Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,53

people in the store at the same time she didn’t have a way to really watch what was going on. Most of her pieces were behind glass inside a locked case, but a few of the broaches were out on display by the cash register. It was her idea to have the last minute purchase sale because while she was getting ready to ring up their item they would be forced to see a beautiful, delicate and oh so fabulously wonderful broach that would be the perfect addition to their purchase. She had learned the trick when she worked for a jewelry store part-time while she was in high school. It worked about sixty percent of the time. Usually, she could keep watch on things and monitor what was going on in her store, but that day she just didn’t have time. She found herself running from one corner to the next trying to honor the, “show me this, show me that,” requests that kept coming at her. A lot of people bought items, and some, as she would call them, were wish book shoppers—the kind of people who looked through the catalog but knew they weren’t going to purchase anything. She had some of the wish book mentality shoppers come into her store usually a few times a week where they had no intention to buy anything, but they wanted to hold the pieces in their hand to see how they would look if they had actually bought them. Sometimes it was more about a pass time activity than an actual desire to shop.

Sometimes she hated dealing with the people who bugged her just so they could have something to do with their day, and other times it didn’t bother her as much. There was one guy, Lars is what he said his name was; he came into her store at least twice a month looking without the intent to buy. He was young, maybe in his twenties, and he always expected her to show him what was new. It’s like he came out on the days when he knew there would be new products, which was usually a twice a month thing for her. “If I were going to buy something for my girlfriend,” he would say; “which piece would you choose?” She resisted the urge to laugh because she didn’t know why she should be the one choosing since it was his girlfriend, but after about the fourth time of him coming into her store and doing the same routine she figured there wasn’t a girlfriend and he wasn’t planning to buy. He made her laugh most times, but yesterday was not one of those days where she wanted to have to deal with his, “show me everything,” persona. He could, and would, literally spend a good forty minutes just walking around her store. She was too busy yesterday to give him the attention he wanted. Fortunately he hadn’t pitched a fit like some people had.

Lars had been on time with his bi-weekly visit, but she hadn’t been on time with stocking the store. She had been busy with other things the previous night and so her usual get up early and take the new pieces down routine wasn’t in the cards. Instead, she had to do it this morning. It was also garbage day so she had to take care of that too. If the morning was starting off this hectic she wondered what it would be like once she actually opened. Shane was going to come in a little early with his friend so she could meet him. She wasn’t sure what Leo was going to do after that because Shane had assured her he was staying at work the entire day even though she had given him the time off should he want to use it. After yesterday maybe he thought twice about taking the time she was offering him free and clear.

Thanks to Shane she didn’t lose a sixty dollar piece of jewelry. It was only sixty dollars, but in her book, sixty dollars was sixty dollars and she didn’t want to lose any of her pieces. He, Mr. Shane Maxwell security extraordinaire, had come out of the security room; something he didn’t do often during the day, and he said, “you’re going to pay for that right;” in such a loud voice that all activity in the store came to immediate cessation. If he hadn’t caught it, a rather not-so-honest leggy blond