One Left Alive - Helen Phifer Page 0,13

anyone about the insomnia that had plagued the last five years of her life. That was too personal.

There was one empty room next to the large CID office with the door open, so she took her coffee inside. Firing up the computer, she waited for it to let her log on, sipping her coffee while she waited. When her home screen filled the monitor, Morgan quickly brought up the logs to see the latest update on Olivia Potter. In the notes it stated that several visits throughout the night had been made to the address, but it was all in darkness. No contact had been made with her husband by the police. Her mother, Helen Taylor, had been informed late last night, but there was no mention of Olivia’s father. Enquiries were still ongoing to locate husband and daughters. That was it, nothing more. Morgan exhaled while reading the update. Something was definitely wrong, she was sure of it. None of this was normal. Last month a woman had died in a car accident and her daughter had been travelling in Australia. It had taken a few hours, but they’d managed to track her down and break the news to her. She was over the other side of the world; why couldn’t they find Saul Potter when he lived on their doorstep?

‘What are you doing here so early?’

Startled, she looked up to see Ben standing there, holding a paper coffee cup.

‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She didn’t tell him it was an everyday occurrence.

‘Me neither. Put me out of my misery then, have they located her husband yet?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but it’s all wrong. Very wrong.’

‘I never said you were bossy, it was that arse, Dan. Anyway, I woke up early thinking about it and I think you’re right. Do you want to go back to the house and check it again? Take the keys from the sergeant’s office, see if there’s any sign the husband’s been back or if something got missed yesterday.’

‘Yes, I do. Thank you. Should I go now?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it can wait until after morning briefing. I don’t think another forty minutes will hurt; Olivia Potter isn’t going anywhere.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’

He turned and walked into the office. Morgan checked her emails, then logged off and headed down to speak to the sergeant and get the keys for the Potters’ house. This was her job; she didn’t want Dan coming in and taking over. He could sulk all day if he wanted; she wasn’t working with him and if they got paired up she’d be the first to say it wasn’t an option.

By the time everyone arrived, had made mugs of tea or coffee and all filed into the briefing room, Morgan was itching to go. It would take her a good twenty minutes to get from Rydal Falls to Grasmere, traffic permitting. She could have told Sergeant Madden she needed to leave, but there was no way she was giving Dan any more fuel to add to his already low opinion of her. It still smarted that he’d turned on her like that. She’d wait patiently and offer to be the cover for Grasmere and surrounding areas.

The briefing was over quickly. The main topic of conversation was for observations for the missing white Jag F-Pace. She wouldn’t know what an F-Pace was to look at but Mads, the nickname his team called Sergeant Madden, circulated the registration number, which was much easier to identify. An automated number plate recognition marker had been placed on it, meaning when it passed an ANPR camera it would ping and notify whoever was in the control room, so they could get the car stopped. Mads allocated areas and gave Morgan the same one as yesterday. She couldn’t stop herself from grinning. Dan frowned, but she ignored him. It would be some time before she bothered speaking to him, even if he apologised. Friends didn’t make you look like an absolute idiot, especially in front of the people you worked with, and she was starting to realise that perhaps they had never been friends at all.

She left first, eager to get to the house and give it a thorough search. Not that they hadn’t yesterday, but there was a nagging feeling that they had rushed, that they had missed something.

Eight

Ben read through the notes on the log again. It was odd they hadn’t found Saul Potter; Morgan had been right to

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024