Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane #6)(28)

“I’ll call them both in the morning,” Morgan said.

Sharp set down his glass. “I’m still cross-checking her calls and contacts with her calendar. She calls and texts her mother almost every day. There were multiple marathon conversations with her sister. She had a lengthy call with Erik Olander’s attorney on Tuesday and one with Cliff Franklin’s lawyer the week before that.” Sharp shifted forward and propped on elbow on the desk. “She prefers email for professional correspondence and has multiple accounts, including an anonymous one.”

“Let’s look at her calendar.” Lance opened it on his computer. The lethargy that nagged at him almost made him wish he’d taken Morgan up on her donut offer. “I’ll send a list of names to my mother so she can start on background checks. We’ll start with the major players in the Franklin and Olander cases and anyone who had an appointment or phone call with her in the last two weeks.”

“Did you email a copy of her calendar to Stella?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.” Sharp leaned back in his chair.

Lance scanned the entries. “There is no costume party on her calendar.”

“No.” Sharp ran a hand over his short salt-and-pepper hair. “There isn’t.”

They were quiet for a few seconds. If Olivia was kidnapped the way they’d envisioned, she must have been terrified. Lance was trying not to think about her waking up and seeing a man in a rubber mask in her bedroom. And he was trying even harder not to imagine the same thing happening to Morgan. The mere thought made his heartbeat stutter.

Sharp seemed to have aged overnight. Usually he looked—and acted—like a man half his age. But today, exhaustion and stress lined his face, and his eyes were clouded with worry.

Lance locked his own feelings away. Sharp was already emotionally compromised. Lance needed a clear head. As much as he liked Olivia, he’d serve her better if he could compartmentalize his feelings and be objective.

“Olivia used initials extensively in her calendar.” Sharp read from a notepad in front of him. “I’ve sorted out some of the abbreviations. Most are boring. TOY stands for the Toyota dealership. She took her Prius in for regularly scheduled maintenance two weeks ago. AHA stands for A-1 Heating and Air. They serviced her heater on Wednesday. She calls her parents M&D.”

“Let’s focus on the current week.” Lance studied the most recent calendar entries. “She talked to her literary agent on Monday morning, and she met with Lena and Kennett Olander at their farm on Monday evening.”

“Her mother’s doctor appointment and the meeting at our office are on Friday’s agenda. She has nothing at all scheduled for Saturday or Sunday. Next week, she has lunch with her literary agent on Monday and a dental cleaning on Tuesday.”

“Plus, the usual Thursday night dinner with her parents,” Morgan said.

“Yes.” Sharp scratched his chin. “Morgan, what can you tell us about the cases she was researching for her book, other than both Olander and Franklin were convicted of murder?”

She started a new column labeled FRANKLIN CASE. “Three years ago, Cliff Franklin was convicted of the murder of twenty-six-year-old Brandi Holmes. Do you remember the case, Sharp? I wasn’t paying much attention to the news back then.”

She’d been mired in grief over her husband’s death.

“The boys talked about it quite a bit.” Sharp rubbed his temples in a circular motion as if he was trying to stimulate his brain.

The boys were Sharp’s retired cop buddies. Sharp was the youngest. They met at least once a week at a local bar. Despite being retired, the boys knew almost everything that went on in local law enforcement.

Sharp lowered his hands. “The sheriff’s department linked Franklin to Brandi and five other missing women. Only Brandi’s body was found. As far as I know, the other women are still officially missing. Brandi’s murder was the only one he was charged with. The boys were all convinced Franklin was a serial killer, but they couldn’t prove it. Everyone was relieved he was convicted and sentenced to life, but they really wanted justice for those other five women and closure for their families.”

Under Franklin’s name, Morgan wrote 5 MISSING WOMEN and VICTIM—BRANDI HOLMES.

“There must be a special reason Olivia was interested in the case,” Lance said. “Was she trying to find the five missing women?”

“It seems that was part of her angle.” Morgan capped her marker. “But there are repeated notations that Olivia wanted to interview Cliff’s brother, Joe. I don’t see any notes indicating that meeting ever took place.”

Sharp nodded, his face grim. “I found multiple calls to Joseph Franklin lasting approximately thirty seconds.”

“She was leaving messages for him,” Lance suggested.

“Maybe he wasn’t answering.” Morgan stood back to scan the whole board. “In his initial interviews, Cliff claimed his brother, Joe, could give him an alibi. He’d been living at Joe’s house at the time of the murder. However, the alibi was weak, and the physical evidence was solid. Cliff had worked on Brandi’s car. Hairs found inside Cliff’s trunk were identified through DNA as belonging to Brandi.”

Sharp rubbed his chin. “What was weak about the alibi?”

Standing in front of her desk, Morgan set down the binder and opened it. “Joe is hard of hearing and removes his hearing aids at night. If Cliff had left the house during the night, Joe would have slept right through it.”