Secret Sisters - an LDS cozy mystery

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty 

Eden burst in through Ida Mae's kitchen door, Ren hot on her heels. "Ida Mae!" 

Ida Mae looked up from the coupons she was clipping. "Yes, dear?" 

"Look at this!" She pulled up a chair and plopped down, setting a piece of paper on the table. "Okay. Nick shipped out that package to Tulsa, right? Well, here's the thing. When you're through shipping a package, you're supposed to put the order sheet into a box on my desk. That sheet hasn't shown up, and it's been a couple of days." 

"And no one else would have taken it out?" Ida Mae asked. 

"Nope. That's my job." Eden jabbed the paper with her finger. "See what this means? Someone placed the order without my knowledge and they didn't file the order form properly. And . . ." she paused, probably for dramatic effect. 

"And?" Ida Mae prompted on cue. 

"The order is no longer in the computer's database." 

"What?" 

"Someone went in and erased it," Ren put in. "There is now no record of that package, except with the shipping company." 

"Why put it in the computer at all?" Ida Mae asked. 

"To print the shipping label," Eden explained. "You have to fill out a form on the computer in order to print the label. If Nick tried to mail a package without the right shipping label, it would really call attention to itself. I bet the guy in the Jaguar put the order into the computer to get the label, had Nick fill the order, and then erased all evidence of it from the computer. Nick probably destroyed the form instead of returning it to my box." 

"So, Nick is illegally shipping something," Ida Mae said. "He's not stealing baby formula, is he?" 

"I don't think so," Ren said. "That certainly wouldn't bring in the kind of cash he's had lately. I think he's shipping drugs." 

"Drugs?" Ida Mae blinked. "Are you sure?" 

"Think about it," Ren said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "He's shipping something under the radar. It's bringing in cash every ten days. What else could it be? Nothing else that valuable is small enough to ship in formula canisters. Unless we're talking about jewels, but no one really steals and sells jewels anymore. That's kind of a James Bond thing." 

"Does Nick know what he's doing?" Ida Mae asked. 

"It's possible they didn't tell him exactly what he was shipping, but he has to know it's wrong. Nobody pays you under the table for doing something legal. Besides, remember that conversation we taped between him and Mary? She said it wasn't right. So, she knows a little something about it, too." 

Ida Mae shook her head, trying to squelch down the sick feeling that was building in her stomach. This meant jail time for Nick and Mary. What would happen to the children? For a second, she wished the Secret Sisters had never gotten involved, with all their hightech gadgets. But it was only a matter of time before the law got wind of it anyway, regardless of who brought it to light. 

"What do we do?" she asked, feeling the weight of the decision. 

"We still can't do anything," Ren said. "All this is conjecture. We have no proof of anything." 

"Back to square one, then?" 

"Not exactly," Eden said. "We know a lot more than we did. We just don't have proof of it, that's all." 

"I wish someone would make a mistake so we could turn the whole thing over to the police," Ida Mae said. She pushed her chair back from the table and reached for the emergency can of soda pop she kept on the shelf just for times like this. Her stomach needed some attention, fast.