Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane #6) - Melinda Leigh Page 0,29
the SUV and walked to the door. Sharp let them inside. Lance was carrying a plastic shopping bag. He reached inside and pulled out a rubber mask. Without a word, he held it out.
Sharp took it, turning it over in his hands. “This looks like the scrap of rubber we found next to Olivia’s bed.”
“That’s what we thought,” Lance said.
“Was Olivia planning to attend a costume party for Halloween?” Morgan asked.
“She didn’t mention one to me. We usually compare calendars, but Halloween is still six weeks away.”
“We’ll double-check her calendar,” Morgan said. “But I didn’t see any other parts of a costume when we searched the house earlier.”
“How hard is this to rip?” Sharp tested the mask, digging his fingers into the rubber and pulling. The material tore. He twisted and a square of rubber broke free. “That answers that question.” He stared at the rubber, dread gathering in his gut. “It seems to me we can eliminate the possibility that she left on her own.”
“Someone took her,” Morgan said quietly.
“But how?” Sharp turned to the house again, trying to reconstruct Olivia’s evening in light of this new disturbing clue. “Her security panel showed her disarming the system when she arrived home at about ten o’clock. Two minutes later, the system was reset using the At Home setting. Then at 2:13 a.m., the system was disarmed again and reactivated in Away mode.”
Lance walked to the panel. “Her alarm is outdated.”
“And she doesn’t have motion detectors or cameras.” Sharp could kick himself. He should have insisted on updating her system. “I didn’t see any sign that the alarm system was hacked, but I can’t rule it out. Everything that operates on Wi-Fi is vulnerable to hacking.”
Lance turned away from the alarm panel. “Let’s walk through the house assuming her security system was compromised and her house breached. Then she was kidnapped.”
Sharp went down a short hallway to the bedroom. Lance and Morgan followed him.
Sharp stood in the doorway and stared at the covers spilling onto the floor. He imagined what could have happened. “He surprised her while she was sleeping.”
“Wearing a Halloween mask.” Morgan shivered, rubbing her arms.
Sharp remembered a night three months back when he and Olivia had gotten themselves into a jam with two goons. She’d fought hard, scratching and clawing for her freedom. She was tough.
“Olivia would not have gone quietly. She would have put up a fight.” Sharp pictured the events unfolding in front of him. “She would have gone for his face with her nails.”
“But he was wearing a mask,” Lance added. “Which she tore.”
“He overpowered her, restrained her, or pulled a weapon.” Sharp imagined a masked man dragging Olivia from her bed, the covers being pulled off the mattress along with her body. “And forced or carried her to the garage.”
They retraced their steps to the kitchen.
“Her purse would have been on the island.” Sharp pointed. “So the intruder would have her phone, the security system fob, and her car keys. He could have turned her alarm system on and off easily using either the fob or the app on her phone.”
They walked to the short hallway that led to the laundry room.
“He exited through the garage.” Sharp stared at the wood trim. Stella had taken the broken fingernail and sampled the blood, but the smear was still visible. “She grabbed the doorjamb on the way out.”
“If she had broken away right here”—Morgan opened the door and stood in the doorway—“then she could have closed and locked the door with him on the garage side.” To demonstrate, she motioned for Lance to walk down the two wooden steps to the concrete floor while she stayed in the laundry room.
“But that didn’t happen”—Lance walked farther into the garage—“because he put her in the back of her car.”
“Her car is a hatchback. It doesn’t have a trunk.” Sharp walked to where Olivia’s Prius was usually parked. “He would have had to incapacitate her in some way.”
“He clearly planned this down to the smallest detail,” Morgan said. “He would have brought something to restrain her. Rope. Zip ties.”
Or used drugs, a Taser, or a blunt instrument to render her defenseless.
Sharp’s mind jumped in with other possibilities. He stared at the two yellow sticky notes that marked the locations of Olivia’s fallen earrings, and he knew.
How did he not see it the first time he’d walked the scene?
She was clever, clearly smarter than Sharp, and she would never give up.