“Graham. Calling to let you know your suit’s in. Go down to Jasper’s Menswear so they can get you measured and fitted. Today. Tomorrow. That would be great.”
Graham hit the delete button on the message. Guy was going to drive him just a little crazy with his wedding. The good news was he only had two months or so left to listen to him. Not that he begrudged the guy the awesome woman he was marrying or the fact he was getting hitched. Graham stopped himself in midthought. Okay that’s bullshit. Then he laughed as he realized jealousy’s ugly head had reared itself, something he’d sworn would never happen to him.
Guy and Bailey were good together. It had taken Guy two years to wear down Bailey’s adamant resolve that they needed more time to get to know each other. She wanted to make certain she wasn’t suffering from the woman-in-jeopardy syndrome, since Guy had rescued her from her uncle. The whole thing still made him scratch his head. Crazy didn’t even adequately describe how they’d met or what they’d been through. Graham was thankful they were going to have a happy ending. What concerned him was all they’d gone through to find each other. The whole concept was a little off his radar and if the only way he could find the same kind of happiness was to go through a similar ordeal, no thanks. All he had to do was show up, be the best man and then run like hell.
He checked over the email listing all the tasks Tarin had completed the day before. The little lull they’d had in business requests hadn’t lasted long. They’d been hit with a deluge again. It was bizarre and he didn’t understand why. He didn’t have time to ponder it, though, but he had to admit Tarin had made it much easier. She’d honed it to an awesome science. She’d open the emails and put them through a ten-step crap test—his title for it, not hers. The ones she could eliminate, she put in a file in case there was something there they could check out later. Then she’d put the ones she was pretty sure were bogus in its own file. Then those that appeared both promising and legit despite remaining questions would go into another. That left those that were definitely legit—or at least as much as they could tell without a deep dive. The interesting thing was about twenty percent of them now seemed to be real—way up from the five percent when they’d first been hit.
It made him wonder if they were being tested, perhaps to see if they were any good before they were hired. He needed to figure out a way to configure a trap, tracing some of the emails back to their source.
“We’ve got a problem.”
Yeah and I’m looking at them. Graham looked up and nodded at Guy, who was just entering the office. “What? You put on too much weight? You’re turning into a fat, married man before you’ve even gotten hitched?”
“Ha-ha. Funny. No, unfortunately it’s more serious than that. A wine shipment headed for Calgary got hijacked.”
Graham’s head jerked up. “Who steals a truckload of wine?”
“Wine lovers?”
“Is there really a demand for that kind of alcohol on the black market?”
“If it can make money, I’d say yes.”
“Jesus, something is fishy. I mean fishier than normal fishy.”
“I couldn’t agree more. We need to see if we can help in any way.”
“Any leads?”
“Nope. The truck was stopped by two armed men. The driver said he was sure they were using machine guns.”
Graham looked him in disbelief. “Really. In Canada? That’s got to be a new one. The driver’s okay?”
“Yup. It happened late in the evening, little traffic. Well planned by the sound of it. They took his cell phone and smashed it and then drove away in the truck. They left him by the side of the road in the middle of Saskatchewan. Another trucker stopped about an hour later and picked him up.”
“So they had a good head start?”
“And no leads. The driver is being questioned.”
“‘K. Let me see if I can find anything about a black market for wine. That still sounds odd to me but I guess if it’ll make money, it’s up for grabs. How’s Dorothea doing?”
Guy shrugged. “Upset. Never has anything like this ever happened before. Two incidents in a little under a month is too much. Oh and guess what I found out today? She’s already hired an assistant. Her name is LJ Brown.”
Graham looked at Guy’s drooping eyelids. The long days and late nights of trying to catch the bad guy was wearing on him. “Oh-oh. What do you know about her?”
“Dorothea interviewed her, checked her out or so she says and hired her immediately. She’s convinced this woman is legit. Grandma says she has sources besides us. God, I’m worried about her.”
Graham thought back to the rides he’d given her. Oh wow, is that what she was up to? He was tempted to mention it to Guy, but the way Guy was pacing and rubbing his forehead, he didn’t look like he could take too much more.
“Your grandmother is a smart woman who’s been running that business for what, fifty years? She’s pretty savvy.”
“Yeah but since Geoff—” Guy suddenly dropped into his chair behind his desk, leaning back.
“She won’t make the same mistake again. And don’t worry, I’ll check out the woman.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh and Dorothea wants us to find someone—the granddaughter of Charles Cooper, owner of Cooper-Lite Hotels.”
“I’ll add it to the list but do we have to make it a priority?”
“Well, to her everything she asks us to do is high priority. Add it to the list; when you have time look into it, but we have a few other things to solve first. I’ll stall her on it. I want to know more about this LJ first.”
Graham was about to close out the email account he’d been browsing when one of the subject lines caught his attention.
‘Shipment of wine for sale, 70% off.’
He glowered at it. Finally, he looked up and was about to mention it to his partner when he discovered Guy’s chin had dropped to his chest and he was snoring softly.
Why would someone drop this in our lap?