“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.”
Chapter Ten
Lance turned to the whiteboard mounted on the wall. The board was empty, but what would they find when they dug in to the case?
Whatever it was, it was high time he faced the truth.
Morgan offered Sharp the file, but he clearly didn’t need it. He leaned back in his chair and started talking. “We know that Vic left his house at approximately nine p.m. to go to the grocery store. When he hadn’t returned at eleven o’clock, your mother called his closest friends, Stan Adams and Brian Leed, hoping one of them would help. Neither was at home. So she drove the route between the store and house in case Vic’s car had broken down. When she didn’t find him, she drove to PJ’s Sports Bar, where he sometimes hung out with Brian and Stan. She didn’t see Brian or Stan there. No one had seen Vic.”