Free ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) by Kassandra Lamb

going,” Kate dropped her voice to a whisper as they entered Betty’s building, “most of our suspects will have died of old age before we get a chance to interview them.”
    Halfway across the atrium, some instinct told Skip to look up. In the next instant, Kate was laying under him on the cold slate floor. Before she could recover her wits to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, there was a tremendous crashing sound just a few feet away and they were being pummeled by flying dirt and little bits of terra cotta clay.
    Skip rolled off of her and was on his feet in a second, his gun drawn. There were gasps all around them from the residents heading toward the door and the cafeteria in the recreation building. Skip slowly spun in a circle, eyes up, scanning the railing of the second level walkway. He located the hole where the fallen pot had been, but saw nothing else.
    Smoothly he slipped his gun back into his waistband, but kept his hand resting on the butt. He extended his other hand to Kate to help her up. His eyes were not on her, however. They never stopped searching the atrium for signs of trouble.
    “You okay?” he asked Kate, still not looking at her as he scanned the upper level again.
    “Yeah,” she said, although she suspected she would have a few bruises in the morning from being squashed between Skip’s bulk and the hard floor. She wasn’t about to complain, though. His tackle had saved her from being smashed on the head by a potted plant. She wasn’t sure if it would have killed her, but it would have definitely given her one hell of a concussion.
    “Stay here,” Skip ordered. She ignored his words and followed him as he sprinted toward the fire stairs door. Stopping there, he said, “Kate, it would be helpful if you stayed down here and watched for anyone suspicious while I’m in the stairwell.”
    Okay,
that
seemed like a good reason to stay here. She modeled his scanning behavior, although she wasn’t real sure what she was looking for. She realized just how difficult Detective Lindstrom’s job was. Assuming Doris had been killed by another resident, how could you tell who was suspicious? They all just looked like what they were, senior citizens–some of them scowling at the intrusion of these strangers, some of them staring out of curiosity. The only people in the building who looked out of place were
her and Skip.
    Lindstrom. She should call him. She took her cell phone from her purse and looked up his number that she had added to her contacts list on Friday. She punched send and did another scan of the atrium, that was quickly emptying of residents as they went in search of their supper.
    She thought she caught a flash of stealthy movement on the second level, across from where Skip was examining the gap between the potted plants. Waving her hand to get his attention, Kate then pointed to the railing on the opposite side.
    But by the time Skip had raced around the walkway, no one was there.

CHAPTER
FIVE
    A n hour later, Detective Lindstrom was examining the dirt, greenery and pot shards scattered across the atrium floor, while Mrs. Carroll stood nearby, asserting in a too-loud voice that the pot must have gotten bumped by someone walking past it. The director glared in Kate’s direction, as if she were the cause of the problem.
    Lindstrom made no comment to the director’s assertions. He turned to Kate and Skip.
    For the time being, they had decided that Skip would be introduced as a friend of the family. Cops rarely appreciated private investigators sticking their noses into official police investigations.
    After they gave the detective their account of what had happened, Skip quietly pointed out that there was a four-inch side along each edge of the shelf holding the plants. It was no doubt there to prevent the plants from being accidentally knocked off. Someone had to have lifted the heavy pot up over that side.
    The potted plant had been dropped on them