by J. B. Lynn
“You’ve got who?” Amanda asked.
“We caught Matt and Greta getting into his car,” he replied.
“But how did you know to stop them?” Amanda asked.
“And what are you doing here?” Winnie asked.
“Bea left a note,” he explained.
Winnie and Amanda turned toward their sister.
“Really?” Winnie sounded amazed.
“You finally, for the first time in your life, left a note when you went somewhere?” Amanda asked.
Bea shrugged. “I’m trying to be a grown up.”
“Harmony found it, and she called me,” Tom explained. “She sounded very worried about you.”
“Thank goodness for Harmony,” Amanda muttered.
“I’ll second that,” Winnie concurred.
Tom squinted at Amanda and moved closer to her. “What happened to you? Are you hurt?”
“I recommend not getting too close,” Winnie joked. “She stinks.”
“And I second that,” Bea agreed.
Tom ignored them both, his gaze fixated on Amanda. She could feel the concern, and the remnants of fear, coming off of him.
“I’m fine,” she said, “I’m not hurt.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You kind of look a little worse for wear.”
“I’m forty years old,” she told him. “Do you have any idea when the last time I physically tackled another human being was?”
Admiration flickered in his gaze. “So, you’re the reason why Greta looks like she does.”
Amanda nodded, feeling a surge of pride. Hopefully, the annoying blonde looked just as bad as she did.
“They threatened to kill us,” Winnie interjected.
Tom swung his attention to her. “I kind of figured that, between Harmony’s concern, and the fact that when I got here, Matt was running out of the woods, carrying a gun.”
“So, they didn’t get away?” Bea asked disbelievingly.
Tom shook his head. “No, and they won’t. Right now, they’re sitting in the back of the patrol car I had meet me here.”
“And the box, they had the box?” Winnie asked.
“And the painting,” Amanda added. “It should be in Greta’s car.”
Tom nodded.
“Which one of them paid Richardson to kill Letty?” Amanda asked. “Greta seemed to be saying she did that? But where would she have gotten the money?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Hopefully, when we get them downtown and start interrogating them, one of them will crack.”
“Can you do that?” Amanda asked. “Can you crack them?”
“Like a pair of rotten eggs,” Tom told her with a level of assurance that made her feel slightly better. “I’m going to put you all in a squad car and have you taken back to the shop, unless there’s somewhere else you want to go.”
“No,” Winnie said, “we want to go home.”
“Home,” Bea repeated.
Nutmeg barked, “Home!”
Amanda nodded. They were all going home.
44
As the squad car pulled to a stop outside One Woman’s Junk, Bea was pleased to see that Ash, Harmony, Piper, and Rena were all pacing nervously outside the shop. It was nice to feel like she had a whole community who cared about them.
The police officer opened the back door, allowing the three sisters and Nutmeg to emerge.
“The intrepid lasses have returned!” Angus boomed from inside.
“You’re okay,” Piper called, her relief evident.
Ash practically vaulted to Bea’s side and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t you ever do anything that stupid again,” he lectured.
Rena, standing beside Ash, murmured, “I’ll second that.”
Bea opened her embrace with Ash to include the girl.
Harmony and Piper watched as Amanda and Winnie made their way to the front door. Winnie unlocked it and ushered everyone inside.
“What happened?” Piper asked. “You’re filthy,” she added as an afterthought, as she took in Amanda’s appearance. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“I am going to go take a shower and change clothes,” Amanda announced. “And I’m throwing this entire outfit out unless Tom tells me he needs it as evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” Ash asked.
Amanda left her sisters to explain and disappeared up to the apartment with Nutmeg on her heels.
“I really need to sit,” Bea said.
Ash picked her up effortlessly and carried her over to the velvet chair. He placed her down like she was the most fragile piece of china the world has ever known.
“Can I get you something?” Piper offered. “Food, coffee?”
“Say yes,” Pim urged from his place on the bookshelf. “You look peaked.”
Bea nodded at the coffee shop owner. “That would be great.”
Nodding, Piper grabbed Rena by the wrist and they hustled out of the store.
Winnie grabbed her sketchpad and perched on the stool behind the cash register, beginning to draw.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ash whispered to Bea.
She nodded. In some ways, she was better than she’d ever been.
“We found what Letty had buried,” she said. “But then, it was taken away by Matt.”
She watched as Ash’s hands curled into fists. “Matt was behind this?”
There was no mistaking the anger in his voice.
“Take it easy,” Bea said. “Tom has already arrested him and Greta.”
“Greta?”
Bea nodded. “She was more than annoying. She was dangerous.”
“I can believe it was Matt,” Ash said. “I mean, we all know he was unfriendly, but Greta just seemed like a ditz.”
Bea watched with interest as Harmony crept up behind Winnie and looked over her shoulder.
“Do you know who that is?” Harmony asked.
Bea’s sister whirled in her seat, obviously surprised by the older woman’s arrival directly behind her. “No, do you?”
Harmony nodded. “May I?” She reached for the paper.
Winnie hesitated for the briefest of moments and then handed her the pad.
Taking it from her, Harmony examined it for a long moment before walking it over to Ash, almost tripping over the dog who’d come back downstairs. “You know who this is, don’t you?”
Ash took one look at it and gasped. “Sure.”
“Well, would either one of you like to tell us?” Winnie asked impatiently.
“It’s Matt’s wife,” Ash told her.
“The dead one?” Bea asked.
“Oh my God,” Winnie groaned. “All this time, I’ve been drawing a dead woman.”
Nutmeg let out a pitiful howl.
“That’s new,” Winnie remarked.
The dog continued to howl.
“Get Amanda,” Bea ordered her sister. “She’ll know what he’s saying.”
Winnie quickly ran up the stairs to find their older sister.
Bea watched as Nutmeg pulled the sketch away from Harmony, put the paper on the floor, and laid down on it. He continued to howl.
“That’s heartbreaking,” Bea remarked.
“I don’t understand,” Ash said. “Why do you think that Amanda’s going to be able to understand what he’s so upset about?”
Bea and Harmony exchanged a look.
“She can do that, too, now?” Harmony asked with a satisfied grin.
Bea nodded.
“Can you run down to Piper’s and see if she still has the clippings about the death of Matt’s wife?” Harmony requested of Ash.
Nodding, he kissed Bea quickly on the lips and loped out of the store.
As the dog continued to cry, Bea held out her hand to Harmony and took some comfort when the older woman grabbed on to her.
Moments later, Winnie led Amanda, her hair still wet from her quick shower, down the stairs.
Nutmeg let out another pitiful howl.
Tears filled Amanda’s eyes and she tried to blink them away. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
The dog got off the paper and rubbed against her leg.
“What is he saying?” Bea asked, the anticipation practically killing her.
“She was his owner,” Amanda revealed.
“But nobody recognized him?” Bea asked. “You didn’t know it?” she asked Harmony.
The older woman shook her head. “I’d never seen him before you brought him home.”
“How did we not guess that?” Winnie asked, smacking herself in the forehead. “He was always growling at Matt.”
“Because we didn’t meet him here,” Bea reminded her. “We met him on the beach. Oh my God, he’s the dog from my vision.”
“What were you doing there?” Amanda asked Nutmeg.
The dog looked at her, cocked his head to the side, and barked.
Leaning forward, Bea and Winnie held hands, both curious what the dog was telling Amanda. Harmony laced her fingers together and waited patiently. “Letty told him to go up to us,” Amanda said.
“Letty?” Bea asked.
Amanda nodded.
“You mean, dead Letty?” Winnie asked for clarity.
Amanda nodded. She bent down and picked up the little dog and held him close. “He watched his owner die.”
“How awful!” Winnie gasped.
Bea didn’t miss the look Amanda and Harmony shared, but she didn’t understand what it meant.
“We still need answers,” Winnie said.
“Tom is working on them,” Amanda reminded her.
“Well, let’s hope that he gets them,” Winnie said.
“And let’s hope that he gets us that box soon,” Bea added.
45
Detective Tom Keller looked exhausted when he strolled through the door of One Woman’s Junk hours later.
“Let me get my sisters,” Amanda said, as soon as he stepped inside.
“One second,” Tom said. She saw that he had the wooden box tucked under his arm.
He laid it down on the counter and stepped toward her.
She could feel the emotions he was trying to contain, a strange mix of worry and relief, fear and happiness.
He glanced around the shop and then pulled her into his arms. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t try to kiss her. He just held her tightly. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured in her ear.
She wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to reassure.
“Suzanne’s going to be okay, too,” he added as an afterthought. “Thanks to your dumpster diving.”
“I took a shower,” she teased lightly.
“No offense,” he replied, stepping back from her, leaving a hand on her elbow, as though he was unwilling to break contact. “But that’s a real improvement.”
She chuckled.
“I need to talk to your sisters, too,” he told her.
“Winnie!” Amanda yelled, not taking her eyes off of him.
Her middle sister came running down the stairs. “What’s going—” She interrupted her own question when she spotted the detective.
“Can you get Bea?” she asked.
Winnie nodded and ran out the door to go to Ash’s shop.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Tom asked, examining Amanda’s bumps and bruises.
She nodded. “I may not have a career in professional wrestling,” she told him, “but I’m okay.”
Winnie returned with Bea.
Harmony walked in after them.
“This is kind of a family thing,” Winnie said, turning on the older woman.
“Let her stay,” Amanda said. She’d been doing a lot of thinking about Harmony, and she had some questions of her own for the older woman.
Tom held up the box. “I believe this belongs to you,” he said. “I can’t let you keep it right now because it’s evidence.”
“Did the rotten eggs crack?” Winnie asked.
Tom nodded.
“So, tell us what happened,” Bea said.
He shook his head. “I want to see how this vision thing of yours works for myself,” he replied.
“Show him the picture,” Harmony urged.
The Concordia sisters all looked at her.
And then Winnie nodded. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and then ran up the stairs.
“What kind of picture?” Tom asked.
“You’ll have to see it to understand.” Bea said. “Winnie has been drawing this for days now.”
Winnie came running back downstairs and thrust a sheet of sketch paper into the detective’s hands.
He looked at it and let out a heavy sigh. “Do you know who this is?”
“I didn’t know until a couple of hours ago,” she said. “Harmony and Ash told me.”
“I want to see Bea do her thing,” he repeated. “So, I’m going to give you the contents of the box, but I’m going to ask you not to look at them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Winnie said. “How can we see the contents without looking at them?”
“It’ll be self-explanatory,” Tom said.
Bea shrugged. “Sure, I’ll perform the parlor trick for you.”
“But she’s got to be sitting down,” Amanda insisted.
Tom nodded.
Bea limped over to the velvet chair and sat down in it. She held out her hand expectantly.
Amanda held her breath. Whatever was in that box, Letty had died protecting it.
Tom opened it and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers.
“Don’t unfold them,” he warned. “I just want to know what you see.”
Bea reached for them.
Amanda and Winnie moved to her sides, protectively.
“You two can’t look at them, either,” Tom said.
“We just want to make sure she doesn’t fall,” Amanda explained.
“Plus,” Harmony said from where she stood at the opposite end of the room, watching them. “They’ll magnify her powers by being together.”
Shrugging, Tom handed the papers to Bea.
Amanda watched as her sister’s eyes glazed over and she swayed weakly.
Remembering how powerful it had been when they had formed a triangle around Harmony’s crystal-charging chamber pot, Amanda kept one hand on Bea’s shoulder and extended her other hand toward Winnie. Her middle sister picked up on what she wanted to do and mirrored the motion.
Once the triangle was complete, Amanda felt a surge of energy. It wasn’t like feeling the shock of emotions from people, it was like being plugged into some energy source. Bea’s eyes remained glazed over, but she began to speak.
“It’s a contract,” she told them in a trance-like voice.
“What kind of contract?” Winnie asked.
“It’s between Ilsa, Matt’s wife, and Life and Home publications,” Bea explained.
Winnie glanced over Bea’s head and mouthed at Amanda, “L and H.”
Amanda nodded her understanding. This is who had been helping the woman who’d written in the journal.
“They’re offering to buy her cookbook,” Bea said, as though she was scanning the contract in real time. “They gave her a ten thousand dollar advance.”
Amanda caught Winnie’s eye and mouthed, “The cookbook.”
Winnie nodded her understanding that they now knew where the cash came from.
Bea gasped, paled, and almost pitched over.
“Bea!” Amanda exclaimed, worried. Winnie shook their younger sister. “Come out of it.”
Amanda snatched the contract away and practically threw it at Tom.
Bea righted herself, blinked and focused on the room. “It’s not a pirate flag,” she said, staring directly at the detective. “It’s poison. It’s the symbol for poison. The skull and crossbones I keep seeing is a symbol for poison.”
He nodded slowly.
“Matt poisoned her,” Bea sobbed. “She didn’t drown like everyone thought. He poisoned her and she was too weak to
swim when he pushed her overboard.”
Nutmeg barked his agreement.
“That’s why you kept seeing the skull and crossbones every time you tried to eat a cookie,” Winnie said, snapping her fingers. “It’s not a pirate, it’s the symbol for poison.”
Bea nodded and slumped in her chair, exhausted.
“Does that match up with what you learned, Detective?” Winnie asked.
Tom nodded. “Ilsa was getting ready to leave Matt,” Tom explained. “He couldn’t let that happen, not when she had award-winning recipes. They had just won the right to have their TV show. He thought he was going to be famous.”
“But she died, being the only one who knew the recipe for the cookie,” Amanda guessed.
Tom nodded. “That’s why Greta came to work here,” he said, waving his arms to indicate the shop. “Letty and Ilsa had been friendly. Matt and Greta, who were having an affair, were convinced she was hiding the recipe.”
“Was she?” Amanda asked.
Bea nodded. “It’s in the box, too.”
Tom nodded. “How did you know that? I didn’t hand you that.”
Bea shrugged. “I guess it was because the pieces of paper were in close contact for so long.”
He nodded.
“You’re accepting all of this pretty well, Detective,” Winnie remarked.
“I would have expected you to be more skeptical,” Bea added.
Amanda studied Tom’s face and wondered what secret he was hiding that he believed in these things.
Instead of responding, Tom focused on Bea. “Do you know what else is in there?”
Bea shook her head.
Tom switched his gaze over to Amanda. “There’s something for you,” he said. “The envelope has your name on it.”
“It’s what Letty left you,” Bea said, clapping her hands with delight.
“What’s in it?” Amanda asked.
Tom glanced at her sisters and said, “It was private communication between Letty and you.” He sighed. “If it was up to me, I’d let you keep it right now, but I can’t. I can let you read it, though.”
“Of course,” Amanda said, extending her hand.
He looked again at the other Concordia sisters. “I think you should read it in private. It was addressed only to you.”
Amanda hesitated. Concern was coming off of him in waves, and she knew that he was making a genuine effort to protect her.