“No, ma’am. She wouldn’t.” Sharp ran a hand over his fresh buzz cut. Possibilities spun in his mind. After twenty-five years on the SFPD, he immediately thought of worst-case scenarios. But scaring Mrs. Cruz would be pointless and cruel.
“What time was your appointment this morning?” Sharp asked.
“Nine thirty,” Mrs. Cruz said, the pitch of her voice rising.
Sharp checked the time. Eleven thirty. “Maybe she had a flat or her car broke down.”
“She would have called.” Mrs. Cruz blew away his suggestion.
“There are spots with poor cell reception between here and Albany. I’ll go looking for her right now.”
“You’ll call me if you find her?” She sniffed.
“Of course. Try not to panic. I’ll call you soon.” Sharp disconnected. He dialed Olivia’s cell. The call went to voice mail. He left a message. Then he sent her a text just in case she was in an area with poor reception. Sometimes a text would go through when a call would not. Even though she rarely answered her home phone—only her mother and telemarketers used that line—he tried that number too. After three rings, her digital answering machine picked up. He left her a message there as well.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket and returned to the kitchen. Stella was gone. “That was Olivia’s mother.” He explained her news to Morgan and Lance. “I’m going to her house. Olivia told me about that appointment last night on the phone. She’d intended to be there.”
“I’ll come with you.” Lance fell into step beside him. They walked to the door.
The medical examiner’s van blocked the driveway to Sharp Investigations. Two morgue assistants were wheeling a gurney to the back of their vehicle. The body had been zipped into the black bag.
“You two go.” Morgan’s brows lowered. “I’ll stay here in case Carl needs anything. Let me know if you find Olivia.”
“Will do. Thanks.” Sharp took his keys from his pocket.
“I’ll drive.” Lance headed for his Jeep, parked at the curb. “Your car is blocked in.”
Reluctantly, Sharp followed him, putting his keys away.
“Morgan is inside if you need anything, Carl,” Lance said on their way past.
“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.