Deadly Patterns (18 page)

Chapter 25

The women spent nearly four hours around the dining room table, laughing, gossiping, and concentrating as they decorated their dolls.

Yarn was unraveled and attached, instantly giving the dolls beards. Collars were made of strips of fur or decorative trim. The dolls were adorned with bits and pieces until they looked lush and fanciful.

“Gorgeous,” Olive proclaimed, holding her Santa doll out so Madelyn could snap a picture of it.

Diane and Michele compared their creations. “We could leave them out all year long,” Diane said. “They’re just so adorable.”

“Yours is the best, Madelyn,” Mrs. Mcafferty said. “He’s got himself a quirky personality.”

“He’s a keeper,” Nana agreed. She fingered the metallic strands in the beard on her own doll. “Who would’ve ever thought you could unwind the pieces like this?”

She patted me on the shoulder before padding to the kitchen, slipping on her Crocs, and opening the Dutch door to the backyard. “See y’all later,” she said, her doll tucked under her arm.

One by one, the women cleaned up their areas, gingerly cradling their Santa dolls as they trickled out. Finally only Madelyn was left. “Do you like it?” I asked her as I gathered up what was left of the trim, reorganized it in the correct bins, and did a quick sweep of the floor.

She set the Santa doll on the coffee table by the settee. He toppled over, landing on his back. “We could probably glue a half circle base on the bottom to lift his front,” I said after she set him up again and he fell right back down.

“Phft!” She waved away the suggestion. “That, my dear Harlow, was enough crafting to hold me for a good long time. Like I said, I’ll prop him up.”

She leaned him against the hand-carved wooden box I kept in the center of the table, slowly let go, and backed away.

He stayed put. She clapped, and then held her camera up and snapped a picture of him. “He is awfully nice,” she said, grinning. She might be done with crafts for a while, but she was proud of what she’d made.

She’d put her camera back in her Epiphanie bag and had her Santa tucked in the crook of her arm.

“Madelyn?”

She stopped at the door. “Hmm?”

Ever since that moment with Mrs. Mcafferty, I felt like a fissure had slowly been opening up inside me. Will and Gracie weren’t my family, but they were beginning to feel like they were. Did I tell them what I suspected? Did I go find Mrs. Mcafferty and try to speak to her? Or did I zip my lips and join the secret keepers of Bliss—which included Nana and Mrs. James? I wanted to ask Madelyn what she thought.

“Did you tell him about your charm?”

“Not yet.” I hadn’t seen him again, but it was still weighing on me.

“A few secrets aren’t a bad thing. I’m not going to tell Billy about our adventure the other night. No need to worry him,” she said.

“I told Will about that.”

“Did you, now? And he didn’t mind?”

“I don’t reckon he liked it,” I said. “I have to talk to him about Gracie.” I decided to tell her.

“You sure you want to get involved?”

“No.” But I gathered up my coat and followed her onto the porch, locking the door and hanging the handmade wooden sign telling potential customers that I’d be back in an hour. The truth of the matter was that I didn’t think I could see Will and Gracie much longer without giving away that I had a secret burning inside me. Nana and her cronies had had a pact that they’d honored for decades. If this was about the Cassidy charm, I might feel differently, but this was about a divided family.

Gracie’s divided family. And that I could do something about.

Madelyn gave me a hug. “Chin up, Harlow.”

She headed off in her compact car and I headed the opposite direction in Meemaw’s old truck.

* * *

Will wasn’t in his office. The receptionist for the town offices arched a thin eyebrow at me, giving me a once-over. One drawback to being an up-and-coming fashion designer in a small town was that people expected me to always look the part. Faded jeans, even when they were paired with a stylish blouse, expensive boots, and a custom-tailored jacket, were still just jeans.

I didn’t get the feeling that the woman would be paying any visits to Buttons & Bows. And that was too bad, because I could picture her in a flowing ankle-length dress made of silk-screened teal rayon. Her loss.

“When will he be back?” I asked.

“He’s probably gone for the day. He’s at the museum in the courthouse on the square finishing some things up before the grand reopening tomorrow,” she said. Her eyebrow arched a bit higher. “Guess he didn’t tell you that, huh?”

Her snide tone triggered a new thought. Maybe the dirty looks she was giving me were less about my jeans and more about the fact that I was here to see Will. I knew I was beginning to feel something pretty strong for him, but the fact that—I glanced at her nameplate—Millicent Price seemed to feel something for him too caused a band of jealousy to coil in my gut.

Looked like the same jealousy was rearing up inside her.

I uttered a quick thank-you to Millicent before scurrying out the door.

The holiday shoppers were out in force. It took three trips around the square before I found a parking space. With my coat zippered tight against the cold, I hurried across the street to the courthouse. Up the walkway, up the steps, and into the limestone building that had once been the county seat.

I wound in and out of the small rooms, stopping every few minutes to look more closely at some of Bliss’s historic artifacts. There were sections with old furniture set up to represent a typical room in the late 1800s. Freestanding glass cases held photographs and bios of some of the earliest residents. I stopped in front of a display about the Kincaid family, with photos of Justin and Vanetta, their first house—a modest ranch-style house just off of what was now the square, a sampling of lace made by Vanetta herself, and newspaper articles about historic events in the town.

I glanced at the clippings. Bliss had a storied past replete with bank robberies, a jewelry store holdup, and a brothel, all of the samples on display dated from the same year. I leaned closer, reading the headlines:

Bonnie and Clyde Leave Their Mark on Bliss after Bold Robbery in Broad Daylight

The Randolph House, Madame Annabel’s Brothel, Burns to the Ground

Pincher’s Jewelers in Possession of Retired Coin from U.S. Mint

Charles Denison Loses House on Mayberry Street to Justin Kincaid

I paused as I read the final headline, delving into the article itself. The details Will had told me were exactly what was in the paper. A poker game gone bad.

But in the end, it didn’t actually reveal anything about what Dan Lee Chrisson might have been searching for in the house formerly owned by his family, if he’d been searching for anything.

I went back to the first article, about Bonnie and Clyde. They were as infamous as Butch Cassidy was around these parts. Over the years, they’d been glamorized, but the original articles about them had been harsh and truthful. They’d practically taken the town of Bliss hostage, robbing every business on the square and absconding with everything they could get their hands on.

I moved on to the next display case. It held the same quilt that had been in the Historical Society’s office the night I’d gone there with Will. It had been refolded, probably to show the signature of the quilter. I didn’t know much about quilting, but I did know that a signature helped authenticate it. The writing was faded, and so close to a ripped seam that it was almost impossible to read. I leaned closer to get a better look, but the letters were faded. I made out an
E
and two
N
s, but nothing else. This quilt had been used, and probably loved, which is just the way it should be. Just as cloth and garments tell stories, quilts did, too.

Another newspaper article was framed and displayed. I gave it a quick glance, ready to move on, but I recognized the woman photographed in the picture and stopped cold. My great-grandmother, Loretta Mae Cassidy.

I read the headline and, instantly, an ominous feeling passed through me.

Search for Missing Husband Over

Oh Lord. I scanned the article, pulling out the highlights. The husband in question was Bobby Whittaker. He’d simply vanished one day, leaving behind his wife, Loretta Mae, and their daughter, Coleta.

My lungs tightened, the air inside them suddenly thick and toxic.

The story of Loretta Mae’s marriage was something that was never talked about. From bits and pieces I’d heard over the years, I’d assumed it had been a lot like Mama’s, with my father packing his bags and hitting the road. Just like that. Magic wasn’t something he had any inclination to deal with.

Mama had raised Red and me on her own, just like Loretta Mae had raised her daughter, my grandmother, on her own. I’d grown up thinking that was how it was supposed to be. The Cassidy women just didn’t get hitched.

But maybe the truth was that they got hitched just fine, but the men never stuck around.

I kept reading, finally getting to the part about Meemaw. Suspicion fell on Loretta Mae Cassidy Whittaker when she refused to talk to the sheriff. While Mr. Whittaker’s whereabouts are still unknown, Mrs. Whittaker is no longer a suspect.

No longer a suspect. My blood ran cold as I wondered how Loretta Mae had been cleared. Her Cassidy charm was that whatever she wanted came true. Had she wanted her husband gone? She’d been young then, and maybe not as able to control her gift. Every action has a consequence. Meemaw had drilled that truth into my head. Mama grew flowers, but she also grew an abundance of weeds. Nana whispered to the goats, but the goats whispered back. Endlessly. What I created helped people realize their hopes and desires. The catch? Sometimes those hopes and desires weren’t good. Or ethical. And I had no control over that.

But what about Meemaw? Had she started out making wishes willy-nilly, with no concern for the fallout? If she’d wanted Bobby Whittaker gone from her life, had he just walked out, or could there have been a more permanent consequence?

My head spun and I had a sudden feeling that the secrets would never end.

“I thought that was you,” a voice said when I turned to the next display case.

I gasped, startled, and spun around. Will. “Just the person I came to see,” I said, channeling some levity and making my voice sound light. More light than I felt.

“Lots of cool history in here,” he said, gesturing to the article.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile. I didn’t want him to know that the article about my family referenced a big secret skeleton in our closet, one I hadn’t even known about. “Lots of history.”

Mentally I tucked the saga of Bobby Whittaker and Loretta Mae away and focused on why I’d come to see Will. He’d had Gracie all to himself since Naomi had left her in his arms when she’d been an infant. He’d been waiting for Gracie to be ready to meet her grandparents, but now he might not have a choice.

One corner of his lips curved up and he leaned in to give me a quick kiss. I hated knowing that as soon as I told him what I’d come to say, that smile would morph into a worried frown.

“You moved the quilt,” I said, deciding to ease into the blow.

“Made sense. More people come to the museum than to the Historical Society’s office.”

“Hmm.” I glanced around, noticing the careful attention to detail in the displays. Everything was neatly labeled and looked ready for the grand opening.

“The display of the city is in here.” He led me into another room, where the model of Bliss was the centerpiece. It sat under a Plexiglas cover, looking magnificent and unbelievably detailed.

“It’s amazing.” I walked around the table, starting to notice things I hadn’t seen before: miniature lights on the tiny trees dotting the town square, the shop signs, including Two Scoops, Seed-n-Bead, and Villa Farina, and a cascade of flowers covering the archway in the courtyard.

“Took more than a year to finish,” he said.

The longest it had ever taken me to complete a project was forty-seven days, and that had been my very first gown—when I was seventeen. I’d made my own prom dress, creating the pattern, a muslin mock-up, and hand-embroidering the bodice. I’d also had to go to school and work at Sundance Kids with Nana, helping her tend to the goats. I’d finished the creation barely in time to go to the dance with my date. Creating garments gave more immediate satisfaction than architecture did. I admired him for being able to stick with his creation for so long. It was his art. His passion.

He pointed to Meemaw’s redbrick house, tracing his finger past the yellow siding and toward the backyard and the edge of Nana and Granddaddy’s goat farm. “There’s Thelma Louise.”

I looked closer, noticing the tiny goat reared up on its hind legs at the gate between Nana’s and my properties.

“You have her figured out,” I said with a laugh.

“Firsthand experience.” He picked up a bottle of glass cleaner from the corner, sprayed the top of the case, and wiped it clean with a wad of paper towels. “Finished with Josie’s outfit?”

“Almost,” I said truthfully. “I got a little sidetracked by the Santa doll class and . . .”

“And . . .” he prompted.

“And one of the students. Mrs. Mcafferty.”

He grew still, his blue eyes graying. “She was in your class?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He set the cleaner and paper towels on the case and turned to face me. “Spit it out, Cassidy.”

Either I was terrible at masking my emotions, or he was starting to know me pretty well. Maybe both. “I think . . .” I trailed off, not knowing the right words to say.

“What? What do you think?” He knew something was up. His smile was already gone.

I swallowed, mustering up my gumption. “She mentioned the Winter Wonderland newsletter. I said you’d made it and she . . . she turned pale and . . .”

“Harlow,” he said, his tone urging me to just come out and say what was on my mind.

“I’m pretty sure she knows about you and Naomi and . . . Gracie.”

I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it hadn’t been utter and complete silence. His whole body grew tense, like he was on high alert during a military action. Very gently, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Will?”