This Bitter Treasure: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 3)

by S. W. Hubbard

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, September 6.

  It’s my favorite day of the year.

  No, it’s not my birthday. Or my anniversary. Sean and I don’t have one…yet.

  It’s the day after Labor Day this year. The recognized end of summer.

  The first day of school.

  I haven’t set foot in a classroom for over ten years, but this day still feels like the beginning of a new year. A time to start fresh, learn something new, leave last year’s mistakes behind. And heaven knows there has been a raft of them.

  I look down and admire my feet in my cute ankle boots. What’s a new school year without a new pair of shoes? They’re much trendier than my usual footwear. But September is a time to reinvent myself.

  Maybe I’ll sign up for a yoga class. Or learn to knit with Natalie, my dad’s new wife. Nothing as demanding as what Ty is doing right now. Or Jill.

  Of course, there’s the whole matter of learning how to be a member of the Coughlin family: a wife, a daughter-in-law, a sister-in-law. That’s reinvention on a much bigger scale for an only-child bachelor-girl like me.

  I glance at my cell phone: disturbingly blank.

  “Why do you keep checking the time?” Adrienne asks. “Your appointment is at two; you won’t need more than fifteen minutes to get there.”

  “Appointment? Oh, I’d forgotten about that.” I’m still not used to seeing Adrienne sitting at Jill’s desk. I try not to get wistful thinking about my former assistant enrolled in graduate school at NYU. I miss her terribly, but I’m excited for her and I know she’ll do great. It’s Ty I’m worried about. “I’m thinking about Ty. His first class is almost over. I’m dying to know how it went. Do you think I should call him?”

  Adrienne shakes her head. ”Wow, Audrey—I didn’t peg you as the kind of mom who hops in her SUV and follows the school bus on the first day. Did you pack a heart-shaped note in Ty’s Elmo backpack?”

  The vision of Ty in an Elmo backpack, even at age five, cracks me up. “I see him as Power Rangers all the way.” But even though Adrienne is right that I’m being ridiculously over-protective, I know that Ty has been very nervous about his debut as a college student. He’s been out of the classroom for more than five years. Twice in recent weeks he’s tried to defer his enrollment at Palmer Community College to the spring semester, claiming that Another Man’s Treasure Estate Sales is too busy to spare him. But no one he knows—not me or Adrienne, or his cousin Marcus or his grandmother—would let him off the hook. So today’s the day—Intro to Statistics, 20th Century Art, and Writing Skills.

  “I think he said he had the art class first. That’ll just be looking at slides. How hard could it be?” Adrienne squints at her computer screen, putting the finishing touches on a flyer she’s designing for our next estate sale.

  “It’s not just the classes, it’s the whole scene. You know, the other students.”

  Adrienne chokes on her green tea. “Audrey, the man is six-one, a hundred and ninety pounds. He survived a year in Rahway State Prison. You honestly think someone’s going to bully him at Palmer Community College?”

  I turn away. Adrienne means well, but she doesn’t know Ty the way I do. Of course, no one he meets on campus would dare mess with him physically. But Ty is much more sensitive than his impressive physique would lead you to think. He’s keenly tuned to other people’s reactions. He senses disdain, has a divining rod for condescension. He’s worried that he’s not up to this challenge, and even more worried that the students and professors will immediately perceive his weakness.

  And Ty does not like feeling weak.

  I can relate.

  But Adrienne’s right. I can’t call him after every class like some hysterical helicopter mom. Luckily, he was away for Labor Day weekend, so he’ll have to stop by the office on his way home to pick up last week’s paycheck. I’ll debrief him then. I return to my Accounts Payable to keep myself busy until my afternoon appointment to provide an estimate at a house in Melton, one of Palmer County’s priciest towns.

  Soon Adrienne rises to retrieve something from the printer and I catch a whiff of her expensive perfume. Adrienne has raised the style quotient of our office by about a thousand percent. The Tory Burch flats she wears cost more than what I pay her for a week of part-time work. But I don’t have to feel guilty for her paltry pay. Adrienne’s Wall Street husband, my future brother-in-law, is her family’s support. Adrienne begged for the job when Jill announced she was leaving, and the rest of the Coughlin clan chimed in loudly that working as my assistant was the perfect solution for both of us. Adrienne would have a job to put her talents to good use. Her husband and his parents would be satisfied that the job is flexible enough so the kids wouldn’t suffer. I would get an over-qualified marketing expert who had once worked in the corporate world.

  And Sean would look good for bringing a wonderful woman like me into the family.

  So hiring Adrienne became my first test of Coughlin solidarity. In the face of that much pressure, could I behave rationally by interviewing a range of candidates and choosing the most qualified? I soon realized that when the Coughlins set their minds on something, resistance is futile.

  “How’s this for Saturday’s sale?” Adrienne slides a colorful flyer in front of me. She’s obviously spent a lot of time on it. Too much time. The net result is quite pretty, but too cluttered to be legible from a distance. And printing up fifty of these will use up half the expensive ink in our printer. I feel a bead of anxiety-induced sweat trickle between my breasts. Telling Adrienne’s she’s done a project incorrectly is not a management task I relish.

  “Uh, it’s lovely, but…”

  Adrienne’s eye’s narrow. “But what?”

  “Well, you’ve used a lot of colors, and some of these design elements make the text hard to read from a distance.”

  Adrienne’s mouth tightens. “I think it’s foolish to scrimp on printing costs,” she sniffs. “You’ve got to spend money to make money.”

  Spoken like a woman who’s used to spending money that other people earn. “True, but remember the flyers are just a small part of every sale’s marketing plan. Spending more on them isn’t the best use of our promotional budget.”

  Adrienne snatches back the flyer. “Well, if what I’m doing isn’t important, why did you ask me to do it at all?”

  I take a deep breath. Adrienne’s only been on the job for two weeks, and we’ve already had a few of these contests of will. I cannot let her intimidate me. She may have better clothes sense and better decorating sense than I do, she may have once worked for Estee Lauder, but I know how to run my business.

  I hand her the flyer. “Fewer colors. Bigger type.”

  Before she can respond, I grab my messenger bag and head out for my appointment.

  Out on the sidewalk, I feel like kicking myself. If I head to Melton now, I’ll be forty-five minutes early for my appointment. I’m such a ridiculous coward! I stand up to Adrienne, then run away because I can’t bear to sit in the office with her while she sulks. I’m not cut out for dealing with high-maintenance women.

  I guess I may as well stop by Caffeine Planet for a latte to kill some time. As I walk the few blocks to my favorite coffee emporium, I mull my management problem. The thing about Adrienne is she doesn’t need to work. People who are desperate for a job to pay their bills listen to their bosses. People who want a job as a distraction from shopping and redecorating don’t. But I have no one but myself to blame. In the heady firs
t weeks of my relationship with Sean, I wasn’t rationally analyzing pros and cons. Life was nothing but sunshine and roses. What could go wrong with hiring the wife of Sean’s brother? Why not ingratiate myself with my new family by providing the perfect part-time job that everyone agrees Adrienne needs?

  I’m still madly in love with Sean. His sister-in-law…not so much.

  I turn the corner to North Main and the cheerful blue and green Planet sign beckons me. When I open the door, I’m bowled over by the wonderful aroma of rich, strong coffee. Who couldn’t love this? You really have to wonder about people who say they don’t drink coffee. I place my order for a medium latte, which at the Planet is just that—none of this bogus venti, grande nonsense—and make a little chit-chat with the baristas. I know them all by sight, if not by name. Instead of moving over to the coffee delivery area, I decide to pop back to the restroom while my drink is brewing.

  A woman with a dancing toddler is ahead of me.

  “Momeee, I have to go-o-o-o ba-a-a-d.”

  “Just hold it for a second, honey. We have to wait our turn.”

  The little girl, already low to the ground, crouches and peers under the two stall doors. She points to the stall on the right. “A lady is sitting on the ground in there. She shouldn’t do that because the floor is yucky, right Mommee? Right?”

  The mother and I exchange a glance, but at that moment the door of the stall on the left opens, and the mom herds her daughter in. I crouch down and look under the other door.

  I see a pair of crumpled, blue-jean clad legs. One bare foot is visible.

  Between two toes protrudes a hypodermic needle.

  Chapter 2

  I tug on the stall door, but of course it’s locked. Bending down again, I gingerly touch the naked foot. The skin is warm, so hopefully the girl has just nodded out, not OD’d. I rush out to the counter. Luckily, the crowd has thinned and I can speak without causing too much of a commotion. I gesture to the older of the two baristas, who can’t be more than twenty-three or four. “You’d better call 911. A girl has collapsed in the restroom. She’s got a needle in her foot.”

  The barista’s eyes widen. “Amber!”

  “Oh my God, Amber, why wouldn’t you stop?” The younger barista runs back to the ladies room.

  “Call 911,” I command, but the older girl hesitates.

  Her colleague starts shouting from the back. “I can’t reach her. I can’t open the door. Call! Call an ambulance!”

  The older girl takes a deep breath and reaches for the phone.

  Once I hear sirens in the distance, I grab my coffee and head out to meet my client. I don’t need to be in the middle of this drama; I’ve got enough of my own.

  I settle into the driver’s seat of my Honda and take a nerve-settling breath. What a morning!

  I’ve always loved that my hometown is a mix of stylish and tacky, wealthy and gritty. But shooting up in a main street café at nine-thirty in the morning is a lot more grit than I’m comfortable with. Don’t people even make an effort to hide their illegal activities anymore? I’d like to call Sean…hear the sound of his voice…hear him tell me that young women shooting up is the exception, not the new normal. But I know how he feels about personal calls during his workday. Unless I have a severed limb, I wait for him to call me. He usually checks in late in the afternoon so we can make plans for our evening. His place or mine, dine in or dine out? So I resist the urge to call him for reassurance and head south out of Palmyrton.

  Melton is not so much a town as a sought-after zip code. What passes for the commercial district is a row of tiny shops in a few Victorian houses too close to the street to be desirable as residences. There’s a gift shop that sells high-end tchotchkes, a café that sells high-end scones and tea, a tiny church used only for high-end Christmas, Easter and weddings, and a post office with one clerk. It’s the kind of post office the Postmaster General keeps wanting to close to balance the budget, but the influential residents of Melton will never allow that to happen. They wouldn’t want to merge with neighboring Palmyrton. Then their preppy kids would have to rub shoulders with the hoi poloi in the Palmyrton Little League, and their pure-bred dogs would have to play with mutts like my Ethel at the Palmyrton dog park.

  And their drug addicts—and I’m sure Melton has its share—would be hauled off unceremoniously from the Vera Bradley section of the Cachet Boutique instead of being driven quietly home.

  Sean says Melton insists on having its own police department so residents can call the cops every time a raccoon sets off their motion detector lights. But I need to put a lid on my attitude because running an estate sale in Melton is bound to add beaucoup bucks to the bottom line of Another Man’s Treasure. And with Sean and me trying to buy a house, I need all the cash I can earn.

  My client’s house is lovely from the outside. A sizeable Tudor in a neighborhood of widely spaced gracious homes, it was probably built in the 1920s to house lawyers and stockbrokers and bankers and is still occupied by that ruling elite today. The curving flagstone walk and quaint mullioned windows set off a thrum of anticipation in my core. This is a house with profit potential.

  Just as I raise my hand to the bird-shaped knocker, the heavy oak door swings open. An awful smell wafts out before I even step into the house. I’m used to old people’s houses smelling bad, of course: cats, mothballs, mildew, must. The scent of this house is familiar, but not one of those. I step into the house and shake hands with the woman who’s called me there.

  “Hi, you must be Audrey. I’m Kara Lyman. Come on in.”

  The foyer is dim compared to the bright sunshine outside. I follow the voice, feeling like I’m stepping into a void. A smelly void. God, what is it? Sickly sweet with an undertone of decay. It’s a smell I know well, but not one I associate with estate sales. Like not recognizing Ruby, my Zumba instructor, when she showed up in my dad’s chess clinic.

  Once my eyes adjust, I can see that Kara is maybe early fifties, a generation older than me. Her color-coordinated sweater and slacks are stylish, in a country club mom kind of way. The foyer is grand, with a polished parquet floor and a thick Persian rug.

  “Thank you so much for meeting me here on such short notice.” Kara runs her hands through her hair, but the bob is so perfectly cut that every strand falls right back into place. “As I mentioned on the phone, I need you to do an inventory of the house’s contents and give me a rough estimate of the worth.” She talks as she walks, leading me into a large formal living room.

  “It’s a lovely home. Has it been in your family since it was built?” I ask.

  “No, my parents bought it shortly after they married, in the mid-fifties.”

  My heart rate kicks up. Sixty years of very tasteful acquisitions. My gaze rests on a Philip Guston painting over the fireplace. “Your parents collected early twentieth century art?”

  Kara glances over her shoulder at the painting, indifferent to its beauty. “My father was the collector. He died in 1989. There haven’t been any more purchases since then.”

  I take a seat opposite her in a rose damask covered wing chair. The room is immaculate, but the smell persists. Why can’t I identify it?

  “I’m happy to give you an estimate, but you should know there are no guarantees. The sale could bring in much more, or much less. A lot depends on timing. When will you be putting the house on the market?”

  Kara shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I have no idea.”

  Before she can elaborate, we hear a crash and a cry of pain from the rear of the house. Kara jolts up from her seat. “Darlene?” She rushes to an archway in the back of the room. A heavyset woman in pink and aqua nurse’s scrubs appears and they talk quietly.

  That’s the smell! The horrible hospital smell of sickness and death. After my dad’s stroke and my own brushes with serious injury, I’ve spent too much time in hospitals. These are memories I try to block, but the nose knows. Someone in this house is terminally ill, and Kara is already plann
ing the estate sale. Does she expect me to run it while the poor old soul is clinging to life? Will I have to put “not for sale” signs on the oxygen tank and the IV pole? I’ve seen plenty of people who weren’t heartbroken by their relative’s death, but this is cold.

  Kara returns. “Where was I? Oh, the timing of the sale. As you can see,” she waves in the direction of the nurse, “my mother is in hospice care. She… I don’t know…” Kara’s cellphone starts an insistent trilling. She purses her lips and pulls the phone from her pocket. “Yes, Cassie? Well, what do you want me to do? I’m in New Jersey.”

  High-pitched, teenage girl keening floats through the air.

  “Cassie, you’ll just have to ask one of the other girls for a ride. You have to handle it yourself. There’s nothing I can do.” Kara ends the call in mid-screech.

  She leans back in her chair, shuts her eyes, and lets the phone slip from her fingers. “I’m losing my mind,” she murmurs.

  “You have kids?”

  “Three—the youngest is only fifteen, the middle one is in the midst of college applications. My husband is in sales and travels constantly. We live in Pittsburgh. And my mother is dying here, all alone. And I can’t move her to a nursing home because, against the advice of her lawyer, she made it a condition of her will that if her children put her in a nursing home, she would leave all her money to St. Hubert’s Animal Shelter.” Kara’s lip trembles as she opens her eyes to meet mine. “Honestly, I’m about ready to let the dogs have it, because I can’t take this stress. Driving back and forth, seven hours each way. Never in the right place at the right time. Ugh.”

  Her well-groomed façade has cracked and I see the frazzled woman within. “Are you an only child?” I ask.

  “Ha! It would be easier if I were. I’m the second of four. My older brother should have been the executor. If he had lived, none of this would be happening.” Two slow tears slip down her cheeks. “My younger siblings, Rachel and Tom, are twins. Tom is…has… issues. And Rachel, Rachel is The Baby.” Kara makes air quotes. “She was born an hour after Tom and nearly died. Her whole life we all treated her like a fragile little flower. Now we—I’m—paying the price.”