Page 90 of The Perfect Divorce

She nods.

“And?”

“It’s pig’s blood.” She snaps a lid onto the coffee cup and hands it to me. She inserts two more coins and presses a button to start the brewing process again; another cup drops down the chute and falls into place.

“Pig’s blood?” I reply, snarling my lip in disbelief.

“I was just as surprised as you are. So, unless what the person wanted to tell us is that the last thing Sarah Morgan did with that knife was butcher a pig, then I think we’ve got a prankster on our hands.”

“What about fingerprints?” I ask.

“Wiped clean.”

I sip the coffee. It’s scalding and flavorless, just as I predicted. “Why would somebody send us that, and why point it to Sarah?”

“I don’t know, but you were right,” she says, retrieving her cup and placing a lid on it.

“About what?”

“You said it could be everything or it could be nothing. Turns out it’s nothing.” She shrugs, bringing the coffee to her lips.

“Speaking of Sarah, someone has to inform her about Bob.”

Olson shakes her head. “That’s two dead husbands now. I feel bad for her.”

“They were in the middle of a separation,” I say.

“Still. They have a kid together.”

I sigh, feeling sorry for their daughter. She’s going to be the one that takes this the hardest. “We should go tell Sarah,” I say. As we begin walking toward the exit, something still nags at me. “We know Bob took Stacy, and the motive as to why is pretty clear, given their history. But the part I don’t get is, why Carissa?”

“I don’t know,” Olson says. “It’s not like we can ask him anymore.”

If Bob did murder Carissa as Stacy indicated, we might never find her body. Right now, we’re waiting on forensics to compare the blood found in the basement near the other mattress and all over the abandoned house to the blood found at the salon. If they’re a match, then at least we’ll know Carissa was down there.

* * *

I knock three times on the front door of Sarah’s home and take a step back, waiting for her to appear. It’s Thursday, just before eight in the morning. The birds are chirping, and the sun is ablaze. Notifying the next of kin that a loved one has passed is the worst part of this job, even if they were a criminal or got what was coming to them. The person receiving the news often has no idea of the scope of their loved one’s misdeeds, and instead, they’re simply in shock at the news that the person they hold dear is gone forever.

Thirty seconds pass, and no one comes to the door—so I knock again, this time with more vigor.

“Maybe she’s not here,” Olson says.

“Her car’s here.” I point to the white Range Rover parked in the driveway before I knock on the door again. I walk along the front of the house, trying to peer into the windows for any signs of movement, but the curtains are all drawn. I return to the door, pounding loudly again.

“Do you think we should go in?”

“I don’t know,” I say. The number of circumstances that allow us to break down a door and enter someone’s private residence is a small list, but someone being in danger of great bodily harm is one of them. Would Bob have done something to his own wife?

A sense of dread starts to slowly build in the pit of my stomach. What if that farmhouse wasn’t the only place Bob went last night?

Frantically, I continue pounding on the door and yell, “Sheriff’s office. Open up!” My heart rate is accelerating with each passing second, and Olson begins to shake her head, our two minds likely thinking the same thing. I step back and hoist my pant leg up, readying to kick down the heavy wooden door.

A lock clicks.

A dead bolt slides.

The door opens, and on the other side stands Sarah Morgan. Her head is tilted at an angle as she dries her wet hair with a towel. She’s dressed in a white waffle robe and a pair of matching slippers. A few droplets of water slither down her neck, disappearing into the material as they’re absorbed by it.

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