by Terry Spear
“She could have.”
“If you don’t look for the real culprit, you might not find who did this. Then what? We have the same problem again? We need to know when—”
“Sometime last night between two and three.”
“Who and why.”
“She made a lot of money off sales today, all because Jingles was drawing the crowds to her shop. She had the best motive in the world. And she had possession of the stolen property.” Because of those two things, she would remain Josh’s number one suspect.
“Ahh, I see now.”
“What?” Josh pulled off another slice of pizza.
“If she continues to be your one and only suspect, you can keep seeing her under the guise that this is just police business.”
Josh gave a sarcastic laugh. “Since when do I get interested in dating suspects?”
“I’d say right about now.”
“She just moved here. Is it someone she knows? Or someone who came with her? She didn’t tell me if she lived alone or not. What do we know about her? Nothing. I need to question her further about who she knows in the area.”
“She’s not involved.”
“You don’t know how devious women can be. In the business I’m in, I’m used to it.”
“You’re wrong in this case, Brother.” Maverick finished his last slice of pizza. “That’s okay. I’ll keep pursuing her then. Just don’t mess up my chances with her by badgering her.”
Josh had every intention of learning if she had any part in this or not.
* * *
Brooke went outside and was about to lock her gate before she did anything else when she noticed it had a bright, shiny new latch. She couldn’t imagine anyone replacing it. Except for Maverick taking Jingles to have potty breaks outside, he’d been inside with her the whole time.
Had Mr. Detective done it? She couldn’t even envision that.
She didn’t want to have any more trouble just because she didn’t lock her gate again. As much as she hated to admit it, the detective was right about someone being able to come in and steal her wolf statues. She sure didn’t want that. At least the gate shut properly now, and it was locked.
She went back inside her shop and began cleaning the kitchen, washing the chocolate pot, the slow cooker she’d used to make the wassail, and the serving dishes. Once that was done, she brought out the boxes of gift items her great-aunt had purchased, figuring that was the fastest way to fill the shelves. Due to their wolf’s enhanced longevity and their slow aging process, Ivy had accumulated lots of stuff that might not have been that valuable when she had purchased it but could be now.
Once Brooke hung a ton of ornaments on the tree, she filled shelves and straightened up her shop. She turned off all the main lights, leaving a few security lights on, and turned off her Christmas music. She was eager and hopeful she’d find some fun, saleable items in the attic next. With all the repairs she’d had to make to the house and the shop and getting ready to open it, she hadn’t had time to see what was in the attic, and that was driving her crazy.
What she loved best was that she didn’t have to drive anywhere to be home. And she could watch over her shop better, though she hadn’t expected to have a young reindeer calf standing on her porch this morning.
During the spring, Brooke planned to fill the yard with garden ornaments to sell. She couldn’t wait to smell the lavender and lilac and see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. Even though she intended to sell the place in three years, she might as well enjoy it as much as she could while she was stuck here.
She wiped down the new stove in the shop. The old one had gone out two days after she moved in, and the heat pump had quit working the day after that. As soon as she had time, she needed to renovate the kitchen in the house before anything else went out. She just hoped nothing more would go wrong. That was the problem with having two Victorian houses to maintain.
Brooke picked up the antique bowl by the Christmas tree that she’d used for a water bowl for the calf, cleaning it and setting it on the kitchen counter to dry. She was glad the little calf had come into her life, especially since she’d been able to meet some wolves from the local pack. She hoped Josh Wilding would seriously look at some other suspect and discover who had done such a thing to make sure it didn’t happen again.
She glanced out the shop’s kitchen window at the courtyard and frowned. How had the little reindeer made its way all the way here from the Wilding ranch?
Finally ready to check out the attic, Brooke climbed the stairs to the second floor, passing the three bedrooms and the bathroom on her way to the attic stairs at the end of the hall. She switched on the light to the attic and climbed the steps.
In the attic, two beautiful vintage steamer trunks sat near the windows along one wall. But they were locked. She’d have to hire someone to unlock them for her without breaking the locks, which could be worth something, too, as old as they looked.
The room had enough height for a full-grown man to stand, and the windows would let in a nice amount of light during the day, if they were cleaned. Another project for when she had more time. The walls sloped down at both the front and back of the room. She noticed it was fully finished, with air-conditioning and heating ducts, unlike the average attic storage space. The attic had a thermostat, and she saw the temperature was the same as for the rest of the house. She assumed the room was also well insulated.
Boxes and crates of stuff filled most of the space, though her great-aunt had left room to walk around some of the crates and the trunks. Everything was covered in dust. Old spiderwebs, broken and dusty, hung from the ceiling. The dust and spiderwebs made the attic look more ready for Halloween than Christmas. It would take Brooke forever to go through all this stuff to see what might be valuable. Though on the two days her shop was closed, she’d make a concerted effort to do just that.
She noticed a shelf behind some of the crates filled with vinyl records—plastic sleeves protecting the records and plastic covers protecting the album covers. Her great-aunt had meticulously cared for the vinyl records, but why store them in the attic?
Brooke found a record player that looked in great shape in a box and carried it down to the second floor. Then she began to haul the vinyl records down the stairs, setting them in the hallway so she could carry them down to the first floor and out to the house. She needed to price each one, and there had to be around two hundred here.
She paused when she found a 1963 record, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and hoped it was one of the album’s mistake pressings where four songs were replaced with newly recorded tracks. In mint condition, the albums could be worth a small fortune—up to $35,000 each. The Beatles’ Please Please Me? Oh yes! Well, if it was one of the early ones.
She left the record player in her office in the shop so customers could listen to the records if they were interested in them. She started hauling all the records to the house and saw her thermos filled with tea still sitting on the table where she’d left it when she found Jingles standing on her porch. She fished in her pocket to pull out her house keys, unlocked the door, dropped off the records, turned off the security alarm, and put the thermos of tea in the kitchen. Then she locked the back door.
She wondered what other treasures were hidden in the attic. She’d looked on and off for two weeks for her great-aunt’s inventory sheet and still hadn’t found it. For now, she’d spend the rest of the evening going through the records, learning the value of each, move some of the books off the living room shelves to make room for the records until she found buyers for the collectibles. She set the books on the floor behind the Christmas tree and would have to sort through them one of these days too.
By the time she went to bed, she realized what a fortune she could have just in vinyl records. Even at the low price of a few hundred dollars per record, she could have between $50,000 and $200,000.
Her great-aunt had managed to collect a few first editions, and they were worth from several hundred dollars to $35,000 apiece.
Things were looking up.
Dressed in her red flannel pajamas covered in little reindeer—which made her think of Jingles—and lying in bed, Brooke placed her arms behind her head on her pillow, looked at the ceiling, and smiled. This had been one perfect open house, as crazy as the day had started out. She took a deep breath and thought about running in the woods as a wolf, the perfect way to end an already great day.
Her phone on the bedside table played a little of the “Carol of the Bells,” and she frowned, wondering who would be calling her at eleven at night. When she looked at the caller ID, she saw it was Josh Wilding.
What now? He’d better not want to question her any further tonight about how Jingles had arrived in her courtyard this morning.
When she answered the phone, Josh asked, “Did you lock your gate tonight?”
“I’m in bed, trying to get to sleep. Some people need their sleep, you know. Oh, but I was surprised and pleased to find a new shiny latch on the gate.”
He didn’t say anything, so she figured he hadn’t replaced the latch. She let out her breath. “I hope you find your real suspect soon.” Then she hung up on him.
She really wanted to sock him! He had no business calling her at this time of night, making sure she did what he’d told her to do.
* * *
When Brooke Cerise hung up on Josh, he chuckled. She had a temper to go with the fiery-red hair. He could envision her cheeks flushing, like they’d done earlier when he’d questioned her about Jingles. He meant to ask her about the unknown male wolf who’d been at their place, tampering with their security equipment. He wanted to know if she knew any other male wolves. If she’d heard anything the night before that would indicate someone had slipped into her courtyard where they’d left the reindeer. But the first words out of his mouth had been about her locking her gate—his main concern.
When he checked the gate to her courtyard earlier, he’d smelled the scent of the male wolf there too. In the courtyard. But not in the store. Would Josh smell him in her house?
Once he’d discovered her gate latch wasn’t latching properly every time, Josh had run to the hardware store on the next block over and picked up a replacement, hoping that would keep the gate from opening on a whim. He was glad she had been pleased, but he hadn’t even had time to say he did it before she hung up on him. He smiled again.
Then he ran his hands through his hair and looked out the window at the ranch and the barn where the reindeer were sleeping. He knew the thief couldn’t have been from one of the reindeer ranch competitors. If he had been, the whole thing had backfired because, according to Maverick, they’d received more business than they’d had all season with all the media coverage. The chances a competitor would hire a wolf to do the sabotage would be practically nil. But it did make Josh think they’d made an enemy of a wolf. Someone they didn’t know.
He kept thinking about Jingles and how happy he’d been in Miss Cerise’s shop. How she’d taken him inside to keep an eye on him. Or hide him? Except if that had been her intent, it hadn’t worked, because all her customers had shared on social media about the little lost reindeer. It had made for a great special-interest story for the news at Christmastime.
“Do you know where your reindeer is at this hour?” one woman had texted with a cute picture of Jingles sleeping underneath the Christmas tree in the shop. Another had said, “Have you hugged your reindeer today?” Then she’d had someone else take a picture of her hugging Jingles.
He found the store’s Facebook page and read through the hundreds of comments. “I wish we had a reindeer ranch near us.” “Aww, isn’t he cute.” “I want one for Christmas.”
He smiled. At least having Jingles there had been good for business. Then he lost the smile. He had other cases to investigate tomorrow, but as soon as he had time, he was dropping by the antique shop to question the little red wolf some more. He had to know if she knew any other wolves in the area. And if she knew anything about working with security equipment. Or knew anyone who could work on security equipment. Her reaction should help him judge if she knew something about their video equipment.
That was one good thing about having the wolves’ enhanced sense of smell. They could smell someone’s anxiety, deception, depression, even interest. The wolves were lucky to be able to use more than just the visual cues a suspect would give up, something the police were trained to watch for.
Josh wanted to call Miss Cerise back in the worst way. He wanted this resolved before anyone else stole one of their reindeer.
The fragrance of cinnamon and cocoa and apple-cider wassail stuck with him, the Christmas music playing in her shop still replaying in his head, no matter how much he wanted to turn off the music and get some much-needed sleep. But as soon as he closed his eyes, in his mind’s eye, he saw the feisty red wolf giving him grief, her sweetly annoyed voice telling him to provide security for her shop, to watch the calf, to do anything but bother her.
Her green eyes had flashed with annoyance when he’d continued to stick by her as if she were a criminal who might flee his interrogation at any minute. He told himself he’d stayed close because he wanted the truth from her. To resolve the case so he could get on with other police business.
And he’d question her again tomorrow for the same reason. He was always thorough when conducting criminal investigations.
Chapter 4
The detective had pinned her with his intimidating gaze, so why did Brooke want to be swallowed up by his dark-chocolate eyes? Her gaze broke free of his, and she studied his masculine lips as he asked her something. What? The words were spoken as if the audiobook narrator she loved was telling her he loved her, that he wanted to kiss her, that he wanted to get her naked in his bed and ravish her.
But then a word or two of what the detective was really saying came crashing through: Where were you last night? She frowned at the handsome face, annoyed with him for interrogating her again.
Somewhere off in the distance, Brooke heard music. Christmas music.
Her alarm! She was instantly awake and scrambling to get out of bed.
“Police Detective Josh Wilding is a nightmare! Not a dream.” Unfortunately. She hurried to dress in a green wool sweater and a green-and-blue-plaid wool skirt, leggings, and her dressy boots, along with green lace panties and bra this time, and skipped making tea at the house. She had enough time to make some peppermint mocha at the shop.
Brooke grabbed her bag of money for the cash register from the safe she’d installed in the house, set her security alarm, and closed and locked the door to her house, then turned to see Detective Wilding peering over her gate at her, startling her. This was so not the way she wanted to start her day. “It’s locked, okay?”
“I see that. The new latch seems to work.”
As much as she knew she needed to unlock the gate for customers, Brooke didn’t want to unlock it for the detective. She let out her breath and stalked across the cobblestone walkway to the gate, pulled the chain of keys to the shop—locked cabinets, house key, and gate keys—out of her pocket, and unlocked the gate. “Did you put the new latch on? I mentioned it last night, but you didn’t say you had done it.”
“You hung up on me.”
She smiled.
“Does anyone else have the key to unlock the gate?” the detective asked.
“Unless my great-aunt gave someone a key, no.” She left the gate open, not sure if he wanted to enter the courtyard, but she had a lot to do to get ready to open her shop, and she wasn’t standing there all day waiting to hear what he had to say. She headed down the path to the back door of her shop. The gate closed behind her.
She heard his footfalls on the garden path, heading in her direction. Apparently it was too much to hope that he ha
d left.
Brooke unlocked the shop and entered it, wanting to shut the door in his face and lock him out. But she’d rather get this over with now so that he didn’t harass her while she had customers in her shop.
Against her better judgment, she let him come inside and walked into the hallway to turn off her security alarm, then went to the kitchen to make some peppermint mocha for herself while he shut the door.
“Be sure and lock it.” She didn’t want customers coming in through the courtyard, thinking she was already open and slipping into the shop through the back door before she was ready.
He locked the door with a click. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable, alone, locked in with a wolf who believed her guilty of a crime.
He watched her make the peppermint mocha. “Got some more of that?”
Yeah, but not for him. She let out her breath and made him a mug. “I didn’t steal the calf. I had no idea it would be here when I left my house yesterday morning.” Then she pulled out her phone and looked up her legal rights. “By the way, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says I don’t have to say anything to you in the off chance I might incriminate myself.”
He’d just taken a sip of the hot drink and choked on it.
Good.
She pointed to her phone. “In addition, I have a right to an attorney, according to the Sixth Amendment.”
He continued to cough, trying to clear his throat. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“And the Fourth Amendment gives me rights against unlawful searches and seizures.” She took a sip of her hot peppermint mocha and swore the drink instantly made her feel better. Less aggravated with Hot and Sexy standing before her, tears in his eyes.
He cleared his gravelly throat, coughed, and cleared it again. “You know, when people start telling me their rights—”
“They’re smart, right?” Brooke arched a brow, her backside leaning against the kitchen counter, mug in hand.
“It means they’re guilty.”
