A Priceless Find

  Under the circumstances, he didn’t feel comfortable contacting her at her home.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AS SAM HAD ANTICIPATED, the discussion with Chelsea wasn’t a pleasant one.

  He went to see her at the gallery on her first day back.

  She’d been so excited to learn that he’d gone to the warehouse, he regretted having to tell her that he hadn’t seen any of the things she’d described.

  He wasn’t entirely convinced that she’d been wrong, however. He couldn’t ignore the security alarm issue, nor what he’d noticed in the enclosed space.

  “I wasn’t imagining it. I’m certain of that,” Chelsea said emphatically.

  “There were no art supplies and the back room was empty. No furniture. No wall coverings.” He didn’t tell her about the scrapes on the floor and the screw holes high up on the walls. Although he had questions about them, he didn’t want to give her false hope. If he ended up finding something, okay, but until then it would be better if Chelsea put her suspicions aside.

  “But I saw it. How could it be completely different a little more than a week later?”

  “I don’t know,” he responded gently. “Did you tell anyone about what you’d seen? Or having been in the warehouse?”

  “No. You’re the only person I said anything to. You’re thinking that if I told someone—the right person—they would’ve moved everything out?”

  “Correct. It’s not possible that the space would’ve been emptied out like that in the twenty minutes from when I asked Hadley to take me to the warehouse and when we got there.”

  Chelsea threw her arms up. “But it was emptied out. Doesn’t that support the supposition that something illegal or at least inappropriate was going on there? That whoever’s responsible didn’t want to get caught?”

  “True. If someone had known that you’d been there.”

  “We’re going in circles here,” she observed with a pout.

  That had occurred to him, too.

  “Oh...wait! It was snowing the evening I was there. The street was deserted when I arrived, but when I came out, there were fresh footprints in the snow in front of the warehouse.”

  He looked at her sympathetically. “Chelsea, I’m sorry, but that’s grasping at straws.”

  She hissed out a breath and stared through the window.

  “I do have a question, though,” he said. “Did you disarm the security system when you got there?”

  She turned back, her expression thoughtful. “No. I worried about it at the time, but I forgot. I didn’t hear an audible alarm. At first I was afraid someone—a security guard or a police officer—would show up.” She raised her hands again. Let them fall. “Then, like I said, I forgot about it.”

  “And you didn’t set it when you left?”

  “No. I didn’t think of it, but even if I had, I don’t know the code.”

  “Okay. Thanks. That’s it for now.” He didn’t want to leave her like this.

  He didn’t want to leave her at all...

  Chelsea walked Sam out of the office area.

  He’d noticed that Adam had been with Joel in his office when he first arrived. He was still there, which had Sam questioning how much time he spent at the gallery. Adam called out to Sam as he passed Joel’s office.

  “Detective Eldridge, do you have a minute?”

  Sam paused and waited for Adam to reach him.

  Adam shot an apologetic look at Chelsea. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my uncle and I’ve been wondering if you’ve made any progress with the break-in at our store.”

  Sam watched Adam transfer his weight from one foot to the other and wipe his palms down his jeans. He’d pegged Adam as the nervous sort at the best of times, and Sam acknowledged that he tended to intimidate people.

  “No. I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to tell you. The investigation is ongoing.”

  Adam shifted his gaze away. “Oh, okay. Thank you for your time.” Stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, he shuffled back into Joel’s office.

  “Is he always that uneasy?” Sam asked Chelsea as they walked through the empty showroom.

  “Pretty much,” she said with a small smile.

  Sam turned to her. “I’m sorry about how things are right now.”

  She clasped her hands together. “I understand,” she assured him, but he wasn’t entirely certain that she did, as he watched her walk back to her office.

  * * *

  “GOT A MINUTE, COLIN?” Sam asked.

  Colin swiveled his chair away from his computer. “Sure. Come in.”

  “I’m still troubled by the jewelry store robbery and the art forgery case at the Sinclair Gallery. And I hate not having a viable lead on either one.”

  Colin took a sip of his coffee and grimaced.

  The look on his face made Sam smile. Colin had obviously been absorbed with the computer longer than he’d thought, and the coffee must have gone cold.

  “Are you still of the opinion that the jewelry store robbery was to test our response time?”

  Sam exhaled heavily. “I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s been weeks, and nothing’s happened. If it was to test us, odds are there would’ve been another break-in by now. In my experience, the perps wouldn’t wait this long. Too much can change and invalidate whatever they learned.”

  “You don’t think it had anything to do with the switching of the Babineux?”

  “Whoever’s behind that wasn’t worried about police response, in my opinion.”

  “All right. Is it possible that the theft of that painting caused the perp to rethink his plan? You’ve been in and out of the gallery a few times since that happened. Could be a deterrent.”

  “Yeah. Can’t argue with that.”

  “What’s your theory?”

  Sam dragged his fingers through his hair. “That’s just it. I don’t have a theory. It’s annoying the heck out of me.”

  Colin raised a brow, but Sam appreciated not getting the customary speech about bringing problems to his captain without solutions.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that the two incidents are somehow connected.”

  “A break-in at a jewelry store with lots of damage and negligible loss, and the possible theft of a very expensive piece of art from a gallery—with no sign of break-in and no damage. How do you figure there’s a connection?”

  “It’s too coincidental otherwise. We agree that there’s no such thing as coincidence in our line of work?”

  Colin nodded.

  “Willowbrook Avenue might be the main retail street in Camden Falls, but it hasn’t experienced a lot of crime. In the past five years, there’s been some minor shoplifting, the theft of a tourist’s wallet and an altercation between two college students. That’s it. I checked. Although crime rates aren’t on the rise overall, in the last couple of months we’ve had two major incidents on Willowbrook, and the two establishments affected happen to be next door to each other.”

  “I wouldn’t put much weight on the proximity aspect,” Colin said. “The argument could be made that any store along that stretch of Willowbrook is in close proximity to any other.”

  “Point taken. But my gut tells me there’s a connection. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  Colin started to lift his coffee mug again, then thought better of it and put it back down. “Yeah, it does seem too coincidental, although I can’t imagine, either, what the connection would be.”

  “There’s something going on at that warehouse. I know it,” Sam said with conviction.

  “Are you sure Owens isn’t yanking your chain? Or involved in the theft of the painting and trying—in a not-too-sophisticated way—to throw you off the track?”

  Sa
m pushed out of the chair and strode to the window. “No. She’s not involved. And no, she’s not as flighty as you seem to think.” He faced Colin. “She’s passionate and excitable, but she’s smart, too.”

  “And you’ve fallen for her.”

  “That’s irrelevant!”

  “Relax. Just an observation. I’m not suggesting it would compromise your professional objectivity. I know you too well. With you, it’s always duty first. Maybe too much so,” Colin added in a conciliatory tone. “I also know you haven’t seen anyone seriously since Katherine left. I’d be the first to say good for you, if you were interested in someone.”

  Sam tried to gather his thoughts while processing what his boss and, yeah, friend had said. Yes, Chelsea was the first woman he’d had feelings for since Katherine. It was true.

  And sad.

  “Back to the point,” Sam said. “I’d like to get into the warehouse again, but we won’t get a warrant until we have something concrete to go on.”

  “Safe assumption.”

  “I know Chelsea didn’t imagine what she saw. That means whatever had been in that warehouse was moved out and in a hurry. The intrusion alarm wasn’t operational when she was there, but it was armed when I went in with the curator. That means between Chelsea’s visit and mine, someone moved a lot of the contents out. Judging by the look of the one room, it was done in a hurry. A very limited number of people have the security system code for the warehouse. According to the curator, Chelsea isn’t one of them.”

  “Go on,” Colin encouraged when Sam paused.

  “It was snowing the night Chelsea was in the warehouse. She said that when she left, there were fresh footprints on the sidewalk. They seemed to have turned around just past the door and headed back in the direction they came from. I checked the security camera the landlord has on the exterior of the building for the time frame in question, although none of them are aimed at the gallery warehouse.”

  Colin sat up straight. “And?”

  “The street’s quiet that time of night, but there was a car that drove by while she was in there.”

  “Were you able to ID the car? See a person?”

  He groaned in frustration. “Ha! You’d think! Unfortunately, the camera’s a cheap one and with the snow, the lens was obscured. All I could see was a tan-colored vehicle. Although, as I said, the camera isn’t aimed at the entrance of the warehouse, someone did walk along the street soon after. Probably male.”

  “Can we enhance the images? Get a plate?”

  “No. I’ve tried. I checked with the security-monitoring company. Since the system was down the day Chelsea was inside the warehouse and it didn’t reset automatically, they were of no help. With nothing conclusive picked up by the camera, we don’t know if anyone was in who might have been in there between the time the UPS ran out and the following Tuesday night, when the system was rearmed. But someone was in there Tuesday evening, if not before. Hadley claims not to know who.”

  “So what are your next steps?”

  “I’d like to set up after-hours surveillance. I don’t care who goes in and out during normal business hours when the area’s busy. I do want to know if someone goes in at night, when that part of town is as quiet as a morgue.”

  “Sam, you’re aware of the cost of overnight surveillance. I’d have to pay overtime out of a budget that barely accommodates our regular expenses. If it was just one night, I could swing it. If there is something going on there—and that’s a big if—even you won’t be lucky enough to catch whoever is responsible the first night.”

  “How about a better camera?”

  “That would be affordable but we’d need the owner’s permission. Are you okay asking for it?”

  “Hmm. You make a good point. Not knowing the relationship between the landlord and the gallery’s management, it might not be wise to ask. I didn’t have to elaborate why I wanted to look at the video footage, but if I go back and ask for permission to install a better camera, I’d bet the landlord would want to know why.”

  “And I’m assuming you don’t want to take the chance of the landlord talking to the gallery’s management about it, since you suspect it’s an inside job.”

  “Right. But we wouldn’t need permission if it’s a traffic camera. We did have that DUI farther down that street a couple of years back.”

  A sly smile spread across Colin’s face. “Good point. It’s stretching it a bit, but we might be able to swing a temporary traffic camera.”

  “I’d appreciate it.” Sam got to his feet. “Thanks for not reminding me about bringing you a problem without a solution.”

  “Sam,” Colin called before he walked through the door.

  Still frustrated and angry at himself, Sam turned back. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. Neither of these cases is an easy one.”

  * * *

  SAM LIKED THE idea of a camera monitoring the comings and goings on Mackenzie Avenue, but he was impatient. He didn’t want to wait until it was approved and set up.

  He wanted the case over and done with.

  He wanted it closed.

  Not only because justice needed to be served, but he was anxious to explore what was between him and Chelsea. He thought of Nicolas and his own condition. That would be another bridge he’d have to cross with Chelsea, if things unfolded between them the way he hoped.

  Damn it all, he missed being with her!

  He also hated the thought of losing out on evidence because of a delay. He had time; he might as well put it to good use.

  Unwilling to risk alerting whoever it might be by the presence of a police cruiser in front of the warehouse, even an unmarked one, he took his personal vehicle.

  He thought a reasonable precaution was to park a block down from the warehouse behind several nondescript cars and on the opposite side of the road. Surveillance through his rearview mirror might not be ideal, but it was better than being made.

  As time passed, he’d responded to every email he had in his inbox, called his parents, had a good long chat with his mother and finished a novel he’d had on the go for the better part of a month. Despite his winter boots and gloves, his hands and feet were getting numb from the cold, and he was thinking of calling it a night, when he saw a beige Acura MDX turn onto Mackenzie. It approached slowly and parked a couple of car lengths down from the warehouse entrance on his side of the road.

  Sam hunched down to avoid being seen and adjusted his mirror.

  Whoever was in the MDX was in no hurry to get out. The engine kept running and the exhaust puffed fat plumes of smoke into the chilled air.

  While Sam sat in the cold, teeth chattering. Go figure!

  Then the person finally stepped out, walked up to the warehouse door, slipped a key into the lock and entered. Once he was inside, Sam got out of his car and made his way toward the building, hoping to get a glimpse at whoever it was through a window. Before he’d crossed the street, the man—yes, it was a man—exited again. As he looked both ways, Sam had no place to hide.

  Damn. He’d been seen and—based on how quickly the man ran back to his SUV—he’d been made.

  No question.

  Sam hurried forward, wanting to get a license plate, since he’d never be able to ID the man, bundled in a heavy winter parka, a ski cap pulled low over his forehead. The engine roared to life and the vehicle’s tires spun as its driver sought purchase on the ice-slicked edge of the road.

  It shot away from the curb.

  And barreled straight toward Sam.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SAM LEAPED BACK as the MDX careened toward him.

  But he wasn’t fast enough.

  Pain exploded in his right hip as the vehicle’s right front fender grazed him.

  Stumbling, he landed har
d on the asphalt.

  Although the pain blurred his vision, he kept his wits and got a partial plate before the SUV took a sharp turn down Addison and disappeared from his sight.

  * * *

  “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?” Colin demanded as he rushed over to Sam in the emergency room. Sam was slipping his shoes back on, with a great deal of difficulty because of the stiffness in his hip.

  “I got hit by a car,” Sam muttered. He stood up, balancing against the gurney, and glanced down at his pants. There was a horizontal tear near the knee, where he’d hit the pavement. “This was one of my favorite pairs,” he complained.

  When he tried to put weight on the leg, he nearly collapsed. Fortunately, Colin gripped his elbow and kept him upright.

  “We’ll talk about what you were doing there later,” Colin said darkly. “At least, this should expedite the approval of the traffic camera. My immediate question, though, is should you be walking on that leg?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. They x-rayed it. There’s no fracture. Just soft-tissue injury. A heck of a lot of bruising. But it hurts like a—” He watched a woman walk in with her daughter. “Hurts a lot,” he amended, out of deference to the little girl. To make matters worse, his left leg wasn’t in great shape, either, because he’d landed hard on his knee.

  Out of necessity, Sam let Colin help him outside. Only then did he realize that his car was back at the warehouse, since the paramedics had brought him to the hospital in an ambulance. “Would you mind dropping me off at the corner of Addison and Mackenzie?”

  “Why?”

  “That’s where my car is.”

  Colin released Sam’s elbow and he staggered. “You plan to drive?”

  “Point made. How about driving me home, then? And if you could get someone from the department to pick up my car, I’d appreciate it.” He dug in his pocket and handed his keys to Colin.

  “I can do both. And on our way to your place, you can fill me in on what went down.”

  By the time Sam got out of Colin’s vehicle in his driveway, he’d been berated for having done the stakeout without authorization or backup, and on his own time. But he’d also gotten Colin’s commitment to expedite the traffic cam. He wrote down the partial plate for Colin, and the make and model of the vehicle. Colin had promised to have it run and hopefully have the owner identified by the next morning.