Chapter Nine
The wind whipped at Morgan’s face as she crossed the parking lot from the diner to her minivan, where Mac was leaning into the open door of his SUV.
“Thanks, Mac.” She rolled the top of the brown bag down. Inside were her blood-soaked, now-crusty jeans. Mac had brought her a clean pair.
“You’re welcome.” Mac had transferred the girls’ safety seats to his SUV and was securing them in the back seat. “It’s a little tight, but we’ll manage. What are you going to do with the van?”
“I called a tow truck.” There was no way she was sitting in a pool of blood to drive it to a garage. Besides, she wanted a mechanic to give the van a thorough once-over in case some other damage had been done.
“Whoever broke into your vehicle damaged the locks.” Mac tugged on a child safety seat.
Morgan pressed a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t notice when I opened the van.”
Seemingly satisfied with the car seat’s fit, Mac stepped away from the open SUV door. “That’s because your fob still chirps when you press the button, but the locks don’t work.”
Sophie tugged on Morgan’s hand. “Can we go soon?”
Morgan squatted to her level. “Yes. I just need to talk to the deputy for a couple of minutes. Stay right here with Mac.”
“OK.” Head low, Sophie turned back to Mac’s car. She’d awoken early this morning and would fall asleep as soon as the vehicle was in motion.
Morgan approached the deputy typing up the incident report in the front seat of his patrol car. He pointed with his pen toward the Rapid Stain Identification Kit sitting on a clipboard in the passenger seat. Only one red line appeared in the test window. “It’s not human blood.”
“Some sort of animal blood, then.” She glanced back at her van. Animal blood was less disturbing than human blood, but still creepy.
The deputy got out of the car.
“Were you able to get the feed from the security cameras?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.” The deputy pointed toward the camera mounted on a street lamp. “The camera is covered in foam. From the smell of it, I suspect it’s hornet spray.”
Morgan walked to the pole and squinted up at the camera. She sniffed, catching the whiff of insecticide. “Clever. You can shoot that from twenty feet away.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the deputy said. “It sticks real well too, so it completely covered the lens. Maybe we’ll get a hit on the fingerprints I took from your van.”
Morgan expected the prints he’d found to be hers. Anyone smart enough to cover a surveillance camera with hornet foam wouldn’t leave fingerprints.
“You’ll check on Tyler Green’s whereabouts?” she asked.
“I spoke to Sheriff King,” the deputy answered. “He said he’ll bring Tyler in for a talk. A copy of the incident report will be available in a few days.” The deputy handed her a business card.
“Thank you.” Morgan stowed the card in her tote and turned back to her family. The kids were hanging on Mac. Her sister had gotten lucky with him. He was a good man.
The tow truck pulled into the lot, and she stopped to issue the driver instructions. Then she checked the van for personal belongings before getting into Mac’s SUV.
Exhausted from the morning, she nearly fell asleep on the drive home. Once the kids were settled in the kitchen with Mac, Morgan took a shower and dressed in a suit. She needed to visit the courthouse later. But not even a hot shower and fresh clothes could completely wipe away the skeevy feeling. She took her handgun from its safe and fastened it to her belt before heading toward the office in her grandfather’s Lincoln Town Car.
What kind of person would pour animal blood in her van?
She reminded herself that Tyler Green had beaten his wife, hidden from process servers, and tried to strangle Morgan. Filling her car seat with blood was hardly a stretch for him.
A donut shop on Third Street caught her attention as she drove past. Thanks to her stalker, a simple visit to the cemetery had consumed her entire morning. It was almost lunchtime. Her crappy morning and a dull headache called for a sugar-and-caffeine fix. She went through the drive-through, then continued on to the office. Juggling her coffee, the bakery bag, and her tote, she unlocked the front door of Sharp Investigations. After the emotional storm of the morning, the quiet building was bliss. A general weariness nagged at her muscles.
She went into her office, dropping off her briefcase and coat, before checking out the kitchen. Empty. She settled behind her desk with her coffee at her elbow and opened the bakery bag. The scent of warm glazed donuts wafted to her nose. She sighed and ate the first one in three bites, washing it down with coffee. Fortified, she checked her e-mail and took her time with her second donut.
Footsteps in the hallway announced Sharp’s arrival. He appeared in her doorway. Taking one look at him, she couldn’t argue with the all-organic, mostly plant-based diet he attempted to foist on everyone around him. At fifty-three, the only signs of Sharp’s age were his short salt-and-pepper hair and the crow’s-feet gathered around his seen-it-all gray eyes. His lean runner’s body wore jeans and an oxford shirt better than most men half his age.
He glanced at the white bag on her desk. “I’m not even going to ask what you ate today.”
“That’s probably best.” Morgan licked the sugar from her fingertips.
“You eat enough sugar to give an elephant diabetes.” His gaze lingered on her face, which was probably red and puffy. “Is everything all right?”
Where to even start?
“It’s John’s birthday.” She fought a tear as she told him about the morning. Now that the incident was over, and her girls were safe at home with Mac, her self-control felt shaky.
Or perhaps Sharp was right, and she needed to cut back on the caffeine.
She thought about the third donut but decided Sharp would probably have a stroke if she ate it in front of him. Also, he was probably right about the sugar making her feel worse. Her sugar high was fading, leaving her queasy. “Whoever decided to suspend a spare tire underneath a vehicle should be flogged, and someone is harassing me. All in all, it was not the best of mornings.”
And she still wanted the donut.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You OK?”
“Yes,” she said. “As frightening as the morning’s incidents were, now that I know there’s a threat, I can take steps to protect my family.”
And the grief that had crushed her at the cemetery had ebbed. She would miss John forever, and she would always be sad that he’d been taken from her and the girls. At every milestone, those feelings would resurface. But they wouldn’t suck her under again. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—let them.
“Do you want to go looking for Tyler Green?” Sharp asked, his gray eyes narrowing, suggesting he’d love nothing more.
Morgan shook her head. “We have no evidence that it’s him, and he’s smart enough to file a harassment suit if we follow him around. The sheriff’s department will handle it, and either Mac or Stella will stay at the house when I’m not there, so the family is covered.”
Sharp nodded. “And I want me or Lance with you at all times until this stalker is caught.”
“All right.” Morgan was independent not stupid.
“Have you heard from Lance?” Sharp asked.
“I called him early this morning.” She updated Sharp on Jenny’s condition. “He intended to visit the ME first thing.”
“I’d like to set aside a chunk of time to review Victor Kruger’s case with you. I’ve been chasing leads for more than two decades. I’d like some fresh eyes on it.”
“Yes. Of course,” Morgan said.
“I’ll make you a shake. It’s lunchtime. You need some protein to balance out your stress—and whatever crap you just put in your body.” Sharp left her office, still muttering as he walked down the hall. “I have no doubt you haven’t eaten anything even remotely nutritious today.”
“Thanks.” Morgan didn’t bother to argue. He’d just blend her a shake anyway. She needed real food in her body, but she ate the third donut while he was out of the room.
She drank more coffee and called out, “Where is the file?”
“Lance’s desk,” Sharp answered from the kitchen.
A blender whirred as she went into Lance’s office. His desk was the only piece of furniture in the room. The file was in the bottom drawer. Dust floated to her nose as she pulled it out. She carried it back to her office and set it on her desk.
A few minutes later, Sharp set a gross-looking concoction by her elbow.
She sipped. Pineapple and blueberry. “Considering the color and what you put in them, I’m always surprised that these don’t taste horrible.”
“You can’t even taste the leafy greens.” Sharp’s current obsession was organic sweet potato greens. He eased into the chair opposite her. “This is going to be hard on Jenny—and Lance, no matter what he says.”
“I know.” She studied the man across from her. He rarely talked about his past, other than his police career. “Were you ever married, Sharp?”
“I was,” he said.
Why did that surprise her?
His gaze drifted to the window, his eyes pensive. “The marriage was a disaster from the beginning. I wanted kids. She didn’t. She didn’t like being married to a cop. I didn’t want to be anything else. We got a divorce. I haven’t talked to her since I signed the papers. The last I heard, she’d remarried and moved to Boston.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It was a long time ago. I was a young man.” Sharp shook it off, but sadness clouded his eyes, as if he had deeper feelings about the breakup of his marriage than he was willing to admit.
“When did you split up?”
“February of ’94,” Sharp said.
Three months before Vic Kruger had gone missing. Sharp must have been lonely. Morgan pictured him throwing himself into the investigation, taking an equally lonely child under his wing. Maybe his relationship with Lance hadn’t been as one-sided as Morgan had thought.
“Anyway, I never came close to marrying again.” Sharp patted the desk. “Enough about me. You can grill me about the rest of my life some other time.”
Morgan stared at the file, thick and heavy with implications.
Before they could begin, the front door opened and closed. Lance appeared in the doorway. He took one look at Morgan’s face and asked, “What’s wrong? Where’s your van?”
She told him about her morning.
Anger flared in his eyes. “I’d like to go after Tyler myself.”
“The sheriff will handle him,” she said. “Sheriff King is a pain, but this kind of situation is what he lives for.”
“True. We can count on King to hassle Tyler.” Lance rounded her desk, leaned over, and hugged her. “I’m sorry you had such a horrible morning. I wish I’d been with you.”
If he’d been with her, she doubted her stalker would have been so brazen. But a mother focused on her three small children was an easy target.
“You had enough to deal with this morning,” Morgan said.
Lance released her and straightened.
“Did you see the ME?” Sharp asked.
“I did.” Lance’s jaw sawed back and forth. “I just came from his office. You’re not going to believe this, but the remains aren’t my father.”
“What?” Sharp snapped upright.
“The skeleton is female.” Lance’s eyebrows lowered.
Silence floated in the air like dust motes.
Female?
Was Lance glad the body wasn’t his father? Or upset about the questions the news raised?
“Frank doesn’t know who she is yet?” Sharp asked.
“No.” Lance lifted troubled eyes. “I haven’t told my mother. She took the idea of my father’s remains being found better than I expected. But I don’t know how she’ll react when she finds out he’s still missing. Plus, there’s the obvious implication that Dad might have had some sort of relationship with this young woman.” Lance went to the second chair that faced Morgan’s desk, dropped into it, and recapped his visit with his mother.
It was typical of Lance to be more concerned about his mother when the news would affect him just as deeply.
Sharp got up and went into the kitchen. A minute later, the blender whirred, and he returned with another shake. He handed it to Lance.
Lance took it with a sigh. “I’m not really hungry.”
“You have a headache, and you probably didn’t sleep well,” Sharp said. “The protein will help.”
“You know he’s always right about these things.” Morgan studied Lance’s exhausted face. How did he feel about his father still being missing?
Sharp nodded. “I am.”
Lance drank. Lowering the glass, he swallowed and seemed to brace himself. “Let’s get started. I want to get more information before I tell my mother. I don’t want to keep throwing conflicting reports at her. The ME isn’t in a rush to release any information to the press. He wants to identify the remains and notify the family first. His assistant was pulling missing person reports when I left.”
Sharp bowed his head and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck. “Now what?”
There was only one thing that would help Lance: an answer. Morgan opened the file on her desk. “Now we start at the beginning.”