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.”
She laughed. “See? You are a collector in your own right. We’ve finished with the stuff from the boxes. Let’s look at the paintings.” She brought up a site that showed some of the items people had found in the trash, thrift stores, garage sales, and attics. “Here’s a painting that turned out to be an original oil painting by the Renaissance artist Caravaggio, collecting dust in an attic filled with clothing, toys, and clocks. Who would have known? A woman bought a faux diamond ring for thirteen dollars—and wore it for thirty years—but it turned out to be a 26-carat diamond worth over $800,000. I can’t imagine wearing something that valuable all those years,