Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane #6)(11)

“Thanks,” Carl called. “I’m waiting on the tow truck.”

With a wave at the cop, they climbed into Lance’s Jeep. Lance steered around the ME’s van and drove the short distance to Olivia’s house.

Lance parked in front of her bungalow, and Sharp looked for signs that something was amiss. But her house looked normal. They got out of the Jeep. Sharp went to the garage door, shielded his eyes with both hands, and peered in the window. The spot in the garage where she normally parked her car was empty. Had she gone out and forgotten about her mother?

That wasn’t like Olivia. She’d remembered the appointment the previous night. As the only unmarried sibling, Olivia was the first person her mother called on for help. She doted on her parents.

Lance appeared beside him.

“She’s not here.” Worry tugged at Sharp.

Lance nodded. “Let’s drive the route between here and her parents’ house.”

Alarm rose in Sharp’s chest.

“You talked to her last night?” Lance asked.

Sharp hurried back to the Jeep. “Yes. She was going to bed. She wasn’t feeling well.” A warning itched Sharp’s spine.

“She was sick?” Lance asked.

“Just some indigestion.” She would have called him if she felt worse, right? Was their relationship at that point? They hadn’t talked about any sort of commitment. They were both independent and wary of being too clingy. Both had been burned in the past and without romantic entanglements for some time. She seemed as content as he was to take things slowly.

But suddenly Sharp felt very alone.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Lance said, steering the Jeep toward the main road that led out of town. “Don’t you always say, if it looks like a horse and smells like a horse, don’t go looking for a zebra?”

“Yes.” Sharp scanned the shoulder of the road. He suppressed the disaster scenarios popping into his mind. “Her car doesn’t have a spare. If she got a flat and the tire repair kit couldn’t fix it, she’d have to call for roadside assistance. If she couldn’t get a cell signal, she’d have to walk.”

But wouldn’t she have found a phone in three hours?

“Why don’t you call Morgan?” Lance turned right at the stop sign and accelerated. “Get her to make the usual calls to police departments and hospitals between here and Albany. It’s premature, but you’ll feel better.”

It didn’t feel premature to Sharp. “Good idea.”

“Do you want me to call my mother and see if she can locate Olivia’s cell?” Lance’s mother suffered from depression and anxiety and rarely left her home. She was also a computer genius who often assisted with their investigations. Finding Olivia’s cell without a warrant would require some illegal hacking, but Sharp doubted Olivia would complain.

“Yes,” he said.

Lance talked to his mother, then Morgan, on speakerphone as he drove. By the time the calls were made, he was merging onto the interstate. Sharp sat up straighter and focused on scanning the sides of the road. Olivia could have driven off the shoulder. There were ditches, ravines, and lakes. Her car could be buried in underbrush—

Or submerged underwater.

The empty chill in the pit of Sharp’s gut deepened as the miles passed with no sign of Olivia.

Just short of her parents’ house in Albany, Lance slowed the Jeep. “Do you want to stop at her parents’ house?”

“Not yet.” Sharp didn’t want to waste time.

Lance turned the Jeep around. Sharp closely watched the opposite side of the interstate all the way back to Scarlet Falls.

Sharp saw no cars abandoned on the side of the road and no breaks in the foliage to indicate a car had gone off the road. The ditches were empty.

Where is she? He rubbed the center of his chest. In his mind’s eye, he saw Olivia, her dark eyes shining with mischief, wearing the feminine trench coat and the pointy-heeled shoes she loved.

Lance exited the interstate onto the ramp that led to Scarlet Falls. “Where do you want to go now?”

“Back to Olivia’s house.” Sharp dreaded calling her mother and telling her he hadn’t found any sign of her.

Lance’s phone buzzed on the console. “It’s my mom.” He put the call on speaker. “Hi, Mom. You’re on speaker in the car. Sharp is here too.”

“Hello, Sharp.” Jenny Kruger’s voice came through the car’s speaker. “I tried to track the GPS on Olivia’s phone, but there’s no signal.”

“Nothing?” Sharp’s apprehension grew.

“No,” Jenny said. “No signal at all. I’m sorry. The last activity recorded on her number was a phone call to you at eleven p.m. last night. That call was made from her home.”

No signal meant Olivia’s phone battery had been removed or destroyed or the phone was out of cell range.

Lance parked in front of Olivia’s house. Sharp jumped out of the vehicle and rushed up the walk.

Lance hurried to catch up with him. Almost at the front door, he caught Sharp’s arm. “Take it slow.”

“Something is wrong.” Sharp paused and inhaled. The hollow pressure in his chest intensified.

“Then take precautions.” Lance dug into the pocket of his cargos and offered Sharp a pair of gloves. “We don’t want to destroy evidence.”