Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) (6 page)

A rather florid, tall man with iron-gray hair and piercing blue eyes stood with a clipboard near the cargo doors, and he seemed startled to see her.

“The entrance is in front, miss,” he said, but she ignored him and climbed up the three steep steps to the cargo bay.

“Oh, I know, but I thought I might find Darcy Fontaine back here. She’s supposed to meet me, didn’t she tell you? Are you one of her employees?”

“No.” His eyes narrowed slightly, but the polite smile remained fixed. Ah. This would be Harry Gordon, who obviously hadn’t left town. “You’ll find Mrs. Fontaine in the
front
of the store. I’ll be glad to escort you there,” he said.

“Oh, don’t bother. I know where it is. My, what a lovely chest. Is it French?”

“Portuguese. And it’s an armoire. Really, I must insist that you leave this area. Insurance requires that we not allow anyone back here where there might be an accident.”

While he spoke, he took her firmly by the arm, his fingers digging into her biceps with iron determination. It was almost as if he was afraid someone might see something they shouldn’t. Maybe Aunt Darcy was right after all, though it did stretch the imagination to think it would be anything more than a few Cuban cigars. And how did he manage
that?

“I’m a customer,” she lied as he escorted her toward the double doors leading into the shop, “and Mrs. Fontaine said to meet her back here to look at a new shipment.”

He sliced her a quick, hard glance from those bright blue eyes that were cold and hot at the same time. “Really. Then I take it you’re interested in Portuguese armoires and Grecian urns? If not, you’ll find styles more to your taste up front, Miss—”

It was an open invitation to provide her name. She could almost hear his mental wheels clacking.

“Davidson. And you are . . .?”

“Harry Gordon.”

As suspected. She smiled. “And I do like Grecian urns, as a matter of fact. I’d like to look around for a few minutes before we discuss anything, however.” Not an entire lie. She picked up a vase with ugly, primitive looking figures on it. “This is nice.”

Moving closer, he took it from her hands and carefully put it back in the straw-filled box at the bottom of a carved chest. He closed the lid. “These are a new shipment not yet catalogued. Look, Miss Davidson, you’ll have to wait until we’ve inspected our shipment.”

“Then perhaps you should speak to Mrs. Fontaine, since she said I could browse through everything as soon as it got here. Get first pick, you know, before anyone else can try to buy it out from under my nose. Like this pretty jewelry box.” She picked up an item still in a crate, with straw clinging to it. The carved images in white bone looked Celtic, snakes and dragons all twisting around in sinuous loops.

His florid complexion went redder, and for a moment she thought he might turn purple. He reached over to pluck it out of her hands, then excused himself with a harsh mutter and stormed toward one of the delivery men working in the truck. There was a brief, low discussion during which he handed over his clipboard, and then he went back toward the front of the shop without another word to her.

Well, he’d left the clipboard, but unfortunately, it was in the possession of a large, burly man with a single eyebrow and low forehead. Primitive man at his best. Maybe brashness would work, as subtlety would be lost on this guy.

She strode toward him, whipped out her tour guide ID in an arc that she hoped was too swift for him to catch, and said, “Yes, I’ll go ahead and look at that now, please. Thank you.”

Reaching for the clipboard, she was elated when he looked surprised and uncertain and held it out. Then he seemed to recover and snatched it back, scowling at her.

“No,” he said in a heavy accent she couldn’t place, “no’ allowed.”

“Of course it is. I want to see what’s on that bill of lading. You’re familiar with Customs? Immigration?”

The last word caught his attention and he blanched. Harley kept her hand out, an eyebrow arched and her foot tapping impatiently. It was easy to see his internal struggle as he stared at her with the same look she’d seen on moose heads mounted on walls—a glassy-eyed, stunned sort of resignation.

Oh yes,
she thought as the clipboard in his hand quivered closer to her outstretched fingers and success,
give it to me . . .

Of course, nothing was ever that easy.

“Julio!” boomed a voice, startling the man into almost dropping the clipboard and making Harley jerk in annoyed surprise. Harry Gordon strode back into the delivery area with Aunt Darcy in tow.

Just a few more seconds and it would have been hers, Harley thought with a surge of exasperation at her aunt’s abominable timing. Aunt Darcy’s expression was caught between anger and fear. She looked like a trapped ferret. Her eyes darted between Harry and Harley, and her lips stretched back over her teeth in a grimace. Darcy could have at least called to warn her that Harry would be here, dammit.

“Miss Davidson,” Gordon said flatly, “you’ve no business back here at all.”

“Of course I do. I want to look at some unusual furniture, and I was told you have quite a few unique items coming into the shop today.”

His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t fooled one bit, and his lowered brows conveyed skepticism as well as irritation.

“Then wait until it’s all unloaded and inventoried. Your aunt will show you into the shop for now.”

Apparently, Aunt Darcy had told all. What a nitwit. How did she expect Harley to skulk around the shop if Gordon was suspiciously watching her every move? Honestly!

“I’m sorry,” Darcy muttered when they were at the front of the shop standing by a table holding glass globes and crystal figurines, “but I goofed and said you were my niece. I’m just so upset. He came back early and this shipment came in late . . . and now the other merchandise that I showed you Monday is gone. I kept it locked away, but it’s all disappeared.”

“Super.” She picked up a small glass globe with faint multicolored transparent swirls in the center, lovely and elusive. Diva would love it for her séances and palm readings. She shook it. “So now that he knows I’m family and his suspicions are probably on high alert, I’ll come back after six.”

Darcy frowned. “But we’ll be closed.”

“Yes. I know.” When her aunt still didn’t get it, she said, “
After
hours he’ll be gone and I can do some snooping.”

“Oh.” Darcy reached out, took the glass globe from her, and set it gently back onto the table. “If you think that’s best. What time shall I meet you here—oh wait. That’s no good. I have a Junior League meeting tonight. A charity auction.”

“If we give him too much time, whatever he’s bringing in now may be gone. We need hard evidence, something to hold over his head. We can use it as leverage to get his records. Or his resignation.”

“Well, I suppose I could give you a key,” Darcy said slowly and obviously reluctantly, “if you bring it back to me tonight.”

“I’ll see you at Grandmother’s Saturday for lunch. Why not then?” It was Thursday night and she had plans with Morgan for later, something deliciously wicked if she was lucky.

“Oh all right, I suppose I can trust you. You
will
be careful, won’t you, Harley? I mean, if he should find you in here he’d know I suspect him, and then it could get really ugly, or he could somehow say I’m involved in it when I’m not, really, except that it did seem too good to be true that we could sell all that awful stuff he imports at such a markup—”

“Aunt Darcy. I’ll be careful. I’ll need a camera to take pictures of the stuff he’s brought in, do a little snooping and see if I can find his ledgers or invoices, though I doubt he lets any of it far from his sight. He probably keeps it in a safe at his house.”

“I’ll give you my camera,” Darcy said, “but be careful with it. I use it for clients’ homes, and don’t want it broken.”

“Are you sure you want to do this? It’d be easier to call in the police, you know. If he’s smuggling, they’ll put him in jail.”

“It’d also ruin my reputation. Clients will think I’m unreliable, that somehow I’m mixed up in all this as well. If at all possible, I want to keep this quiet. Just please get me some proof that Harry’s smuggling. Then I can make him go away.”

“That might be called blackmail or extortion,” Harley said slowly. “I’m not up on all the laws, but it sounds dangerous. Harry doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d take it well.”

“I should have listened to Mama and Daddy,” Darcy said again, and Harley couldn’t argue with that.

It was nearly eight
when Harley let herself into the shop, using the borrowed key Darcy had made her swear she’d guard with her very life. Ready to punch in the alarm code, she saw that it hadn’t been set, and paused. Definitely odd. But then, Aunt Darcy was so rattled by all this, she may well have forgotten to set it.

Waning light lent a musty gloom to the shop lit only by a few lamps here and there. It was quiet and still. Thick carpet underfoot gave way to the muted gleam of light oak floors in the next showroom, crowded with brocade couches and chairs, tall armoires, lamps, statues, tables, more chairs, and dozens of pots of greenery. No canned music filtered through hidden speakers; the only sound was the hum of the central air conditioning.

Moving quickly through the showrooms to the back, Harley paused when she heard a loud thud, like the slamming of a door. Her heart pounded, and air constricted her lungs as she froze. Meeting up with Harry Gordon would not be the highlight of her evening. The parking lot was empty except for the big store van out back, but it stayed there all the time. No one should be here, but an uneasy feeling of being watched prickled the back of her neck and made her reach for the Mace can she wore clipped to the waistband of her jeans. No point in being stupid.

The camera slung around her neck clinked softly as she moved forward, taking slow steps and trying not to bump into anything expensive. It was darker here, lamps on low providing spotty light, and suddenly her breathing sounded far too loud in the smothering gloom.

This was silly. No one was here. It was after hours. She was just jittery. Luck often went in the other direction when she started snooping. Still . . . she came to an abrupt halt when the thud sounded again, louder and closer. A door?

Oh no, this was getting too weird. Every instinct in her body shrieked at her to get the hell out of Dodge. She’d never pretended to be brave. Or noble. Just needy. She’d just have to find another way to get the proof for Aunt Darcy—and a fat check in return.

Backing up, she bumped into a tall cabinet and glass clinked loudly. She looked around, but nothing looked familiar. She was lost in a maze of dimly-lit showrooms and furniture. An Exit sign had to be somewhere. Let’s see, she’d been standing by a table in the front showroom earlier in the day, looking at glass globes and thinking how Diva would like one of them for her séances or palm reading. That would be—which way? So many damn rooms in this sprawling house now that it’d been renovated, the original two-and-a-half stories altered to a rambling structure that somehow managed to still look artistically cluttered.

She stepped through an open door and found herself in yet another furniture-crammed showroom. Afghans were draped over love seats and fringed ottomans; paintings hung on the walls and were stacked on the floor leaning against chairs and each other. Great. She should have left a trail of bread crumbs to find her way out.

Light slanted into the room to her right, and she moved that way, rounding a corner to see an open door to the cargo area banging in the wind. Relief and a crazy urge to laugh hysterically eased her tension. It was only a door left open. What a wuss she’d become.

She moved to the door, peered out, and saw taillights leaving the parking lot. A white car very similar to Aunt Darcy’s Lexus squealed onto Massey Road. That explained the alarm not being set. But it didn’t explain why Darcy was here when she was supposed to be at her Junior League meeting. Or where she’d parked the car and why she’d carelessly left the back door open. Maybe she’d just forgotten something. Not that it really mattered. The rear parking lot was empty except for the white van. Maybe she’d go ahead and look around instead of giving in to the jitters.