Page 17 of Enigma (Pros and Cons Mysteries #6)

T he sirens were getting louder now. Someone in the neighborhood must have called the police about the disturbance.

“Are you okay?” Jason asked, breathing hard. He had a cut on his forehead, and his shirt was torn, but he seemed to be moving normally.

“I think so,” Olive replied, though her throat was sore where the man had grabbed her, and she felt bruises forming on her arms and ribs. “You?”

“I’ll live.” Jason looked around the backyard, then back at the house. “We need to check if Nancy’s here. If she was hiding or if they . . .”

Olive was glad Jason didn’t finish his sentence.

They made their way back through the house, turning on lights now that their attackers were gone. The living room was a disaster—overturned furniture, broken glass, books scattered everywhere.

But as they searched through the rest of the small house, it became clear that Nancy wasn’t there.

Her bedroom appeared undisturbed, with the bed neatly made and clothes hanging normally in the closet. The kitchen was clean, with no signs of a struggle. Other than the destruction in the living room from their fight, the house looked like Nancy had simply stepped out for the evening.

“Look at this.” Jason pointed to the kitchen counter where a photo rested—one of Lloyd at a store.

Olive frowned. “That’s . . . odd. Why such a candid shot? It’s almost like Nancy was doing surveillance on him or something.”

“Maybe she has a good reason,” Jason suggested. “Maybe she’s a terrible photographer.”

“Or maybe she’s part of this.” The possibility hit Olive like a cold realization. “Maybe the reason those men were here was to wait for us.”

Jason shook his head. “I can’t believe that. You saw how worried she was about Dad at the hospital. That wasn’t an act.”

“How can you be sure?” Olive asked. “These people are professionals at deception.”

The sirens were close now, probably only a few blocks away. Jason looked around the destroyed living room, then at Olive’s bruised neck and arms and his own torn clothing.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “The police are going to want to know what happened, and I don’t think we can explain why we broke into Nancy’s house to fight three masked men without sounding completely insane.”

“But what about Nancy?” Olive asked. “If she’s a victim, we’re abandoning her. If she’s working with them, we’re letting her get away.”

“Right now, we don’t know which it is.” Jason already flipped off the lights and headed toward the front door. “And until we do, we can’t help her or protect ourselves from her.”

As they slipped out of Nancy’s house and hurried toward Jason’s car, Olive couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d just walked into a carefully laid trap.

The question was whether Nancy had been the bait or another victim caught in the same web that had already claimed Lloyd.

The police were just turning onto their street as Jason started the engine and drove away, leaving Nancy’s dark house and all its unanswered questions behind them.

Olive and Jason decided to head back to his dad’s house.

Lloyd’s house looked different in the darkness—more vulnerable somehow, with its neat landscaping and tidy front porch illuminated only by the single streetlight at the corner.

Jason parked across the street and studied the dwelling several minutes before getting out of the car. “Stay here while I check it out.”

Olive wanted to argue, but after what had happened at Nancy’s house, she knew he was right to be cautious.

She watched him approach the front door, noting how he moved carefully along the shadows, checking windows and looking for any signs that someone might be inside.

He returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. “Empty. No signs anyone’s been hanging around.”

They walked inside the house together, and it wasn’t until they stood under the living room light that Jason seemed to get a good look at her face.

“Olive . . .” His voice filled with concern. “Your jaw is swelling, and you’re bleeding.”

Olive gingerly touched her jaw. It felt tender where one of the attackers had clipped her with his elbow, and there was a stinging cut on her forearm where she’d scraped against something during the fight.

“I’m okay.” She shrugged. “It looks worse than it is.”

“We need to get you to a hospital. That cut needs stitches.”

“No.” The word came out more sharply than she’d intended. “Jason, we can’t go to a hospital. Too many questions, too much attention. After what just happened, we need to stay under the radar.”

“But—” Jason’s phone rang, interrupting their argument. He glanced at the caller ID and frowned. “It’s the Clearwater Police.”

He answered, and Olive heard a man’s voice on the other end, though she couldn’t make out the words.

“This is Jason Stewart,” he said. “Yes, that’s right, Lloyd Stewart is my father . . . No, I haven’t heard from him . . . Actually, I’m at his house right now, checking to see if he came home. He’s not here.”

There was a pause as the detective spoke.

“Of course, I understand you’re doing everything you can,” Jason continued. “Yes, I’ll call if I hear anything . . . Thank you.”

He ended the call and looked at Olive. “Detective Santos. He wanted to give me an update about Dad’s disappearance. They’re treating it as a missing person case, and he said they’re taking it very seriously given what happened earlier.”

“I’m glad they’re not ignoring it.”

“Me too.” Jason pocketed his phone and looked at her injured arm again. “Come on. We need to at least clean and bandage that cut properly.”