A Priceless Find. Kate James

in marketing and promotions frequently takes him away from the gallery.”

      “No chance the two of you might get back together, then?”

      Chelsea shook her head. She regretted how far they’d drifted apart, but she couldn’t be in a relationship without that spark, and they’d definitely lost it. She wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less.

      “Aw, Chelsea, he seemed to make you happy.”

      “He did, for a while. It just didn’t last. We’re better as colleagues than partners.” She took a slow sip of wine. “What you and Daniel have? It’s special. That’s what I hope to find one day.”

      Paige gave Chelsea’s hand a gentle squeeze. “You’ve got a lot to offer. Joel didn’t realize how lucky he was.”

      “That’s not fair,” she said in Joel’s defense. “It wasn’t his fault. It just...wasn’t meant to be. I’ll meet the guy who’s right for me one day. I’m sure of it. Yeah, Joel understands the world of art. We have that in common, even though he’s not as passionate about it as I am, but he isn’t particularly...sensitive. Nor did he want kids, which, as you know, is high on my priority list when I get married.”

      “You’ve always said that as an only child, you’re keen on having a large, boisterous family. That shouldn’t have come as a shock to him.”

      “He knew about that from the start. It only became an issue when the relationship began to get serious.” She stared into her glass for a moment. “I don’t know if that was the final straw,” she said pensively and gave her head another little shake. “Something changed. He...he wasn’t as attentive as he’d been at first. He seemed to become preoccupied.”

      “With what?”

      “I don’t know. He started canceling dates. Lost track of conversations.” Chelsea frowned. “He forgot the second anniversary of our first date. On the positive side, I’m glad it hasn’t affected my relationship with his grandmother. Being in the gallery owner’s bad books would not have been a good outcome, especially with my career aspirations.” Chelsea clinked her glass against Paige’s. “So it’s all good, and I wholeheartedly believe that I’ll meet the person I’m meant to be with. We’ll find each other when we’re intended to. In the meantime, I love my job at the gallery but I don’t want to be a sales associate forever. I want to get the curator position when Charles Hadley retires in a couple of years. He’s been the perfect mentor, and he’s been super sweet about helping me. I’ll focus on my career for now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a great-looking guy like Detective Eldridge!”

      * * *

      “WHAT HAVE YOU got on the jewelry store robbery?”

      Sam glanced up at Colin Mitchell, surprised his captain would be inquiring about the occurrence the day after it happened. “Why do you ask?”

      Colin pulled back a chair facing Sam’s desk and folded himself into it. “I heard a couple of the techs talking about it in the lunchroom.”

      Sam raised his brow. “That’s not unusual.”

      “No. That isn’t. But what is unusual is that you wouldn’t predict whether they’d find any evidence.”

      Sam nudged his laptop away and leaned back. “Yeah. That’s correct.”

      “You want to tell me why?”

      “Sure. I’d be interested in your take on this whole thing, anyway. And I’ll ask you to keep an open mind,” Sam added with a smile. “I believe whoever did it expected the place to be unoccupied. The fact that the owner was there at that time of day is outside the norm. Unexpected. Also, there was a lot of damage done. Too much. The time spent causing it could’ve been better used grabbing some pricey bits of bling. The most obvious items—engagement rings, high-end watches—were left untouched. What was taken, in comparison, is nickel-and-dime stuff. The extent of damage and low return for the effort says amateur to me, but it still doesn’t make sense. The time wasted on destruction, when it could’ve been put to smarter use, leads me to conclude that the person either panicked or flew into a rage. Carelessness and intentional vandalism doesn’t feel right. I’m leaning toward rage rather than panic.”

      “I agree,” Colin said after a moment. “Panic due to finding the owner there could explain the attack, but would likely have caused the perp to flee. He risked getting caught by spending all that time destroying the place. We didn’t find any prints, nothing we could use, am I correct?”

      Sam nodded. “Yes. Most of the prints we found were those of the owners and their nephew, who also works at the store.”

      “But you had enough doubt not to bet on it.”

      “Yeah. I can’t ignore the conflicting signals. My theory’s a stretch, so this is where I need you to keep an open mind. I know we haven’t seen this in Camden Falls—not to the best of my knowledge, anyway—but Willowbrook Avenue is where we have our concentration of high-end retailers. When I worked the beat in Boston, it wasn’t unusual for pros to prepare for a major heist by creating a disturbance nearby to test police-response times. I’ve been wondering if that might be the case in this situation.”

      “As you said, it’s a stretch. I haven’t heard of that happening here, either. Besides, Camden Falls is a small town. No retail or commercial business is that far from us, and our department isn’t large. There’d be significant variability in response times, based on what else we might have on the go at any moment and how many of us would be otherwise occupied.”

      “That occurred to me, too.”

      “Have you considered an addict, looking for some quick drug money?”

      “Yeah. The cash drawer wasn’t tampered with. If that was the case and even if the perp was flying high, he’d have gone for cash or the flashier items, in my opinion. What got me thinking about the response-time angle is the fact that it wasn’t the security company that alerted us. As we both know, when an intrusion alarm goes off, more often than not, it’s a failure in the system or a false alarm. It also means that the overall response time is longer, since it goes through the monitoring company, and they’ll attempt to contact the premises first. If they can’t reach anyone and if their standing orders specify it, they call us. That could take anywhere from five to ten extra minutes. In this case, the intrusion alarm had already been deactivated by the owner when the perp entered. The panic button, linked directly to us, was triggered.”

      “That makes sense, since the owner was on the premises.”

      “But Arnold Rochester doesn’t recall activating the panic button.” Sam gestured to keep Colin from interrupting. “Yeah, we could speculate that although he doesn’t have a concussion, the trauma might’ve caused short-term memory loss. But we found him some distance from the location of the panic button, and that idea just doesn’t ring true to me.”

      “So, how do you plan to proceed?”

      Sam shrugged. “I’ll have a closer look at some of the stores along that stretch of Willowbrook. And it wouldn’t hurt to route some extra patrols through that area for the time being.”

      Colin stood up. “I can do that in the short-term, but if you’re right and we’re dealing with pros, who knows how long they might wait before acting. You’re aware of our resource constraints. We won’t be able to keep it up for more than a couple of weeks.”

      “Understood.”

      Sam was satisfied with how their discussion had gone. It probably worked in his favor that Colin had started his policing career in a big city, too. Without that, he might have dismissed Sam’s theory outright. But it was the only plausible one Sam could come up with, short of a random act perpetrated by a very stupid person.

      He brought up a mental image of the street and the dozen or so stores. The Sinclair Gallery came to mind, along with a spirited woman with short dark hair. Chelsea Owens. He remembered her name without having