Lie or Die: A Shelby Nichols Adventure

by Colleen Helme

  ***

  The next morning came too early. Chris was in the shower when I dragged myself out of bed. We hadn’t spoken much once we got home last night. Chris was exhausted, and I didn’t want to pester him with questions. I also didn’t want to let him in on my plans concerning Uncle Joey. He had enough to worry about with the trial.

  I called the hospital and talked to Gary’s wife for an update. She said he had awoken during the night, and was now sleeping peacefully. His injuries would keep him there for a few more days at least, maybe even a week.

  I whipped up some eggs and toast for Chris’ breakfast, and gave him the update while he ate. He finished up, in a hurry to leave and make sure all was ready for the day’s arguments.

  “Do you want me to come?” I asked.

  He stopped in his tracks, just now realizing what I meant. “I’ll have to think about it, but it might be a good idea. What are your plans for today?”

  “I was thinking of going back to Novelty Creations for a bit, but I could come if you needed me.” I hadn’t updated him with the progress of my case, or told him about the kidnapping. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d saved a little girl yesterday, but there wasn’t time now.

  “I’ll call you,” he said. He gave me a quick peck on the lips and turned to leave. “Oh, and thanks for breakfast!”

  The door shut on my response, which he wouldn’t have heard anyway. Oh well. Now it was time to get the kids off to school. Savannah came downstairs, eager to talk about booking our trip. Which of course, I hadn’t talked to Chris about either.

  “I’ll talk to dad at lunch,” I promised. “And we’ll book it tonight.” That seemed to do the trick, and she went to school happy and eager to tell all her friends. I didn’t have the heart to tell her to wait until we knew for sure. It made me a little bit angry, and I decided that I’d better make it a priority to talk to Chris about it today. All I really needed to do was check his schedule and make sure he was clear for the week we wanted to go. I could call his secretary and find out before I talked to him. That way, he wouldn’t have a reason to wait on a decision or say no.

  I got ready for the day, knowing I needed to look my best if I was going to court. Not only that, but I planned to pay Uncle Joey a visit to see if I could find out just exactly what he had to do with Webb Enterprises. I realized that I didn’t even know what they were on trial for. I should’ve asked Chris, but I was too busy thinking of other things. Although, it didn’t really matter, I just hoped they weren’t guilty.

  This time I wore some dark slacks with a short-sleeved white fitted blouse, and a gray vest. I had a fedora-style hat that matched, but I didn’t want to look like I worked for the mob, so I left it at home. My four-inch black pumps rounded off the outfit, and I looked hot.

  My first stop of the day was Novelty Creations. I found a parking place, and opened the door to go inside. The bell above the door jingled, and Emily came out of the back. “Hi,” I called to her. “Remember me?”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “The pink teddy. How can I help you today?”

  I closed the distance to the cash register where she was standing, and leaned against the counter like I had a secret to share. “Do you know anything about a shipment of underwear that the police confiscated as evidence to Keith’s guilt?”

  Her brows scrunched together, and surprise lit her eyes. “No. When did this happen?”

  “I think it was before your mother died, or right after. I don’t have an exact date. But when I talked to the police detective, he thought your mom’s lawyer may have picked them up from the evidence room shortly after she died.”

  “My mom’s lawyer?” Emily didn’t know what I was talking about. “I didn’t even know the police took a shipment, but there was so much going on at the time with her death, and Keith being arrested, it’s kind of a blur.”

  “Could we check the books?” I asked. “Maybe it would show up there.”

  “Probably, but why is this important? What does the shipment have to do with anything?”

  “Detective Williams thought the money might be hidden in the shipment. That’s why it was confiscated in the first place, but he didn’t find anything. He told me that your mother’s lawyer might have picked the shipment up, but when I went to the evidence room, no one had signed for it. I thought it was still there, but when I checked, it was gone. The person in charge of the evidence room thought it must have been returned to you, and someone forgot to have the paperwork signed. So that brings me back here, to see if you knew anything about it, and if your records would tell you what happened to the shipment.”

  She was confused. This was the first she’d heard about a confiscated shipment. And she couldn’t see her mother’s lawyer picking it up. What was going on? “I can check our records, but I don’t know if they will tell us much. As far as I know, everything I have balances out. Uncle Dean never told me anything, and I think he would have noticed a lost shipment.”

  The bell jingled, signaling another customer, and Emily pulled away. She frowned, thinking I wouldn’t be happy to see who had just walked in.

  “Morning ladies,” Rob Felt said. I sighed and turned around. Oh great! How was I going to get rid of him?

  Emily was wondering the same thing. “Can I help you?” she said.

  “No, just looking.” He made a show of examining the underwear on the closest table. He was thinking that he wasn’t about to leave while I was still there. He could look at underwear all day if he had to, anything to find out what I was so interested in.

  I turned back to Emily, and she shrugged. “I can let you look at the records on my computer, if you like,” she whispered. “I’ll stay here, and keep an eye on my customer.”

  “That would be great,” I said.

  “Let me just find the right place on the computer, and then you can go back.”

  I nodded, and she disappeared through the back door to the office. Waiting, I listened in on Felt’s thoughts. He didn’t hear what Emily said to me, but figured we were up to something so he came closer.

  Emily came back, and nodded to me. I hurried around the counter and into the office, shutting the door firmly behind me. Sitting at the desk, I studied the records on the screen. Once I figured out what I was looking at, it was easy to understand the system. The records were meticulously done. Emily had pulled up the shipments around the date of her mother’s death.

  I was especially interested in the ones Keith had signed for, going back a little further in the records to see if there was a pattern. Nothing was out of place, and there was no sign of a confiscated shipment anywhere. I scrolled down closer to the date of Keith’s arrest and found nothing missing. It didn’t make sense.

  I looked at the spreadsheet, and changed the window from shipments received to shipments sent. There were quite a few Internet orders listed here. Most were personal orders sent all over the country. Scrolling back to the time Keith worked there, I found more than one entry for shipments sent to the same address. Could this be it? I double-clicked on the shipment, and it brought up a purchase order. Under the company name it read Betty’s Bra Bar, with an address right here in the city.

  I’d never heard of them, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Could that be where the stolen money was shipped? I checked one more time, and counted three shipments sent to that address, all within a six-month time span. The last was right before Keith was arrested. My heart raced with excitement, and I eagerly wrote down the address, determined to find out.

  Emerging from the back, I found Emily following behind Felt, fixing the messes he made at each table. She was relieved to see me, and hurried around the back of the counter. “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “Not any missing shipments,” I whispered. “But I did find several shipments Keith sent to Betty’s Bra Bar. Have you ever heard of them?”

  Emily’s face turned red. “No…well…maybe.” She was thinking she’d heard the name before. Keith joked
that if he ever had his own store, that’s what he’d call it, but it didn’t exist. He’d just made it up. She was sure of it. “You have an address?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, keeping my voice low. Felt had inched closer while we talked, and was now less than three feet away. Probably close enough to hear what we were saying. I pulled Emily into the office, and closed the door. “I’m going to check it out. You want to come with me?”

  “Yes,” she said. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she grabbed her purse and keys. “It’s close enough to call this a lunch break, but you know, the nice thing about owning my own business is that I can take a break whenever I want.”

  “True,” I agreed. I liked her spunk. “But Felt will probably follow us.”

  “Not if I can help it,” she said with determination. “Stay here. I’ll get rid of him and lock up. We’ll go out the back and take my car. That should put him off long enough for us to make our escape.”

  “All right,” I said. She left the door ajar, and I heard her telling Felt that she was closing the store for lunch. He didn’t protest, just left in a hurry. I glanced around, looking for a back way out, and found a door that opened into a large room filled with plastic-covered inventory hanging on rolling racks and stacked on tables.

  “Is this the way out?” I asked Emily, motioning toward the double-doors where trucks unloaded merchandise.

  “One way, but not the way we’re going. Right down here…” she motioned ahead, “is a staircase that leads to the underground parking lot that connects with the hotel behind my store. We have parking privileges since we were here first.”

  “Ah-hah.” I chuckled. “Now I understand how we’re going to lose Felt.”

  She smiled, and I followed her down the stairs to a door that opened into the parking garage. “My own private door,” she said, holding up her key. “And the key to let me back in.”

  She led the way to a little red car parked nearby and unlocked the doors. We settled inside, and I told her the address. “It looks like it’s across town on the west side close to Spring Hill. Do you know this area?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “Keith moved around a lot, so maybe he lived there. But even then, he’s been gone for over a year, so I can’t imagine anything of his still being there.”

  “True,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean the money couldn’t be hidden there somewhere.”

  She nodded, thinking how awesome it would be to find all that money. Of course, she couldn’t keep any of it, but still…maybe there was a reward? She glanced at me, thinking she’d have to share it, but half was better than nothing. How much money would she get?

  I tuned her out. Thinking about getting a lot of money for nothing, and what you could do with it, was never a good thing. I had five million dollars once, and all it ever brought me was trouble and a couple of near-death experiences. Just thinking about it gave me the shivers.

  We turned the corner onto a street with lots of little shops and fast food joints. “It should be right in there,” I said. And there it was, Betty’s Bra Bar. I could hardly believe it was real. The tiny storefront featured a small window with Betty’s Bra Bar painted across the top and showing bras strapped around torso mannequins. “It’s really here,” I said with surprise. “I thought for sure it would be bogus.”

  “Me too,” Emily said. She was thinking the layout looked a lot like her store, and it was making her mad. Had Keith set up a store just like hers, using her inventory? This was outrageous!

  “I don’t think it’s as nice as your store,” I said. “And it looks pretty small too. Plus, they probably just sell bras.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” She sniffed. She was eager to go inside and see who was running the place. The parking to all the shops was in the back, and we found a place by some dumpsters.

  “Before we go in, we need a game plan,” I cautioned. “We should pretend we’re customers, and we’re checking the place out. Let’s not give ourselves away, or have any confrontations. Okay?”

  “Sure,” she agreed, eager to proceed.

  We went inside to the familiar sound of a bell jingling over our heads. A pretty woman with dark hair and eyes came out from the back. “Hi. Can I help you?” she asked.

  “We were just driving by and noticed your store,” I answered. “We thought we’d come inside, and take a look at what you’ve got.”

  “Well, take your time. The tables and racks have all the sizes you’d need.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She smiled, and rearranged the papers and pencils on the counter. She hadn’t been expecting her client for another half hour, and was relieved that we were real customers. She hoped one of us would buy something. It made things more legitimate that way. “That table in the middle is fifty percent off today and tomorrow,” she called, acting on impulse. “It’s a great bargain if you find something you like.”

  I smiled, and moved to the middle table to check it out. There were some pretty nice things here, and at fifty percent off, I could get a good bra for less than fifteen dollars. When I found the push-up bras, I knew I’d hit the jackpot. These looked like the bras that sold for fifty dollars at another store.

  I picked a couple of them up, and took them back to the counter. “Do you have a fitting room where I can try these on?”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “Right over here.” She ushered me to a small room in the back corner, and I hurried inside. A twinge of guilt went through me as I caught the thought from Emily that I was a turncoat, but her thoughts ended when I shut the door. Oops, probably not the best move on my part.

  I tried them on as fast as I could, worrying what Emily might do or say without me there. I came out of the room, barely put together, and found things just as I left them. The proprietor was still standing behind the counter, and Emily was looking through the racks.

  “How did those work for you?” the woman asked.

  “Good…really good,” I said. “They fit perfectly. I’ll take them.”

  She smiled, hoping she’d made a customer out of me. At the same time, she shouldn’t be selling her inventory so cheap. But it was worth it for a sale. She could easily fix the books to look like I paid the proper amount, and supplement it with the earnings from her real job.

  She swiped my credit card, and I signed the receipt while she bagged my bras. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Emily. What was she doing? I glanced over my shoulder to find Emily with nearly the whole table of bras in her arms. She had done the math, and knew that buying these bras at fifty percent off was better than the cost she could get from her supplier. If this lady was stupid enough to sell them for that price, she wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to dish out some serious pain to her competitor.

  “I’ll take all of them,” Emily said, dropping them on the counter.

  “Oh…I’m so sorry,” the owner responded. “I forgot to tell you the deal is limited to three bras per customer. I hope you understand.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Emily sighed with defeat. She knew it was too good to be true. What was this lady up to? “Since she bought two, I’ll buy four. That should even it out.” She smiled, but her eyes held a challenge in them.

  “Sure,” the lady nodded. Maybe her little ploy had been too overboard. She should have said they were only twenty-five percent off. Since she priced them low to begin with, she was now stuck with selling six bras that she had to make up the money for. Good thing she had plenty to cover it. She didn’t know how anybody could make it in this business.

  Glad we were done, she rang up Emily’s purchases. Her client would be there any minute, and it was always best not to have any witnesses. Emily took her purchases, and we walked to the door. “Thanks for coming in,” the woman said with a cheerful wave.

  “That was weird,” Emily said. “She won’t make any money selling her stuff that cheap. I wonder what’s really going on.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “Let’s drive around the block and pa
rk across the street for a minute. I want to see who her next client is.”

  “What next client?” Emily asked.

  Oops. “I just want to see if she has more clients, and if no one comes after a few minutes, we can go.”

  “Okay,” Emily sighed, thinking I was kind of odd. It was like I was making things up just to stick around. “But only for a few minutes. I have to get back to my store.”

  After she parked across the street, we sat quietly. “So…did any of those bras look like they came from your inventory?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But they looked like knock-offs from Victoria’s Secret. Either that, or the real thing. I don’t know how she does it, unless they were stolen or something.”

  “Look,” I said, motioning toward the store. “Someone’s going in.”

  A man dressed in jeans with a jacket, baseball cap, and dark glasses rounded the corner from the parking lot, and entered the store. A minute later the shop owner glanced out the window, and turned the open sign to closed.

  “I don’t know what she’s doing,” Emily said. “But it’s not selling bras.”

  What if her store were a front for something else? That might explain the reason she wanted to sell some bras to us. But what did she do? I could imagine all kinds of things, but I wouldn’t know for sure unless I got close enough to hear the thoughts of that guy who’d gone in.

  “We’d better get back,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but I intend to find out.”

  “When you do, will you let me know?” Emily asked. “It’s got to be related to Keith somehow. And I’d like to know what’s going on.”

  “Sure, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

  We got back to her store in less than ten minutes, and I was hoping I could make it back to the shop before the man left. I figured that if I stood in front of one of the shops beside Betty’s Bra Bar, I could follow him to the parking lot and hear his thoughts. He could get in his car, and I could get in mine. It should work as long as he didn’t suspect me of following him.