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 with 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.”