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  Before answering the door, Ms. Smith again looked over the state of her living room. Sophia watched to see if she looked at the chocolates but she didn’t seem to. Then she approached the front door slowly and opened it on the chain.

  “Oh, come in,” she said, calmly. She unhooked the chain and stepped back. He entered and shut the door behind him—locking it. She stood there quietly, as if waiting for him to speak.

  “Do you have something for me?” she finally asked.

  The team leaned in closer, straining to hear the reply. The man reached into his jacket.

  “Did he say something?” Liam asked.

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Until they did. The sound was barely audible over the speakers but the reaction was clear. Ms. Smith stepped back slightly and fell to the ground. He stood over her and aimed at her head. Another muffled bang resonated over the speakers. Sophia wanted to vomit. She clasped both hands to her mouth and looked away. Crystal stared at the monitors in disbelief.

  “Shit,” Liam yelled. “Move in. Move in, all teams.”

  The shooter stepped over the body and walked to the back garden. The officers were at the front door trying the handle and then banging their bodies against the door. Almost without effort, the killer scaled the back wall and disappeared from the screen. Liam ran from the flat. Some of the officers were running down the street, in hopes of catching the man.

  Sophia followed Liam from the flat into the hall and leaned against the wall. Crystal came out and stood in front of her.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone came to Ms. Smith’s house and shot her.”

  “What? She’s dead?” Crystal attempted to go back into the room but Sophia grabbed her arm.

  “You don’t want to see it,” Sophia assured her.

  Crystal didn’t go back in and instead stood in front of Sophia in the hall. “About three and a half minutes ago, before that man arrived, the same person signed into our network. I think it’s too coincidental to be one of us. There’s someone hacking the network. And he must be nearby.”

  “So there’s a chance that he’s in this building.”

  “Within network range.”

  “But why? It doesn’t make any sense? What are they after? Are they hoping to access secrets? Did they download anything?”

  “The only thing they accessed were the cameras,” said Crystal.

  “That makes even less sense. Why would someone in close connection to Ms. Smith or the buyer want to be spying—or even need to be spying—on themselves?”

  “Maybe it’s someone Placko set up to spy on Ms. Smith. To make sure she complied with the rules.”

  “Yes, but whoever it was knew she was watched by us. They know we’re here watching her. If Placko did suspect, why would he send Miles to meet her?”

  “For the money.”

  “Yes, but Ms. Smith handed over the money without batting an eyelash. She never let on that they didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain.” Sophia paused and thought. “Unless she expected the killer because he was the one bringing the information about the shipment.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Sophia’s mobile rang. It was Liam.

  “I want you and Crystal over here going through Ms. Smith’s computer. Take it apart if you have to, but find out what we need to know.”

  Sophia and Crystal walked over to Elaine’s house together. Sophia didn’t want to see Ms. Smith up close, dead on the floor. She decided she would focus on the assignment instead. Crystal grabbed her hand and gave her worried eyes.

  A few of the neighbors had looked out from behind curtains when the unit banged down Ms. Smith’s door. Sophia stared at the walk in front of her and raised her hands to cover her face. It was like tagging along behind DCI Blackwell on one of his cases. She didn’t belong there either. There were times she preferred being used as a coffee-runner instead.

  Outside Ms. Smith’s door, one of the team members blocked the entrance and was about to demand they show identification when Liam opened the door and ushered them inside. Both of them stood there for a moment, unsure of the sight they would see but knew it was unavoidable to forgo the event.

  A strong cigarette smell hit Sophia when she entered the house. She wasn’t expecting it. Even though she had sat watching poor Ms. Smith smoking fag after fag, she didn’t imagine she would be greeted by that smell. In a way, she was relieved. Then she saw the victim and all relief went away.

  Ms. Smith lay still in the entrance way. Blood pooled on the apron around the wound on her chest and underneath her body, but her face was haunting. The look of surprise and horror wasn’t wiped from her face by the large hole slightly above her right eye.

  “God,” Sophia said.

  “Avert your eyes,” Liam told her. “Just follow me to the living room.”

  But she couldn’t. She couldn’t take her eyes off the face. Liam didn’t seem fazed by what he saw. How many dead bodies had Liam witnessed?

  “Avert your eyes,” Liam repeated.

  Sophia looked into his eyes. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “No, but it does. We can’t protect everyone.”

  “She wouldn’t have died if we had stepped in sooner.”

  “You don’t know that. She chose to get involved in criminal activity. She knew this could be one of the consequences. We can’t blame ourselves when things go wrong. She wasn’t innocent in this matter.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the living room.

  Sophia turned to Crystal who was still staring at the corpse. “Come,” she signed. “Stop looking at the body.”

  “I haven’t seen a dead person before.”

  “I’m really sorry,” replied Sophia. “I would like to tell you it gets easier but it doesn’t. Well, not for me yet.”

  Crystal shrugged. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Although her face is pretty nasty. I wouldn’t want to be the family member that has to identify the body. That’s never a pleasant task to begin with.” She looked up. “What are we doing now?”

  Liam led the way to the back of the house, to a small room set up as an office and storage area. Along one wall a small desk sat between shelves and books and on that desk sat a laptop. The same one they had seen her use on camera.

  “I want the hard disk contents but the priority is information that may lead us to the shipping container.”

  “The computer is turned off,” signed Crystal. Sophia translated for her.

  “Yeah, so?” asked Liam.

  “Well, when I last checked on the tape, Ms. Smith hadn’t turned off the computer before hanging the laundry. And, as far as I know, she didn’t have time to turn it off before answering the door.”

  “Maybe it turns off on its own,” said Liam.

  Sophia put her hand on Crystal’s arm to stop her from continuing. Then Sophia signed and said aloud, “We’ll just work on it.”

  When Liam left the room, Sophia explained, “No matter what we tell the man, he’ll be confused. It’s better just to look into it ourselves and give him a report back.”

  “You know what it means though, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Someone out there either has remote access to this computer or has the capability of hacking into it, just like he hacked into our network.”

  “Yes.”

  Crystal reached down to turn on the computer and then stopped. “I have a bad feeling about this. I think if we turn on the computer, we may start events that will completely destroy all evidence on the hard disk.”

  Sophia nodded. “I think you might be right. I want to bring the computer back with us and examine it elsewhere. Away from all accessible networks. Somewhere we can contain the damage. I’ll let Liam know.”

  Sophia tiptoed around the house, searching each room for Liam. She found him outside in the garden examining a piece of material left behind by the killer. She explained to him what the issue was w
ith the computer. “Damn it, Evans, this is time sensitive. We don’t have time to move the computer, take it apart, and do God knows what all with it. We just need to access it. Take it off the network and turn it on. That way our little hacker friend can’t access it.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “Just do it,” he yelled at her. “Tell Crystal to do her job without complaining.” He took a deep breath before continuing, “Look, if something goes wrong, I’ll take full responsibility, all right?”

  Sophia rolled her eyes. “You’re an asshole, you know that?” She stormed back into the house. When she returned to the room, Crystal had the computer unplugged and was about to open the case. “Crystal, we can’t take the computer apart. We need to just turn it on.”

  “But—”

  “I know. But that’s our orders. I will make sure that Liam takes full responsibility for whatever happens.”

  “Stupid man.”

  “I know. While you get it back together, I want to examine something in the living room. Something is bothering me. Also, I want to look into that chocolate box before everyone manhandles it.”

  The living room was full. At least ten officers milled around the table with the chocolate box, debating the contents.

  “It has to be in one of the chocolates. I say we open up each one.”

  “That’s ridiculous, why wouldn’t he just put it in the bottom of the box?”

  “That way we won’t have any idea where to find the note.”

  “Well, we’ve all had that idea, Einstein. That’s why we’re debating it now.”

  “I still say we eat the chocolates.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dorie Armes was next on the list of nurses. When Theo rang her bell an older woman, who wore a flowery pajama-dress and leaned on a cane, opened the door. Dorland asked for Dorie but the woman just stared at them curiously. Unsure of what to do, Theo displayed his warrant card. The woman grabbed it and moved the card around in her hand as if she had recently discovered a new artifact and then handed it back. Then, she moved back and shut the door.

  Theo looked at Dorland. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “Do you have a choice? We have to try again.”

  This time when Dorland knocked, a much younger woman opened the door.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “that was my mother. We don’t usually let her answer the door, but I was in the kitchen with my hands in the middle of a pie. How can I help you?”

  “We are looking for Dorie Armes. Are you Dorie?”

  “Dorie? I’m Marla. Dorie’s working.” She looked inside. “Mum, stay out of the kitchen right now.” With those words, Marla left the officers at the door and ran after her mother. After seating her mother on the sofa in the living room and handing her a magazine off the table, Marla came back.

  “Sorry,” she continued, “my mother loves my baking and will just dip her whole arm into the pie. I have to keep an eye on her. If she gets off the sofa, let me know.”

  Theo nodded and asked, “Is Dorie your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “We wish to talk to her about a man she used to work for about four months ago, a Mr. Tipring.”

  “Oh yes, Dorie knows about it. She heard about his death on the news and was very broken up, turned quite pale. I don’t think she expected it, you know. I mean, who expects someone you know to end up dead and then you have to hear about it that way. It’s horrible.”

  “Where can we find your sister?”

  “Dorie’s working. She nurses another older lady. I have to stay at home to take care of Mum right now, so Dorie’s working for us. I can give you the address if you like.”

  “Please.”

  She ran back into the kitchen and came back with a napkin and written with a green marker a street name with house number. They left and Theo took out his map to find the place, which was only a few streets away.

  As they approached a small pleasant looking house with a porch and white fence, they could hear yelling coming from the house, “No, no, that’s not how it’s done. Why do you not do it right? I’ve taught you how to do it repeatedly. Why am I paying you what I am if you are not going to do it right? I don’t understand why they send people like you out, I don’t understand.”

  “Betty, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down, you always tell me to calm down. It’s all your doing. If you didn’t spend so much on your stupid card games, we could afford a nurse who did things as she is supposed to.”

  The nurse stood by the front door holding a tray with a flowery teapot and two cups. The old couple sat at a wrought iron table, the old man read a newspaper while the old woman wrote a list on a pad of paper.

  “Hello,” Dorland called out to the two sitting at the table, while smiling at the nurse at the door. “We’re the police and we are looking to talk to a Dorie Armes. Does a Dorie Armes work here?”

  The old woman put her pen down, looked at Dorie, and stood up, “What is it all about?” she pried. Dorie raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “We need to ask Dorie some questions.”

  “Is it about the dog? Because if it’s about the dog, I’ve already explained to the other officers that he was returned. There’s no need to enquire further, unless you police have nothing better to do, which I suspect considering the increase in crime we have had in this very neighborhood.”

  “Dear . . .” her husband cautioned her to tone it down.

  “Don’t dear me. You police need to be more vigilant. I have expensive furniture that I can’t afford to have stolen, where would we sit if it got cold? You would complain to Herald when it got cold and you had nowhere to sit and read your paper, wouldn’t you?” Turning again to look at the officers, she continued, “All I’m saying is, it wouldn’t hurt you to drive up and down the streets every once in a while.”

  “All right, we will keep that in mind. Can we talk to Dorie alone?”

  “You might as well talk to her in the kitchen while she re-prepares our tea. This time warm the pot up first. I hate nothing more than warm tea.”

  Dorie never said a word to either of them until she entered the kitchen, she placed the tray down on the table and dumped a whole steaming pot of tea down the drain. She ran the hot water and rinsed the pot out, “When I first started, Mrs. Barmy taught me how to make tea, and for the most part, I follow those instructions because it’s how I make my tea at home for my mother, but some days she catches me making the tea my own way and not hers. It’s then she complains. She does not complain when I make it my way as long as she believes I am making it hers. Old people are like that though. I had made that observation soon after I started nursing, and you can’t allow it to affect you. So, what do you want to talk to me about?”

  “It’s not about that dog or whatever Mrs. Barmy was going on about. We actually want to talk to you about a previous employer, Mr. Tipring. Do you remember him?”

  She stood looking at them for a moment before she spoke, she almost looked ill. “I’m sorry,” her voice cracked. “I heard about that—I saw it on the news. Why are you asking me about it? I worked for him many months ago and only for a few days.”

  “We understand. We have some questions about a pair of earrings actually. I know that sounds odd, but a pair of earrings has gone missing. A nurse—a Mrs. Hathaway—I don’t know if you know who she is, but she was fired from her post because Mr. Tipring thought she had stolen a pair of earrings.”

  “And you think that it was me? You think I stole them?”

  “Not necessarily. We just wanted to ask you if you knew about them.”

  “I remember seeing a box of jewelry on Mr. Tipring’s . . . somewhere in the bedroom but other than a quick glance . . . I don’t know if I gave it much thought. How often does one pay attention to other people’s jewelry? The earrings didn’t look very expensive. Does it really matter that they’re missing? I doubt they were stolen; most likely he dropped
them on the floor. Why would someone want to steal a cheap pair of earrings? Why not steal something of more value in the house, like maybe his art?” She looked at them calmer now, whatever was bothering her she seemed to have under control.

  “Do you think his art would have been worth more money?”

  “Yes, compared to the earrings, any art would be worth more.” The kettle started whistling on the stove. Dorie took the pot and refilled it with more tea.

  “We’ve been asking everyone that knew him where they were on Wednesday around seven in the morning.”

  “I was dropping off dry-cleaning last Wednesday before coming to work. My mother had spilled sauce all over her dress and some sheets on her bed. I have the receipt, if you would like, from the dry cleaners near my house, two streets away. They know me there. Because of my mum, I bring in many items. You can confirm with them, if you like.”

  Mrs. Barmy yelled to Dorie to bring their tea.

  “I hope you find out why Mr. Tipring was murdered,” Dorie said to the officers before she headed outside again.

  Theo looked at his partner. “It’s funny that she wants to know why and not who, don’t you think?”

  “It is indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The solicitor met them with the same glasses he’d worn the last time they met. Theo chose not to bring it up. He carefully took the bag with the box from Theo’s hands and brought it into his office. Almost like it was delicate crystal, he removed the box from the bag and carefully opened the door of the case, revealing the pieces of jewelry.

  “Unbelievable,” he said, staring at them intently.

  From the way he spoke, Theo thought he had it all wrong. “Are they valuable?”