by Terry Spear
“Any of them.”
“Why don’t I get them, and you can continue to watch Brooke,” Adam said.
Josh appreciated it. “How’d it go with your date?”
Smiling, Adam shook his head. “I told you. She’s dating every eligible wolf just once. Then she’ll decide who she wants to see further.”
Brooke smiled. “I really need to do that.”
Josh chuckled. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“I guess I’ll be sleeping on that child’s bed for the next few nights,” Adam said, tromping up to one of the second-floor rooms.
“You said when you were a wolf, there was no problem with it,” Brooke said.
“Yeah. If anyone comes in the shop in the middle of the night, I might forget I don’t want to kill them as a wolf.”
“I’d really like to know who’s behind all this.” Josh was glad he was sharing Brooke’s bed and not a child-sized one.
“When we figure out what he’s after and tell the world, that will be the end of it.” Brooke began working on a poster.
Josh came over to see what she was doing. A New Year’s Eve sign. He wanted to be ringing in the new year with her. He just hoped they could catch whoever was responsible for this before anyone got hurt again.
Adam returned to the shop. “We need to get hold of some muscle to stay with Brooke while we question the two armed men we just arrested.”
Josh agreed.
“If you two can learn what is going on, then do it. If you have someone else who can come and protect me, that will work. No one else can question these men like the two of you can,” Brooke said, sounding afraid Josh might not go with his partner to learn the truth.
Josh got on his phone and called Maverick. “Hey. I need you to come and protect Brooke.” He explained what was going on. “I’ll call Sierra’s brother, Brad Redding, to be here too.”
Chapter 18
“Maverick and Brad Redding, Sierra’s mated brother, a former Navy SEAL, are coming to watch over you for a bit while Adam and I go to the bureau and question these men then, if you’re sure you’ll be all right,” Josh said to her as she closed up shop.
“I will be,” Brooke assured him.
An hour later, Maverick and Brad came to the door of the shop while Brooke and Josh were still straightening things up. Brad smiled and shook Brooke’s hand. “Sierra told me you gave her the best description of a perp she’s ever had to sketch.”
“I enjoyed meeting her. We’ll all have to get together sometime.”
“We will.”
“Good to see you again,” Maverick said to Brooke, “but I wish the circumstances were less dire.”
“I agree with you there.”
“We’re on our way to the bureau.” Josh gave her a hug and a kiss, and then he said to Adam as they were leaving, “Hopefully between the two of us, we’ll get what we need from these guys.”
* * *
At the bureau, Howie Carpenter was brought to the interview room for questioning, his shaggy brown hair tangled, his dark-brown eyes narrowed. Howie was wearing a fresh shiner. Josh wondered if he’d fought with a prisoner or a guard.
“Howie, what were you supposed to find for the guy who hired you to rob the antique store?” Josh asked as he and Adam took seats opposite Howie. Josh knew it was a thumb drive, but he had to ask the suspect to state for the record why he’d been at the shop.
Howie shrugged.
“You asked for the boxes from the Gulliver estate. You have to know what you were supposed to get, just like the other two men did. You and your buddy are repeat offenders. Trying to shoot a police detective will put you in for a long damn time,” Josh added.
“So what? If I tell you what it was, you’ll let me go? You and I both know it’s not happening, dude.”
“Did you know Pinky Struthers, the guy who died?” Adam asked.
“You already know he was a former cellmate, so why ask?” Howie said.
“Did he tell you he had this job to do?”
“Yeah, man. He did. He and some other guy I didn’t know. Ackerson, he said his name was.”
Hell, the same guy who had been involved in the other two armed robberies Josh and Adam had been investigating? Josh and Adam exchanged glances.
“First name?” Josh asked, hoping they’d get lucky.
“You’re lucky I knew his last name. He’s done some prison time too. I asked Pinky why he didn’t hook up with me next to do the job. He said the woman—”
Both Josh and Adam perked up to hear that a woman was involved.
“Uh…she already knew Ackerson, and he picked Pinky to help him do the job because he knew him from the joint. Pinky told her I was available for other jobs, in case she needed someone for something else. Anyway, so Pinky and Ackerson botched the job, and then I got called to do it. I knew Matson, so I called him, and he needed the money and agreed to come in on the job. Hell, who knew I’d get smacked upside the head with a cast-iron frying pan. The doc said if she’d hit me any harder, I would’ve been dead, but she had to strike from behind the counter, and that meant she couldn’t deal enough force. We had no idea she had a boyfriend who was a cop staying with her.”
“What’s the name of the woman who hired you?” Josh asked, glad Brooke hadn’t killed the scum so they could learn something more about the case.
Howie slumped in his chair. “Daisy Fern. At least that’s what she said her name was.”
Adam was on his phone, looking for someone by that name.
“What is she after?” Josh asked.
“Some thumb drive. She said someone slipped it into one of the boxes at the auction that was being shipped to the antique shop here. The person who was supposed to grab the box didn’t get it in time.”
“Someone? Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the thumb drive slipped into the box on purpose or by accident?” Josh asked.
“I didn’t ask. She didn’t say.”
“Why didn’t she just ask the owner of the antique shop if she’d received a thumb drive by mistake? If it belonged to this Daisy Fern, why hire ex-convicts, armed to the teeth, to steal it?” Josh asked.
“Hell, she didn’t tell me, man. How should I know? I was hired to get the thumb drive, no questions asked. If you ask me, I’d say it had some damning information on it.”
Josh leaned back in his chair. “Not something valuable?”
“Maybe.” Howie folded his arms. “You’d have to ask her.”
“Do you have her phone number?” Adam asked.
Howie smiled. “Yeah. What does it get me?”
“If the information leads to an arrest and conviction, we’ll put in a good word for you with the DA’s office. We want the person behind the robberies before this turns deadly,” Josh said.
Howie pulled up his sleeve and gave the number penned on his arm to Adam.
“Why didn’t you guys lock the front door of the shop when you first entered it?” Adam asked.
“We had to wait for all the customers to leave. Then Matson was supposed to lock the door. And really, if the woman had just handed over the thumb drive, everything would have been cool. Imagine my surprise when you walked into the shop, your gun in your hands, ready to shoot me. I thought you were just a customer.”
“The other guys who botched the robbery were trying to do the job without anyone being the wiser. You two weren’t wearing masks or attempting to disguise yourselves in any way. What did you plan to do with your one and only witness?” That was what really bothered Josh. He was certain they hadn’t planned to allow Brooke to live once she had told them what they wanted to know.
“I wasn’t going to shoot her, okay? Matson bragged to me so many times about how many people he’d offed, and no one ever was the wiser, so that
’s why I hired him. He was supposed to finish the job. Not me. I never killed nobody.”
That they knew of, Josh thought. Howie could have killed any number of people himself, but he’d never been charged with the crime.
“Did you meet with Daisy Fern?”
“No. She just called.”
“The area code for the phone number is Phoenix, Arizona,” Adam said.
“No shit.” Howie waved his hand at Adam. “I told you that was her number.”
Adam tried the number and frowned. “The number is no longer in service.”
“Hell, I can’t help that. You should have called the number sooner,” Howie said.
“How come no one tried to break into the shop again?” Josh figured someone would have tried before now, unless Daisy was afraid too many police were staking out Brooke’s home and shop.
Howie lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Take a wild guess,” Josh said.
“She called me, asked me what I learned, and I told her. That the shop owner didn’t have what Daisy was looking for. That it hadn’t come in yet. So maybe Daisy, or someone she hired, is waiting for the mail carrier to show up with more boxes.”
“So she has eyes on the shop?” Josh had wondered.
“I’m just guessing. All I know is I won’t be doing the job for her.”
“You don’t think Daisy will try to order a hit on you and Matson to tie up loose ends or because you botched the job?” Josh asked.
Howie frowned. “She’s not getting me.”
“You wanna bet? You think she would have let you live, had you retrieved the thumb drive for her?” Adam asked. “I’d sure watch your back.”
Howie rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the tabletop, then raised his head and slouched further against his chair. “I got burned the last time I did a job for someone because I didn’t know anything about who was hiring me. The guy turned out to be a liar and a thief. Almost got me killed. So I asked Pinky what they knew about the woman. He said Ackerson used to handle problem people for her. He knew her from way back, and she always paid good money to deal with the issue. I trusted them. Hell, can’t trust anyone in this business.”
“No honor among thieves,” Josh said.
Howie shook his head. “No kidding.”
“Ackerson and Pinky are from Phoenix,” Adam said. “So are you and Matson.”
“I coulda told you that.” Howie shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
“We’ll look into this and see about talking to the DA because you’ve been cooperating with us.” Josh would do anything to ensure this woman was caught so no harm would come to Brooke.
After Howie was removed from the interview room, Matson was brought in to interrogate. He had a longer face, his hair as shaggy as Howie’s but longer, and his eyes a pale-blue, just as narrowed.
“Your friend Howie said you were to be the hit man and kill the owner of the antique shop once you had the merchandise your boss hired you for,” Josh said, eager to get as much as they could out of Matson and then return to check on Brooke. He knew she was in good hands, but he still wanted to be there for her.
“That stinking, lying rat. He was going to kill her. I was just there as backup. I’ll kill him.”
“He said you’ve killed a ton of people already, and that’s why you were hired to do the job,” Josh said.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? You could be playing me.”
They let him listen to the part of the recording where Howie had said Matson was the hit man.
“Son of a… He’s the one who offed Mike Landers last year. Bragged about it in our cell even.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone about it?” Adam asked.
“I ain’t no stoolie, but all bets are off now.”
Adam was looking up the man’s name. “Mike Landers, killed by an armed assailant. Thought to have been the job of a hired hit man.”
“Right. Howie did it. He said a woman named Daisy Fern hired him to kill Mike because he was becoming a problem for her,” Matson said. “There were others too.”
So Howie had known Daisy beforehand.
“Who hired the two of you to get the thumb drive?” Josh asked.
“Howie called and asked me about doing the job. I don’t know the name of the person who hired him.”
So Howie had played Josh and Adam. “What did he tell you?”
“That a guy hired him to get a thumb drive. No big deal. And it was at an old antique shop. A woman owned it, and that was it. I didn’t hear about the other two guys trying to break in before us until after we were arrested. Some cop questioned me about knowing the other men. I didn’t know either of them. Just Howie.”
“Okay.” Josh wondered now if the woman Howie was calling Daisy Fern had really hired him for this job. Or maybe he was trying to disguise the fact that a woman had hired him, so he told Matson a guy had hired him.
They didn’t get any further with Matson and finally left.
“Let’s return to the house,” Josh told Adam.
“We’ll get whoever it is,” Adam said as they drove back to the shop.
Chapter 19
Josh and Adam arrived at the shop just as Brooke was getting ready to leave for the house, having finished what she’d wanted to do.
“Thanks so much for protecting me,” Brooke said, Josh and Adam echoing the sentiment, and then Brad and Maverick took off in their vehicles.
Before Brooke, Josh, and Adam left the shop to have dinner, Adam got a call and glanced at Josh. “Yeah. Sure. We can talk. Just come to Cerise’s Antique and Gift Shop. Yes, where you dropped off the reindeer. I’m here right now, and one of the owners of the reindeer ranch is here. He and the owner of the antique shop are both wolves, too, so you’ll be in good company. See you soon.” He ended the call and smiled at Brooke and Josh. “That was Lucas. He’s coming to talk to us.”
“He admitted to stealing the reindeer?” Brooke asked, surprised.
“No. But coming to see us about being wolves is a start. He might come clean about the reindeer. In any event, he needs to know about the pack. I finally got the security videos from two of the shops you hadn’t managed to check out yet, Josh. We got the license tag, but the vehicle had been stolen just down the street from the shop. Not totally surprising,” Adam said. “The pickup was abandoned at a mall. We checked the videos there and saw one of the men getting into the car and driving off. It was so far out in the parking lot that we couldn’t really see what he looked like. So that was a dead end, no fingerprints left behind. Just a lot of blood in the truck matching the dead robber’s blood.”
“We’ll find the other robber,” Josh said.
They had to. She just hoped it would be soon.
About twenty minutes later, a black truck parked in front of the shop. Lucas got out of the driver’s seat, shaggy black hair framing his tanned face, blue eyes glued to the entrance of the shop, hands shoved in his jeans pockets. He twisted his head, looking one way and then the other as if he was making sure no one saw him coming to a secret meeting of the wolves.
He reached the shop door, and Adam opened it. “Thanks for coming to see us. Believe me, we’re as surprised to learn about you as I’m sure you were to learn about us.”
“How many are there of you?” Lucas asked, his hands still shoved in his pockets, his shoulders slumped a little, as they locked the shop. He looked like he was in trouble with a pack of wolves.
“Thirty-one wolves in all,” Josh said. “We’re scattered around the area, but we all belong to the pack an hour south of here.”
Lucas’s eyes widened; then he smiled, the tension seeming to ease out of his posture.
“We’ll go to my house and talk. I just want to grab a couple of things.” Brooke figured Lucas would be more comfortable talking at
the house, and she could make dinner for them.
She returned to the office and picked up Josh’s sleigh bells and postcard and was about to leave the room when she glanced at the antique cabinet sitting against one of the walls. Her great-aunt had had that cabinet since Brooke was a child. A vague memory of finding a secret hiding place when she was about ten suddenly came to her.
Brooke set the sleigh bells and postcard down on the desk and ran her hands over the cabinet, trying to recall where the hidden compartment was. She opened a drawer, nothing. She pulled out the drawer, and up above it was a narrow shelf full of papers. They had to be something important, or her great-aunt wouldn’t have hidden them there.
Josh joined her in the office. “I worried about you. Is everything okay?”
She spread the papers out on the desk and smiled. “Yes! Here are the authentication papers on the Chinese vases, paintings, and other valuable items in the shop. They’re all for real! And”—she read over a handwritten sheaf of papers—“a list of where my great-aunt had ‘hidden’ her treasures.” Excited about the prospect of finding the other items, Brooke couldn’t wait to get started. “A note from her also to me.” That saddened her, making her wish she could have spent more time with her great-aunt before she died.
Brooke read the note out loud. “‘You were the daughter I always wished I’d had. The months you spent here with me in the shop during the summers were some of my fondest memories. You were always helping me with the shop, always so good with the customers, and well read on antiques.’” Brooke’s eyes filled with tears. They’d butted heads so much on how to set up shop in a better way that she hadn’t thought her great-aunt had appreciated all Brooke’s hard work.
“‘Your father and I didn’t always see eye to eye, which is why we didn’t live in the same place. But you were always my bright spot. Knowing how much you loved treasure hunts, I have left a list of treasures for you to find. It’s cryptic, should the list and this note find their way into the wrong hands. Many of the items are now truly valuable. I had no need to find buyers for them as I lived comfortably with what I made on the usual sales in the shop. Nor did I want to deal with selling them through auctions that would have cut into the profits too much. I know with your computer genius, you will find buyers through your own resources. Your dad said you were the one who always found the collectors who would pay top dollar. And I wanted this to be your legacy. I have every faith you will find the treasures and dispose of them and the proceeds in a way that will make you happy. Love you with all my heart, my little wolf. Love, Your Great-Aunt Ivy.’”