Chapter 2
Sheri stirred awake, realized she was flying back to Ely with Slade, and couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep on the flight home. Poor Slade. She’d meant to visit with him on the return trip, hoping she’d keep him entertained. Ugh, she was a boring companion. “Hey, sorry about that.”
“No need to be.” He smiled at her. “I know you’ve been putting in long hours at the investigative agency. More than I’ve been putting in at my job lately. You deserve it.”
“Well, I normally can’t sleep on planes. But your ride was so smooth, I must have zoned right out. Did I snore?”
He chuckled. “No.”
“I meant to keep you company.”
“You did. The trip there, dinner with you, and the trip back was enjoyable. It would have been boring for me if you hadn’t come with me. So did you learn what had actually happened to Gerard Connolly when he had gone missing?”
“Oh, no, Betty sure didn’t tell me a thing. She was in a rush to leave after she paid her bill.”
“You had checked everywhere for him before he showed up at home, right?”
“Yeah, he hadn’t been in a hospital, hadn’t been treated at any medical clinic, hadn’t been at any morgue, or in any jail. He hadn’t been in contact with his wife or any of his relatives or friends. His flight plan had been on file, but he hadn’t followed it. The police were still searching for him, but they hadn’t found any sign of him either. So where was he for the last two weeks?”
“That’s the mystery. Seeing a girlfriend? A different clandestine meeting? Gambling?”
“Exactly. At least he’s okay. I’m glad he’s home and that I could do this with you. I’ll see what else I need to do in the morning at the office, but later in the afternoon, I’ll be helping everyone to set up our PI office Christmas party.”
“I look forward to it.”
She did too. It was the first Christmas that she and her parents and brother would spend as part of the white wolf pack of Ely, and they were excited about being with this group that was so positive and uplifting. Everyone in the pack seemed like family. It was such a change from their old one in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada.
“I talked to your parents and mine about us all having Christmas Eve dinner together. They are excited about it.”
“Oh, that will be really nice.” She was surprised that he had. Even though he liked her parents and brother too, she thought there was more of a reason for Slade asking their parents to have the special dinner together. She’d been hinting about mating, but Slade hadn’t been biting. She figured he still liked being a bachelor wolf. Or maybe he was afraid she wasn’t over her ex-boyfriend in Yellowknife, but she had gotten over him a long time ago. Her problem had been in getting Bentley to recognize that she was finished with him. It hadn’t helped that her parents had thought they were a good match and had believed she should have mated him.
At least now her parents and Hans seemed to be glad it was truly over between her and Bentley. Which was a good thing because she wasn’t changing her mind about the wolf. He’d been way too controlling. She hadn’t even realized it at times because she’d been so used to it, but her mom and dad weren’t like that, so she knew that it hadn’t been a healthy relationship. With Slade? Totally different and she loved him for it.
She figured Slade had wanted to take her out on a special date tonight because tomorrow night was the PIs’ Christmas office party and the day after that, Slade was going with Sheri’s brother to stay at a cabin in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for a week. She and Slade wouldn’t have a chance to see each other alone for all that time. The cabin was remote and there wouldn’t be any internet or cell phone service.
They finally arrived at the airport at home, and Slade drove her to the office where her car was still parked. Everyone had gone home, and Slade kissed her goodbye. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the party. Thanks again for coming with me. I appreciated your company.”
“Oh, I had a ball. Dinner was delicious and seeing the dogs go to a new family was really rewarding.”
“I agree. They have a super family to take care of them now.”
“Absolutely.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. She wanted to tell him she would miss him while he was gone with her brother, but she didn’t want to sound clingy. “Okay, see you tomorrow at the party.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Then they had one last, long parting kiss, and both drove off in their respective vehicles. It had been a feel-good night. When Slade got back from his vacation with her brother, she was going to tell him that he was hers. No more holding off, no more waiting for him to ask. She was going to let him know he was the only one for her. She just hoped he was feeling the same about mating her as she was about mating him!
He called her on the way home and she laughed. “Miss me already?”
He chuckled. “I just want to remind you that we have a dinner date when I return from camping with your brother.”
“Yes. It’s on my calendar.” But she was certain he wouldn’t expect her to propose to him then. Maybe he planned to propose to her ! Finally.
“Okay, night, Sheri.”
“Night, Slade.” She arrived at home and unlocked her apartment door. Then she wondered what they would do about their living arrangements. Move into one apartment or the other? Or build a home? Her dad built houses and that’s what she wanted. She and Slade had to really start talking about these things too. Kids, finances, all that stuff. At least with their families, they all lived here, and they got along famously.
***
The next day, Sheri was at the office, working on a couple of store burglary cases where the insurance companies wanted to make sure they hadn’t been staged by the owners. One claimed that a whole shipment of computer equipment had never shown up, though someone had marked it as delivered. Since both thefts involved electronics, she suspected someone was stealing them.
After reviewing security footage for both stores, she suspected the jobs had been accomplished by employees. The day the merchandise went missing, the security cameras hadn’t been working in either store. She didn’t believe one person would work at both stores, though she did verify employee lists. She also checked to see if anyone had been fired around that time. No to that too. Then she ran background checks on the employees to make sure none of them had police records. None of them had, except for a younger man who had run up a couple traffic violations.
“Any luck on your insurance case?” Cameron asked, sporting a Grinch Christmas tie. She wondered if Faith had given it to him.
“Uh, no. I’ve been checking all the things I should.”
“Okay, good.” Cameron had given her the job this morning, increasing her responsibilities a case at a time because she was a new private investigator. She was glad the guys were so good with helping her and Elizabeth through the process of working cases, showing them the steps they went through to resolve them, though every case was different. Sheri and Elizabeth loved their jobs and working with their PI partners.
Next, she learned the trucking company that carried the merchandise actually had the shipments for both stores on the same manifest. Okay, so now that sounded like way too much of a coincidence. “What about the delivery truck driver?” Sheri asked the dispatcher.
“No one drove that truck,” the dispatcher said.
“What? The truck just left the warehouse on its own?”
“Let me back up a bit. The truck wasn’t driven by one of our guys. Someone dressed in one of our delivery uniforms showed up and had the truck filled up, then took off. No one even realized he wasn’t one of our guys, and it took a couple of days to figure out the driver had stolen the truck.”
“Oh, wow, okay. So you’ve reported it to the police?”
“Yeah, right away, but no one has found any sign of the truck or the merchandise.”
“Can you identify the fake driver on your security video?”
“He was wearing a parka over his uniform, which makes sense because of how cold it was. Gloves too, and a hood so we couldn’t see his face. It was as if he knew just where the security cameras were and how to avoid them. And he knew just which merchandise to take,” the dispatcher said.
“Can I see the video?”
“Yeah, if you can help us or the police identify the guy and get our truck and merchandise back, we would be grateful.”
“I’ll be right over.” Sheri told Cameron and Owen she was checking with the delivery company about the insurance case, and they both waved at her as they were taking calls about their own cases. They all told each other where they were going on their cases in the event anyone got into trouble. She loved how they all worked together on the investigations and watched out for one another’s well-being.
When she arrived at the warehouse, she went in to speak with the dispatcher in her office. “Hi, I’m Sheri Whitmore and I talked to you on the phone about the missing delivery truck?”
“Yeah, the private eye. Come in and have some hot chocolate.” The woman was gray-haired and wearing reindeer antlers with jingle bells on them. A spindly Grinch tree covered in little Christmas present ornaments and lights sat on the corner of her desk. “I sure hope you can help us find that truck. We really need it for deliveries, with the high volume we have for Christmas.”
“The police have had no luck in the case?” Sheri asked.
“No. They’ve been overwhelmed with other thefts.”
“Okay, I’ll certainly look into it.” Sheri then watched the warehouse’s security video with the dispatcher while she wasn’t busy. In the security-store feeds, there hadn’t been anyone who looked overly interested in the electronics, other than customers, and most had walked out of the store carrying their purchases. The guy who stole the truck had covered himself up enough that she couldn’t see his face the whole time he was getting the truck loaded and then climbing into the cab and driving off.
She couldn’t tell if one of the store employees had helped to steal merchandise from the two stores.
“Do you have security video of the area beyond the building?” Sheri asked on a hunch.
“Yes, on the fences overlooking the entrance just in case someone came in after hours and tried to steal from us.” Then the dispatcher pulled up the security video.
Sheri watched that and said, “There! He came in from outside the facility on foot. So he probably parked up the street from there.”
“There are a couple of gas stations and a beauty salon in that direction. You could see if they have security videos that might have recorded where he went to and where he’d come from.”
Sheri thanked her. “I’ll let you know if I have any news.”
“Thanks. I’m so glad to meet you and hope you learn what had happened to everything.”
“Merry Christmas,” Sheri said to the dispatcher.
“Merry Christmas,” the woman said.
Then Sheri left to see if she could ask the businesses along the route that the delivery truck took if they had security videos that she could see. At the first service station, the manager allowed her to watch the outside security video for the day in question. A blond man was wearing the parka and delivery uniform the dispatcher and Sheri had seen in the video at the warehouse. He’d gotten out of a green Jeep Grand Wagoneer, but she couldn’t see the license plate number. However, at least she knew he was blond and he drove a Jeep.
She continued to fast-forward through the video until four hours later on the security tape when a red pickup pulled into the service station. The blond guy got out of the red Ford pickup and walked straight to the Jeep, got in, and the two vehicles took off. Again, she couldn’t see license plates, and she couldn’t see what the other driver looked like in the red pickup, but it confirmed there was more than one person involved in the theft.
“I don’t recognize either of the drivers.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll let you know if I discover anything further.” Then Sheri drove down the road until she reached the last business on the street in the direction the two vehicles had driven, but at the crossroad, she wondered which way they’d gone. So, she stopped at the beauty salon to watch their security footage. The video showed they’d continued straight. But she would have to go to several businesses to see just where the vehicles continued to go, and she didn’t think she’d ever locate them that way unless she got a license plate number. For now, she needed to return home and get ready for the Christmas party.
She sure wished she could have gotten somewhere with the case she was working on, but it could take weeks, even months, to solve the mystery.
As soon as she arrived back at her apartment, she began changing into her Christmas sweater featuring an Arctic wolf in a Santa hat nuzzling another, a red skirt, and dress boots.
Then she put on her parka and hat, grabbed all her ingredients to make homemade wassail, and drove over to the office. When she reached the office building, she went inside, hung up her parka and hat, and said to Owen, who was in the middle of getting some papers printed off, “If you guys don’t need me for anything, I’m heading downstairs to make the wassail.”
“Go ahead. Everyone will join you shortly,” Owen said. “See you downstairs.” Then he got on the phone to call someone.
Sheri headed down the stairs where Christmas songs were playing in the background. She began to prep all the ingredients for the wassail. Once she had the wassail on the stovetop, she pulled out the cheese, beef, and chicken slider ingredients so the guys could make them. But the wassail began to boil over, sizzling on the hot stove. “Oh no, oh no!”
Just then, Slade came down the stairs, carrying a couple of loaves of french bread, and smiled broadly at Sheri. His blue eyes sparkled with good humor, dimples appearing in his cheeks, showing just how much he was amused. She loved his dimples.
She really hadn’t wanted him to see her making such a mess of it. She thought of herself as organized and efficient, not prone to disasters.
“Do you need some help?” Slade asked. “It appears you have a lot going on.” He kissed her cheek, then took over cleaning up the spilled wassail while she moved the pot to the back burner.
“Thanks.” She totally appreciated a man who could help out during a minor kitchen crisis.
The whole basement of the PI office building was decorated for Christmas, just like their lobby and offices upstairs were. A large Christmas tree had been decorated by everyone in the pack, from Cameron and Faith’s kids’ papier-maché snowmen, to strings of popcorn, bows, and Arctic wolf ornaments. Underneath the tree were all the white-elephant gifts for the exchange and prizes for the games they would be playing. A warm fire crackled in the hearth, the mantel covered in greenery, Christmas lights, and snowmen.
The basement was set up as guest quarters with a bathroom and a kitchen and a large living area that they used for parties during inclement weather. Since the original pack members were not born as wolves but had been turned by Sheri’s former Arctic wolf pack, they had issues shifting into wolf form during the full moon and couldn’t shift during the new moon. If they had any trouble while at work, they would just slip down to the guest quarters until they could get their shifting under control. Sheri and her parents and brother, Hans, were royal wolves, meaning they were born as lupus garous from a long line of shifters, so they didn’t have any issues with the phases of the moon. The same was true of Elizabeth, Slade, and his sister and their parents—all royals, which meant they tried to hold down the fort when the other wolves had shifting issues.
“Where is everybody? I thought there would be more of us down here helping to set up the food for the Christmas party already,” Slade said.
“Who needs them when we’re here?”
“True.”
“I’m sure everyone will be here soon.” She was happy to be spending Christmas with her family and the white wolf pack led by Cameron and Faith. They’d moved here in June and every holiday spent with the wolf pack was new and special. Even Thanksgiving had been a whole-pack affair. She loved it. Being here was so different from being in Kintail’s pack back home in Yellowknife where they didn’t have fun gatherings as a pack like this.
But Christmas here was a family affair, and then the whole pack would get a wolf run in to enjoy Christmas night.
Faith had already brought fruit and cheese and set the platters on the grazing tables, then returned to the house to get the kids ready to join the party. Sheri’s best friend, Elizabeth Davis, had left her own special Swedish meatballs earlier for Sheri to warm up when the wassail—filled with apple cider, apples, cinnamon, cloves, lemon, ginger, nutmeg, and oranges—began to boil over.
Then Elizabeth came down the stairs with her mate, David. “Something smells like hot apple cider—delightful,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s the wassail. Help yourself to some. We just need to drain the whole cloves and apples and it will be ready to serve up,” Sheri said.
Elizabeth had grown up with Sheri in Yellowknife. Sheri couldn’t believe that Elizabeth and David had a set of twins coming in June. Well, she could believe it as far as how much the two of them loved each other. She was just so surprised that they had gotten pregnant so fast once Elizabeth had moved here to join David. Sheri’s mother, Georgia, was a midwife and she would deliver Elizabeth’s and David’s twins, but she had also delivered Gavin’s and Candice’s two weeks ago.
Amelia joined them, bringing one of her twins in his carrier. “Hmm, something smells great.”
“It’s the wassail,” Elizabeth said. “Sheri makes the best homemade variety.”
Sheri glanced in the carrier at the sleeping baby boy.
“I just nursed them. Luckily, they’re used to people talking and making noise and will sleep right through it,” Elizabeth said.
“That’s good.” Sheri hoped when she had some of her own, they would be just as easy to take care of.
Then Faith and Cameron came downstairs with their six-year-old triplets. “I’m going to get the cookies started so everyone who wants to decorate them can do so after we eat dinner,” Faith said.
“Gavin’s finishing up a call upstairs and joining me so he and I can make the sliders,” Cameron said.
Owen Nottingham joined them with his mate, Candice, the author of the bunch, bringing pecan-coated cheese balls with them. Gavin Summerfield arrived with bottled water and sodas.
“Is the office closed now?” Sheri asked.
“It sure is,” Cameron said. “Of course, if anyone has an emergency, we’ll deal with it, but it’s time to party.”
Shortly after that, Slade and Amelia’s parents, Henry and Lolita, arrived and they were followed by Sheri’s brother, Hans, and their parents, Georgia and Fred.
Henry had brought fruit mince tarts, Lolita, mini-Christmas cakes, and Fred was bearing bottles of pink champagne for later. Hans carried a container of his favorite eggnog. Georgia was carrying Amelia and Gavin’s younger twin in his carrier. Faith brought the cookies out of the oven for everyone to decorate later after they cooled down and they’d eaten their meal.
“Let’s eat,” Cameron said. “The sliders are ready.”
Then everyone grabbed plates and began filling them with food. They sat on chairs and couches, some at the dining room table that they also used for PI staff meetings.
“So what are some of the exciting cases that you’re working on?” Candice asked.
Sheri had figured no one who wasn’t one of the PIs would be interested in their ongoing cases, but she swore Candice was using them to write snippets of conflict in her fiction books. Everyone else was just as intrigued to learn about the cases too.
“I just wrapped up a case of jewelry stolen from a house—a supposed break-in and robbery. It turns out the owner had insured the jewelry only two weeks earlier and the insurance company was suspicious. They hired me to investigate, and I learned from one of the houseowner’s teenage sons that his dad had hidden the jewelry in a wall safe,” Cameron said.
“Why would his son tell on him?” Candice asked, sounding surprised.
“His dad had caught him smoking weed with some other teens and read him the riot act about doing something that was illegal. So it was a way to get back at his dad for getting after him. I don’t believe the dad was very happy with him, but if he’s going to try to teach his son right from wrong, he can’t be caught defrauding the insurance company. Anyway, the dad has been charged with insurance fraud.”
“Good deal,” Lolita said. “It’s people like that who make all of our insurance rates go up.”
“Exactly,” Georgia said.
“Tell them about the case of the missing guy, Sheri,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh, you mean Gerard Connolly?” Sheri sure hoped she didn’t get as sick as Elizabeth if she got pregnant. “It resolved itself on its own. Gerard’s wife, Betty, called saying her husband had gone missing.” She filled them in on all the details. “He had filed a flight plan, was in the air for a while, and then radar lost him. He never called in a distress signal. It was as if he ended up in the Bermuda Triangle and just vanished.
“Then Betty called and said he had returned home. I wanted to ask where he had been all this time, but I didn’t want to pry. She didn’t volunteer where he’d been for the last two weeks, paid our services, and ran off. So that was my first really big case, and it was easily resolved.”
“I want to know what had happened to him,” Elizabeth said.
“All of us do,” Gavin said. “But when a case is closed, that’s it.”
“Yeah, me too. She didn’t seem like she was happy that her husband had come home safe and sound, which makes me all the more curious,” Sheri said.
“Maybe she learned he was having an affair and didn’t want to share her dirty laundry once she’d learned what had happened to him,” Faith said.
“Truthfully, I was thinking the same thing,” Sheri said.
After they all finished eating, they began the cookie decorating contest at the dining room table.
To Sheri’s surprise, Slade was eager to spruce up his own cookie. He squirted green icing all over the cookie and the table and some got on Sheri’s arm. Luckily, she had pushed up the sleeves of her sweater before she started to work on her cookie. She laughed as he washed it off her, and then she started decorating her cookie with a butterfly. The kids were right next to them, working on theirs.
“Who’s judging the contest?” Cameron asked.
“You can,” Faith said.
“Then mine wins,” Cameron said before he’d even begun to decorate his.
Corey, his oldest triplet, said, “Daddy, you can’t make yourself the winner.”
Everyone chuckled.
Slade was making a mess of the icing on his cookie. “Okay, I have to admit I’ve never decorated a Christmas cookie before, and the frosting is coming out way faster from the tube than I thought it would. I’m naming mine the green blob.”
“With red eyes,” Corey said.
“Yeah, for the Christmas-colors effect… You know, red and green.” Slade glanced at Sheri’s cookie. “Now that’s great.”
“Thanks. I have decorated cookies with Elizabeth every Christmas. I love to make Christmas butterflies.”
There were snowmen, a snowflake, a candy cane, and several Christmas ornament–decorated cookies. Elizabeth had made a Christmas tree on hers. Sheri’s dad had decorated his cookie with a wreath. He glanced at Slade and said, “I’ve never decorated a Christmas cookie before either.”
Slade laughed. “Well, you have me beat.” Sheri swore Slade had more green icing on the table than he had on his cookie.
The triplets won the contest for a Yoda, a dragon, and an airplane. Slade asked the triplet who created the airplane, “Are you going to be a pilot like my sister and me, Corey?”
“Yeah!” Corey said.
Candice thought Angie’s dragon cookie was the cutest. “I need to add a dragon to one of the stories I’m writing.”
Everyone loved Nick’s green Yoda wearing a Santa hat. “Star Wars fan, eh?” Sheri asked.
Nick nodded vigorously.
“Is everyone ready for our white-elephant gift exchange?” Faith was in charge of all the activities because she loved to organize parties. She did a great job as a pack leader and her kids were old enough now that they could be a real help too—when they weren’t distracted or bored with assisting.
The kids shouted, “Yes!”