Pleating for Mercy

but I needed to edge my way back over to the Bliss side.

Meemaw’s voice sounded loud and clear in my head. I wouldn’t mislead you, Harlow. Leap fearlessly.

Leap fearlessly. It was one of her favorite sayings. “If you don’t take a risk, you’ll never realize the potential reward,” she explained when I was little. I’d used the same line on her when she questioned why I was leaving Bliss.

“You’re not leaping,” she said. “You’re running.” I still didn’t understand how she knew the difference when I couldn’t even comprehend it myself.

“Harlow?” He crouched down in front of me and took my fisted hands in his. “Are you okay?”

His dark eyes weren’t quite as dark close up, or maybe he’d just let his guard down for a moment and let the light shine through. They glowed with little flecks of amber like they were lit from behind. The eyes are the window to the soul, Meemaw always said. Looking at Will, I knew it was true. My great- grandmother had already discovered what I was just now seeing—he was a man so locked up and protective of himself and his daughter that he didn’t let anyone inside. But there were cracks in the surface if only someone could work her way into them.

I had a sudden vision of myself hunched over my sewing machine, working on some mysterious garment. I couldn’t see what it was, but I knew it was for Will and that making it for him would somehow allow him to let me in.

“Harlow.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face.

I blinked, jerking out of my thoughts. “Sorry.”

“Where were you?”

“Do you wear plaid?” I asked in response, though I had no idea where the question came from.

“Do I wear plaid?” he repeated, like he had to really think about it.

“Because I think you’d look good in plaid.” Actually I knew he would.

He shook his head, looking baffled. “Hmm. I’ll give that some thought.” He held my wrist, running his thumb over the bump in the velvet bag in my hand. “You’re walking around with a diamond that’s probably worth more than Keith’s Lincoln. That’s not a particularly good decision.”

“Yeah, I figured that out, but I didn’t want to leave it alone.”

He nodded like maybe he understood my thinking. “What’s going on? Spill it, Cassidy.”

Leap fearlessly. And so I did.

Chapter 44

Will leaned against the bathroom wall, never taking his eyes off me. “So you really think Nate Kincaid might have killed her?”

I couldn’t answer that directly. With a mobster lawyer in the mix, I wondered if Nate would get his hands dirty, or if he’d have someone else do his dirty work. “What if she stole something of his—could he have, you know, taken care of it? Of her?”

He nodded toward the bag in my hand. “You’re talking about the ring?”

“Like you said, it’s worth a lot of money. Did you see the size of that diamond?”

“If it’s even real,” he said. “Fakes look pretty good these days.”

Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . . The slide show image of Miriam and Nell holding a mirror flashed behind my eyes. A chill crawled up my spine. “The mirror.”

“What mirror?”

“The day after the murder, Thelma Louise got loose, remember?”

“The goat.”

“I found that little hand mirror and it was all scratched up. Were you at the funeral?”

He nodded, and I suddenly knew the stare I’d felt in the church had been his.

“That mirror was in one of the slide show pictures.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You sure it was the same?”

“Beaded edging and ribbons? Absolutely. Nell would have needed to know if that diamond was real before she tried to sell it, right? Diamonds cut glass. She used a mirror to test it.”

“She could have damaged the diamond,” he said, as if that shot down my theory.

“Maybe, but she was probably willing to risk it. She had to know what she was dealing with, a thousand- dollar cubic zirconia or a forty-thousand-dollar diamond.”

“So she tested it a hundred times? That mirror was completely scratched up.”

Once would have been enough, so I didn’t have an answer to that.

“So you think Nate killed her because she stole the ring?”

“I think it’s a pretty good motive, only she hid the ring so he never got it back.”

“You’re assuming they were having an affair,” he said. “That would be the only way she’d have had opportunity.”

Yep. That was the one major unknown in my theory. If Nate and Nell weren’t seeing each other, then I was back to square one.

An hour later, the ring was back inside the navy velvet bag, the bag was wrapped in a napkin, and Will and I were sitting across from the sheriff. Sitting there with him, I could see why Mama might fall for him, but it still rankled me that he was keeping their relationship under wraps.

He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepling his fingers under his chin. “You givin’ up dressmakin’ in favor of detectin’?” he asked me when I’d finished ticking off what I’d discovered about Nell and her death.

“No,” I said. “You giving up bachelorhood to make an honest woman of my mother?” I had to clench my fingers over the edge of the chair arms to stop myself from slapping a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d said that aloud.

I knew I’d crossed a line, but now it was out there, good or bad, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering how the sheriff would respond.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Will murmured under his breath to me.

The sheriff’s leathery face was usually hard to read, but not this time. He looked shaken up, like he’d fallen off the bull, but he recovered soon enough. “Young lady,” he chastised, “you best get your facts straight before you go sayin’ stuff like that. I’d climb to the top of the water tower—you know a little somethin’ about that, don’tcha? —and tell the whole county how I feel about your mama, but she won’t have none of it.” He leaned forward, looking me square in the eyes. “I mean to marry that woman, Harlow, mark my words. Hell, I gave her a ring. Asked her a hundred times already. What does she do? Wears it on her right hand and says she needs time. I’ll give Tessa all the time in the world, but it’s not me keepin’ a lid on things.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Mama was the one keeping their relationship under wraps? “That’s an engagement ring you gave her?” How could she have made light of it? She’d been holding out for true love ever since my father left her alone with Red and me. Why would she hold back with the sheriff?

He nodded, giving a wan smile. “You go on and ask her when she’s gonna make an honest man outta me, why don’tcha.”

That conversation would take some planning, but I said, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” all the while holding my breath, worried he’d kick me out of his office.

“Since I have you here,” he said, “I wanna show you somethin’.” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk to me. “Take a look.”

He sat back, bending his leg to rest his right ankle on his left knee. Hoss McClaine wasn’t just any old cowboy. He was the sheriff, and he had a job to do. He’d let my rash judgment of him slide and had gotten back to the murder at hand. Just like that, I switched sides. What in the world was Mama doing holding out on a good man like this? I knew it would take some work, but one way or another, I’d get her to see the light.

I picked up the paper and quickly scanned the handwritten list, going through it more slowly the second time around.