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“Look there,” Paige said, with a nod to the group.
“I see them,” Christopher replied, in a serious tone. “There’s more, though.”
They seemed to be passing a couple of small objects between them now, rather than just the joint, and money was changing hands as they did it. The transactions were fast, as if none of them wanted to be seen flashing cash out on the street, but Paige caught the movement.
She certainly caught all the behavioral cues coming from the men there. The group defensiveness, the suspicion, the hints of guilt in all of their expressions. Even without seeing what they were doing, Paige would have known that they were up to something illicit or illegal.
“Follow my lead,” Christopher said. He got out of the car, one hand going to where his gun sat holstered beneath his jacket.
Paige could feel her heart pounding in her chest at the prospect of what might be about to happen. Was Christopher really expecting a violent confrontation with these men?
She knew that it was a possibility. Some people’s first reaction on seeing law enforcement approaching was to open fire, because they would do anything rather than be caught. And if all of this had anything to do with whatever had gotten Aiden and Hope killed, then there was the potential that dangerous individuals were involved.
Paige followed Christopher, her hand straying to her own weapon, ready to back him up if needed. They’d covered about half the distance to the men when one of the group looked their way, the fear obvious on his features.
“5-0!”
He turned and ran, dropping what he was holding. The other men there ran, too, scattering in different directions, obviously to make it harder to grab any of them. Paige started after one of them, but she felt the strong grip of Christopher’s hand on her arm, holding her back.
“Why are you stopping me?” Paige asked.
“We’re not here for them, remember,” Christopher said. “Glenn Harper is the priority. All of this just makes me wonder what’s going on around him.”
“We’d know if we caught any of them,” Paige countered.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Christopher didn’t sound convinced. Was there anything on this case that they were going to agree on? “But in the time it took to get anything out of them, there’s a good chance that Harper would escape. We need to get in there and find him.”
Paige nodded. Christopher had a point. All of this just made it even more imperative that they talked to Glenn Harper as quickly as possible.
She still paused though, bending down to pick up the object that one of the fleeing men had dropped. It appeared to be an antique carriage clock, gilt and with diamond chips set in its face. There was something almost baroque about the scrollwork around the edges of the casing, and something told Paige that none of this had been done by a machine. The whole thing looked expensive and old, in a way that didn’t fit with the men who had been there just before.
“We need to get moving,” Christopher said, heading for the door to the apartment building. It was open, letting the two of them in without them needing to use the intercom set beside the door.
That was another small point of strangeness. What was going on here? Paige found herself wondering if they were about to walk in on a crime scene. Had someone broken in here to silence Glenn Harper before he could tell them anything? Were the men outside looters who had seen an opportunity?
Paige didn’t know, but just the possibility of it made her draw her Glock as she mounted the stairs, heading up towards Harper’s apartment. She and Christopher climbed those stairs slowly, checking ahead of themselves for danger. Paige didn’t know what was going on here, and in her training, they’d told her that the things she didn’t see coming could be the most dangerous of all.
That meant that she and Christopher saw the two people coming down the stairs well before they got to them. The pair were a man and a woman, both in their early thirties, walking hand in hand. They were wearing jeans and hooded sweaters with the hoods drawn up as if afraid of being caught on camera. The woman was carrying a tote bag, in which several objects shifted as she walked.
Paige saw the fear on her face as she caught sight of Paige and Christopher. Again, it seemed obvious that they were up to something, just as the people outside had been.
“What are you doing here?” Christopher demanded.
“We’re doing nothing!” the woman said, but she clutched the tote bag to her tightly as she did so, almost as if she wanted to protect whatever was within.
“What’s in the bag?” Paige asked.
“Nothing,” the man said. “None of your business.”
Christopher flashed his badge then. “Just how much trouble do the two of you want to be in?”
Strictly speaking, there wasn’t much that Paige or Christopher could do right then, because it wasn’t as if they had a warrant to search the bag, and merely walking by suspiciously wasn’t anywhere close to enough reason to arrest someone.
The couple didn’t seem to know that, though.
“Look,” the woman said. “We paid for it, fair and square. We’ve been looking for one for forever and . . .”
“One what?” Paige asked. She couldn’t just let this go now.
