Joy to the Wolves

by Terry Spear

  “I’d love to, but I don’t want to be gone too often until I know what’s going on with these guys who tried to steal from me.”

  “We certainly could wait until then. We could have Christmas at your place.”

  “That would work if we still don’t know what’s going on.”

  Another couple of customers came in, and they had to see the reindeer, but after that, it got quiet at the shop. Maverick came in and said, “Hey, the last two ladies just left. I’m going to take Jingles and Cinnamon home now, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Sounds great. I want to thank the three of you for doing all this for me,” Brooke said.

  “It’s been fun. I don’t know if Josh told you, but we do stuff like this with the reindeer all the time around Christmas. The gigs help to pay for the reindeer’s upkeep. And they love all the attention,” Maverick said.

  “But I’ve had the reindeer here for two days and haven’t paid for them. I bet they’re only at these other locations for a short while, not all day either.”

  “We have twenty reindeer, so no problem. These little guys wouldn’t have been out anyway. Just the adults. They’ve had fun. And we’ve had a lot of new requests for reindeer visits. It’s all because of the publicity with the news station and publications that carried the story about us being here. Their stay here has made more than enough money to make up for you not paying anything,” Maverick said. “I bet the owners of the other two reindeer ranches are wishing they’d thought of it.”

  Brooke chuckled. “Now the truth comes out. You all staged the theft of the reindeer and left him here so I could ensure he had lots of publicity.” She gave Maverick a hug. “Thanks so much to you both. The calves are adorable.”

  Maverick winked at Josh. “I’m off.”

  “I’ll go help him out with the reindeer and the food and all,” Josh said.

  “Okay. We’ll be closing in about fifteen minutes.” She looked out the window. “No customers. I’ll get some stuff together to work on at the house tonight.”

  “I’ll help you carry it all over there,” Josh said.

  The brothers went out to the truck and loaded the reindeer and supplies into the trailer while Brooke moved some of the boxes to the back door. Josh soon rejoined her, and they began carrying the boxes into the house and setting them up in the living room.

  “Hey, let me help with that.” Adam headed to the shop to carry more boxes over. “That was the last of the boxes by the door. Did you need anything else?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just go lock up. Nobody else is out there, and it’s time. Did you want to have dinner with us?” Brooke said.

  “I’ve got a…um, date.” Adam smiled at her.

  Smiling, she raised her brows.

  “One of the new ladies in the pack.”

  “Wow, that’s great.”

  “First date, and she’s a live wire. No telling what will happen.”

  Brooke laughed. “I can’t wait to meet her. Will she be at the Christmas party?”

  “Yes. But she warned me she’s dating everyone in the pack who asks her.”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Josh smiled.

  Adam laughed. “What about having someone watch the shop tonight?”

  “I have a security alarm I need to set. And now with the security cameras, we should be good,” Brooke said.

  “Josh, you’re hanging around, right?”

  “I’ll be here with Brooke.”

  “I guess I’ll see you at the Christmas party too.”

  “Thanks, Adam. Josh is picking me up. And good luck on your date.”

  “Thanks. I’m hoping it goes well.” Adam said goodbye and left the house.

  “Let’s set that security alarm at the shop,” Josh said to Brooke, “and we can leave more lights on if you’d like.”

  “Hopefully, all this will be a deterrent this time.” Most of all, she hoped they could catch the would-be thieves, learn what they were after, and keep whatever it was from falling into their hands.

  Chapter 14

  “What do you need me to do first tonight? Help with the cooking? Work on the boxes?” Josh asked.

  Brooke turned on the Christmas tree lights. The outdoor lights came on and shut off automatically. “If you don’t mind, go ahead and start laying some of the merchandise out on the table.” Brooke began broiling the steaks and frying the potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

  Josh started to unload one of the boxes. “You have a lot of items listed online. What if it was something you have listed on your website that someone wants to steal? Maybe something that has a higher value than you have it listed for, but they don’t want to pay your price anyway, and then they’ll resell it. That’s why they know you have the item.”

  “They were looking for some boxes though.” She turned the potatoes and Brussels sprout halves over in the frying pan.

  “True. It must be something that’s valuable to a particular person.”

  “Like a document they need to keep secret. Or a murder weapon. Or a will that, if revealed, would mean they wouldn’t inherit.” Brooke filled up glasses of water.

  While the meal was cooking, she brought her laptop to the end of the dining room table. Taking the jewelry she’d found in the trunk out of the box, she set it on the table. She sat down and began looking up the value of the items on her laptop. “Most of this is costume jewelry, but vintage, so it’s worth twenty to fifty dollars. But these…” She got up from the table and pulled a jeweler’s magnifying tool out of a drawer in a bureau. “Oh, here’s the business card from Mr. Lee.” She pulled it out of the drawer.

  “Ethan confirmed Mr. Lee was dead. So did the man claiming he was Mr. Lee give you one of the now-deceased Mr. Lee’s cards?”

  “I hadn’t considered that.” She called the number. There was no answer and no voicemail.

  Josh was watching her in anticipation.

  “No answer. No answering machine. I’ll try again later.” She sat back down and looked at some of the jewelry using the jeweler’s magnifying glass. “Now these are diamonds and emeralds. Some of these pieces could be worth about $300 to $750. I’ll list them on the website. Sometimes I can get more traffic for goods online than I do in the store.”

  “That’s a good deal.”

  She took pictures of the items and then began listing them on her website. A short while later, the timer went off in the kitchen. “The meal’s done.”

  Brooke went into the kitchen to serve up dinner.

  Josh joined her and carried the plates to the table while she brought glasses of water.

  “It could be something that my great-aunt ordered but that hasn’t arrived yet. Some unusual tapestries my parents bought came from Russia, and they took twelve weeks to arrive in Phoenix. Then there are the shipments from China that take forever. Even Australia. I keep thinking that it’s something delayed in shipment and the thieves are trying to grab it. Though why would they want to look in the trunks?”

  “Maybe they thought you’d already had something delivered and had locked it up there for safekeeping. The trunks were locked. Those intruders wouldn’t know that you hadn’t locked something in there recently. You haven’t had any trouble before this?”

  “No. Everything’s been fine.”

  “Has anything unusual happened? Has anyone made an inquiry about anything lately?” Josh served glasses of red burgundy, then took his seat across from her at the table.

  “I’ve got a list of inquiries for different items that have been made since I opened the shop. Most of the items have been sold and collected. I’m certain whoever is involved in this wouldn’t want to leave a paper trail.”

  Josh cut up some more of his steak. “The T-bone and the rest of the meal is delicious, by the way.”

  �
�Thank you. You deserve a good meal after all the work you’ve done for me.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He wondered about the sleeping arrangements tonight. Then again, she might tell him she didn’t need him to stay the night, now that she had the security cameras in place, just as she’d told Adam he didn’t need to stay.

  It was her choice, but Josh still would worry about her, and he hoped she would decide she wanted him to stay.

  Then he got a call and saw it was from one of the guys at the police bureau. He hoped nobody wanted to call him in tonight if Brooke wanted him to stay with her for the evening. “Yeah, Jefferson?”

  “Hey, we have an update on the case concerning Cerise’s Antique and Gift Shop. At least one of the men won’t be bothering Miss Cerise any longer. He was found in an alley where he’d bled to death, covered in newspapers. Someone stole his boots, and he wasn’t wearing a jacket or gloves. The coroner said she’d get right on it. We have no more details than that, but I wanted you to know one of the men is dead.”

  “It was verified that he was one of the men?”

  “Yeah. Same description Miss Cerise gave the sketch artist, right down to his knobby nose, the scar over his left eye, and a piece of the glass was still imbedded in the man’s arm—same as the old glass from the window we had as evidence. Adam verified it was him too.”

  “Good show. At least that’s one fewer to hunt down.”

  “Right. There was no ID on him. Naturally. I would guess he’d been bleeding all the way from the shop, and the other man dumped him before he actually died.”

  “Which means the injured perp bled all over the vehicle before he was dumped.”

  “Most likely.”

  Now they just had to find the vehicle. “Thanks for the update.”

  “You’re welcome. I thought you’d want to know right away.”

  “I did. Thanks, Jefferson. Catch you later.” Josh set his phone on the table. “Well, that was partially good news. One of the intruders in your shop died from the broken-window cut he’d received.”

  “That’s good. But the other one is at large, and the dead man wasn’t carrying any ID?”

  “Right. They’ll still be trying to learn the dead man’s identity from his DNA, if he’s in the system.”

  “I’m glad at least one of them is no longer among the living. Too bad the other guy didn’t have just as bad of an injury. I suspect whoever was after the item sent these men, so he’ll just hire someone else.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of too.”

  After dinner, they cleaned the dishes, then sat down to work on the merchandise. Brooke was going over more of the jewelry, so Josh began making up envelopes for the items and adding the prices.

  “I don’t keep expensive jewelry in the shop. I just post it online. If someone wants to see it, they can let me know, and I’ll bring it to the shop that day.”

  “Do you want me to put these in the safe after we finish tagging them?”

  “The expensive ones, yes. The vintage faux jewels can go in the shop. I put them on jewelry racks on the counter or inside the locked display cabinet if they’re more valuable.”

  “Good idea.”

  Once she was done with that, he brought over a box and began setting the merchandise out on the dining room table. “How about I take pictures of the items while you look for what they’re worth?” Josh figured that might speed things up.

  “Sure, we can do that.” She spent about an hour working on the merchandise, then once he finished tagging the items with price tags, he brought over another box and began unloading the contents.

  She smiled up at him.

  “What?”

  “I have to hire you. Seriously. I’ve gotten more work done in just a couple of hours than I ever do.”

  “I can see where it would help to have a couple of people working on this at the same time.” He began taking pictures, and she sent inquiries on a couple of items and sent off the pictures.

  “It really does.” She sighed. “I’ll try to stay out of your bed tonight,” she finally said, pausing to look at him.

  He was thrilled she wanted him to stay with her again. He focused on another teacup and saucer and took a picture. “Don’t do it on my account.”

  “What would the other bachelor males think if they knew I was sleeping with you?”

  “That the would-be thieves had shot you and you needed to feel safe.” He sure wanted to be the one to make her feel protected. He eyed her, waiting for her to respond. He thought she was considering staying with him. He hoped she was. “Even though I’ll be on duty again after tomorrow, I can return after work and stay here with you. It’s closer to my job than the reindeer ranch is.” He didn’t want her to be alone, and he sure as hell didn’t want any of the other bachelor males staying with her.

  “Won’t your brother miss you?”

  Josh smiled. “He’ll know it’s important for your safety and welfare.”

  “If it hurts your chances of courting another she-wolf…” She began looking for prices again.

  “Did my brother tell you I had been dating a she-wolf about six months ago?”

  “Uh, no. Was it a bad ending?”

  “Yeah. The worst.”

  “What happened, if you don’t mind talking about it?”

  “She was a rookie cop, a gray wolf, and we were dating. We had lunch, and she wanted to pick up a watch she’d needed to have repaired. When we walked into the jewelry store, we saw right away a robbery was in progress. I indicated to her we needed to get the hell out of there and call for backup. She wanted to make a name for herself. She pulled out her gun and yelled, ‘Police officers!’”

  “Ohmigod, no.”

  “I knew it would end badly. The two robbers turned and started shooting. I tried to protect her and took three bullets. She died right away, and I nearly died. Then at the funeral, I learned she had a mate.” He hated telling anyone he had dated a mated wolf, even though he hadn’t known it.

  “I’m so sorry she died,” Brooke said. “And that you were wounded so badly! Why would she be mated and hide the fact from you? Was she nuts?”

  “She lived in Arizona, but she got hired on here to be a cop. I didn’t know it at the time. I gave her a ticket for speeding, and she—”

  “Tried to talk you out of it.”

  “Yeah. We went on a few dates. I was at the funeral when her mate showed up, furious that I’d been seeing her. He’d seen the news article about her death. He hadn’t even known where she was. Hell, we mate for life. I never thought I would have to ask her if she was mated already.”

  “I’m not.” Brooke went back to searching prices for items.

  “Good thing to know, because I’ve already slept with you.”

  “Right. Good thing.”

  “You don’t have a family, a brother, or a father who might give me trouble, do you?”

  She shook her head. “You’re safe there. No family.” Then she frowned. “Where was she from in Arizona?”

  “Near Phoenix.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Joy Greyling.”

  “Ohmigod, that woman is…was such a bitch. I could have told you that. Though I’m sorry she died.”

  “You knew her?” Josh couldn’t hide his surprise if he’d wanted to.

  “She stole my boyfriend.”

  “Mr. Paper Plates and Cups?”

  “No great loss. They were mated shortly after that. I swear it was to prove she could steal him from me.” Brooke continued to check prices on more teacups.

  “I didn’t sleep with her.”

  Brooke didn’t look at him but smiled.

  He attached a price tag to another teacup. “Where do you want me to put these so we can have more room for the next box?”

  She motioned
to the kitchen table. “In there, if you don’t mind. We can haul them over in the morning.”

  He carried the teacups to the kitchen table and returned for some more teacups and saucers.

  She looked into a box of old Christmas ornaments. “Wow.”

  Josh checked out the pear-shaped glass ornaments, which looked stained and not in the least bit interesting. “Good, huh?” He couldn’t imagine they were worth much. Just a bunch of old ornaments that had seen better days. He was certain he would have tossed them and picked up new ones to replace them.

  She looked them up on the computer and pointed to a page. “German-made kugel, hand-blown glass, made between 1840 and the early 1900s.”

  Josh’s attention focused on the price tag of one that had sold for $18,000. Brooke had an antique box of a dozen. She had a veritable mint gathering dust in her shop. It showed what he knew about old things.

  “Collector societies exist for just about everything,” she said.

  “You need to talk to the pack about this. Some of our wolves who have lived forever might have things stuffed away that could be valuable. You have the contacts. You could help get their items appraised and assist them in finding buyers for a commission.”

  “Or for free, as goodwill for the wolves of the pack.”

  “They won’t go along with that. You’ll help them do ‘spring cleaning’ and get some cash back for them at the same time. More than they could ever hope to get if they tried to sell their valuable antiques on their own. You’ll be doing them a big service. Hell, now Maverick and I will have to go through our attic and a couple of old storage buildings.”

  She laughed. “I’ll help you, once we get this situation with the would-be robbers resolved. Ooh, look, Halloween postcards made in the Victorian era, pre-World War I.”

  “Oh, my great-grandmother had a bunch of Victorian postcards. She loved stuff like that. We have them in a box somewhere.”

  “Great. Those sell. The Valentine ones? Christmas ones? They all do. If you have a big reindeer collection, some might be valuable too.”

  Josh shook his head. “We collect the reindeer ones and have a shop where we display the items. They’re valuable—to us.”