by J. B. Lynn
“What is it?” Winnie asked worriedly.
“It’s not who you think it is, in the picture,” Amanda said slowly.
She saw Winnie’s disbelief, and felt Bea’s dismay.
“Of course, it is,” Bea said. “That’s me.”
Amanda nodded. “It is.”
“Then what are you talking about?” Winnie asked.
“That’s not Mom,” Amanda said.
After she said the explosive statement, it felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. A silence fell over them.
“Of course, it is,” Bea began defensively.
Amanda shook her head sadly. “It’s not.”
As though Winnie sensed the gravity of what was being discussed, and how hard it was on Amanda, she interjected on her older sister’s behalf. “She’d know better than us, Bea.”
“Then who is it?” Bea asked, raising her chin in a challenge.
“Aunt Amity.”
Bea shrugged. “Who is that?”
“Mom’s sister,” Amanda said.
“Mom didn’t have a sister,” Bea reminded her.
“No,” Amanda said, quietly correcting her. “We just never talked about the fact that she had a sister, a twin.”
“Why not?” Winnie asked.
Amanda could hear the trepidation in her sister’s voice. She felt it, too. “Because Mom made us promise we’d never speak of her again,” Amanda revealed.
“Made who promise?” Bea asked.
Amanda raised her head and looked both of her sisters in the eye one at a time. “She made Letty and I promise, the day she died.”
39
Amanda flinched as hurt and hostility emanated in waves off of her sisters.
“What do you mean, Mom said to keep it a secret?” Winnie asked, an unfamiliar thread of anger weaving its way through her tone.
Amanda shrugged. “I was ten,” she reminded her. “If an adult tells you to do something, you do it.”
“Do you remember her?” Bea asked Winnie. “This Amity woman?”
Winnie shook her head.
“You wouldn’t,” Amanda said. “We only met her once, and you were five.”
“But the picture,” Bea said. “That’s Mom.”
Winnie shrugged helplessly. “Mom must have taken it if it’s not her in it.”
Amanda shook her head slowly. “I remember that day.”
“What happened?” Winnie urged.
“Mom wasn’t home, Letty was watching us, and Dad had been out doing something. This woman showed up, she looked so much like Mom, but she wasn’t her. She was…”
“She was what?” Bea asked sharply.
Amanda hesitated. She didn’t want to ruin whatever picture of their mother her sisters cherished. There was a fine line between telling them the truth and destroying all they’d believed to be true all of their lives.
They’d already lost so much with the death of Letty.
She chose her words carefully. “Softer, the woman was softer. We had a lot of fun playing with her, and I remember Letty laughing a lot, and then Dad came home.”
“And he was upset?” Winnie asked, picking up on the sudden tension that had made Amanda’s voice flat.
Amanda shook her head. “He seemed glad to see her. He was the one that took the picture.”
“And where were you and I?” Winnie asked. “Why aren’t we in the picture?”
“Dad took a few with different combinations of us,” Amanda explained.
“And where are they?” Bea asked.
Amanda shrugged helplessly. “Honestly, until you unwrapped that picture, I’d totally forgotten about them being taken.”
“Well, you wouldn’t think that somebody would just forget about an extra family member,” Bea said bitterly.
Amanda frowned and looked away. She didn’t tell them about how their mother had screamed when she came into the house and found her sister there. How afraid Winnie had been, how she’d gone and hidden under the kitchen table with her crayon and paper to try and get away from their mother’s rage.
“She wasn’t happy to see her sister,” she said carefully. “That’s when she made Letty and I promise to never mention her again.”
“And so you didn’t?” Winnie asked.
Amanda shook her head. She’d seen no point in it.
“But I don’t understand,” Bea said. “We grew up always hearing about how important family is.”
“It was,” Amanda said. “To Letty.”
“But she was always talking about our Concordia sister bond,” Winnie reminded her.
Amanda nodded. “Maybe she was afraid we’d end up like Mom and her sister.”
“We kind of did,” Bea said sadly.
“But we have a new chance now,” Amanda told them. “We’ve really bonded, being together here.”
Winnie nodded her agreement. “But—”
A knock at the door startled them all.
“Why the hell do we bother to put out the closed sign?” Winnie muttered, marching toward the door, getting ready to dismiss whoever was standing on the other side.
She pulled it open, and Amanda could see Sandy was standing there, holding a framed picture, smiling widely.
“You are not going to believe what I found,” the picker said.
Amanda could tell she was practically bubbling with excitement.
“We’re closed,” Winnie told her flatly.
“No,” Amanda called out. “Let her in. It’s important.”
She felt Bea’s questioning eyes on her, but just shrugged. She knew it was important, she just didn’t know why.
Sighing heavily, Winnie stepped aside, allowing Sandy to enter.
“I found one of the things that Letty wanted,” Sandy said excitedly. She put it down and began unwrapping it. While she was working, she glanced at Winnie’s sketchbook, which was lying open to a sketch of the painting she’d spotted in Richardson’s house.
“I found that one, too,” she said, jerking her chin in the direction of Winnie’s artwork. “Letty was so upset when it was stolen.”
“Stolen?” Winnie asked, glancing at her sisters.
Sandy nodded. “That’s what Letty said. She bought it from me, put it in the back storeroom, and it was gone the next time she looked for it.” She turned around her latest find, so that they could all see the painting that she was carrying.
It was a picture of a red barn. Nothing special about it, but to Amanda it felt very important.
“It’s by Salus,” Sandy explained. “Your godmother was obsessed with finding the work of this artist.”
“Why?” Bea asked curiously, getting off her stool and limping toward the picker to examine the painting more closely. “It looks fairly average, to me; I don’t think it’s worth much.”
Sandy shrugged. “All I know is that this was at the top of her list of things to find. She had a whole collection of them.”
“Had being the operative word,” Winnie said. “There aren’t any in the shop or in her apartment.”
“How much do you want for it?” Amanda asked Sandy sharply. She’d remembered that there was that big fireproof box in the storeroom that they’d never gotten around to opening. Now she had a good idea of what was inside.
Sandy shook her head. “Letty always gave me a hundred, but I’m sure you’re right, they’re probably not worth that much.”
“It’s worth that much to us,” Amanda said. She moved quickly toward the cash register and pulled out one hundred dollars. She thrust it into the picker’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
She put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and practically propelled her straight out the door. She locked the door behind her and turned back to face her sisters.
“What is it?” Bea asked.
“Yeah,” Winnie said. “What’s so exciting about a barn?”
“We have to open that box that’s in the back,” Amanda said.
Together, she and W
innie wrestled the box out of the storeroom, and all three sisters stared at it, wondering how to open the lock that held it closed.
“You know who could open it…” Winnie began.
“Hank?” Bea suggested.
“Tom,” Winnie said. “I bet he has access to lock cutters.”
“We should call him,” Bea said.
Amanda hesitated. He was in the middle of an investigation. She wasn’t sure how he’d respond to a request to open a box that had nothing to do with that.
“He’ll do it for you,” Winnie said, as though she read her older sister’s thoughts.
Amanda nodded and dialed Tom’s number. He picked up on the third ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I mean, nothing more than normal.”
Winnie made a motion that she should get on with her request.
“We found this locked box that my godmother had,” she said. “I was wondering if maybe you could help us get it open.”
She heard Tom suck in a breath, and he hesitated for a moment.
“Unless you’re too busy,” she said. “It would be totally understandable if you are.”
“I get off work in another hour,” he said. “I’ll come by then and help you.”
“Thank you,” Amanda said.
“I’ll see you soon.”
She disconnected the call and looked at her sisters. “He’ll be here soon,” she told them.
They nodded and stared at the barn painting. “It’s going to be a long wait,” Winnie said.
Amanda nodded, but secretly she was thinking that maybe it was a wait that was finally going to be over.
40
They were still staring at the barn painting when Nutmeg barked, “Need Richardson’s painting.”
Amanda stared at him. “What?”
“Richardson’s painting,” the little dog insisted.
“What?” Bea asked. “What is he saying?”
“We need to get Richardson’s painting,” Amanda translated.
“I concur with the dog,” Rupert said.
Amanda shot him a look. “Did anybody ask you for your opinion?”
“Hey,” he said. “I dumpster dove for you.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Color me unimpressed.”
“Now what’s the ghost saying?” Winnie asked in exasperation.
“He agrees with the dog.”
“I agree with him, too,” Winnie said. “ We need to go get Richardson’s painting,” Winnie said.
“Uh,” Bea pointed out carefully. “You do remember that it’s in his house, right?”
“He’s dead,” Winnie said. “It’s not like he’ll be missing it.”
“But it is like breaking and entering,” Bea said.
“It’s important,” Winnie said. “Besides, who’s going to report us?”
“I agree,” Amanda said. While she wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of breaking and entering, or burglary, or whatever the official crime may be, she did think it was important that they see the picture since Winnie had sketched it so many times and Letty had thought they were important enough to collect.
“You hold down the fort here,” Winnie said to Bea. “That way, if the detective comes by early, you can get him to open the box.”
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Amanda said, following Winnie, who was already moving toward the door.
“You can stay and guard Bea?” she asked Nutmeg.
“Guard,” he barked back.
“We really need a car,” Winnie complained as she began striding down the street.
Amanda hurried to catch up with her. “We can call an Uber,” she suggested.
Winnie shook her head. “Then there would be a record that we went to Richardson’s home. If we’re going to break in, we don’t need to leave a paper trail for the prosecutors.”
“Who knew that you were such a criminal?” Amanda teased.
Winnie didn’t appear amused at her joke. She was striding purposefully away from One Woman’s Junk. “I can’t believe you kept that secret all these years,” she muttered.
Amanda frowned. “I was doing what Mom asked.”
“But keeping a family member a secret…”
Amanda frowned. “I wasn’t the only one, Letty kept the secret, too.”
“I wonder why,” Winnie said.
Amanda shrugged. “To be honest, I’d almost forgotten about Amity until Bea opened the picture. I wasn’t really intentionally keeping a secret from you. I was just a kid, too, you know.”
Winnie nodded slowly. “I guess we forget that at times. “
They passed the rest of the trip to Richardson’s home in silence.
“It’s this one,” Winnie said, walking around the back of a house at the end of a cul-de-sac.
She led Amanda to a window in the back and pointed inside. “See? It’s right there, hanging on the wall.”
Amanda nodded. “So, what are we going to do, break the window?”
“First,” Winnie said. “We try to open a door.”
She jiggled the handle of the rear door, but nothing happened. Then she walked around to the garage and tried to lift that, but it remained closed. Finally, she walked up to the front door.
Amanda looked around nervously, worried that Richardson’s neighbors were wondering why two strange women were at a dead man’s front door.
Winnie lifted the mat in front of the door and shook her head. Then she lifted a flowerpot and let out a victorious hoot.
“Got it,” she said, holding up a key for Amanda to see. “Even punk criminals hide keys to their doors.”
She unlocked the door and stepped inside.
As she followed her sister inside, Amanda wondered how getting caught breaking into a dead man’s house would impact her new relationship with the police detective. Shaking her head at herself, she closed the door behind them and turned back to Winnie. Together, they took the painting off the wall.
“Again. I’m not impressed by this artwork,” Winnie said.
“Letty must have been collecting it for some reason,” Amanda said. “I think we should at least carry it out the back door, don’t you?” she suggested.
Winnie nodded and began to lead the way, holding one end of the framed picture.
A piece of paper on a nearby table caught her eye, and Amanda yelled, “Wait.”
Winnie glanced back at her. “What?”
A sense of urgency and excitement filled her as she pointed to the paper. “Doesn’t that look like…”
Winnie peered at it. “A picture of the gazebo at Red Bug Slough.”
“Yes,” Amanda said. “But his has some writing attached to it.”
They both peered at it closely.
“It’s an address,” Winnie said.
Amanda pulled out her phone and punched the address into it. She let out a low whistle.
“What?” Winnie demanded to know.
“It’s another entrance,” Amanda revealed. “What if the treasure map you drew can be followed from this entry point?”
“Okay,” Winnie said. “Now we’re calling an Uber.”
They carried the painting a couple of blocks away and then ordered the car service.
As they waited on the corner, they both stared at the picture.
“What is it about this artist that Letty thought was so special?” Winnie asked.
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know.”
While they waited, Winnie called Bea and filled her in on what they’d discovered. She repeated the address they were going to for their younger sister.
When she’d hung up from their younger sister, Amanda asked her, “Did you tell her that so she could send Tom to find our bodies?”
Winnie shook her head. “I certainly hope not.”
The car service showed up and they got in. Both tense, they rode in silence.
“We have got to buy cars,” Winnie said once the Uber driver had dropped them off at Red Bug Sl
ough.
“I guess so,” Amanda said distractedly, looking up at the height of the trees they were about to walk under.
“You guess so? You can’t tell me that you’re happy being at the whim of a car service anytime you want to go somewhere.”
Amanda shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me that much; I don’t go that many places.”
“Well,” Winnie said with disgust, “it bothers me. I’m going to go car shopping next week.”
“Good for you,” Amanda murmured, not really caring.
“And when I’ve got a car, I’m going to go searching for an apartment or a place to rent,” Winnie continued as they began to walk down the sandy path that led into the nature preserve.
Amanda glanced at her, surprised. “You are?”
“Of course,” Winnie replied. “I’m not going to live over the shop for the rest of my life.”
“But I thought there was safety in numbers,” Amanda said. What she didn’t say was that she was enjoying the excuse to spend so much time with her sisters. It had been many years since they’d spent any quality time together. And she’d appreciated having the opportunity to get to know them as adults.
“I’m hoping that Detective Keller will find out who’s behind all this and this crazy new ‘normal’ that we’ve been living since getting to Sarasota will be over.”
Amanda nodded. She couldn’t blame her sister for feeling like that. It had been a very dangerous and turbulent time for them.
“Besides,” Winnie said. “That place is too small for both of us. I mean, it was ridiculous when Bea was staying there, too, but it’s still uncomfortable, you never have a moment to yourself.”
Amanda nodded her understanding.
“I wonder if Bea’s move to Ash’s place is permanent,” Winnie murmured aloud as they reached a fork in the path.
“I think it’s great she’s taking so much responsibility for Rena.”
Winnie nodded and pulled a piece of folded up paper from the back pocket of her jeans. Smoothing it out, they both looked at her sketch of a treasure map. “Left, or right?” Winnie asked.
Amanda shrugged. “I don’t know that it matters, but we’re going together.” The idea of walking alone in these woods, the place that Letty had been attacked, was too scary to do alone.