her arms across her waist, head tilted to the side, looking very much like when he’d first met her and was questioning her about Jingles. Josh smiled at her and gave her a hug.
Then he and Adam reviewed the security video from the bakery. “That’s the guy I saw running away from the shop,” Josh said. “The woman confirmed that one of her henchman saw the murdered Mr. Lee hide the drive in one of the boxes. Since the other Mr. Lee sent them to you, we need to learn what his involvement is in all this. Do you have the business card from him, Brooke?”
“I kept it with me, planning to call him again when I thought about it.” Brooke handed Josh the card.
“I’ll use your phone in case he’ll answer a call from you.”
“Sure.” Brooke handed her phone to Josh, and he called the number.
“Ms. Cerise,” Mr. Lee said.
Josh was a little surprised when he got an answer, since Brooke’s calls to Mr. Lee hadn’t reached him.
“This is her mate, Josh Wilding, a police detective with the local police bureau. She says you’re a wolf and someone she trusts, but I need to know what the hell is going on. You told her that her great-aunt had been involved with someone shady in Colombia. Then Brooke gets a delivery of clay sculptures filled with cocaine.”
“Cocaine?” Mr. Lee sounded surprised.
“How did you know about it? Are you the one responsible for it?”
“A rogue wolf? No. I’m with the FBI, but I had been working undercover on this one. I learned about the cocaine shipment from my brother and diverted it, and we confiscated it.”
“Well, apparently, not all of it.” Josh was really irritated with the FBI over that.
“Is Brooke all right?”
“Hell no. Now we’ve got armed men looking for some thumb drive a Mr. Lee hid in one of the boxes you gave her. But we’ve discovered Mr. Lee was murdered before the auction.”
There was a long pause.
“The boxes,” Mr. Lee said.
“Hell yeah, the boxes,” Josh said.
“The boxes haven’t arrived yet at the shop?” Mr. Lee asked.
“Two of them finally did, but a man grabbed them and took off with them, then dumped the boxes on the side of the road. We have reason to believe the thumb drive wasn’t in those two boxes. The other three boxes haven’t come yet, but I suspect they’ll be here any day. What about the woman who was berating you at the auction?”
“Daisy Gulliver. She’s at the root of all this.”
“So who are you really? Brooke was shot twice already over this business with the thumb drive.”
“She’s all right, isn’t she?” Mr. Lee sounded shaken up.
“Luckily. What the hell is going on? Did you even know her family? The cashier wasn’t even the cashier. The sales of the statues never went through.”
“Listen, I’m on my way to catch a plane out to Portland. I’m in Eugene right now about another case I was wrapping up. It’ll take me about an hour to reach your location. Just for your information, the Mr. Lee who was murdered was my identical twin brother. He was Mr. Gulliver’s assistant, but he began learning about all the illegal stuff Gulliver was involved in. Murder, cocaine smuggling, you name it. I told my brother to quit the job, but he said it was too late. He knew too much. Through spy cameras, he was videotaping what was going on—some of the drug sales, including the cocaine shipment that was supposed to go to the antique store, some of the murders. My brother had the run of the mansion, and no one suspected him of anything.”
“Yet he was murdered,” Josh reminded him.
“I guess I should say until the end. I didn’t know he had been murdered. Not until the day of the auction when he didn’t show up. I was worried about him, but no amount of telling him to leave this business to law-enforcement agencies made an impact. Yes, I knew Brooke’s family. My brother had sent her the invitation to come get the boxes of stuff for free and the wolf statues at a huge discount, but only for her. Gulliver was dead, and my brother was leaving the estate to move in with our sister. Though I suspect he would have ended up in the Witness Protection Program once the details of what went on came out. He was supposed to hand over the thumb drive to me at the auction. I had no idea he