Pleating for Mercy

Just like that, I was back in the room. I sat a little straighter in my chair. Rumors were never good. Ever. “I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Brighton.”

She ran her hand over her head, but instead of helping her hair to lie flatter, her touch seemed to make the strands respond. Static electricity. The woman was charged.

“Madelyn,” she said. “And I’m sure you do know what I mean.” She tapped the computer screen again. “It’s right there in full color. Small, then large.”

Footsteps and male voices came from the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if this was some sort of good cop, bad cop—with the bad cop hidden somewhere. Except that Madelyn Brighton wasn’t a cop. Was she?

“Are you a police officer?”

She laughed, an infectious, bubbly laugh. “No. Could have been. Maybe should have been. I’m a photographer, Harlow. Can I call you Harlow? And no, I’m not in training to be a police officer, either. I’m not asking questions for the police. This is for my own personal interest only.” She leaned closer and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Truth be told, I’m sort of a magic junkie. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, all that.”

I leaned closer, too. “I thought you were into crime.”

“I am. I’m a photographer. A writer. A photojournalist. But it’s tough to make a living doing any of that. Which is why I do a bit of all of it. Truly, I love to photograph the unexplained. And this . . .” She clicked the arrow on the computer screen and the next picture appeared. In this one Nell’s body could hardly be seen through the two-foot-tall zinnias and lavender. “This is unexplained.”

She glanced over her shoulder, her white blouse gaping between the buttons. When she turned back to me, she lowered her voice even more. “I’ve heard about the Cassidy women.”

My jaw dropped, my glasses slipped, and everything went blurry. “Wh-what have you heard?”

She sat back, leaving the laptop facing me, the evidence of the bionic flowers staring back at me. She didn’t look menacing, like she was ready to lead a witch hunt, but people were not always what they seemed.

“I’ve heard that your grandmother talks to goats. And that your great-grandmother—you live in her house, right?—I hear she could just make things happen. If she wanted it, she basically got it. And your mother, well . . .” There was that bubbly giggle again. It made Madelyn Brighton endearing and not nearly so threatening as she could be, considering the topic of our conversation and how highbrow her accent made her seem. She nodded at the computer. “It’s clear what her charm is.” She cocked her head, her brow furrowing, her smile turning contemplative. “Everyone says you don’t have a gift, though. Why is that?”

A wave of dizziness crashed through me. I’d never had to explain the charmed ways of the Cassidy women before. It was private. And a gift. A gift I didn’t share, but still . . . To talk about it made me feel like I was betraying all the Cassidy women, past and present.

But Madelyn Brighton was not going to let it drop. I shrugged helplessly, wishing I knew the answer for my own sake. “I don’t know.”

She bolted up and spun around. “Aha! So I was right!” she bellowed, then quickly slapped her hand over her mouth and sat back down. “I was right,” she said again in a whisper. “The Cassidy women, minus you, are charmed.”

I stared at her. All proper and British, my foot. She had completely tricked me. I cringed at how artfully she’d slipped the question in and how easily I’d replied to it, corroborating her suspicions. Damn. I’d been away from Bliss too long. I was out of practice with the secretkeeping. I’d have to be careful about that. Or try it myself when I needed information.

“Did you get some good pictures of Nell?” I asked, and then immediately cringed. That had not come out right. “I mean, do they show anything, like who killed her?”

“I know what you mean. They revealed plenty. I probably shouldn’t show you this, but—” She gave a furtive look around, whipped the computer back to face her, tapped a few times, and whirled it back to face me. “Strangulation, plain and simple.”

My stomach roiled. It was a close-up of Nell. The skin around her eyes and mouth was swollen, tiny pinpricks dotting the surface, making her look like a used pincushion. Her neck was marked with an uneven zigzag pattern. I pointed to the markings. “Why does it look like that?”

“Uneven pressure during strangulation,” she answered. “I’m no expert, but it looks like the markings from a braided rope, or something.” She indicated the larger markings of the zigzag pattern on Nell’s neck. “See these? One strand of the braid was bigger than the others. That’s my guess, anyway.”

The realization of just why the sheriff had searched Buttons & Bows knocked the wind out of me like I’d been thrown off a mechanical bull. The search hadn’t been routine.

He’d been looking for something very specific amid all the trims and cording in the shop. He’d been looking for the murder weapon.

Chapter 12

Out of nowhere, Nate Kincaid careened down the hallway, past the table where I sat with Madelyn Brighton. I could barely find my voice—Madelyn and her photographs were having that effect on me—but when I did, I muttered, “I gotta go.” I scraped the chair back and hurried after Nate. He’d stopped in the middle of the hall, arms spread, spinning around like a lost child.

I reached out, touching the sleeve of his gold-colored polo shirt with the tips of my fingers. “Nate.”

He whipped around, handsome as ever, looking more like a crazed prom king than a buttoned-up Kincaid son. “Where is she?” He looked up and down the hallway. “Where does that dim-witted sheriff have her?”

“He’s not dim-witted,” I said, for the life of me not knowing why I was defending Hoss McClaine. “He’s just doing his job.”

“By interrogating my fiancee?”

“No, by investigating the murder of her maid of honor.”

“She had nothing to do with it.” He spoke with such conviction, but I had to wonder how well he really knew her. She’d admitted they hadn’t been dating all that long. Was his faith in his fiancee misplaced, or—My suspicious mind took over. Could he be protecting her?

What motive could the police think Josie had? Nell’s words about Nate possibly breaking Josie’s heart came back to me. What if Nell had warned Josie she didn’t trust her fiance, and Josie had flown into a rage? It could have been a crime of passion.

Or what if Nate wasn’t really Josie’s one and only true love? Could the improved lifestyle she would gain by marrying a Kincaid have had anything to do with Nell’s death?

Really, what did I know about Josie other than what I remembered of her when we were kids and what she’d said about having a rough childhood? Nothing. How far would she be willing to go to ensure a different future for herself? If Nell had known something about Josie’s true motives, would she have revealed it? And would Josie have killed to keep her silent?

My head swam. It was all a big pile of what ifs.

“Where were you last night?” I asked Nate. That was another one. What if he’d killed Nell for some reason? The problem, of course, was what reason?

“I was working.”

“Well, Josie’s a wreck,” I said, trying not to sound accusatory. I don’t think I pulled it off. But seriously, unless he had reason to stay away—like he was guilty and was destroying the murder weapon—where had he been when he should have been comforting Josie?

“I got here as soon as I could,” he snapped. His eyes blazed with a vaguely familiar anger.

I stumbled back, my limbs suddenly weak. Up close, Nate looked even more like his brother, Derek. It sent me reeling into the past. I never thought I’d have anything to do with the Kincaids again, yet here I was. “I’m—I’m sure she’ll be glad you’re here,” I said.

“Where is she?” he asked again, his emotions dropping down to a powerful simmer.

I pointed at the door Sheriff McClaine had taken Josie through. “They’re in there.”