1
Teagan froze, her mind locked with choices, her heart racing.
She couldn’t make a mistake. Just couldn’t. The wrong move could cripple the family business her father and uncle had started.
Perhaps destroy it.
“Ms. Steele,” the solid male voice of Patrick, one of Steele Guardians’ best guards, came through the phone.
“Sorry.” She paced through her office and stopped at her desk. “I need more information before I decide how to handle this. Run through the situation again. Don’t leave any details out.”
He let out a frustrated breath. “I was in the lobby of World of Crafts monitoring the live security feeds for the building. The main warehouse feed flickered. It was the area in the back where the owners’ office and private entrance is located. So I investigated.”
She stared at the glow her lamp cast across her sparkling glass desk. “You went into the warehouse?”
“Yes. Made my way to the back. That’s when I saw four men standing next to a large shipping crate. Since I’m subbing for the regular guard who’s at training this week, I’ve never met the owners, but figured that explained the ID of three of the men.”
“The three Conti brothers own the company so that makes sense.”
“Still, I hung back to watch. They took a bunch of boxes labeled glitter out of the crate. Then one of them lifted out padded packages from the bottom. The items he opened looked old. Way old. And this guy handled everything very carefully. I figure it’s ancient artifacts or something like that. They got super excited. Spoke in a foreign language. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.”
“Likely Italian.” She thought about the Italian-American owners as she turned to face the window overlooking their parking lot. She’d known the Contis for years. Honest. Hard-working men.
Or so she’d thought.
Could they be involved in something illegal?
She had to learn more. Delve deeper. “Artifacts, like what?”
“A couple of sculptures and something decorative that looked like it would be mounted on the outside of a building.”
“How could you tell they were ancient?” she asked, pausing at the window to look over the night sky.
“I don’t know. They just looked old. Figured you would know what was going on and should call you before I barged in on the owners and made them mad. But before I could make the call, one guy stayed behind to pack up the crate again and the others came my way. I hightailed it back to the security booth and relaxed so they didn’t have any idea I’d seen them. You know. Just in case.”
Interesting to say the least. “Did they come through the lobby?”
“No. So I checked warehouse video to see what was going on.”
“Were their faces captured on it?”
“No, and that was odd too. I played it back and it wasn’t the live action I witnessed. Just a boring feed of the area. No people at all. They had to have looped in an old feed to cover their actions. Only thing that makes sense and explains the flicker.”
Even more interesting. Bordering on intrigue. “And you’re sure you didn’t recognize them?”
“Never seen them before.”
She had to know who was in the warehouse before making a decision. “The owners’ pictures are on their website. Check it now and see if it’s the men you saw.”
“Hold on.”
She resumed pacing, getting more frantic with each step, her mind racing.
World of Crafts had sixty stores in the Pacific Northwest and ran a very lucrative online supply business. The brothers were eccentric at times, but she’d always found them trustworthy. Maybe she was simply overreacting, her former detective roots begging to be reactivated.
Seriously, Teagan. You are letting your imagination go wild.
Why suspect them of dealing in illegal goods?
