Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane #6)(47)

“Can you prove that?” Lance asked.

“Yes, but I don’t have to.” Hansen quickened his pace and walked them directly to the Jeep. “If you want to talk to me again, please call my office. I wish you luck finding Ms. Cruz.” And with that, he left them at their vehicle and went into the house.

They didn’t speak as they slid into the Jeep. Halfway down the driveway, Lance glanced in the rearview mirror. “I can’t tell if he was lying, but I hate that I don’t recall bullshit. It was a big case. He wouldn’t have forgotten so many details.”

“But I can’t decide if he blew the case on purpose or through neglect. Either way, this discovery could open a path to appeal through incompetent counsel.”

“Then our options are incompetent or corrupt?”

“Seems like it,” Morgan agreed. “But the real question is, did he kidnap Olivia to keep her from exposing his failure?”

“Or did the real killer take her to keep his guilt a secret?”

“Ugh.” Morgan gathered her hair at her nape and bound it into a quick ponytail. “Someone took her.”

“Hansen is a creep. We should stake out his house for a while.” After leaving the lawyer’s driveway, Lance uncurled his fingers from their too-tight grip on his steering wheel. Hansen’s evasion had left him with a bad taste in his mouth. The attorney knew more than he was saying, and not even the possibility that Olivia’s life could be at stake got him talking.

Morgan glanced up and down the road. “This is a very rural road. There’s no way we can sit here and not have him notice us.”

She was right. The terrain around the house was wide open.

“He does not want his screwup revealed.” Lance was sure of it. “Even if it means his client stays in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I’ll bet he resented having to work for less than his usual hourly fee. He didn’t put the time in on the case, and he missed the chain of evidence error.”

“So why did Olivia sit on this revelation?” A line formed between Morgan’s brows.

“Maybe she was saving it for her book.”

Morgan frowned. “Do you think she would do that?”

“She is a reporter.” But Lance didn’t like his answer. “But she also seems to have a strong sense of ethics. And she did make an appointment to talk to the three of us, maybe about this. The sheriff’s department tied Franklin to five additional missing women, but the bodies were never found. Maybe Olivia wanted more information on the other possible victims before she committed herself to this particular story.”

“What if Olivia wasn’t sure if she wanted to reveal this evidence issue? What if she didn’t want a potential serial killer to be set free?”

“We need to talk to Todd Harvey.” Lance scrolled through the contacts on his phone. The current Randolph County chief deputy was acting as sheriff. “He was working for the sheriff when this investigation was underway.”

“The sheriff liked to keep his evidence to himself,” Morgan reminded him.

“There must be a file somewhere.” Lance dialed the chief deputy’s cell phone number and asked him about the file.

“I honestly don’t know,” Todd said. “You are welcome to come and look through the old files I boxed up from the sheriff’s office.”

“Thanks,” Lance said. “We’re on our way.”

They drove to the sheriff’s station. The chief deputy met them in the lobby and escorted them behind the counter.

“I put the murder book and other files in the conference room.” The chief deputy led the way into a small office. A row of cardboard boxes sat on a round table.

“There’s everything I could find relating to the case. Help yourself to coffee if you need it,” the deputy said on his way out of the room.

Lance and Morgan took seats and opened the first box, hoping they would find something that might generate a lead. They divided up the remaining boxes and dug in.

Two hours later, Morgan brewed a second cup of coffee. “Brandi Holmes went missing in September 2014. While he was investigating her disappearance, the sheriff discovered Tawny Miller, who disappeared in October 2012.”

“He looked further back and discovered four more women who had gone missing in the fall, approximately two years apart.” Lance leaned back and drank some water. One more cup of coffee would set his gut on fire. “Cassandra Martin, November 2010; Samantha Knowles, September 2008; Jessie Mendella, October 2006; and Brenda Chase, September 2004.”

Morgan carried her Styrofoam cup back to the conference table. “None of those other women have been found.”

“No, but each of those women had had their cars serviced at the auto shop where Cliff had worked for fifteen years. He didn’t personally work on every one of their cars, but he could have seen them in the shop. And he would have been able to access their names and addresses through the shop’s customer records.”

“But there were other employees who could have done the same,” Morgan pointed out.

Lance rose and stretched his aching back. “Yes, but Franklin was the only one working at the shop throughout that entire period. The owner was cleared as he was in Italy the week Brandi went missing.”

“None of the other women have been found.”