Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
I stuffed my laptop into my oversized bag, grabbed my ucky green smoothie that I forced myself to drink once a month, and bolted to the front door, where my overnight bag sat. I picked it up. I was running late. I turned the handle and nothing happened.
What the hell?
I turned it again.
Oh yeah, it was locked. I’d promised. I unlocked the door. Stepped out into a gorgeous May afternoon and locked the door and pocketed my keys, then bolted to my Jeep. I was working the late shift, after having done nothing but fucking spreadsheets last night and this morning.
Please say the latest shipment from Clarksville has come in, and Ernie has kept his grubby hands off it. I deserved a treat.
Ernie was practically panting at the door when I got there. “Are you good to close tonight?”
“Of course I am. What’s gotten into you? A hot date?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’m going out with Ann Nichols over in Knoxville. She works at the flower shop.”
“Oh, I know her. She’s really nice.”
“I know. So get your ass in here, so I can go.” I laughed and kissed him on the cheek, and watched him jog out to his truck. He might have green hair, but he was a Southern boy through and through.
Behind the register were six big boxes. Unopened. From Clarksville.
Yay me!
I immediately started opening and doing inventory.
I loved the stuff that I got from Nancy.
She made the cutest stuffed animals and dolls for newborns and children under the age of five.
I’d given one of her giraffes and a monkey to Olivia already and wanted to add to the collection.
Nancy never told me what to price them for.
Hell, she never told me what to pay her.
She just sent it all to me and trusted me to get her good prices.
These people. I loved them all.
At six-fifty-five, the door chimed. That was always a guarantee—every store owner would tell you that. What’s more, they were always someone who would stay for a half hour, and never buy a damn thing.
Still.
“Can I help you?” I asked the man.
“Oh, I’m just here to browse.”
“Well, let me know if you have any questions. I handle most of the inventory, so I know most of the product.”
He turned to me. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He meandered to the far corner of the store. He was well-dressed, had a nice watch on. I wasn’t worried about him shoplifting. At seven-twenty I was finally bored enough to open up a spreadsheet. That was when I remembered the weight discrepancies. I needed to go back and check the scales.
“Miss?” The man raised his voice. He was still in the back corner of the store.
“Yes?”
“There’s a figurine back here. I don’t see a price. Can you come help me?”
I sighed quietly. “Sure.”
When I made it to him, I saw he was looking at Miss Goddard’s ceramic pieces.
I only ever got five a year. I kept them up high so children wouldn’t get to them.
“The prices are on these panels in front of them. They’re hand-sculpted by Margaret Goddard out of Chattanooga.
The one you’re holding is seven-hundred-and-ninety dollars. ”
He gave me a cold smile. “I’ll take it.” He reached into his jacket and for the first time, all of Adam’s warnings hit me like a ton of bricks, but it was too late. I was a dead woman.
He pulled out his wallet. “Do you take American Express?”
All the air went out of my lungs in one relieved breath. “I do.”
He handed me his card. My hand trembled just a little as I took it from him.
No criminal would give me his credit card. I was out of my mind. Wasn’t I?
“I’ll ring you up. Why don’t I follow you up to the register?”
“Ladies first.”
Fuck!
I fast-walked in front of him to the register. I got behind the register, and calmed down when I was inches away from the panic button. “Would you like me to wrap this?”
“Just put it in a box.”
I did.
After I rang him up, he thanked me and left.
I was never so happy to turn my sign to Closed and lock the door.
As soon as I made it to the register, I hit the wall, slid down to the floor, and started to tremble.
“You get five minutes of this bullshit, then pull it together, Woman.”
I took a couple deep breaths, then stood up.
Okay, onto real work. I went to the back and went straight to the shipping station.
Lance kept things really neat, which I appreciated.
I looked at the scale. I used to use it, so I knew how to check the calibration.
I just needed something to check it with.
I zeroed it out, then found a shrink-wrapped package holding a five-pound box of handmade chocolates.
I put it on the scale. The scale registered just over five-and-a-half pounds.
No way the box and packing material weighed that much extra.
That’s weird.
I needed something else to weigh.
I looked around Lance’s area, then down in his cabinet, and found two more packages, both the exact same thing, both shrink-wrapped the same. I zeroed out the scale again and weighed them. Both went over what they should have been, one by just a pound, the other by a pound and a half.
“What the hell?”
I tore into the packaging. Pills spilled out. Hundreds of white, oblong pills.
“Holy fuck!”
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
I twirled around. Lance was standing there, holding the tape gun like normal, looking scared and mad. I think scared was winning.
“What the fuck are you doing? Are you shipping pills?” I screeched. “From my warehouse?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m calling the cops,” I started to shove past him.
He stopped me. Easily. That was the first time I noticed just how big he was.
“Get your hands off me, you asshole. You think you can come into my place of business and taint it with a drug operation? Is that what you think you can do?”
“Uhm. What’s taint?”
“Answer the question. What would your Mama think of this?”
“Don’t bring my Mama into this.” He scowled.
“You’re nothing but a pathetic drug dealer.”
“I don’t deal drugs. I would never do that. I just ship packages.”
“Oh God. Do you believe that?! That means you’re stupid as well as culpable.”
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“How about culpable and imbecilic?”
“I don’t know what those words mean.”
“They mean you’re stupid.” I yanked my arm, hard, surprising him. He loosened his grip and I shook it off and took two steps back. Then I saw him lifting the tape gun…
Aw shit.
My head was killing me. I couldn’t see. I could barely breathe.
What in the hell happened?
“You want me to what?”
“We’re going to need to get her out of here, then kill her. If she talks, we’re both dead.”
I opened my eyes and saw a skinny guy with pockmarks looking up at Lance.
He had a gun tucked into his waistband.
I couldn’t move my arms, but I could move my legs. I was only shrink-wrapped to my waist, and he’d covered my mouth. My eyes had been shut because of the knock on my head. Apparently, you can do real damage with a tape gun if you hit someone just right—who knew?
“But we can’t actually shoot someone,” Lance protested. “That’s murder.”
“I know what it is, asswipe. It’s what’s necessary.”
I was under the table next to the shrink wrap station. Made sense, since I was fucking shrink-wrapped!
“Arnie, we are not going to kill her.”
“Do you know what is going to happen to us if we don’t?”
I watched as Lance started to cry.
Great, he was going to cry about killing me, like that fucking mattered. I needed to get out of here.
Think, Avery. Think!
I tried to spread my arms, and felt a little bit of give on the shrink wrap, but that would do no good. This shit was like glue; it was why we used it. I needed a knife, and I didn’t have a knife.
But you have keys.
My eyes widened. I did have keys in my back pocket.
I squirmed. They didn’t notice. I squirmed some more, until I was able to get to my keys.
I heaved in a deep breath, then positioned one key between my forefinger and thumb, and poked a hole in the wrap and began to saw while the arguing continued, louder and louder.
As soon as I got some of it ripped, I continued to rip it with my hands.
I heard a wet thump and looked up. Lance was holding his face and blood was spurting out his nose.
“I will kill you if you don’t help me load this bitch into the trunk of my car. Do you hear me?”
I rolled a little deeper under the table, and kept tearing at the wrap. I was desperate. I needed to get away, I needed to run. I needed to get to the panic button.
No, that would take too long. He had a gun. I needed a weapon.
The crowbar for opening crates.
Maybe Lance would help me.
I tore off the last of the wrap, and crawled to the other side of the table. Where was the crowbar? I needed the fucking crowbar!
I continued to crawl away, around a corner of boxes and toward the crates.
Crates. The crowbar would be near the crates!
I looked. I looked again. Nothing!
“Where’d she go!”
“You stupid asshole. Find her!”
“I’m not stupid.”
I heard another meaty thud.
“I’m looking, I’m looking!”
One of the empty crates was on its side. I crawled in and pulled some of the packing straw on top of myself.
I held my breath and waited, wishing I hadn’t turned the sign to Closed.