The Lexington jewelry store was not doing well, in fact it was sinking fast. Peter had returned to Cincinnati where he and I alone were working the shop and a girl hired by Nancy was running the Lexington store. Around Christmas, Nancy had decided to close the Lexington store. The only problem was that there was a lease with the Mall that was still in effect for a few years.

A lesson that I had not learned yet was that when someone (even if it is your mother-in-law to be) tells you, "Don’t worry, it’s okay, it’s legal, I checked with an attorney," don’t just walk away, run the other way. Nancy hired a U-Haul truck and told us that according to the attorney she had consulted, it was perfectly legal for her to empty the shop of all of the jewelry inventory and the storage facility of everything. She asked us to come along to help move things and she had instructed the Manager of the Lexington shop to close as normal but to have all of the inventory packed up in boxes, ready to go. We drove the truck down from Cincinnati to arrive at approximately closing time.

When we arrived in Lexington, we went directly to the storage area and removed boxes of records and some furniture. We used a dolly and Nancy seemed in no particular hurry to get the boxes packed into the truck. Now I realize that she probably believed that she was safe arriving so late at night to break her lease, after the mall offices were closed.

We walked upstairs to the jewelry store where we found the Manager chatting with a Security Guard, only about half of the inventory was packed. Nancy absolutely panicked but waited until the Security Guard left to begin quietly shrieking at the Manager, "What’s going on? You were supposed to have everything packed. Hurry everyone, start packing up the jewelry into anything you can find." I grabbed a box and started taking jewelry out of the cases as quickly as I could.

All of the sudden, the Security Guard was back with the Mall Manager who ordered everyone to put everything down. He had not seen me yet and I darted out the side door with the stack of boxes containing the jewelry. He heard me and came out to see what was going on. I put the boxes down behind the Mall Directory sign and showed him that my hands were empty. Now I was scared, he said he was calling the police (I don’t know if that was true or if he ever did.)

Nancy came out in near hysteria and I pointed down to the boxes. She smiled and told me to grab them as soon as the Mall Manager wasn’t looking. I managed to get the jewelry without either the Security Guard or the Mall Manager seeing me and I ran to the truck. Driving back, we ran into the worst snowstorm of the season, a testament to Nancy's fabulous planning!

Now I wish I had just left all of the jewelry there and let the Mall Manager get the inventory. Nancy had lied to us because clearly what we were doing would never be ‘okayed’ by an attorney. I was fearful that Peter and I would be arrested by the police any second. And to add insult to injury, that Christmas Nancy gave a $500 bonus to the Manager of the Lexington shop and not a dime to either me or Peter.

The upside of this whole debacle was that Nancy was too cheap to rent a storage facility and decided to store all of the financial records in our basement, without any compensation to us of course. With those records, I began to unravel the lies about the business and it’s financial history and situation one by one.