Pleating for Mercy

her husband and Nell were working on the will at all, or had their meetings turned personal? She looked at me like I might be able to help her make sense of things, but I couldn’t.

“Have you asked him?”

“I tried.” She lowered her voice, darting another furtive glance over her shoulder. We were still alone. A hint of anger crept into her tone. “He turned it all around, like I was trying to tell him how to do his job, and how dare I doubt him. I want to trust him, but why wouldn’t there be a witness when they were meeting to sign the will so she could leave everything to her bab—?”

She broke off before finishing the word, but too late for me not to fill in the blank. To her baby. So Karen knew about Nell’s pregnancy.

“I presume the will’s not valid.”

“Not if she never signed it.” She spoke sharply now, unloading everything she’d been keeping bottled up inside. “They met a bunch of times to work on it, but when I asked him about that, he said I was being selfish, that he was just doing his job and helping my friend.”

What if Ted was the father of Nell’s child and she’d turned to blackmail? That was something I hadn’t considered. If Nell had threatened to spill the beans about their illicit affair, would Ted have killed her to silence her? A sullied reputation in a small town would be hard to live down.

I mentally penciled Ted—and Karen—onto my list as suspects. Of course, all I had was a bunch of meaningless theories. With no proof, none of them would hold water.

Oh, how I wished I’d known Nell. Even one close glimpse into her life could have told me so much about who she was and what she was up to.

One thing was clear. If both Karen and Ruthann knew about the pregnancy, chances were others did, too.

“If there’s anything I can do . . .”

But Karen had her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clenched around the banister. Her anger was melding with fear that her husband had betrayed her. Tears were threatening and she was doing everything she could to ward them off.

It took a good couple of minutes for her lips to turn pink again and for her face to relax.

“So what’ll happen to the store now?” I asked.

She sighed, that lower lip starting to twitch again. “We . . . we were partners,” she said, her voice so low I almost didn’t hear.

“You and Nell? In the bead shop?”

She nodded. “She’d been saving forever, but wasn’t making much headway. She asked me if Ted and I would help her. She promised she’d be able to pay us back in just a few months.”

“But she didn’t?”

“She kept saying she wasn’t quite ready, that she needed a little more time. I think Ted realized she didn’t really have the money. He was furious.”

I took this all in, mulling it over. From what I knew, murder was usually an act of passion brought on unexpectedly. Karen and Ted each had another possible motive. Either one of them could have snapped.

“How was Nell planning to get enough money to pay you back? Was business really good?”

“She was always in the middle of some scheme or plan. All she’d tell me was that she was getting her happily-ever-after. Said I’d find out the rest soon enough, along with everyone else. Whatever she was up to backfired this time.”

The announcement at the rehearsal dinner. “Guess it did.”

She let out a biting little laugh. “Some happily-ever-after.”

I wasn’t quite sure if she was talking about Nell’s happily-ever-after or her own. Neither one had ended as planned. Nell was gone and Karen’s marriage had some big ol’ red flags flying over it. She was back to staring over the banister at the party scene below. I left her alone with her complicated grief and went off in search of Josie.

Chapter 34

I’d started at the far end of the hall and had almost finished looking in each and every bedroom, but the brideto-be seemed to have vanished. This soiree was a far cry from the high school parties I remembered, where hormonally charged teens looked for any available room to get, er, rowdy in.

A sewing machine sat on top of two clear plastic bins in the corner of one room. I couldn’t resist sneaking in to take a peek. It was a midrange Pfaff with enough bells and whistles to keep a girl happy for a long time. The bins were full of notions and trims, patterns and fabrics. A few pillow forms were compressed inside. If this was Miriam’s and she never used it, I wondered if she’d sell the whole kit and caboodle to Will so Gracie could sew at home.

I made a mental note to ask her about it, shut the door, and whirled around . . . plowing right into a pair of strong arms, my hands pressed firmly against—

“Cassidy, what are you doing?”

Will.

“Will Flores,” I said, surprised by the warmth he sent swirling through my body. “Are you following me?”

“I’m not, Harlow,” he said, quirking a smile, “but I am curious to know what you’re doing up here.”

I barely knew Will, and to hear him using my first name seemed . . . intimate and unfamiliar. I pushed away from him, a little whopper-jawed by how I felt. “I was looking for Josie,” I said. “I saw her come up here. I wanted to see if she’s okay. Since Nate’s . . .”

I hesitated. For all I knew, Will and Nate were old friends. And since one of the scenarios for Nell’s murder put Nate as the killer, talking to one of his friends about it probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Nate’s what?”

“I was just wondering how long you’ve known the Kincaids.”

He folded his arms over his chest, studying me. “Uh-uh. You’re not getting off that easy, darlin’. Answer me this: Do the ghosts follow you everywhere you go?”

I started. Did he know that Meemaw’s ghost seemed to be hanging around my house? Had Gracie told him something? “Well, of course not,” I said, waving away the very idea with an idle laugh. “I’m just looking for Josie.”

I started back down the hallway to where I had last seen Karen. Will stayed right beside me. It hadn’t escaped my notice that he hadn’t answered my question. “So, are you friends with Nate?” I asked.

“I know him.”

The hallway and landing were empty. Maybe Karen had gone back downstairs. We stood side by side at the banister. Down below, people spilled out the French doors onto the stone-and-brick patio. There was no sign of a distraught brunette in polyester pants. Maybe she and Josie were comforting each other.

A willowy blonde glided through the room, stopping to chat with a few people before moving on to the next group. Ruthann. It wasn’t her party, but it might as well have been. She looked like the quintessential hostess, ready to meet and greet her guests, throwing out her naked left hand to be kissed, the only adornment sparkling from her right hand. She was clearly available, and every man’s gaze was instantly drawn to her. I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose. Did she know she was the most beautiful woman in the room?

Will leaned against the banister, his attention firmly on me. He had to have seen Ruthann below—she was impossible to miss—but he didn’t seem fazed by her ethereal beauty.

I tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. A wish that contact lenses didn’t feel like boulders in my eyes came and went. There was no point in worrying over things you can’t change. Glasses, contacts, or twentytwenty vision, I was no Ruthann.

“Why’d you ask about Nate?” Will said.

“Just curious,” I answered him, and left it at that.

A few minutes later, I made my escape from the event, rounding up Madelyn and hightailing it back home to the familiarity of my butter yellow appliances, hand-stitched quilts, Meemaw’s settee, and my sewing machines. This was my cocoon. The scent of lavender enveloped me as soon as I walked in the door. This was home.