She sipped her wine. “I’ve already provided two good pieces of information for free.”

Sharp corrected her. “Only the first one was gratis.” Just like a crack dealer. “You bargained with Morgan for the second.”

She nodded. “But I haven’t received payment.”

“You will.” Sharp pulled his shoulders back. “Morgan is the most ethical, honest person I’ve ever worked with. You do not have to doubt her integrity.”

“I don’t.” She swirled her wine, studying him. “Nor do I doubt yours.”

The statement surprised him. He did not feel the same way about her.

She set down her wineglass. “I do my homework. Your firm and Morgan’s have stellar reputations for pursuing the truth.”

“She’ll make good on her promise.”

Ms. Cruz’s fingers spread over her keyboard. “Do you have anything to offer in this exchange?”

So much for reporters seeking the truth for its own merits.

Frustrated, Sharp rocked on his heels. He had nothing. “No.”

Would she refuse to help?

The smile that spread over her face was Cheshire-pleased. “Then I suppose you’ll owe me a favor.”

Damn. It.

“I’m sorry.” Her lips curved more. She was enjoying this. “I didn’t hear your response.”

Had he said it out loud?

“Yes. I will owe you a favor.” Sharp gritted his teeth. “With the caveat that the favor owed must be commensurate with the usefulness of the information you provide on the Shannon Yates case.”

Laughing, she flexed her fingers. “You’ve been hanging out with a lawyer too long.”

“Do we have a deal?” Sharp extended a hand over the island.

With a grin far too mischievous for Sharp’s own good, Ms. Cruz wagged a finger at him. “I have a condition of my own to impose on this transaction.”

“What is it?” Sharp snapped. Reporters were a giant pain in his—

“You must call me Olivia.”

Sharp froze. “That’s it?” Was she yanking his chain or was she serious?

“That’s it.” She nodded.

“OK, Olivia.” Sharp drew out her name. What the hell? When you’re neck-deep in league with the enemy, you may as well get to know her better.

“I will call you Lincoln.”

“No one calls me Lincoln.”

“I know.” With a too-satisfied curve of her mouth, she scrolled and clicked on her computer. “What do you know about Shannon’s case?”

He recited the basic facts the police hadn’t been able to keep quiet: where she worked, the places her vehicle and body had been found, and the cause of death.

Olivia nodded. “This is what my source says. Shannon worked weekends at the inn and hadn’t made any friends in Grey’s Hollow yet. She was young and frustrated with the smallness of Grey’s Hollow and its microscopic social scene. She was last seen at the nightclub Beats on Saturday, February 24. Surveillance videos of the club entrance and exit show that she arrived alone. The club has only been open for a short time, and they’ve had a few technical glitches.”

Like missing video feeds.

“The night Shannon was there, the fire alarm and sprinklers in the kitchen went off at 11:32 p.m. Patrons were evacuated to the parking lot. Given the late hour, the club closed for the night.”

“Everyone left at once.”

“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “The police have not been able to trace her movements after she left the club. She lives in a studio apartment over a private detached garage. Her landlord was on vacation. No one was there to see if she came home that night.”

“Or if someone followed her home from the club.” Sharp always assumed foul play and hoped to be pleasantly surprised if none had happened.

“Her apartment was clean and exceptionally neat,” Olivia continued. “Her bed was made. There was no sign of a romantic rendezvous or break-in or struggle.”

“If she met someone at the club, she could have gone home with him.” Sharp paced the tiny kitchen.

“She did not show up for work on Monday. Though she’d only been at her job for a few months, her boss said she had proven herself to be very dependable. Shannon’s boss is an older woman and has a reputation as the motherly type. She sent a coworker to Shannon’s apartment to check on her. There was no answer, but her car wasn’t there. The boss thought maybe she’d simply made a mistake. But when she didn’t show up for work a second day, her boss called the police.”

“The cops must have her credit card records.”

“Shannon had declared bankruptcy two years ago. She’d been out of work multiple times before getting the job at the inn. She did not use credit cards.”

“What about her cell phone?”

“It hadn’t been used since the Thursday evening before she disappeared, when she called her mother in Maine. She prepaid for her minutes and used them sparingly. The phone was with her body. The battery had been removed.”

“No one could track its location.”

“Exactly.” Olivia looked up from her computer.

“What about the body?” Sharp pivoted.

“We know Shannon Yates was raped, beaten, and strangled, and that she died with alcohol and zolpidem in her system,” Olivia said. “I don’t have a copy of the autopsy.”

“No source at the medical examiner’s office?” Sharp tried not to look disappointed. But none of this information was deal-with-the-Empire worthy. She hadn’t provided many more details than weren’t publicly available on the latest news channel. So far, the case was baffling, but he wasn’t seeing any parallels to Noah’s murder, except for the fact that they died a week apart after visiting Beats, and they both knew Justin O’Brien.

Sharp rubbed the back of his neck, a detail nagging at him. “Those lab results came back on Shannon Yates’s autopsy awfully quickly. Usually, forensic toxicology reports take weeks or months. The only way they would have been expedited is if the ME was specifically looking for something.”

Olivia’s gaze snapped to his. “Do you think the ME has run across a similar case and was checking for similar details?”

“That would make a lot of sense.”

She attacked her keyboard with renewed zeal.

National crime databases like the National Crime Information Center and the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program could be accessed only by law enforcement. If someone in the sheriff’s department was performing a NCIC or ViCAP search for Olivia, he could be fired—not that Sharp was going to turn anyone in. Curious, he tried to casually peek over the top of her computer.

She tilted the screen down. “I will share the information. I cannot share the source.”

Sharp resumed his pacing. “Now what?”

“We wait.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Sharp huffed. “I don’t like waiting.”

She sipped her wine and licked her lips. “How about some vegetarian chili? I promise it’s not poisoned.”

Sharp hesitated.

She sighed and ladled chili into a bowl. “You might as well eat. Those return emails might take a while.”

“All right.”

Olivia handed him the bowl, and he sat on a stool and spooned chili into his mouth without tasting it, his mind on the case. She ate standing, one foot propped on the opposite knee like a stork. A ping sounded from her computer, and she tapped a few keys.

Excitement lit her eyes. “Last summer, the body of twenty-six-year-old Adele Smith was found in the woods in Redhaven. Adele had been beaten and raped. She had bruises around her neck consistent with choking, but the cause of death was a lethal combination of zolpidem and alcohol.”

Sharp’s blood chilled. “Since Redhaven is within Randolph County, the same medical examiner’s office would have handled both Shannon’s and Adele’s autopsies.”

“And Shannon’s case was similar enough to Adele’s to be flagged by the ME.” Olivia scrolled on her computer. “Adele went missing after a big music festival. It was a huge outdoor event, so no surveillance cameras, lots of drugs and alcohol, and a few thousand out-of-towners. The Redhaven police got nowhere with their investigation. They found DNA from multiple sources on her body, but CODIS didn’t turn up any matches.”