her, Savannah explored the house.
The kitchen still carried the faint aroma of the roast chicken she’d had for dinner. The living room and bathroom were clean and empty. In spite of the noise she’d heard, she found nothing out of place. Marley might have caught a whiff of Boo Radley’s scent outside.
When she returned to the bedroom, she knew she’d never be able to sleep. She might as well grade papers for an hour or so. Seeing Hez again had so discombobulated her that she hadn’t graded a single essay. She picked up the first folder and began to read through the paper. The shock and pain in his face when he’d heard she’d filed for divorce kept intruding on the job in front of her.
Working steadily, she was down to the final folder in an hour.
She took the last folder and frowned. It was much heavier than the rest. And the feel of the folder was different too—it wasn’t the standard school-grade folder but a heavier stock. She flipped it open and scanned the top page. It appeared to be some kind of document on school letterhead.
The substance of the letter caught her attention. It was a letter of provenance for some pre-Columbian artifacts. The letter didn’t interest Savannah until she realized the provenance was listed as proof of sale for the listed statues. As far as she knew, the university wasn’t planning to sell any of their pieces. The value of the artifacts was enormous in so many ways, and she almost felt they were part of her personal history.
She flipped through the rest of the folder and found multiple letters like the top one. Was someone selling off museum assets without permission? Savannah had suspected something was amiss at the museum when she tried to find a box of historical documents to show her students last year and found them missing. Selling items with fake documentation would increase their value substantially.
Was the university in more trouble than she knew? If this was as bad as it looked, it could be the end of the school her family had dedicated their lives to for over a century. She owed it to the school and to her family to ferret out the truth. But she was a lowly history professor, not an investigator.
She could go to Ellison Abernathy, but everything in her rebelled at the idea. He was the slimy sort, just like her father. Ellison reminded her of an old-time snake-oil salesman with his too-perfect hair and toothy grin. All flash and no substance.
Savannah couldn’t tell Jess yet either. Her sister had her hands full trying to keep the university in the black, and this kind of news would be too distracting. Better to wait until Savannah got to the bottom of it.
Hez could help me.
It was the worst possible idea. But no one was better at figuring out cases than Hez. The thought of working with him made acid churn in her stomach—and how could she ask him for help just hours after dropping the divorce bomb? No, there had to be a better option. But who?
“Beckett.” She answered her own question with a relieved sigh. As provost, Beckett Harrison was in charge of Tupelo Grove’s bureaucracy, so hopefully he would know if these were legitimate sales. And if they weren’t, he’d be able to put a stop to them.
She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t quite four o’clock, but she could kill time for two hours by working on lesson plans. She picked up her laptop and got to work. She worked steadily until light crept into the room. Just after six, so she could call now.
She grabbed her phone from its charger and called Beckett.
He answered on the first ring. “Morning, Savannah. You’re up early. Something wrong?”
“I’m not really sure. I found some strange documents mixed in with a stack of essays.”
“What kind of documents?”
“Provenance letters. Whenever an ancient artifact is sold, there should be some sort of proof that it’s not fake and wasn’t looted. These are letters attesting to the provenance of Aztec artifacts from the university’s collection.” She took a deep breath. “Beckett, are we selling the Willard Treasure? Are we in that much financial trouble?”
“Wow . . . I—I . . .” Shock rattled his usually smooth and confident baritone. He cleared his throat and started again. “This is stunning. No, we’re not selling anything from our collection, especially the Willard Treasure. That’s the history department’s pride and joy. Are you sure these letters mean someone is selling our artifacts?”
