Checkmate

Knight to Pawn

CHAPTER 5

Samantha was already working furiously, evidence bags full of broken glass scattered around her tidy workspace. Around her lab were various keepsakes, stuffed animals, and books. Currently, she was listening to an audio book. When she heard her lab doors slide open with a soft hiss, she paused the tape. “Joseph! What are you still doing here?” He pointed out a picture of his car that was sitting on her desk. Its windows were all but gone and one door was barely attached to the rest of the vehicle. “Right, car in the evidence garage. I’m just getting all this stuff organized and entered into the log before heading home. Do you need a ride?” Joseph nodded and sat down on the beanbag chair she had in the corner of her office.

“I don’t know about you, but I will be happy when this case is just done. Two months, and we finally made some real progress. Now we just have to figure out who they were taking orders from.” Samantha said, still staring intently at her log, double checking the inventory. “I mean, those ladies were not saints, but they weren’t the real killers. Everyone one of those bodies in autopsy would be alive if it weren’t for the people that ordered the hit on them. The women were like chess pieces. Use them to take out the target and then dispose of them.” She would ramble on like this sometimes. Especially when she didn’t feel like anyone was actually listening. But Joseph was. “I know. We all have to just finish this one out, then maybe we will get some time to catch up.” Samantha gave him a very cynical smirk and went back to her computer.

They walked out of the lab and turned off all the lights. Inside her car, Samantha found Alex’s sketch. She laughed and put in her purse, folded into a careful square. She would hang that up in her lab, just for Alex. Joseph happily listened to the radio and thanked her when he arrived home. Wishing her a good night, he disappeared into his house wear his wife would undoubtedly be waiting with a dinner she had cooked hours ago sitting cold and uneaten at the table.

Sam on the other hand drove home to her apartment. She opened the door and her dog River ran to greet her. He was a large retriever mix she had found abandoned at a crime scene, along with his brother Muffin. She and Emma had helped nurse them to health and each adopted one. Right now River was wrapping his big yellow paws over her shoulder and licking her face. His happy expression was enough to make her smile. As she settled down for the night, turning off her lights and feeling River pressed up against her, she kept thinking about Athena and Cecilia Capris and the series of unlikely events that had led to their deaths.

Meanwhile Emma was doing pretty much the same thing. She turned on the news, found it too depressing, then turned it off. She sighed, readjusting her blanket. Muffin was snoring on her lap leaving her legs numb and tingling. She didn’t have the energy to wake him up so she slept there on the couch with him, trying to figure out what Alex saw that she hadn’t. How had he known the Capris’ intent? Was she slipping, or was Alex more perceptive than her? Thinking back, it was an awful plan. Exactly what the women would have been expecting. Where they all so dazed that they couldn’t think properly? Luckily Alex had come to his senses or they might all be dead.