Free Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) by Barbara Allan Page A

collected murder memorabilia. I guess it was murder memorabilia from famous murders, because just an everyday murder thing wouldn’t be that collectible. This collector, Joe said, would pay megabucks for something like the actual Butterworth ax.
    So I didn’t tell anybody but Joe that I found the ax, and cut him in on the deal, because I wouldn’t have known the thing was valuable if he hadn’t told me. Seemed the fair thing to do. Mom and Grandma have a different opinion, but I’ve seen them snatch plenty of antiques out from under the noses of other collectors.
    But it did spook me and make me feel weird about it when Mom interrupted Joe and me talking upstairs about my discovery. Doing the right thing by Joe meant I was doing the wrong thing by everybody else.
    Now if you think I was just being greedy, I don’t blame you. My dad makes good money with his investment company. And I get a decent allowance, better than any of my friends, though Dad does expect me to buy everything out of it, even clothes, which kind of sucks. Can I say that?
    I mean, do you know how much an Apple i-Pad with Wi-Fi+3G and 32 gigabytes costs? Seven Benjamins and change! Saving that out of my allowance would be possible, if I didn’t mind waiting till my sophomore year in college. Only thing is, I wanted it yesterday .
    ( Grandma to Jake : Dear, while you’re doing splendidly telling your little story, although rather prone to discur-sion (like your mother), might I suggest that you please try to stay on point and be succinct, like your grandmother? )
    ( Jake to Grandma : Gotcha. )
    Anywho, I was late getting to the RV because halfway there my transport wimped out on me. Not the bike, which was rad, but the tires went flat again, and I had to ditch the bike and haul butt on foot!
    As a result, my ETA was twenty minutes off, and I expected to find one p.o.’ed Marine standing on the porch.
    ( Mom to Jake : Honey, again, please keep in mind our mixed readership and refrain from using such terms as “p.o.’ed.”)
    ( Jake to Mom : Again—I didn’t have to use initials. Do you want me to tell my story my own way or not?)
    ( Mother to Brandy : Dear, leave the boy alone and stop trying to suppress his native narrative style. If our readers know how to interpret those initials, they will likely not be offended. Nor will they if they don’t. Do please continue, Jake. . . . )
    Well, Joe was not waiting on the stoop, so I figured he was running late, too. Only then I noticed that the front door was open a little, which was weird because I was the one who had a key. I lifted it from Grandma’s jacket pocket. (Sorry, Grandma.)
    ( Grandma to Jake : Quite all right, dear. I would have done the same thing at your age. )
    ( Brandy to Mother : You would do the same thing at any age. And thanks for giving my son a free pass for stealing! )
    So I went on in the house, switched on my flashlight, and called out to Joe, but he didn’t answer. I kept calling out his name because I didn’t want a replay of what happened to Mom in that cave when she surprised him. Then I went into the library room, where I figured I’d find him, since that’s where the ax was hidden. And where I left it.
    But Joe wasn’t there, and the ax wasn’t either! The floorboards had been pulled up and the chopper taken out, leaving just its outline in the dust. It had been hidden there a long time so that outline was real distinct.
    I can’t tell you what I said when I saw the ax was gone because it might offend sensitive ears, like my mom’s. But I can tell you it flipped me out and I was kicking myself for trusting Joe, who I figured had beat me to the punch and taken the ax all for himself.
    So I ran out of the library and headed to the back of the house, just to make sure that crazy sneak wasn’t around somewhere, and the next thing I knew, I was on my butt sitting on the kitchen floor, after slipping in something gooey.
    On the way down I dropped my flashlight, and it