One Woman's Junk Read online

  One Woman’s Junk

  Book 1

  JB Lynn

  Copyright © Jennifer Baum ONE WOMAN’S JUNK: Psychic Consignment Mystery 1

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by US copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. One Woman’s Junk is intended for 18+ older and for mature audiences only.

  © 2019 Jennifer Baum

  Cover designer: Leiha Mann Editor: Parisa Zolfaghari Proofreader: Proof Before You Publish Formatting: Leiha Mann

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Author’s Note

  Also by JB Lynn

  About JB Lynn

  Acknowledgments

  With special thanks to Kate Holmes of Too Good To Be Threw for letting me pick her brain about consignment shops!

  1

  “I don’t think she would have wanted us to die doing this!”

  Beatrice Concordia fought the inappropriate urge to laugh as her thirty-five-year-old sister, Edwina, shouted into the wind.

  Overhead, the Siesta Key Beach sky was ominously dark as huge storm clouds approached over the Gulf of Mexico. Thunder boomed in the distance as the wind gathered strength. The air crackled as lightning lit up the night sky.

  Bea, stuck in a wheelchair, huddled with Winnie and her other sister, Amanda, against the approaching storm. Her leg encased in a cast and jutting out at a ninety-degree angle, she clutched a cardboard box to her chest as she assured them, “Nobody’s going to die.”

  Neither of her older sisters looked like they believed her.

  “Florida is the lightning strike capital of the United States,” Amanda, the oldest at forty, informed them. “We should take cover.”

  “But we’ve got the beach to ourselves,” Beatrice argued.

  It was an accurate assessment considering that, except for a flock of seagulls that were clustered together against the wind, they were the only ones on the white sand beach frequently touted as the best in the United States.

  “That’s because nobody else is stupid enough to be out here, Bea,” Winnie shouted.

  As though to prove her wrong, a small scruffy brown dog charged toward them, barking excitedly.

  “That’s it,” Amanda growled. “I’m making an executive decision. Even the dog is telling us to get out of here. We’re going back.”

  “But Letty wanted—” Bea protested as her older sister grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and slowly began to turn her away from the crashing waves.

  Large raindrops began to lazily pelt them.

  “Help me,” Amanda urged Winnie. Even though they were on a mat designed so wheelchairs could be brought out to the beach, she was having a tough time maneuvering against the wind.

  “Letty didn’t ask for much,” Bea reminded their middle sister.

  Winnie hesitated, snatched the box from Beatrice’s arms, and started running toward the water’s edge.

  “Come back,” Amanda yelled, chasing her until the end of the mat. Then she stopped, like a dog that’s reached the perimeter of its electric fence. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Edwina.”

  Beatrice sat alone in her chair, farther away from the water. The dog stopped beside her, lifted his head to the side, and looked at her curiously.

  “Letty wanted her ashes spread at the full moon,” Beatrice explained. “She didn’t ask for much.”

  Leticia “Letty” Gould never asked for much, not even when she unexpectedly became guardian to the Concordia sisters on Amanda’s tenth birthday, just three months after Beatrice had been born. Letty had taken her godmother duties seriously when the girls’ parents had died in a boating accident witnessed by the two older sisters.

  She’d put her own life on hold for more than twenty years and she’d raised the girls, but once they’d all moved out, she quit her practical secretarial job, packed up all of her earthly belongings, and moved from the brutal winters of Syracuse, New York to the tropical shores of Sarasota, Florida to open a consignment store.

  Beatrice regretted that she hadn’t visited her godmother more often, but she’d been enjoying her freedom. Jumping from job to job where all the beautiful people were—ski slopes, and private yachts, and parties, oh the parties. Until her fall, she’d thought she had a good life. Now, she realized she didn’t have much of anything.

  Unlike Amanda, who’d opted for a marriage and stable, if unfulfilling, suburban life, and Winnie, who’d gone after her business, building big city dreams, Bea had decided to live a “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” motto. She’d never seen the importance of committed relationships or a career when there was a party to be joined somewhere.

  But lately, in the months before her accident, she’d started to think that maybe that wasn’t enough for her. She’d realized she wanted something more out of life. She’d grown disillusioned of the life of a leaf drifting on the wind. She’d started to entertain the idea that it was time for her to put down roots.

  She’d thought she’d be the one to determine where and with whom she’d do that, but fate had other plans. Her accident had brought her last job to an unexpected end and Letty’s death had brought her to Sarasota with her sisters.

  She blinked, telling herself her eyes were tearing from the whipping sand, not because she was feeling sorry for herself being stuck in a wheelchair with a broken leg, dislocated middle finger in a splint, and a fractured family.

  As though he sensed she needed comfort, the dog jumped into her lap and stared at her intently with his dark eyes.

  She blinked away her tears and told him, “Amanda is terrified of the water. If she didn’t love Letty so much, she would never even have come out on the beach. I don’t think she’s stepped o
n sand since she was ten.”

  She watched her sister, hovering at the edge of the mat, peer worriedly at Winnie who had reached the shoreline and was struggling to open the box.

  Amanda had been the only one to make it to Sarasota before Letty died, maybe that’s why she seemed sadder. She’d held their godmother’s hand as she slipped away. Maybe it intensified her grief. Or maybe it was like Letty had told Beatrice during their last phone call—Amanda was slowly dying of a broken heart.

  Beatrice felt a surge of hatred for Ronald, the cheating husband who’d hurt her sister. She didn’t really know the man well, having only met him a handful of times over the last ten years, but she despised him anyway. Always had. Part of her had always blamed him for keeping the sisters from bonding as adults. He’d discouraged Amanda from going on any of the girls trips Bea had tried to arrange.

  Winnie let out a whoop of satisfaction as she won her battle with the box and pulled out the plastic bag that contained their godmother’s cremated remains. If Amanda seemed heartbroken and depressed, Winnie, had seemed downright aggressive. She’d always been the most driven of the three sisters, but now she sported an attitude that she brandished like a sharpened sword, taking no prisoners. Beatrice wondered if Winnie ran her business the way she was trying to run their lives since they’d arrived in Florida, with an annoying combination of know-it-allness and bullying that left no room for compromise or empathy.

  The dog on Beatrice’s lap sniffed at the moss agate ring on her finger. The green crystal jewelry had been bequeathed to her by Letty. She’d gotten the ring, Winnie received the amethyst bracelet, and Amanda inherited the rose quartz earrings. Letty’s Last Will and Testament had not specified who should get her prized fluorite necklace, and none of the sisters had been willing to claim the keepsake.

  For a moment, the rain ceased, the wind eased, and there was a break in the clouds. The moon shone on Winnie as she waded into the pounding surf.

  “You go, Winnie,” Bea yelled.

  “Be careful!” Amanda warned, daring to venture off the mat a few steps, but unable to move more than a yard closer to the shore.

  “We love you, Letty!” Winnie yelled. She ripped open the bag and spilled the contents into the swirling Gulf waters.

  “Love you, Letty,” Beatrice murmured as her tears started anew.

  The wind ripped the bag from Winnie’s grip, almost knocking her over in the process as she staggered out of the water.

  “Can we go now?” Amanda begged, her voice cracking with panic.

  Winnie nodded and stumbled up the beach toward her. Together, the two older sisters, arms linked, marched back to Beatrice.

  She held out her uninjured hand, and they both grabbed it. “Concordia sisters!” they chanted in unison, just as their godmother had taught them to do so many years before.

  For a brief moment, for the first time in what seemed like forever, it felt like they were connected. Despite the solemn occasion, Bea’s heart soared. But it didn’t last.

  Amanda broke first, grabbing a handle bar of the wheelchair and starting to push. Winnie quickly joined her. The thunder boomed closer, so loud that their bodies vibrated.

  “Okay,” Beatrice agreed. “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.” She leaned forward as though that would help them move faster.

  Together, Amanda and Winnie struggled to push the loaner wheelchair across the expanse of sand as they were all quickly soaked to the skin by the now pouring rain. The wind changed direction, almost knocking them off their feet from the side. The world-renowned soft sand pelted their skin.

  Lightning struck the beach thirty yards away and the sisters all screamed in unison at the explosion. The dog yelped and burrowed deeper into Beatrice’s lap.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Amanda warned as another gust of wind buffeted them.

  But it was too late.

  The sky spilt open above. A bolt of lightning struck.

  2

  For the second time in a week, a careless Uber driver ran over Beatrice’s foot. Thankfully, it was with an empty wheelchair and not a car, but it still hurt.

  “Ow!” she yelled. She would have jumped up and down, clutching her toes, but her other foot was in a cast, and hopping, if not impossible, would at the very least be a bad idea. As it was, she swayed unsteadily.

  Amanda tightened her grip on her arm. Bea was fairly sure it would leave a bruise. She would have swatted Amanda away, but her dislocated middle finger was already throbbing.

  Beatrice wondered if being run over was some sort of karma at work. After all, she’d just stolen something. Maybe this was the universe’s way of punishing her for her thieving ways.

  She felt the weight of the stolen item heavy in the pocket of her dress and considered returning it. She hated herself for having the compulsive need to steal, but there were times when she was unable to help herself.

  She’d been this way since she was a child, unable to disobey the siren’s call of things that called out to her. It wasn’t like she was a full-on thief. She’d never stolen anything particularly valuable. She just sometimes felt compelled to liberate trinkets from their unappreciative owners.

  As she looked up at the strip mall housing her godmother’s consignment store, One Woman’s Junk, she recalled how her habit of stealing had been a source of angst for Letty when Bea was a young child. As she’d grown older, she’d figured out how not to get caught. Most of the time.

  She slipped her hand into her pocket, half-expecting her guilt to singe her as she wrapped her fingers around it.

  She hadn’t meant to steal it.

  She’d been sitting alone in the back of the SUV, half-listening to Amanda and Winnie arguing about what they should do next, when it had called to her.

  It had literally called to her.

  “Hey, Bea!” a muffled voice called. “Get me outta here.”

  Startled, she’d looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.

  “I’m suffocating,” the voice complained. “Help.”

  Beatrice had glanced at her sisters, who were outside arguing, oblivious to the demand. She’d looked around her surroundings and spotted him. Or, at least, she spotted his butt.

  Reaching down, she’d plucked a small black figure from between the seat cushions. She only got a quick look at him. He was some sort of black animal, a sheep, maybe, hard to tell since a good deal of his face was worn off. He was only an inch long, less than an inch high.

  “Help me, Bea,” he’d begged. “You’re my only hope.”

  Startled that she actually understood him and that he knew her name, two things that had never happened before, she’d closed her fist around him. As Amanda had leaned into the vehicle to say something to her, Beatrice instinctively jammed the little guy into her pocket.

  Now, she was enabling a stowaway and wondering if the universe disapproved of her thievery.

  The Uber driver, who had told them his other job was working in a book store, didn’t apologize for his mishandling of the wheelchair. He just hopped back into his Ford Explorer that reeked of rotting fish and rushed off to pick up his next fare.

  Winnie grabbed the handles of the wheelchair firmly and thrust it in Beatrice’s general direction. “Sit.”

  Instinctively, Beatrice silently refused. Being the youngest of three, she had a built-in resistance to being told what to do.

  Winnie glared at her. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  They stood there for a long moment, locked in a wordless battle. The scruffy dog from the beach, who’d ridden with them in the ambulance to the hospital and then hopped into the Uber, jumped up into the seat of the wheelchair, demonstrating exactly what had to be done. Beatrice gave him a dirty look and mentally labeled him a traitor.

  Amanda made a shooing motion. “Off.” The dog stared at her defiantly. He didn’t growl, or snarl, or flatten his ears, he just seemed to emanate the message, “Make me.”

  Amanda stepped back, looking alarm
ed.

  A faint smile lifted the corners of Beatrice’s lips. She liked this spunky little guy who stood up for what he wanted. She had to admire the way he held his ground.

  “Fine,” Winnie muttered. “I’ll put it inside the shop. Let’s see what you do then.” She turned the wheelchair sharply, causing the dog to scramble to keep his footing, and began marching away with it.

  Bea hesitated, torn between knowing she needed the wheelchair to get back to Letty’s store where they were staying, and not wanting to give Winnie the satisfaction of getting her way.

  “Edwina, stop.” Amanda didn’t raise her voice as she uttered the command, but she did use her given name. Winnie glanced over her shoulder at her older sister. Her eyes were narrowed as though she was ready for a fight. But she stopped.

  “Everything okay?” a woman asked.

  It was a fair question, considering the three sisters were having a face-off in front of a strip mall. They all looked the worse for wear after their lightning strike ordeal. The wind had left them with wild hair and sand still clung to the wrinkles of their clothing.

  Miraculously, and much to the surprise of the hospital staff who’d checked them out, none had suffered permanent injury, though Beatrice’s head was throbbing, Winnie had complained of tingling in her fingers, and Amanda kept complaining that everything was too bright.