Page 3 of Enigma
And what she wanted was to find answers.
She hadn’t even told Jason Stewart what she was doing.
That guilt sat heavy in her stomach ever since. As she’d gone to the airport. As she’d flown. As she’d picked up her rental car.
As she’d driven to this house.
She shoved aside the guilt as she walked up the concrete pathway, past the small, carefully maintained flower garden toward Lloyd Stewart’s home.
Olive paused at the front door, her finger hovering over the doorbell. Once she pressed it, there would be no going back.
She would have to explain to Lloyd why she was here, ask him questions that might destroy Jason’s relationship with his father, and potentially uncover facts that could end whatever hope she and Jason had of a future together.
But she needed to know the truth about her family, and Lloyd might provide that information.
Eight years ago, her dad, mom, and twin sisters had been murdered. Olive would be dead also if she hadn’t sneaked out of the house to go to a party that evening.
Sometimes, she wasn’t sure if she was the lucky or unlucky one. The weight of grief had been hard—almost impossible—to carry at times.
But unanswered questions had haunted her for long enough. The killer had never been found and was most likely still living out there as a free man.
It was time to find the truth and face it head-on. No more excuses.
Plus, she couldn’t move forward in her relationship with Jason until she knew if his father was somehow connected to the massacre of her family.
Her gut clenched at the thought.
Drawing in a deep breath, Olive pressed the doorbell.
The chime echoed through the house, a pleasant two-tone melody. But no footsteps approached.
Olive waited thirty seconds, then pressed it again, holding it longer this time.
The sound carried clearly, so she knew it was working.
“Mr. Stewart?” She knocked on the wooden door with her knuckles. “It’s Olive Sterling.”
Still nothing.
She stepped back and looked at the house more carefully. Lloyd’s silver Lexus sat in the driveway, and she saw lights on through the front windows despite the bright morning sun.
Her investigative instincts, honed by years of working cases for Aegis, kicked in.
She walked to the side of the house, her loafers quiet on the concrete driveway. The backyard was small but well-kept, with a screened porch that faced a small body of water behind the house.
That was when she noticed it.
The sliding glass door that led from what looked like the living room to the screened porch was slightly open. Maybe six inches, just enough to force the air conditioning to work harder.
It wasn’t something a careful retired doctor would leave open, especially not someone who’d lived in Florida long enough to know better.
Olive stepped onto the screened porch and approached the slider cautiously. She cupped her hands against the glass to peer inside.
Her breath caught.
She saw Lloyd Stewart.
He lay motionless on the living room floor.
