Free Troubled Treats by Jessica Beck Page B

there’s a chance in the world you’d be willing to stay out here while I go in alone, is there?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Just stay behind me, then,” he ordered, a command that I had no problems complying with.
    Together, we walked into the building single file, and then we headed slowly up the stairs.
    We were halfway there when we both heard the back door slam on the first floor behind us.  Blast it all, whoever had been there had moved downstairs from the second floor while I’d been outside waiting on Jake, and now they’d gotten away.  We were still racing for the back door when we heard someone screech their tires as they drove quickly away.  “I can’t believe that we missed them again,” I said in disgust.  “I should have followed my first instincts and gone after whoever it was by myself.”
    “No, you shouldn’t have,” Jake said.  “You were right to call me.”
    “But now whoever was here is gone.”
    “Maybe so, but if we got lucky, we might still find something.  They must have heard you earlier, so they could have left before they were able to find what they were looking for.”  We walked back up the stairs together, and Jake stopped me at the top as he knelt down and studied the floor with his flashlight.
    “What do you see?” I asked him, straining to catch a glimpse of whatever he was looking at.
    “Footprints,” he said as he pointed to a dusty edge.
    “Does that mean that we can’t investigate?” I asked him.
    “No.  Just be careful where you put your feet, and try to match my footsteps as closely as you can.”  He moved to the edge of the floor along the outside wall and started toward the main area.  “Suzanne, where exactly did you hear that noise before?”
    “It had to be somewhere over there,” I said, pointing to a small room that must have been an office once upon a time when the factory had still been a going concern.  “It’s right above where I was standing.”
    “Come on.  Let’s check it out,” Jake said, carefully walking toward it.  As he drew the door open, I held my breath.  What would we find there?  Was it another body?  I hoped with all of my heart that it wasn’t, but given my history, I knew that I couldn’t bank on it.
    I let out a deep sigh of relief when I realized that the room was empty, at least of people, dead or otherwise. 
    Instead, there were half a dozen wooden crates of varying sizes stacked in there, clearly recently disturbed.  “Do you think there’s something inside of one of these?” I asked Jake, still whispering for some odd reason.
    He was about to answer when another flashlight beam illuminated the area where we stood.
    “Drop your weapon,” a voice commanded from the darkness, and I had to wonder if whoever had been there before had circled back to get the drop on us.
     
     

 
    Chapter 10
     
     
    Jake didn’t immediately comply with the command, and I wondered if he was going to take a stand and have a shootout right then and there.  Instead, he held his hands up in the air as he said, “Everything’s okay.  It’s just us, Chief.”
    “Jake, what are you two doing here?” the acting police chief asked as he reached over and turned on an overhead light.
    “Suzanne saw someone wandering around up here as she was driving past, so she called me,” he explained.
    “Is there any reason that you didn’t think of calling me first?” he asked me as he frowned.  “And this place is nowhere near your donut shop.”
    “Are you honestly all that surprised that I called my husband first?” I asked him.  “If it’s any consolation, you were next on my list.  As to why I was here, I was curious to see if you still had a guard posted outside.  I wasn’t ignoring you, I promise.”
    “I wish I could say that it helped, but it doesn’t.”  As he looked around, he asked, “Did you happen to see who it was?”
    “Sorry.  Whoever it was beat it out of here after they realized that