by Terry Spear
“Ethan assured me he’d handle it. You know he’s got our backs. Brooke didn’t know anything about it, and apparently her great-aunt must have had some clue something was wrong after placing the order.”
“Poor Brooke. She must have been terrified.”
“She seemed to be in good spirits when I had lunch with her.” Josh sighed. “I’m headed for bed. See you bright and early in the morning.”
Josh couldn’t stop thinking of Brooke and her funny comebacks about him questioning her concerning the calf. And all her requests for lunch. Normally when he went to bed at night, he thought over unsolved cases he was working on, trying to figure out who, what, when, and where.
Tonight, one beautiful red wolf stole all his attention. Much better than thinking about chasing down suspects.
Then he got a call he wasn’t expecting from Ethan. “Brooke said she met with a Mr. Lee who told her that her great-aunt had been dealing with some disreputable people, which probably meant the shipment of cocaine, so I had a contact in Phoenix talk to the man.”
From the tone of Ethan’s voice, Josh knew what he had uncovered wasn’t good.
“I need to talk to Brooke. I figure you’ll be there with her tomorrow?”
“If I can be.”
“I’d prefer if you were there at the same time since you’ve been there for her from the beginning. I’ll let you know when I’m headed over to talk to her.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.” Josh sure hoped he’d be free to be there when Ethan dropped by.
* * *
Brooke was up early, looking forward to eating lunch with Josh and running in Forest Park tonight. He called her before she had finished dressing, and she was afraid he was going to tell her he couldn’t make it for lunch. Not that she was surprised. He had an important job to do.
“Hey, hope you’re up.”
“I am. I’m getting dressed.” She put the phone on speaker and pulled on her boots.
“I’ve got a lot going on with the job today, so I might not make it in time for lunch.”
“Don’t worry about it, Josh. I’ll grab something quick to eat.”
“No, Maverick will bring you your beef Stroganoff if I’m not able to make it.”
“Oh, he doesn’t need to.”
“It’s only if I can’t make it, and he offered. He’ll pick some up for himself too. Maybe also for me, and I can drop by later and warm it up in the microwave. But I wondered about picking you up after six and bringing you out to the ranch to see the reindeer. We can run out here. Then we don’t have to wait until ten to go for a wolf run.”
“Uh, sure.”
“I’ll let you know if I can make it or not.”
“Thanks. See you tonight no matter what.” She was glad Josh had called her to give her a heads-up. She thought it was sweet of him and his brother to bring her lunch even though she really hadn’t needed them to. She suspected nothing would change their minds.
“Before I go, I just need to tell you one more thing. Ethan spoke with a contact he has in Phoenix and wants to talk to you about Mr. Lee. He wants me to be there when he does. I’m hoping I can take off from work to join the two of you as soon as he says he’s dropping by.”
“Why didn’t he call me?”
“Since I’ve been there from the beginning, I think he feels I need to be there to hear what all’s going on.”
“Okay. Do you think it’s good news?” She needed some about now.
“I think he needs to clear things up more.”
She let her breath out on a heavy sigh. “Like you did with your Jingles case.”
He chuckled. “Uh, yeah. Like that.”
“As long as I’m not a suspect in this case. I’ve got to go. See you when I see you then.”
“Sure.”
All she needed was to have Ethan harassing her about a case now!
When she arrived at the shop and received a postal delivery, she thought it would be from the Gulliver estate. But it wasn’t. It was another box for her great-aunt. Shivers ran up Brooke’s spine, but the return label said the merchandise was from Michigan. She sighed with relief.
She thanked the substitute mail carrier and brought the box into the shop and locked the door. Then she took the box into her office, logged it in, and carried it up to the second floor. She stacked it on top of other boxes in the first of the bedrooms she used for storage. She really needed to go through these rooms and start unloading these boxes so she could sell the merchandise.
She went downstairs and checked her emails and found she had a potential buyer for some of her vinyl records. She was thrilled. The buyer would be dropping by in a couple of days to look at the records.
Then she got a call from Ethan. “I’m on my way over. I hoped to talk to you before you open the shop.”
“Have you eaten yet? I’ll make some hot cocoa, and I bought cinnamon rolls from the bakery across the street this morning.”
“That sounds good. I called Josh, and he said he’s headed over.”
“Okay.”
She expected Ethan to arrive first, but Josh did instead, and she was glad. She didn’t know what to expect from Ethan. She unlocked the door for Josh and then locked it again. “Would you like a cinnamon roll and coffee or hot chocolate?”
“Yeah, coffee and a cinnamon roll. I’m surprised Ethan isn’t here already.”
“I thought he’d be here first too.” She was pouring a cup of freshly brewed coffee for Josh when there was a ring at the shop’s front door.
“I’ll get it.”
“Thanks,” Brooke said. “I’ll just warm the cinnamon rolls.”
“Hey, man,” Josh said to Ethan as the door jingled while he opened it. “Brooke’s in the kitchen.”
“Coffee or hot chocolate?” she called out.
“Coffee would be good.” Ethan locked the door before he and Josh joined her in the kitchen.
“What did you learn when you spoke to Mr. Lee?” Brooke asked, dying to know. She set the cinnamon rolls out for the guys and brought over Christmas reindeer mugs of coffee. She smiled at the way Josh was eyeing them. “They’re mine.”
He chuckled. “Reindeer always catch my eye.”
Everyone sat at the table, and Brooke ate some of her cinnamon roll.
“I had a friend with the FBI in Arizona check out Mr. Lee, but he was dead.” Ethan drank some of his coffee and watched her reaction.
“No. How? When?” She couldn’t believe he had died since she’d last spoken to him.
“He said it was before an auction they’d held at the estate where Mr. Lee worked.”
“What? No. I know what Mr. Lee looks like.” Brooke knew it had been him. “He gave me his card. I’ve seen him in the news.”
“Do you have his business card?” Ethan asked.
“Somewhere. I’ve cleaned out my purse since I moved, and I’m not sure where I put the card. When I find it, I’ll give it to you.” She so did not want Mr. Lee to be a bad guy. Especially since he was a wolf and he’d been so nice to her.
“Did you know him by scent?” Ethan took a bite of his cinnamon roll.
Brooke opened her mouth to speak, but then closed her mouth. “No. I had never met him in person before.”
“He was murdered, shot to death. My FBI friend went to see his body at the morgue, and it was confirmed that he was Mr. Lee.”
“A wolf? Right?”
“He was a wolf.”
“He knew my parents. He knew my great-aunt. He knew we were red wolves. He…he’d bought items from my parents and from my great-aunt for his sister, he said.”
“Do you have any proof of that?” Ethan ate another bite of his roll.
“No. It might be somewhere in my parents’ files for sales receipts, but I don’t even know when he purchased the items
. My parents were as bad as my great-aunt about keeping records on a computer.”
“It’s possible he never met your parents or your great-aunt and never even purchased anything from them. The man you met wasn’t Mr. Gulliver’s assistant. Mr. Gulliver’s son Ralph was.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” She couldn’t believe any of this! “A Daisy Gulliver was giving Mr. Lee a hard time at the estate sale. And then Mr. Lee spoke with the guy manning the cash register. I paid for the wolf statues. Mr. Lee gave me the five boxes of stuff free. If he wasn’t in charge or didn’t have some authority there, why would the cashier have taken orders from him? Mr. Gulliver’s daughter undoubtedly knew Mr. Lee, or she wouldn’t have been berating him the way she was. He came over and spoke to me afterward, so it wasn’t like she’d told a trespasser to leave the auction site. Unless the woman wasn’t Gulliver’s daughter.”
“Maybe the man you spoke to worked for Mr. Gulliver in some other capacity and so the cashier knew him. Maybe he pretended to be Mr. Lee, and everyone thought he was the same man because he looked similar. Mr. Lee’s body was discovered in his home the day after the auction, but he’d died the day before, according to forensics.” Ethan drank some of his coffee.
“What if Mr. Lee, being a wolf, had a twin brother?” Not for one second did Brooke believe Mr. Lee wasn’t who he said he was. She was as wary a wolf as any other, and she would have smelled the deception.
“I checked to see if there was another Mr. Lee working for the estate. There was not.” Ethan ate the rest of his cinnamon roll. “Your Mr. Lee lied about being Mr. Gulliver’s assistant.”
“It’s in all the news stories. That’s how I knew Mr. Lee was Mr. Gulliver’s assistant. Mr. Lee didn’t tell me that.”
Ethan nodded. “So the son took over once the real Mr. Lee was murdered.”
“Mr. Gulliver was already dead, so why would the son suddenly be his assistant?” she asked.
“You have a point. Did your Mr. Lee lie about his name? About buying things from your family, knowing of your wolf heritage, and sending you the invitation to attend the auction because of the friendship he had with your family? Do you have the invitation, by the way? We could try to lift fingerprints off the document,” Ethan said.
She didn’t know what to think. “No. I threw the invitation out. I never thought I’d need to save it as evidence and turn it over to the DEA. Did your friend talk to the man who was cashiering?”
“Yeah, but he said he didn’t know anything about you.”
“What?” No way. Unless there were so many customers at the auction he forgot. “I bought the wolf sculptures from him.” Then she wondered about the five boxes of mystery stuff that hadn’t arrived yet. What if they never arrived? What if they were never meant to arrive? At least she had the wolf statues. That was what was really worth something to her. “He was a blond guy? Midforties? Brown eyes.”
“No. The man in charge of taking the money was dark-haired, wore glasses, and had blue eyes. Late fifties. My friend took a picture of him to show you.” Ethan pulled out his phone and found the picture and showed it to her.
She frowned. “That’s not him.” She could envision the whole scene before her. Mr. Lee talking to the blond guy and him glancing back at her, smiling and nodding. “Did the man you spoke with say the wolf statues were stolen, if I didn’t pay the right man for them? Mr. Lee said they weren’t part of the estate. What if they really had been?” She couldn’t believe the man called Mr. Lee had cheated the estate out of the money.
“The man serving as the cashier didn’t say anything about it, and my friend didn’t mention it. I didn’t want you to get in trouble for something that might have been illegal.”
“If he wasn’t Mr. Gulliver’s assistant, and he wasn’t Mr. Lee, and the guy who took my money wasn’t the cashier, then wouldn’t someone have been suspicious?” She didn’t believe some unknown person could do that without arousing suspicion. Plus, the woman who had been berating him had known him. Unless…the woman wasn’t Gulliver’s daughter. “Did you talk to Gulliver’s daughter?”
“She’s in Paris and hadn’t been at the auction,” Ethan said.
Brooke’s jaw dropped. “So all of it was a lie.”
“How did you pay for the merchandise?” Josh took hold of her hand and squeezed, reassuring her none of this was her fault.
“I used a credit card. I hadn’t planned to buy anything. I was just curious why I would get a special invite to the auction.”
“Did the charge come up on your account?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know.” She pulled out her phone and logged into her bank account online. “No. There wasn’t any charge for it.”
“Maybe Mr. Lee wanted you to have the wolves for free,” Josh said.
“But why?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” Ethan said. “And who he really is. Thanks so much for the coffee and the roll. I’ve got to run. I’ll let you know once I learn anything more.”
“Thanks, Ethan.” She let him out the door.
Josh took her hand. “Are you going to be okay after learning all this, Brooke?”
“Uh, sure.” Then she smiled and kissed him. She meant for it to only be gentle, nonintrusive, but he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly, like he’d wanted to do this to her in the beginning. She parted her lips for him, and he took advantage, sweeping his tongue over hers, when they saw movement in the glass door. “Hmm, Josh, now that’s a nice way to start the day.”
He sighed and rubbed her shoulders. “I planned to do that with you under the mistletoe.”
She smiled. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get together later today.”
“I sure hope so.” But Josh sounded skeptical.
Chapter 8
Brooke unlocked the door and let her customers into the shop while Josh took off in his car to get on with his own work.
Traffic was slow in the shop for the first couple of hours, and all she could think about was what Ethan had told her concerning Mr. Lee. She wanted to find his business card tonight and give him a call to learn what she could, if he’d tell her the truth about anything.
Her last paying customer left the shop, and then Josh called to say he was busy on a case. “Maverick’s on his way to bring lunch. I’ll join you when I can.”
“That works. Who wouldn’t want two dashing wolf lunch mates?”
“No customers?”
“No, I’m not as busy as you. I keep working on stuff. I have a ton of boxes of my great-aunt’s inventory to go through.” Brooke had sold off everything in the Phoenix shop.
“All right then. See you later.”
Maverick arrived a half hour later, just as she was checking out a customer. “I’ll join you in a moment,” Brooke told him. “Just take it in the kitchen, if you would.”
She wished the customer a Merry Christmas and waited until the shopper left before joining Maverick in the kitchen. She served up glasses of water, then sat at the kitchen table to eat with him. “Thanks for bringing lunch.”
“It was all Josh’s idea. He’s busy with a couple of robbery cases. I, uh, got you the lunch portion, per Josh’s orders. I think he wanted to have dinner with you tonight.”
“Okay. Does he talk to you about his cases?” She was enjoying her beef Stroganoff and Maverick’s company and was curious about Josh’s work.
“When he wants to bounce ideas off me. Though people in law enforcement shouldn’t discuss cases, we’re wolves, family, pack members. We keep the secrets to ourselves.”
She wanted to ask what the cases were about when the door to the shop opened. She sighed. “I’ll be right back. I have to assist a customer.”
Because she had so many customers after that, Maverick came and relieved her at the cash register once he was done so she could finish her lunch. Then she reli
eved Maverick of his job.
“Thanks so much, Maverick, for lunch.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tonight at the ranch.” He didn’t mention a wolf run because Brooke still had customers in the shop.
“Sounds good.”
Maverick left the shop, and Brooke received another delivery.
A man hurried up about that time, and when she signed for the item, he offered to carry the box inside for her. He didn’t look like her usual kind of customer.
He was wearing a heavy black sweatshirt with a hoodie, blue jeans, and heavy black boots. His hair, mustache, and beard were dark brown, and his blue eyes kept glancing down at the box in his arms.
“Thanks so much,” she told him and had him set it in her office. She’d check it in on her laptop later. “Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“Something for my mother. I’ll look around and see if I can find anything.”
“Call on me if you need anything.” She checked out another lady and had several more customers after that. She realized she’d never seen the sweatshirt dude leave the store. It was time for closing as she checked out her last customer, then started to look through the whole shop, hoping the guy wasn’t still here. No one was in the bedrooms or bathroom on the second floor, or the bathroom and other rooms on the first floor. From the scent he’d left behind, she found he had wandered all over the shop, though, used the bathroom, and even went up the stairs to look in each of the bedrooms used as storage rooms. Snooping? Looking to steal something? She smelled his scent only by the boxes most recently stacked in the room, the ones up front. Chills raced across her skin, making the hair on her arms stand on end.
She checked the attic door, but it was still locked. The man must have left when she got busy.
Then she got a call from Josh. “Hey, I know it’s about time for me to pick you up for dinner and a wolf run, but I’ve got a murder case I’m looking into that just came up, so I’m going to have to work late.”
“I’m so sorry, Josh. Did you get some lunch at least?”
“I picked up a hamburger. How was your beef Stroganoff?”
