A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

the square and toward Hickory Creek Road and Anna Hughes’s house.

Bliss was a small town, so it wasn’t long before I was parked in front of the Hughes’s house. Unlike the night of the party, I’d had no trouble finding a spot. For all my bravado to Josie, and my hurried departure in front of Mama and her sheriff boyfriend, my nerves skittered through me like butter in a hot frying pan.

I wasn’t big on confrontation. Walking toward Anna’s front door, I was feeling like a cowboy who was all hat, no cattle. Really, what was I going to say to the woman? I couldn’t very well grab her by the collar and tell her to give back the book, or else.

Tamping down my nerves, I raised my knuckles to the front door, but before they landed in a knock, the door flung open and Buckley and Duane Hughes strode out. Buckley half turned as he started to pull the front door closed behind him.

“Oh!” I backed up before they plowed right into me.

The doctor pulled up short, whipping his head around. The door opened, bringing the bought air, as Meemaw’d always called air-conditioning, wafting out into the Texas heat. “Good grief! You startled me.”

I forced a tense smile. I’d been prepared to see Anna at the front door, not the doctor, and it threw my mojo off.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t notice you drive up.” He peered over my shoulder as if he couldn’t believe he’d missed seeing the truck parked on his horseshoe driveway.

“Anna stopped by my shop last night, but I was too busy to talk dress design for her sister’s wedding. Hey, Duane,” I said, lifting my hand in a wave.

“Hi, Ms. Cassidy.”

Turning back to Buckley, I asked, “Is she here?”

The doctor stared at me, his brows pulled together. “Her sister’s wed—”

“Just chatting about a dress,” Anna said, appearing at the front door. “You know how I hate scrambling at the last minute and feeling like I’m always playing catch-up.”

Buckley’s reaction verified my suspicion. There was no wedding.

“That, I do.” Buckley frowned, deep vertical lines shooting down between his eyebrows. So he didn’t partake in his own cosmetic treatments. Interesting.

The doctor gave his wife a peck on the cheek before sidestepping me and heading across the spotty lawn toward the back of the house. “See you tonight,” he said with a final wave. Duane trotted after him, hanging a valet bag, probably holding his suit for the pageant, in their car. His dad tossed a ring of keys to him, they got in, and they drove away, Duane at the wheel.

“He’s growing up so fast,” Anna said, watching as the car disappeared. “He can’t make up his mind whether to be a doctor or a lawyer, you know? He’s so interested in both.”

“I’m sure he’ll do great at either,” I said.

She looked at me, dark shadows creating half circles under her eyes. Her skin looked sallow. My guess was that she hadn’t slept a wink the night before. The fight with her husband, or guilt at stealing Trudy Lafayette’s notebook from my house? Or maybe both. She stood back and opened the door wide. “I guess you’d like to come in?” she said without a trace of actual Southern hospitality. I got the distinct impression she’d prefer I didn’t come in.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to, but I did want Trudy’s notebook back, so that made my decision. “Sure.”

She held the door open wide and I stepped past her.

“I figured you’d be coming.” Her voice was off, the consonants slurred and stretched out. As I passed into the living room, I saw the open bottle of wine and the quarter-filled glass on the coffee table. Ah, that explained it.

I glanced at my watch. Ten seventeen. Way too early to even say it was close to noon, and unless you were Charlie Sheen, most people thought lunchtime was about the earliest time in the day to start with the cocktails.

Something was not right in the world of Anna Hughes.

Behind me, the door closed with a bang. I turned around and my jaw dropped.

Her eyelids fluttered at half-mast as she walked toward me. “I suppose you’re here about this?” she said as she held up Trudy’s cloth-covered notebook.

Chapter 31

Anna perched on the edge of her tasteful brown sofa across from me while I tried not to sink into the well- worn easy chair. She knocked back the rest of her wine, setting her glass on the occasional table by her side.

The last two times I’d seen her, I’d had immediate visions of her in black taffeta, but this time, my mind was drawing a blank. I could see her, but her image was fuzzy around the edges, and the outfit she wore was a dull, nondescript gray.

“Buck doesn’t know,” she said.

I cocked my head to the side, trying to be patient so I wouldn’t rip the book from her hands. “Doesn’t know what?”

She leaned forward, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have a little confession.” A hiccup, followed by a little giggle, escaped her lips. She pressed two fingers to her mouth, as if that could stop the hiccups from continuing. Another one came, and her eyes went wide.

A drinking problem, I thought grimly, just as I’d suspected. “What kind of confession?”

Her fingers closed tightly around the notebook, her knuckles going white from the pressure. “I… that is… m- my sister… she already had her wedding.”

“Yup, I figured that out.”

Her pencil thin eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “How?”

I filled her in on my ten minutes of Googling. “You can find anything on the Internet.”

The tension between us lessened. I had a sudden flashback of my New York roommate and fellow Maximilian flunky, Orphie Cates. Whenever our sycophant boss, Luciano, would ramble on about Maximilian and his brilliance, Orphie would lean over and in her Low Country Carolina drawl, she’d whisper, “I wish that man would just cut to the chase, already.”

Precisely what I felt at this very moment. “Anna?”

“Yes?” She smiled tightly, her skin taut either from her husband’s Botox treatments or from her nerves at being busted as a thief. Maybe both.

“I have eighteen girls waiting on me to put them in their dresses. The pageant’s tonight.” My eyes darted to the notebook clutched in her hands. “I need that book.”

Her grip had softened just a touch, but now it tightened again, her knuckles going white. “I know, but…”

“But what, Anna? If there’s something wrong, you can tell me.”

She swallowed, trying to maintain what little composure she’d managed to gather up, but I could see her struggle, like little fissures cracking from the inside out. She lifted her wineglass to her lips and tilted it to drink. One lone drop of red liquid slid down the crystal.

“I just started flipping through this last night while I was waiting on you…” She trailed off, looking toward her empty wineglass for fortification.

“All Trudy’s and Fern’s notes about the Margaret dresses are in there. Without it, I don’t know which dress belongs to which girl.” I stretched my arm out, hoping she’d just hand it over.

Instead, she rose and reached for the wine bottle across the coffee table, refilling her glass. “I started reading—”

“Anna!” Wine sloshed over the top of the glass, spilling onto the pine table. I grabbed the bottle, setting it upright, then darted to the kitchen.

Even in her discombobulated state, she could keep up most of her appearances. Her kitchen was immaculate, though not my style. Roosters and more light pine, cowboy paraphernalia, and a big copper Texas star defined the decor. There was an unspoken rule in the Lone Star State: every house must be adorned with the Texas star. My old farmhouse had had one hanging on the porch just between the rocking chairs for as long as I could remember.