Savannah
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 5
The flash drive burned hotter than Carlos’s corpse cooling on the office floor. Savannah wiped the tire iron clean with Paco’s discarded shirt, her movements jerky, automatic. Outside, the Rottweilers had gone silent—either exhausted or scenting death. Rain drummed the corrugated roof like impatient fingers. Dr. Hurtado. Maggie’s oncologist. The man who’d smiled sympathetically while prescribing anti-nausea meds. Savannah’s stomach clenched. She’d shared Skittles with him in the hospital cafeteria.
She disabled the security system’s backup battery – a cheap unit Max had taught her to spot – before slipping into the rain-slicked alley. No sirens yet. Carlos’s operation thrived on isolation. She kept to the dark side of the street. The list of names on Maggie’s list had been crossed out. Two down. One more that should be there.
But now, it had one more added to it. Hurtado.
At her motorcycle, stashed behind a dumpster, she hesitated. The flashdrive felt heavier than its two grams. Pediatric oncology. Terminal ward acquisitions. Kids die anyway. Carlos’s last words curdled in her memory like spoiled milk.
Back in her basement workshop – formerly Maggie’s art studio – Savannah plugged the drive into her air-gapped laptop. Spreadsheets bloomed: coded entries for organs, buyers, and acquisition sources. Dr. Elias Hurtado’s name appeared seventeen times. Pdf files showed his signature. Payment trails led to offshore accounts labeled SVH Charitable Foundation. San Vicente Memorial’s fundraising arm. She cross-referenced dates with Maggie’s hospital logs. Hurtado had signed Maggie’s discharge papers the day before her abduction.
Savannah’s ribs throbbed where Petrie’s boot had landed. She popped ibuprofen dry. Onscreen, Hurtado smiled from the hospital’s staff page – kind eyes, silver hair, “Children’s Champion” award gleaming on his desk. Maggie had drawn him as a wizard with healing hands. Savannah’s stomach clenched. She’d shared Skittles with this man while Maggie slept.
Vannah stifled a yawn. She’d look into Hurtado tomorrow, after the pre-Law seminar. Right now she needed sleep. The list crinkled in her pocket. She retrieved it and crumpled it into the sink, where she set it afire. Three bad guys was enough for one night.
She awoke to Maggie screaming.
Not real screaming – the phantom kind that lingered after chemo nightmares. Savannah’s fingers found the flash drive beneath her pillow, its plastic casing warm as skin. Downstairs, her mother’s voice floated up, bright and brittle: “Savvy? Professor Hendricks called. He said you missed the Constitutional Law pre mock trial meeting?”
Crap. She’d been out killing Petrie, when she ‘should’ have been arguing Self Directed Suicide in Federal Jurisdictions in Constitutional Law.
At breakfast, Mom slid oatmeal across the counter. “Professor Hendricks sounded concerned. Said you were his best debater.” Her eyes lingered on Savannah’s bruised knuckles. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” Savannah stirred cinnamon into sludge. “Just got caught up in improving my self defense class at the dojo. I thought it was a three stage Constitutional Law thing that didn’t start ‘til next week.”
Her mother’s gaze drifted to the bruise blooming beneath Savannah’s sleeve cuff—a souvenir from Petrie’s trailer. “Self-defense?” Mom’s spoon clinked against her bowl. “Savvy, we talked about this after ... everything. Anger won’t heal you.”
“I’m not angry, anymore. The self-defense courses at the dojo are really helping.” She didn’t like lying to her mother, but she had to say SOMEthing.
Her mother sighed. “I’m glad. But Savvy, you’re missing classes. You’re skipping meals. You’re—” she gestured vaguely at Savannah’s bruised knuckles. “—training too hard.”
Savannah swallowed oatmeal paste. “I’m fine, Mom. Really.” Maggie’s phantom screams still echoed behind her eyelids. Hurtado’s kind face superimposed itself over Carlos’s bloodied grin. Kids die anyway. She pushed her bowl away. “I’ll gGet that mock trial rescheduled for today. Need to prep.”
In her room, she hid the flash drive inside Maggie’s old music box—beneath the ballerina figurine with chipped paint. Its tinny ‘Clair de Lune’ melody felt obscene now. Savannah traced the ballerina’s frozen pirouette. Maggie used to wind it during chemo, humming off-key. Had Hurtado watched her? Calculated marrow yield? Savannah slammed the lid shut.
At school, Professor Hendricks intercepted her outside the moot court room. “Savannah.” His voice dropped, scanning her split knuckles. “The prosecution’s argument hinges on Glucksberg’s precedent against physician-assisted suicide. You’re arguing for federal jurisdiction expansion. Are you ... prepared?”
Savannah’s ribs throbbed beneath her blazer. “I’ll cite Cruzan’s bodily autonomy principles.” Her tongue felt thick. Kids die anyway. Carlos’s gurgle echoed beneath the fluorescent lights.
Hendricks leaned close. “The opposing counsel’s bringing up Gonzales v. Oregon – state rights trumping federal overreach. Counter with—”
“Rust v. Sullivan’s reproductive autonomy framework,” Savannah interrupted, fingers tightening around her briefcase handle. “The state can’t claim jurisdiction over personal bodily decisions.”
Hendricks blinked. “That’s ... unorthodox. Risky.”
“Life’s risky,” Savannah murmured, pushing past him into the moot court room. The prosecution team – preppy twins from Yale’s summer program – smirked at her late arrival. Savannah unclipped her briefcase. She slid the pad out, ignoring the twins’ whispers.
The judge banged her gavel. “Defense, your opening statement?”
Savannah stood, ribs protesting beneath her blazer. Carlos’s blood felt phantom-sticky on her palms. Focus. “Your Honor, this isn’t about death – it’s about dignity.” Her voice cut cleanly through the air-conditioned chill. Across the room, Professor Hendricks leaned forward, knuckles pale against the oak railing.
The prosecution twin – Brad or Chad – snorted. “Federal overreach into state-regulated medical ethics—”
“– violates the Tenth Amendment,” Savannah finished for him, flipping open her tablet; it echoed on the display monitor. The screen glowed with Carlos’s spreadsheet entries. Acquisition: Terminal Ward. She blinked hard. “But when states enable predatory harvesting of vulnerable bodies” – she tapped her screen – “federal intervention becomes constitutional imperative under United States v. Morrison’s commerce clause interpretation.”
Chad-Brad’s smirk faltered. Savannah projected Hurtado’s hospital ID photo beside Maggie’s chemo selfie – both smiling under San Vicente’s fluorescent lights. “Dr. Elias Hurtado exploited terminal pediatric patients. His state license shouldn’t shield interstate organ trafficking any more than it legitimizes murder.”
Professor Hendricks dropped his pen. It rolled beneath the defense table, clattering like Paco’s final breath.
The prosecution twin recovered first. “Objection! Relevance?” His voice cracked mid-syllable. “This – this is a mock trial!”
Savannah tapped her tablet. Hurtado’s pediatric oncology credentials filled the screen beside shipping manifests labeled Bio-Specimen Transport. “Exactly. When state-regulated physicians become interstate organ brokers”—she zoomed in on a Dubai-bound liver shipment timed to a twelve-year-old’s “sudden cardiac event”—”it transforms terminal care into commercial enterprise. Federal jurisdiction applies under Wickard v. Filburn’s aggregate effects doctrine.”
The prosecution twin stammered about hypotheticals. Savannah countered with Carlos’s spreadsheets – blurring patient IDs but highlighting transaction sums. Professor Hendricks stared at her bruised knuckles gripping the podium. Outside, campus sprinklers hissed like escaping pressure valves.
After the judge dismissed her “inflammatory theatrics,” Hendricks cornered Savannah in the hallway. “Where did you get those documents?” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial rasp. “If authentic, this requires—”
“—a federal prosecutor,” Savannah interrupted, sliding the flash drive into his palm. “Not a pre-law seminar.” Rain lashed the windows behind him, warping campus greens into watery smears. She imagined Carlos’s blood swirling down storm drains.
Hendricks stared at the drive like a live grenade. “These allegations ... Dr. Hurtado chairs our bioethics committee.”
“Exactly.” Savannah watched rain blur his reflection in the window. “He uses legitimacy like camouflage netting. Ask him about cold storage unit four.” She turned toward the exit. “And Professor? Don’t call me until you’ve verified everything. I’m taking Maggie to Niagara Falls tomorrow.”
Hendricks caught her elbow. “Savannah—” His fingers brushed the bruise Petrie’s boot had left. “These injuries...”
She pulled away. “Self-defense seminar. Remember?” Rain blurred his bewildered face as she pushed through the exit. Campus sprinklers hissed like Carlos’s punctured windpipe.
The hospital loomed at 3:47 PM – pediatric oncology’s quiet hour. Savannah counted ceiling tiles in the elevator: thirty-seven before the doors slid open onto Ward 4B’s pastel nightmare. Maggie’s ghost lingered in the crayon-smeared walls. Hurtado’s office door stood ajar. Inside, he hummed ‘Clair de Lune’ while arranging cell plates beneath a microscope. His lab coat hung pristine, “Dr. E. Hurtado” embroidered in cheerful blue thread.
“Miss Douglas?” He turned, smile faltering at her split knuckles. “Is Maggie—”
Savannah kicked the door shut. “Cold storage unit four.”
Hurtado’s smile dissolved like sugar in acid. His microscope slides clattered as he backed toward the panic button beneath Maggie’s crayon drawing of unicorns. “I don’t –”