Loving Again: Book 2 in the Second Chance series (Crimson Romance) by Peggy Bird
Authors: Peggy Bird
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the building.
Two men had come up from the factory. Using a flashlight to rake dark corners, they moved toward the front door. Then one of them stumbled on a jar of frit and they both crunched across the broken glass. They turned on overhead lights, cursed, and called nine-one-one.
The man in the classroom waited until he was sure they were absorbed in reporting the incident before he noiselessly opened the door and left the building by way of the delivery entrance. The woman who’d banged at the front was standing on the sidewalk when he got outside, backlit from a powerful security light at the business across the street. Hoping to frighten her away, he pointed at her, as if he had a gun. She ran.
When he thought she had driven off, he went to his car and left. It hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned it, but it was done. There was only one more thing and he’d be finished for the evening.
• • •
Sam Richardson and his new partner Danny Hartmann caught the case. They were to meet at the Bullseye Resource Center where two bodies had just been found by night staff. It would be their first homicide working together.
When he walked in to the place he’d only heard about from Amanda, Sam’s attention was not immediately drawn, as it usually was, to the yellow crime scene tape. Instead what he saw was Amanda’s studio on steroids.
Glass was everywhere — stacked, stored, shelved, and smashed. Along the south wall were slots of plywood housing sheets of glass in more colors than he knew existed. Each slot was topped with a small, backlit sample of the color, giving that side of the room a border of jewel-like intensity. Hundreds of jars of frit were stacked in bookcase-type shelves. Bricks of glass sat on low display tables, finished objects on pedestals. The shattered pieces on the floor and the police officers combing through them brought him back to why he was there.
Over the next few hours he and his partner interviewed the owners and the security guards who had called nine-one-one. They talked with the crime scene technicians and cops going over the two areas in a grid search trying to find anything that looked like evidence.
By the time the ME took the bodies for autopsy, Sam and his partner knew what little anyone was sure of: First, the security system had been disarmed a few minutes before 8:30 pm using Robin Jordan’s code. Jordan, an employee in the company’s Research and Education Department, was one of the victims. Second, materials had been set out for a class Jordan was scheduled to teach in the morning in a classroom across the delivery entrance from the murder scene. Those preparations were, everyone assumed, why she had been there. Third, something had happened after she set it up to cause a hell of a fight in the retail store and result in two dead bodies.
That’s where the facts ended and the questions began. There were no signs of forced entry any place in the rest of the complex. Nothing seemed missing. Since Robin Jordan had disarmed the security system and was one of the victims, did the killer make her open the building? But if the killer had forced her to open the building, why hadn’t she hit the silent alarm? And if she let the killer in, why did she just go about setting up her classroom? Did she know her killer? Her car wasn’t there. How had she gotten to Bullseye?
And why was Eubie Kane there? A van registered to him was parked out front and a hand-truck with his name on it stacked with empty plastic bins was near where the bodies had been found. Was he there with Jordan? Had he brought her there? Was one the target and the other just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place? If so, which was which? And why did anyone want to kill either of them?
More questions than answers. As usual.
Chapter Eight
Early next morning Sam returned to southeast Portland to familiarize himself with the neighborhood around Bullseye. Walking the block, he saw the retail store/classroom
Two men had come up from the factory. Using a flashlight to rake dark corners, they moved toward the front door. Then one of them stumbled on a jar of frit and they both crunched across the broken glass. They turned on overhead lights, cursed, and called nine-one-one.
The man in the classroom waited until he was sure they were absorbed in reporting the incident before he noiselessly opened the door and left the building by way of the delivery entrance. The woman who’d banged at the front was standing on the sidewalk when he got outside, backlit from a powerful security light at the business across the street. Hoping to frighten her away, he pointed at her, as if he had a gun. She ran.
When he thought she had driven off, he went to his car and left. It hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned it, but it was done. There was only one more thing and he’d be finished for the evening.
• • •
Sam Richardson and his new partner Danny Hartmann caught the case. They were to meet at the Bullseye Resource Center where two bodies had just been found by night staff. It would be their first homicide working together.
When he walked in to the place he’d only heard about from Amanda, Sam’s attention was not immediately drawn, as it usually was, to the yellow crime scene tape. Instead what he saw was Amanda’s studio on steroids.
Glass was everywhere — stacked, stored, shelved, and smashed. Along the south wall were slots of plywood housing sheets of glass in more colors than he knew existed. Each slot was topped with a small, backlit sample of the color, giving that side of the room a border of jewel-like intensity. Hundreds of jars of frit were stacked in bookcase-type shelves. Bricks of glass sat on low display tables, finished objects on pedestals. The shattered pieces on the floor and the police officers combing through them brought him back to why he was there.
Over the next few hours he and his partner interviewed the owners and the security guards who had called nine-one-one. They talked with the crime scene technicians and cops going over the two areas in a grid search trying to find anything that looked like evidence.
By the time the ME took the bodies for autopsy, Sam and his partner knew what little anyone was sure of: First, the security system had been disarmed a few minutes before 8:30 pm using Robin Jordan’s code. Jordan, an employee in the company’s Research and Education Department, was one of the victims. Second, materials had been set out for a class Jordan was scheduled to teach in the morning in a classroom across the delivery entrance from the murder scene. Those preparations were, everyone assumed, why she had been there. Third, something had happened after she set it up to cause a hell of a fight in the retail store and result in two dead bodies.
That’s where the facts ended and the questions began. There were no signs of forced entry any place in the rest of the complex. Nothing seemed missing. Since Robin Jordan had disarmed the security system and was one of the victims, did the killer make her open the building? But if the killer had forced her to open the building, why hadn’t she hit the silent alarm? And if she let the killer in, why did she just go about setting up her classroom? Did she know her killer? Her car wasn’t there. How had she gotten to Bullseye?
And why was Eubie Kane there? A van registered to him was parked out front and a hand-truck with his name on it stacked with empty plastic bins was near where the bodies had been found. Was he there with Jordan? Had he brought her there? Was one the target and the other just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place? If so, which was which? And why did anyone want to kill either of them?
More questions than answers. As usual.
Chapter Eight
Early next morning Sam returned to southeast Portland to familiarize himself with the neighborhood around Bullseye. Walking the block, he saw the retail store/classroom
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