by J. B. Lynn
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
“And just in case you’re wondering,” he said, leaning just a tad closer, just enough that she could smell his aftershave, “I’m not involved with anyone.” He leaned back, winked at her again, and turned his attention to the pizza. “I’m starving.”
Amanda, the butterflies in her stomach now a swelling and swirling tornado, hurried off to grab some paper plates from on top of the mini fridge in the back storeroom. She also brought a couple of cans of seltzer out. “This is all we have to drink, I’m afraid.”
Tom nodded. “That’s fine.”
They ate their pizza in an awkward silence that Tom seemed to delight in.
Amanda wondered if Harmony also had a spell for manifesting holes that a person could suddenly disappear into.
“Okay, I was stupid,” she said, as Tom finished his second slice.
“About which thing?” he asked mildly.
She rolled her eyes at his implication that she’d been stupid about multiple things, but only said, “I shouldn’t have made that assumption about you and Piper.”
He nodded. “And you should leave the detective work to me.”
Shrugging, she went to where she’d left the journal. “That’s why you’re here. So you can look at this.”
He made a show of wiping the pizza grease off of his hands, using multiple napkins, before he took it from her.
“Where did you find this?”
“Between Letty’s mattress and box spring.”
“And what made you look there?”
Despite herself, Amanda glanced in the direction of Rupert, who was lounging now on the counter by the cash register, like some sort of drunken sloth.
“Someone once told me that people hide stuff under their mattresses.”
“A wise observation,” Tom remarked.
“See?” Rupert crowed victoriously. “I told you so.”
The detective began to flip through the book.
“I hope you can find something in it that we couldn’t,” Amanda said.
“I hope so, too,” he murmured. “After all, I’m the professional in this investigation.”
6
One Woman’s Junk wasn’t even officially open for business when the bell over the door jangled. Winnie fought back a groan. She’d been out late the night before, the sunset cruise with Jim having turned into a night of dancing at sea. When she’d gotten home, she’d had a long discussion with Amanda about what the detective had thought of the journal. She was in no shape for dealing with her least favorite part of the business, customers.
Forcing a smile onto her face, even though she wanted to tell whoever it was to get out, Winnie turned to face the first customer of the day. Suzanne, of the Killer Cupcakes, Cookies and Coffee show, looked desperate as she stood there wearing a silk red scarf that matched the color of her lipstick.
The woman’s red lips trembled as she said quietly, “I need cookbooks. Tell me you have cookbooks.”
Winnie nodded, thinking of the hollowed out cookbook in the apartment upstairs, full of cash. She wasn’t going to give her that one. “I’m pretty sure we do.” She led Suzanne over to the book section.
“I’ll take them all,” Suzanne said tiredly.
“Are you okay?” Winnie asked. She really didn’t want to get involved in the other woman’s business, but she looked so frazzled that she figured the kind thing to do, the thing Letty would have expected her to do, would be to reach out and offer some support.
Suzanne glanced around to make sure nobody was in the store before leaning forward and saying, “Can you keep a secret?”
Winnie nodded. She couldn’t imagine any secret she could tell her would be difficult to keep.
“We don’t have the recipe,” Suzanne whispered.
“The recipe for what?” Winnie asked. As they talked, Winnie began to pull all of the cookbooks from the shelves, piling them into Suzanne’s arms.
“The recipe for the cookies,” Suzanne said. “The thing the whole show is supposed to be based on.”
Winnie continued to pile books on her. “How did it win the contest if there wasn’t a recipe?” She wasn’t much of a cook herself, but that seemed highly illogical.
“It was a taste contest at a fair,” Suzanne said. “No written recipe was required.”
“And now it is?” she asked, revealing that she did not spend time watching cooking shows.
“Yes,” Suzanne groaned. “We can’t make anything without a recipe, and we can’t give it to viewers without a recipe. There is no smell-a-vison/taste-a-vision in existence yet.”
Winnie pulled the last cookbook and put it on top of the stack that Suzanne was barely balancing. It came up and covered just to the tip of her nose, obscuring half of her face.
“So why won’t he give you the recipe?”
“Because he’s a first-class jerk,” Suzanne muttered. “I mean, we threatened to sue him if he didn’t turn it over, and do you know what he said? He said that if we do that, he’d accuse us of cashing in on his poor wife’s death. Like that isn’t exactly what HE’S doing. I hate him!”
Nutmeg let out a loud yip, startling her. Suzanne jumped, tried to catch the pile of books, and failed, all the books crashing to the floor. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.”
Winnie waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, nothing broke.” She bent down to start gathering the books. “I shouldn’t have given them all to you.”
She gave Nutmeg a warning look, considering it was his fault that the books had been spilled. As she picked them up, a piece of paper slipped out of one, and she distractedly wadded it up and stuck it in her pocket to throw in the trash later.
“What are you doing down there?” Amanda yelled down from the apartment.
“Helping a customer,” Winnie yelled back. “I need you to man the store while I make this delivery.”
“You don’t have to,” Suzanne said, picking up a couple of books. “You’ve already been so kind.”
Winnie shook her head. “It’s no trouble.”
The pile of cookbooks was much more manageable when it was being carried by two people.
Amanda came down the stairs, yawning. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Suzanne said. “Your sister was just helping me with these.”
Amanda’s gaze flicked over them toward the bookshelf, and Winnie wondered if she was looking at the now empty spaces, or at the ghost.
“I’m going to help her bring them over,” Winnie told her older sister.
Amanda nodded distractedly. Winnie decided she was listening to the ghost.
“Do you want to go for a walk, Nutmeg?”
The little dog growled at her, despite the fact he hadn’t yet been out that day.
Winnie shrugged. “Fine. Stay here.”
Winnie and Suzanne walked back over to the bakery. When they reached the door, Suzanne shrugged apologetically. “I can’t let you in.”
“No problem,” Winnie said with an easy smile. She really wasn’t in the mood to run into the baker anyway, he always seemed so unpleasant. She put her pile of books down on the sidewalk, gave Suzanne an encouraging thumbs up, and headed back to the store, just in time to see Amanda wrestling Angus outside.
“He called,” Amanda announced excitedly.
“The detective?” Winnie asked. She hadn’t missed the twinkle in her sister’s eye after her latest discussion with the detective. If Winnie wasn’t mistaken, her sister was just as besotted with him as Bea was with Ash.
“No, the father. Of the boy. We have to put the jersey in place. They’re going to be here this afternoon.”
Winnie nodded, wondering what it would be like to see the actual face of the teenage boy she’d sketched obsessively.
“I called Bea,” Amanda said. “I thought she should be here, too, for it.”
Winnie nodded, helped her sister get Angus situated just so, and then said, “I r
eally need coffee.”
Amanda nodded. “Me too,” she said with a big grin.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Winnie promised, starting to head toward PerC Up.
“Tell Piper I said hi,” Amanda said cheerily.
Winnie glanced over her shoulder, thinking it was a weird request, but her sister had already disappeared back into the store. As she walked, she remembered the piece of paper that had fallen out of the book. She took it out of her pocket, unfolded it, and physically stumbled when she saw what it was.
“A treasure map,” she gasped. She didn’t get to examine it carefully because it was time for the neighborhood to watch the demise of Killer Cupcakes.
7
The Concordia sisters and Piper were all seated outside of One Woman’s Junk, watching the show. Piper had brought over the baked goods and large iced coffees. They were busy watching the drama surrounding the TV show shooting at the bakery.
Nutmeg sat between Winnie and Amanda, every once in a while growling for no apparent reason. Suzanne, the producer, seemed to be taking employees out one at a time onto the street and giving them a stern talking to. From where Amanda sat, it didn’t look like she was too successful in convincing any of them to do what she wanted. Everyone looked angry, or dejected. And as time stretched on, Suzanne looked more and more beaten.
“What do you think is going on?” Winnie asked, eating a third cookie.
“I think she’s trying to hold together an impossible situation,” Amanda said. “It seems to have been one problem after another since she arrived.”
“Speaking of problems,” Piper interjected. The heads of the Concordia sisters all swiveled in her direction.
“How long do you think it will be before Perkins kicks us all out of here?”
“He won’t,” Winnie tried to reassure her. “You’re all caught up on your rent now, aren’t you? Because of Suzanne’s money.”
Piper nodded.
“And I triple-checked Letty’s books and we’re not behind on rent, despite what he claims. The man’s just blowing smoke, thinking he can intimidate us for his own gain. Everything’s fine.”
“For now.” Piper rubbed her hands together nervously. “I just wanted things to be perfect for when Julie comes home.”
“Who’s Julie?” Bea asked curiously.
“My fiancé,” Piper said. She waited a long moment, as though waiting for them to react. When none of the sisters did, she continued, “Her family’s been through so much, I just wanted that, when she came home, that the business would be stable.”
Amanda leaned closer, realizing that the family she referred to was Tom’s. “What kind of trouble has the family had?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Piper shrugged. “Their brother, Peter, has had a tough time of it,” she said.
Not wanting to seem nosy, Amanda forced herself to wait, but she was dying to know what was going on with Tom’s brother.
After a long moment, Piper continued, “They thought he’d gone AWOL, he’s in the army. And Tom went looking for him, that’s why he wasn’t around when Letty died.”
She paused, realizing how insensitive that could have sounded.
“It’s okay,” Amanda told her gently. “She died.”
Piper nodded and swallowed hard. “Anyway, Tom finally found him, but he wasn’t AWOL. He’d had a terrible car accident and had been unconscious for a few weeks. Everyone’s doing what they can to help.”
Amanda felt a wave of sympathy for Tom. No wonder he gave off the vibe of being weighted down by responsibility.
“That’s terrible,” Bea said sympathetically. “Is he okay now?”
Piper shrugged. “He’s been rehabilitating for a while now, but from what Julie says, his memory is really spotty. So they’re hoping that when Julie comes home, she can fill in some gaps for him. Help him improve.”
“And where is she now?” Winnie asked.
“She’s in the Army, too,” Piper explained. “She’s just finishing up her deployment.”
“Have you set a wedding date yet?” Bea asked curiously.
“Next spring,” Piper said with a proud but shy smile.
Bea clapped with delight. “Oh that’s wonderful.”
Piper nodded slowly. “We’ve been together for ages, it’s about time we made it official.”
“Good for you,” Winnie said.
“It won’t be a big wedding,” Piper said. “Neither one of us can afford that. But hopefully, it will be a nice one.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Amanda assured her. “If there’s anything we can do to help…”
“Be careful what you offer,” Piper said. “I might take you up on it.”
Amanda chuckled. “Feel free.”
Nutmeg began to growl louder.
Suzanne walked out of the building with Matt. If she had seemed to be struggling with her employees, she was definitely losing the fight to him. The baker, realizing he had an audience in his neighbors, turned to glare at them.
He gave off such hostile energy that Amanda sucked in a breath. She felt like the air was burning up, searing her lungs.
“What’s wrong,” Winnie asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t feel…?” She trailed off, realizing her sister wasn’t experiencing the searing wave of emotion.
She wondered if this was a new power, like being able to talk to Rupert, Pim and Angus.
It tugged at a long-buried memory of unreasonable anger that she didn’t want to re-experience.
“Feel what?” Winnie stared into her eyes.
Amanda felt the concern coming off of her sister, like a cool cloth being wiped over her forehead, dampening the effect of Matt’s hostility.
Turning away, Amanda shook her head. What was it Letty had said about her? That she was the most sensitive? Was this another power manifesting? Was she going to be cursed with hearing ghosts and being buffeted by the emotions of others?
Panic welled up inside her. She swayed weakly.
“Breathe, Amanda,” Rupert urged softly, appearing at her side. “Breathe, sweetheart. You’re scaring your sister.”
Feeling the concern emanating from Winnie, she concentrated on taking a few steadying breaths. Turning back to face her, she said with a shrug, “He’s so angry.”
“Well, you don’t need any special powers to tell that,” Piper remarked. There was something about Piper’s tone that made Amanda freeze.
“Powers?” Winnie asked her sharply.
She and Winnie exchanged a worried glance. It was obvious that her sister was concerned. Amanda couldn’t blame her. She didn’t want to be known for their powers, either.
Piper shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry. Harmony was talking…”
“We’re going to have to have a talk with her,” Amanda said.
“Oh, she didn’t mean any harm,” Bea said dismissively.
“So, it’s true?” Piper asked, eyes wide. “You have powers?”
Amanda groaned. “Please tell me you haven’t mentioned this to Tom.”
Piper shook her head. “Of course not, he’d think I’m crazy.”
Amanda nodded. “We really don’t want him thinking we’re crazy. Can you keep our secret?”
“So, you do have powers!” Piper crowed victoriously.
“Very minor ones,” Winnie hurried to assure her.
Considering that Amanda could talk to ghosts, and they could all talk to inanimate objects, Amanda wasn’t sure she agreed with calling them minor powers, but Piper didn’t need to know any of that.
Winnie reached for another cookie, and Bea slapped her hand, grabbing it for herself.
Nutmeg let out a warning bark, which made Amanda turn toward their younger sister. She watched in horror as Bea’s eyes glazed over, and she swayed unsteadily.
“Bea!” she shouted, jumping up and grabbing her sister just before she fell off her chair.
Winnie grabbed Bea’s other arm, and together th
ey were able to keep her upright.
“What happened?” Piper asked. “What does she need?”
“I saw it,” Bea muttered weakly. “The skull and crossbones.”
“You saw death?” Piper asked, eyes wide.
8
A couple of hours later, Bea was perched behind the cash register and Amanda was carefully hanging the jersey on the rack for the boy to find when their sister strolled back in.
“I’ve convinced Piper than Bea didn’t see death,” Winnie announced proudly.
Bea rolled her eyes.
“But we’ve got another problem,” Winnie warned.
Amanda let out a tired sigh. “Now what?”
“Harmony is smudging the entire strip.”
Bea chuckled, and Amanda shook her head.
“Well,” Bea said, “there has been a lot of negative energy around here.”
“I wonder if she’ll be able to get into the bakery,” Winnie said, handing over a cup of coffee to their younger sister. “Poor Suzanne could use some good juju.”
“I heard she was your early morning visitor.”
“Yes,” Winnie revealed. “But that wasn’t the most interesting part of the day.”
Amanda finished hanging the jersey and moved toward the coffee tray that Winnie held, holding her hands out in front of her, and moaning like a zombie, “Coffee.”
“Dramatic much?” Winnie teased. “It’s not like it’s your first cup of the day.”
“But I need it,” Amanda whined in her most over-the-top voice. “It’s exciting.”
Bea giggled at her antics.
Winnie handed her a cup and Amanda sipped it gratefully.
“What was the interesting thing?” Bea asked.
Amanda watched as Winnie pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of her back pocket and spread it out on the counter for her sisters to see.
“This fell out of one of the books this morning.”
“It’s a treasure map,” Bea cried with glee. “A real one!”
“You don’t know mine’s not real,” Winnie huffed indignantly.
