Joy to the Wolves (Red Wolf #1) - Terry Spear Page 0,73

leaning against her counter. His unwashed body odor nearly made her gag. It was bad enough that probably any human could smell him, but for a wolf, the scent was really bad.

“All over. Did you need something in particular?” She desperately wanted to call Josh.

The guy gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Five boxes from an estate sale? A thumb drive, really. You know a Mr. Lee, don’t you?”

Her skin suddenly prickled with unease. Were these guys in cahoots with the others who had broken into her shop?

She was trying to keep her voice steady and pretend she wasn’t worried about why they were here. What had Mr. Lee gotten her involved in?

“I have boxes I haven’t even had time to sort through yet.”

“From Gulliver’s estate,” the blond said as if she were confused.

Mr. Lee had encouraged her to take the boxes. If there was a thumb drive in one of them, what did it have on it that would be worth sending all these goons for, presuming the previous robbers had wanted the same thing?

“Mr. Lee said we could have the boxes. We paid for them,” the guy said.

She didn’t believe him.

“It was mostly just junk, but our aunt has an antique store, and the price was so reasonable for the boxes of stuff that she wanted us to get them for her. We put the thumb drive in one of the boxes and planned to haul them off to the pickup truck. But we needed to move it closer to where they were located. When we returned for them, they were gone.”

At least now Brooke knew what the men wanted, but she hadn’t received anything from the estate yet but the wolf statues. Would they even believe her if she said the other merchandise hadn’t arrived? If so, they’d already revealed who they were and what they wanted, so she was afraid she wasn’t going to get out of this situation unscathed.

The other man approached the counter and propped his arms on it. As soon as he did, she saw the grip of a gun in a shoulder holster underneath his jacket. “We need to see the boxes.”

“I just moved here, and I’ve got stacks of boxes all over.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was three o’clock, but Josh would probably need until closing to finish all the investigating he needed to do.

“Come on. You’ve got to have some idea where the boxes are,” the darker-haired man said.

“Look it up on your computer,” the other guy said.

She woke up her computer and desperately wanted to email Josh, but she didn’t even know his email address! She wasn’t sure what to do, but her first idea was to stall them.

Her cell phone was on the counter and so was her shop phone, neither of which she could use to call for help. The heavy cast-iron skillet was sitting on the counter, the price tag on it. If she had to, she could use it as a weapon. But there were two men, not just one. The other would eliminate her next if she managed to take out the first one with the frying pan.

At least one of the men was armed. She suspected the other one was too. She needed to bluff her way through this. Worried they would kill her if she said she knew where the boxes they wanted were and then they weren’t there, she had to prolong the pretense that she was looking for them. What if she told them the boxes hadn’t come in yet? Would they hold her hostage until they arrived?

If these guys were in league with the other two men who had shot her, at least she knew they weren’t after anything her great-aunt had owned. Like the Chinese vases that could be worth millions.

“Well?” the darker-haired guy asked.

Thank God neither had moved around the counter to see what she was doing on the laptop. She knew she wouldn’t have a prayer to crack one in the skull with the frying pan if one or both of them joined her.

“I’m looking through all the deliveries. They’re not listed by estate sale. I had to look up when the estate sale took place and then try to search the records showing deliveries made from Phoenix. I actually purchased stuff from three different estate sales there that month”—she lied, hoping that would give her more precious time to come up with a plan to get herself out of this—“and sometimes