Show and Sell

SHOW AND SELL JUNKYARD DOG COZY MYSTERIES, BOOK 1 SUMMER PRESCOTT SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING Copyright 2023 Summer Prescott Books All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder. **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional. SIGN UP FOR THE SPBP NEWSLETTER Do you love Cozy Mysteries, Freebies, Contests and always being in the know? You'll love the Summer Prescott Books Newsletter! Click below for the best and most up to date info. Join the fun! Sign Up CONTENTS 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 Also by Summer Prescott Author’s Note Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing CHAPTER ONE Macy Garson gazed down into the half-empty quart of Rocky Road ice cream and sighed. “Okay, this is ridiculous. I have to do something,” she muttered. It had been a couple of months since her beloved husband, Jake, had been laid to rest in their Virginia hometown, which seemed very far away from where she now sat in the Florida house that they’d shared for only a short time. Right now, she was wallowing, but she refused to allow herself to stay in the abyss of loneliness and pain for long periods of time, fearing that if she lingered there, she might lose the strength to claw her way back out. Rising from the couch, Macy went to the kitchen, put the cover back on the ice cream and stashed it in the freezer, where it would be patiently waiting for her next bout of sadness. As soon as she shut the freezer door, she heard the ancient mailbox, which hung tenaciously to the siding just to the right of the front door, squeak open and clink shut. “Mail. That’s something that I can deal with,” she murmured, heading to the door. Macy sifted through the large pile as she headed to the kitchen table to sort it out properly. “Bill. Bill. Advertisement. Bill,” she grumbled, making separate piles of mail for each category. Facing the growing stack of financial demands struck her with an icy grip that made her shoulders tense and her stomach do a greasy flip-flop. “What am I going to do?” she whispered, her lower lip trembling. Jake had a small life insurance policy, but after funeral and travel costs, plus the hospital bills they’d had after the accident, it wouldn’t take long before Macy would be struggling to make the payment on their cozy little cottage. She’d filled out what seemed like a thousand applications when they first moved to the small town of Danley, in northeast Florida, but had no luck finding a job. Her eyes darted back and forth around the kitchen, her mind racing. They came to rest on a set of canisters that Jake found at a yard sale when they moved to Florida a few months ago. Macy had disliked the avocado green monstrosities because they looked old and somehow disreputable, but Jake had said that they could be just a temporary measure. She’d needed something for her flour, sugar, coffee, and tea, so she’d reluctantly agreed, and had given them a good scrubbing when they brought them home. It hadn’t helped their appearance. Nothing could erase that bilious color. “I could sell those, I bet,” she mused. “I wonder how much they might be worth.” Taking her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, she flipped over to her object identification app and snapped a photo of the canisters. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Are you kidding me?” she gasped, seeing the online prices for similar canisters. As it turned out, they were a mid-century modern set that were worth a pretty penny. “Well, that one is a no brainer. I wonder what else we have that I can sell.” Macy wandered around the house, looking at some of the tired, careworn items through a new lens. She gathered up an assortment of things after researching them on her app and set them on the kitchen table. “That’s a mortgage payment,” she murmured, surveying her haul. “Now, how on earth am I going to sell them all?” She went online and looked to see where similar things were being sold and found a fun site that specialized in vintage and handmade items. “VendMore,” she read the name aloud. “Ready or not, here I come.” Fortunately, there were tutorials to guide her through how to list her items, and before she knew it, Macy had officially opened her online store. “And now, we wait.” She’d found, during the empty weeks that dragged on after Jake’s passing, that keeping busy helped fend off loneliness and self-pity, and at the moment that meant tackling a deep cleaning of the hall bathroom. “In case I ever have company, I need to make the bathroom sparkle,” she reasoned, heading down the hall with a bucket of cleaning products and brushes. Macy winced as she realized she’d been talking to herself again. That had happened quite a bit lately. The reality that faced her in the bathroom made her sigh. The caulking around the tub needed to be redone, there were cracks in the grout of the tiles in the shower, and it had been a long time since the fixtures had gleamed. “I can’t believe I’ve lived here for more than three months and never noticed this.” Macy shook her head, hands on ample hips, staring at her challenges. “Welp, it’s not going to clean itself,” she muttered, snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves. She turned on