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Other suspects? Anyone who read the damned book
She tapped the non-marking end of her dry erase marker against her teeth, trying to recall anything else she’d seen in the photographs. Her concentration was broken when the window that overlooked the main street in Angel’s Rise shattered as a brick was heaved through it.
As she was barefoot, Fiona couldn’t get to the window fast enough to see who threw it, but figured as she was on the second floor, they had to have had a good arm and good aim. As she made it to her closet to pull on a pair of clogs, the alarm downstairs in the bookstore went off. Fiona ran to her desk and pulled up the store’s cameras on her computers. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, but her cell phone rang.
Angel’s Rise Police Department showed on her caller ID. Her alarm was supposed to trigger something at the department, and they were to send someone. At least that was working right.
“Ms. Fowler, we’ve been notified of your alarm going off. Are you in need of assistance?”
Fiona watched on the camera as a second brick sailed through the front leaded-glass window of the store. Shit! That thing was expensive, and she was sure her insurance would find a way to weasel out of covering it.
“Yes, I am. Someone just threw a brick through the window in my loft upstairs and another one through the main front window of my store.”
“We’ll send someone right away. Can you meet them outside your store?”
Was the dispatcher crazy?“Hell no. I won’t meet them downstairs out in the open. Tell the officers they can come up to my loft and be prepared to show identification. I’m not going anywhere until I know it’s safe.”
“It would be easier if you?—”
“I don’t care about easy for you…” Fiona could feel herself starting to lose it. “My being arrested was easy for you, and I’m pretty damn sure I’m now being targeted by some lunatic vigilante or maybe even the real killer, so you can fucking well be inconvenienced. Got that?”
“I didn’t mean…”
“The hell you didn’t. Your department is supposed to protect the citizens of this town. Last time I checked I was still one of them, so kick somebody in the ass and get them over here. Now!”
Fiona ended the call and missed the days when you could slam a receiver down onto the cradle. She could hear the sirens blaring as she slid down the wall of her loft, closing her eyes and wishing the nightmare that had begun yesterday afternoon would just go away. The sound of multiple pairs of feet coming up her stairs told her it wouldn’t be long before there was a knock on the door.
When it came, she looked at her doorbell camera app and groaned. Two uniformed cops and Slade Rafferty stood on her small landing. Was it too much to hope that it would give way and they would all drop to the alley below and break numerous bones? A second, harder knock came. Apparently, it was. Fine.
Fiona flipped her murder board around so that all that was showing was a whiteboard with nothing on it. She walked to the door, careful to avoid the area of the floor with glass shards, and flung open the door.
She pushed past the uniformed officer and stepped into Rafferty’s personal space. “What the fuck do you want?”
CHAPTER8
SLADE
The dispatcher walked into the chief of police’s office, where Slade was sitting with the chief and Went. “We’ve had an alarm code from Between the Lines…”
“That’s Fiona Fowler’s bookstore, isn’t it?” asked Slade.
“Yes, sir. Per our standard procedure, I called her, and she was not very polite. She said a brick had been thrown through her loft window over her store and then one through the store window. She demanded that I send a patrol car. When I told her they would meet her outside, she insisted our responder come up to her loft. When I told her it would be easier for us if she was waiting downstairs, she got verbally abusive.”
“Someone is throwing bricks at her building, knowing she is most likely in one place or another, and you find it odd that she doesn’t feel safe leaving her place?” Slade asked as politely as he could.
He was damn tired of dispatchers and service people in general having such thin skin that they couldn’t understand people were not going to talk in modulated, polite tones to avoid offending someone’s delicate sensibilities.
“She didn’t need to use foul language,” said the dispatcher in her own defense.
“No, but given that I arrested her yesterday and now someone is throwing bricks at her, I think she’s entitled to be a bit peevish with everyone associated with law enforcement, including you.”
The dispatcher spun on her heel and huffed off.
“You were a little rough on her,” said the chief.
“Who? Fiona Fowler or your dispatcher? I might agree that I acted too quickly where Fiona is concerned.”
“So, you don’t think she did it?” asked Went, a bit too eagerly for Slade’s liking.
