Seeing Is Believing

Copyright (c) 2010 by
Blushing Books(r) and
Kimber
Davis

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Davis,
Kimber

Seeing is
Believing
: Ghost of a Chance, Book One

eBook
ISBN: 978-1-60968-381-8

Cover Design by ABCD
Graphics

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intended for adults. Nothing in this
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Chapter One

Leslie Hopkins groaned,
then
set the large, unwieldy box on the counter. How could
paper skeletons and plastic pumpkins weigh so much? This box felt as if it had
a ton of rocks in the bottom of it.

The deliveryman hadn't seemed to have
any problem with it when he brought it into her cafe, Spice is Nice. Of course
he was several inches taller than she was, and quite a few pounds heavier. Even
though she moved boxes and stock in her store on a constant basis, she tried to
make sure not to overdo it. Maybe that's what was wrong. She didn't do enough.
She should make a plan this winter to work out, bulk up her muscles more.

She pushed the box back,
then
took out a stock knife to cut the tape, slicing it gently
so as not to damage anything that might be under the box lid.

Maybe this shipment would put her in the
mood for Halloween. It was the first part of October, and the warmth still
invading Texas didn't make her think about trick or treating, or warm apple
cider. It was still hot enough outside that she had the back door of the shop
open, hoping a breeze would snake through and cool things off. Of course the
nights were cold, but not the days.

Things had been slow today, but that
didn't really surprise her. Dante's Peak was a small, tourist town, sitting
near the New Mexico border. During the school year, business was generally slow
during the week. It would pick up, however, on the weekends. And, as Halloween
neared, it would pick up during the week, too. The nearby ghost town of Blade
was a great attraction during October.

When business picked up, she would be
busy, selling miniature pumpkin pies and other treats that reminded people of
the fall holidays. She just wished it would start this week.
Right
now.
Business had been dead for two days now, and she needed an influx
of cash, soon.

She put away the knife and peeled back
the flaps of cardboard holding the top together. Sure enough, shrink-wrapped
paper skeletons and tiny plastic pumpkins seemed to wink back at her. As she
dug down deeper, she found a package she'd forgotten she'd ordered. Halloween
necklaces, with little white ghosts and witch hats. She hefted one in her hand
and frowned. They weren't that heavy, either. Of course all of them mixed together
might be, but somehow she doubted it.

She hoped her clerk,
Tambi
,
was right and that these novelties would sell well to the local population when
they came in for an afternoon snack. If not she would have just wasted six
hundred dollars, and she couldn't afford to do that.

Thinking about her finances always put
her in a foul mood. When she'd first opened the store she was doing great,
making lots of cash as the novelty of a coffee cafe set in to the tiny town
where tourists flocked to be near Blade, one of the places western outlaws used
as a safe haven back in the old days.

And while she did a good business during
the summer, she couldn't say the same during the winter. And as the winter drew
closer she grew more and more nervous, wondering what she would do to
supplement her income if she couldn't pay her bills.

Tambi
had tried to
talk her into opening a mail-order business, complete with a website people
could visit and order from. But Leslie wasn't so sure. It was a huge world out
there, and she didn't think her famous pumpkin pies would draw people in to a
website.

"Think huge,"
Tambi
had said. "We'll come up with a theme that fits in with Blade, rename the store
The Last Frontier, or something like that. Then we could say Blade is famous
because Billy the Kid spent a lot of time here, which he did. After that we
invent new recipes that drive people mad featuring his name. It'll drive people
nuts."

Leslie had laughed, but shook her head
in disagreement. "You know, it's not a bad idea, but it's not something that's
going to happen. We need to be realistic. I don't have the capital for that
kind of venture, and before you say we don't need it, we do."

She'd hated the dejected look on
Tambi's
face, but the younger woman had nodded,
then
sighed. "You're right."

"Times are tough," Leslie had countered.
"What we need is to find a way to increase the business we have right now."

And that's when
Tambi
had come up with the idea of selling Halloween novelties, trinkets people could
use to decorate their houses, and little souvenirs like the pumpkins with the
name Dante's Peak inscribed on them. Leslie wasn't so sure it would work, but
she was willing to try.

According to tracking records, she would
get the next two shipments of items later in the week, and the final shipment
next Monday. Today's shipment was the paper skeletons and plastic pumpkins.
Tomorrow she would get little tiny coffins with the words, "I survived a visit
to Blade," engraved on them. Also included tomorrow would be key chains with
tombstones inscribed with Blade.

Next week would be the T-shirts,
commemorating the Halloween party scheduled to take place in Blade Halloween
night. The few hotels in town were already booked solid. Some people rented out
their cabins that set on the lake near Blade. If visitors were unable to find a
room, they'd end up driving from Amarillo, which was just a little more than an
hour away. The real hard-core ghost town fans would bring campers, or set up
tents and sleeping bags inside the supposedly haunted town, trying to catch a
glimpse of a specter. Of course it never worked, because there weren't any
ghosts there.

Leslie smiled as she picked up a paper
skeleton, tearing off the shrink-wrap and unfolding the arms and legs. She
would have
Tambi
help her decorate this afternoon,
getting the store ready for what she hoped would be a huge influx of customers
who would want something warm to drink, something sweet, or spicy, to eat, and
hopefully something to hang in their living rooms, and remind them Halloween
was just around the corner.

She stared into the box, frowning. The
thought of unpacking the box flittered across her mind, and then she decided to
let
Tambi
do it when she arrived for work at four.
Tambi
was a single mother, who worked all morning at the
local feed yard, answering the phones and working on invoices or filing. After
that she picked up her daughter and came to work.

While
Tambi
worked the outside, Leslie would work in the office, doing books and filing of
her own while Josh,
Tambi's
seven-month-old son,
played in his crib. If business was slow they moved the crib outside to the
main room. Leslie was happy to accommodate her worker, who was a good friend as
well as an employee.

Leslie dangled the skeleton from her
fingertips,
then
placed it on top of the box and
hurried up to the front to answer the ding that announced the arrival of a
customer.
Tambi
could deal with the box later; maybe
while Josh napped and Leslie worked on the books, watching her plus column
slowly dwindle.

But maybe, just maybe, it would rise
today. She certainly hoped so.

*****

"Look, I've known Leslie Hopkins since
she was knee high to a grasshopper. She's not a drug smuggler."

Reed Jacobs took a deep breath,
then
lifted the binoculars up to his face again. Someone had
just gone into Spice is Nice, an older woman who didn't seem at all dangerous.

"I didn't say she was a drug smuggler,"
Reed replied. "I said someone is using the packing firm to smuggle drugs, and
we believe they targeted her shipment to provide them to your area. The shippers
hired me to see what I could find out."

Reed glanced at Chester Gross, the
sheriff's deputy assigned to this area. He sat ramrod straight behind the wheel
of his car, but a slow twitch of his eye let Reed know he was nervous, that he
didn't quite believe the man from Dallas who had suddenly invaded his space,
making accusations of drugs passing through his county.

Nobody liked to think they had illegal
operations taking place in their jurisdiction. And they especially didn't like
guys from the big city showing up, causing a stink.

"Listen, I'm not here to arrest her. I
couldn't do that even if she was guilty," Reed assured him. "I'm a PI, not a
cop."

"What happens when you ask me to arrest
her, though, and she turns out to be innocent?"

Reed swallowed hard,
then
reached for the can of soda sitting in the cup holder. He took a long swig,
then
clicked his tongue over his teeth. "Once again, we
don't suspect her. I have two other agents tracking two other shipments that
left Dallas the night before last. All of them went to different parts of the
state. We're watching them all. It's not the
recipients,
it's somebody working for the shipping company."

He could tell that little bit of
information placated Chester just a little. But it didn't ease his fears
totally. He was still worried that one of his residents was a dope smuggler.

"Tell me something, Reed. If they're
using the boxes, then how does the person getting the drugs from the shippers
actually take possession of them?"

"I don't know," Reed lifted his brows as
an older lady came out of the cafe, holding a large white box that Reed was
sure contained a pie, or a cake. His mouth watered at the thought of a thick
slice of pie and a cup of coffee. "Is she a good cook?"

"One of the best," Chester said. "Don't
tell my wife, but her pies are some of the tastiest eating I ever put in my
mouth. She puts just the right amount of spices into things. I think that's why
she calls the store Spice is Nice. Her pecan pie is yummy, and if you add a
scoop of ice cream on it, or whipped cream...man, I'm getting hungry just
thinking about it."

"Then let's go get some," Reed said,
slicking back his hair and rubbing his hands together. "Introduce me as a
person fascinated by ghost towns. Tell her you're friends with my parents, who
grew up nearby and moved away. Will that story work?"