Page 53 of Save Her Life

“Just being a good neighbor.” He winked at Sandra.

She smiled at him but was struck by the oddity of having this flirtatious old loon hitting on her right now. Especially considering her reason for being there. She left the area and swept through the main level, but it took just about as long as the basement had.

When she returned, Karl and Gabe were deep into conversation with the older man.

“I did see the younger fella park in the driveway earlier this evening,” Tim said.

That was enough to lure her over to join in the discussion. Duane Novak would have no reason to come here and, from what she knew, he didn’t have a vehicle. “Duane, their son?” she asked to clarify.

“Uh-huh, that’s right, ma’am.”

“What time was this?”

“Around six thirty. I’d finished dinner and was settling in.”

“Did he say why he was here or was he with anyone?” She knew the second the double question slipped out that she was steamrolling the poor man. She added a smile to soften the assault, which seem to work.

“I never spoke to him, and he was alone.”

Duane could have had Olivia lying in the backseat or in the trunk. “Did he go into the house or onto the property?”

“Not that I saw.”

That wasn’t reassuring. Duane could have moved Olivia without the older man seeing. “Did you catch a look at the vehicle?”

“Yes, ma’am. A Ford sedan, powder blue, older.”

Could be a Taurus or other model for that matter. She wasn’t up on cars. But where did Duane get the wheels? Brice had told that woman at DiversaBlend he didn’t have a vehicle, which Sandra took to mean as he’d looked at Novak’s record. So didthis blue sedan belong to a friend? Where was it now? And would finding it get her any closer to Olivia?

TWENTY-FIVE

Sandra returned to the WFO, gutted that she wasn’t any further along in finding Olivia. Brice had texted before she left the Novak property to say that Duane’s lawyer had arrived. She’d fired back a message to ask him to hold off until she got back. She received two letters in response to that.OandK.Somehow it felt loaded in what wasn’t being said. Then another text,Rowe’s here. And that explained it. Brice was fine stepping back and letting her run with things at the motel but not with the assistant director in the audience.

She parked in the lot, and sat there for a minute, letting the car idle. She’d put off making a certain phone call for long enough. She pressed his name before she could conjure more reasons to procrastinate. By now, she’d hoped that Olivia would be back, and everything would be somehow okay. This entire nightmare would be something they could relay to Olivia’s father after the fact. But the truth was far from that.

She landed in Nolan’s voicemail. “It’s urgent that you call me back. It’s about Olivia.” It was enough detail to prompt a quick response but not so much as to give him a heart attack.

Next, she called Eric to let him know where things were with Novak. She could have easily texted him instead, but she longedto hear his voice and soak up his strength and confidence. With every passing minute of Olivia being out theresomewhereit was slowly shredding her sanity. She kept coming back to one question.What does Duane want out of all this?

Every time it came up, all she could land on was revenge. Did that mean he’d permanently injure Olivia like had happened to his brother, as she thought before? But if this was about payback, wouldn’t Novak have boasted about hurting Olivia? Instead, he claimed no recognition of her. Or was this about money? Even still, none of this explained the other anomaly of why he’d shown up at his parents’ empty house in a mystery blue Ford sedan.

She entered the office and went to her desk. The sight of Olivia’s folded shirt sent a sharp pain through her chest.

“There you are,” Brice said.

She stuffed the shirt into a drawer and said, “No sign of her.”

“I had a feeling when I didn’t hear from you,” he told her.

Then she filled him in on what thegood neighborhad told them.

“All right. Well, as I told you, Rowe’s here and he’ll be watching my conversation with Novak.”

“Yourconversation?”

“Rowe made it clear to me that I’m the only one he wants questioning him.”

She made a move to find their boss, but stopped when Brice held up a hand. “No sense pleading your case. He told me to tell you nothing you could say was going to work on him.”

---