Seeing Is Believing (5 page)

"And you weren't going to tell me this."

"No, we weren't." She watched Reed
carefully tape the box shut, then move on to the next one.

"I'm staying with you, tonight."

He stopped opening the box and shook his
head, a look of astonishment on his face. "I don't think so. It could be very,
very dangerous. You'll be at home, snuggled in your warm little bed, and I'll
be here, doing my job."

Leslie crossed her arms over her chest
and sneered at him. "I hate to tell you this, but I own this building. Without
my permission, you'd be trespassing. Plus, if I happened to come in here and find
you, who's to say that I didn't think you were the burglar? Then I'd have to
call the cops and have you arrested."

"Maybe I'll just have to tie you up and
leave you on your couch until everything's done."

"Maybe I'll have to have you arrested
for kidnapping, then. Get used to it, Reed. If you're setting up a trap in my
store tonight, I'll be there, whether you like it, or not."

He finished the second box and moved to
the third one. "It's not a trap, it's a surveillance experiment. I'm not going
to make any sort of contact with these guys. I'm just going to watch them take
the drugs."

"To me that
makes you almost as guilty as they are.
You should stop them, arrest
them."

He stopped what he was doing and turned
to her. "First off, I'm not a cop. Second off, we have to look at the big
picture here, remember. I told you we were going to track them, see what
happens with them. If these guys start distributing the drugs to people for
them to sell, then Chester and his starred buddies can arrest them and we'll all
feel better at night. If they're holding them to give to someone else for
delivery we want to know that. Stopping the shipment
ring,
and then taking down the distributors is our main goal."

"Leslie, could you help me, please."
Tambi
stuck her head inside, smiling like a kid at
Christmas when she saw the two of them talking. She winked at Leslie,
then
jerked her head up front. "We're really busy, and I'm
falling behind on waiting on people."

Leslie nodded affirmatively,
then
turned back to Reed. "This isn't over. Trust
me,
I'm going to be here tonight, no matter what you say."

*****

Reed took a sip from a water bottle,
then
stared at the door leading to the front of the store.
He had to come up with a solution that would keep Leslie away from the store
tonight, and he had to do it quick.

He pondered the idea of telling Chester
to throw her in a jail cell, but that would raise too many questions. There had
to be some way, though, to keep her from coming down here and putting herself
in harm's way.

He had no doubt the smugglers would
return tonight, and when Leslie saw them, she would freak out and scream, or do
something else to call attention to
herself
, and him.
If that happened, there was no telling how the smugglers would react, and
things could get very messy. And he didn't want that to happen.

An idea formed in the back of his mind,
pushing its way forward. He tossed it around, tweaked it a bit, then grinned to
himself, taking another swig of water before standing up and going to the front
of the store.

Both Leslie and
Tambi
were working hard, with the tables being mostly full. Leslie was out amongst
the crowd, a coffee pot in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other. He
knew she was pushing the slices of pie that sat in the containers on the
counter. He looked at the display
case,
saw two huge
chocolate cakes he hadn't seen there before. It reminded him that Leslie got
there early, and spent a good portion of her morning baking. Maybe he should
just let nature take
its course tonight, invite
her
along and she'd be asleep within ten minutes of inactivity while they waited
for their prey.

Then he pushed that idea away. There was
no way she would fall asleep. She'd be way too excited about seeing who would
come in the back door. He crossed to
Tambi
and gave
her a friendly wink.

"Hard day?"

"A little bit," she replied. "We've been
pretty busy."

"So it would seem. You know what you
need, a night out on the town."

Her smile confirmed her need to let
loose for a little while, and he patted himself on the back for thinking of
this. "Yes, you're right, but my mother's watching Josh right now, and I don't
think I can convince her to make it an
all nighter
,
or at least until I got home. So, I just have to stay at home, like every
night, and watch TV.

He lifted his eyebrows in what he hoped
would look like an "I just got an idea," move. "Why don't you let Leslie and me
watch him
tonight.
We'll have a great time, and we'll
stay at your house until you get back."

Or at least she will. The minute you're
gone, I'll be out of there, and there will be no way Leslie can follow me with
a baby in tow.

"Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Sure you could, and believe me when I
say we'd love it. Come on, what do you have to lose. In fact, why don't you
take off right now? I'll help Leslie finish up here until closing time, and
when your mother brings Josh
by,
I'll make sure
everything's taken care of."

"Well, Leslie has sat for me before, but
before I leave, I'll have to ask her."

"Nah, just go on and have some fun.
You're only young once."

Reed watched her face as the idea played
out. She really wanted to ask Leslie, but then again she was a little
frightened Leslie would say no, and she really wanted to go out for the night.

"Come on,
Tambi
.
It's a little more than an
hours
drive to Amarillo. You could go with a friend, eat dinner, maybe go to a movie,
and then be back before midnight. But to be back that soon you'd have to leave
now."

I'm sure my guests will be here by then,
and Leslie can whine and cry all she wants. By the time she's done babysitting,
tonight's
expected fun will be over and done with.

"All right, if you're sure Leslie won't
care if I go, then I'll do it." She untied her apron. "I'll call my mother from
my cell phone and tell her to drop Josh off up here. Leslie has a key to my
house."

"Terrific," Reed replied. "Have yourself
a good time, and don't hurry home. You deserve a night on the town."

*****

Leslie parked her car in the high school
parking lot, two blocks from the store. She'd foot it from here, coming up in
the front and letting herself in. Her blood still boiled from Reed's little
scheme to keep her from the evening's activities. She'd ranted and raved when
the store had closed, and he'd told her "they" were supposed to
baby-sit
Josh tonight. Of course she knew what he really
mean
was "she" was supposed to baby-sit while he went to the
store and watched the smugglers take everything from the boxes.

She was damned if she was going to let
that happen. Instead she'd waited until he was gone, then called Celia Perkins,
offering her forty dollars if she'd come over to
Tambi's
house and baby-sit. Celia was a high school student, and it was a school night,
but Leslie had assured her it would be fine for her to fall asleep on the
couch, and Leslie would wake her when she returned.

Then she'd called
Tambi
to inform her of the change in plans.
Tambi
had
immediately begun to apologize, saying Reed had told her it was fine with him.
Leslie had assured her things were fine, but something had "come up," that
she'd needed to take care of. She'd let her think that it was a huge order at
the store, and that Leslie would spend the night baking.

After making sure
Tambi
wouldn't show up, Leslie had given Celia her forty dollars, then set off to let
Reed Jacobs know he couldn't pull one over on her. She hurried to the store,
silently unlocking the front door and letting herself in quickly.

The only light on was what she usually
left on, behind the counter. She knew Reed was up in the rafters in the back
room, sitting and waiting. She'd driven by before she'd parked, and hadn't seen
any cars outside. Since it was just after ten, she didn't think the bad guys
would have shown up already.

Leslie took off her shoes,
then
silently made her way to the door between the rooms.
Her eyes gleamed with mischief at the imagined look on Reed's face when she
showed up. She'd show him who was
boss, that
was for
sure.

Once inside the back room she hurried to
the stairs, wincing when the first one creaked as she stepped on it.

Reed's muttered cuss word made her
smile. "Get your ass up here," he hissed. "And hurry up."

She climbed the stairs quickly, moving
off to the right. He lay on his stomach, his head turned toward the door.

"Where's the baby?"

"With a
baby-sitter.
And how dare you drag
Tambi
into this."

"What I was trying to do was keep you
out of here. I hope you know this puts you in some serious hot water with me."

"Bite me." She lay down next to him,
keeping her eyes trained on the door. "I can't believe you'd go to such lengths
to keep me from here. That's a really crappy thing to do, if you ask me."

"I was trying to protect you. This could
be dangerous, you know. If we're discovered things could get nasty."

"I don't plan on them seeing me. I don't
know about you, but I can stay silent."

"Really?
Like you're
doing right now?"

She shot him an evil glare. "Listen,
buster, I think you are the--"

"Shush!" He put his hand on her arm and
put his free finger to his lips. Then he mouthed the words, "
someone's
here."

Her heart went into overdrive as she realized
she'd shown up just before the smugglers. She swallowed hard,
then
looked over at Reed who shook his head in disgust.

"Stay quiet, no matter what," he
mouthed, and she nodded.

The back door opened with a heavy thud
and she prayed they hadn't broken the lock. But seeing the ease with which they
entered made her nervous. She needed to invest in a security system, or at
least a few deadbolts.

"Wake the neighbors why don't
ya
?" The deep male voice made her strain to see if she
could put a face with it. Reed kept his hand on her arm, pushing her back.

"There's nobody around," a second voice
answered.
"Unless she's got mice.
I hope not. I've
eaten here quite a bit."

"
There's no mice
,"
the first voice replied. "And there are the boxes, sitting there unopened.
We're damn lucky."

She could hear their feet moving across
the floor, and then everything was silent. The first voice spoke again. "Did
you bring the tape from the truck?"

"No, I thought you were going to do it."

"Go and get it. We want to make sure we're
very careful so the boxes don't look like anyone's been in them."

First voice stayed in place while second
voice moved toward the door. When he opened it, the light from the streetlamp
illuminated his face and Leslie gasped, throwing her hand over her mouth to try
and hold in the sound.

Second voice looked around,
then
hurried back to his friend. "Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear a thing. Go and get the
tape so we can get this done and get the hell out of here."

Second voice hurried across the room again,
but Leslie could tell he was taking it slower than before. She was afraid to
look out over the edge again, fearful he might be looking in her direction and
see her watching him. If that happened, all hell would break loose, just like
Reed said it would. She knew she was in for it once the two guys below were
gone. Reed would probably yell at her for disobeying him, and part of her
thought he might be right.

The other part was sure she was right
where she should be. After all this was her store, and she deserved to know
what was happening, didn't she?

It took the better part of an hour for
them to complete their task, and Leslie was finding it hard to stay still. Once
in a while she looked over at Reed, who had a small camera trained on them. She
wasn't exactly sure how it would work with the darkness, but modern technology
was a wonderful thing.

If anything else they had a good
recording of both their voices. The identity of the second voice still made her
cringe with disappointment. It was very, very sad that he'd stooped so low as
to do something like this, and to drag her into it by using her shop was even
lower.

When they were done going through their
boxes, they carried their loot out to the truck and carefully pulled the door
shut. Leslie started to stand but Reed shook his head, keeping her in place.