Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Southern Sewing Circle 10 - Wedding Duress (22 page)

Adrenaline.

It was the only explanation for why Tori was still standing after a night of zero sleep and a full day of work.

From the moment she and Milo had finally called it quits for the night, she’d known she wasn’t going to be able to close her eyes. Sure, she’d tried, even going so far as to warm up a little milk the way she remembered her great-grandmother doing on occasion. But nothing had worked.

Instead, she’d run through various scenarios involving Jim Brady and Tara Reed until she found one that made the most sense.

Now, roughly fourteen hours after her ah-ha moment, she was more than ready to tie all the strings together in a neat and tidy little bow for Chief Dallas. Milo, of course, had encouraged her to let the chief do the tying, but even he was aware of the lack of conviction behind his words.

No, she needed to see this through to the end—for Beatrice and Miss Gracie . . .

She looked up from the bench outside Brady’s Jewelry and waved as her cohort in crime careened around the corner and into the empty parking spot in front of the store. Despite the exhaustion that burned her eyes, and the apprehension weighing on her heart, Tori couldn’t help but smile as Margaret Louise lumbered out of her trusty station wagon and made a beeline in Tori’s direction.

“Think we’ll see some fireworks?”

It was a question she’d asked herself repeatedly throughout the day as Jim Brady’s moment of reckoning drew closer. “I don’t know, Margaret Louise. I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, don’t you worry none, Victoria. I got some pepper spray in my bag and Chief Dallas’s number on my speed dial.”

She peeked inside her friend’s bag and immediately spotted the spray can in question. “When did you get pepper spray?”

“This mornin’, right after you called.”

Stepping back, she shifted her focus toward the familiar door at the top of the stairs. “Are you ready to do this with me?”

“Ready and able,” Margaret Louise said, patting her bag closed.

Tori took a quick, fortifying breath and then led the way up the stairs and into the shop, the jingle of the bells above the door barely noticeable over the roar in Tori’s ears.

“Welcome to Brady’s Jewelry.” A man in his late thirties stepped out of a room behind the glass counter and
immediately came to a stop, his lips stretching wide with a smile. “Margaret Louise, how are you?”

“I’m doin’ just fine, Jim, thank you.” Margaret Louise slid her arm across Tori’s shoulders and guided them both forward. “You know my friend, Victoria, don’t you?”

Jim held his hand across the counter and grasped Tori’s firmly. “Yes, of course. Miss Sinclair. Ryan told me you stopped by last week and picked up your wedding bands. I’m sorry I wasn’t here but, well, there was an accident in my home the previous evening and I was rather preoccupied. I hope you understand.”

“Of course. Ryan took good care of me.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s been invaluable since I hired him. Quick learner, motivated, you name it. And judging by the comment cards people leave, I’d be a fool to ever let him go.” He swept his hand across the top of the glass case and then looked from Tori to Margaret Louise and back again. “So what can I help you with this evening?”

Tori pulled her engagement ring from her finger and set it on the counter along with the paperwork Milo had gotten from the store. “I have reason to believe these papers were doctored.”

“Doctored?”

“Yes. To say my diamond is something it’s not.”

She noted the shock in his face just before he grabbed the magnifier beside the register with one hand and Tori’s ring with the other. “That’s impossible.”

Margaret Louise moved her hand to the outside of her tote bag and patted it knowingly.

Seconds turned to minutes as the jeweler turned Tori’s ring this way and that, his face draining of color with each turn.

“It’s fake, isn’t it?” she finally asked as he pulled the ring from underneath the magnifier and stared down at it as if it were some sort of foreign object.

“Yes. But I don’t understand.”

“Oh, we think you do.” Tori reached into her pants pocket and removed the ring Debbie had brought to the library earlier that day. Again, she put the ring on the counter and waited for the jeweler to take it. When he took Debbie’s, Tori slipped her own back onto her finger. “And we think that because here’s another ring, sold by you, that’s every bit as fake despite paperwork and a price tag to the contrary.”

Again, he held the ring under the magnifier, and again he turned it in multiple different directions. This time, though, he slumped against the counter as Tori’s accusation came to pass. “I—I don’t understand.”

“How about I help clarify things,” she said, her voice wooden. “You sold these two rings—along with countless others, I’m sure—for a hefty price tag knowing full well they weren’t worth ten percent of that cost. And then, to hide the money, you funneled it through your sister’s fledgling agency. Pretty soon, the Nanny Go Round Agency had lots of local girls on their books, even though many of them never left their own homes. A few legitimate clients such as the Whitehalls, the Downings, and even your own family kept things on the level—at least from afar. But when one of those horribly inadequate nannies almost killed your own child and your in-the-dark wife put her foot down, your little setup was threatened, wasn’t it? You knew that if the Whitehalls and the other handful of legitimate clients went elsewhere, the jig would be up . . . so you pushed Miss Gracie to her death to drown out the talk, didn’t you?”

Jim’s jaw went slack just before Debbie’s ring fell from his hand onto the floor. “I didn’t kill Miss Gracie! She fell!”

“We believe she was pushed.”

“Pushed?” he echoed in disbelief as Tori watched his gaze slip to the paperwork she’d lined up on the counter. Lurching forward, he looked from one paper to the next as his hands slowly tightened into fists atop the counter. “I didn’t sign these . . .”

“It has your name. Your signature.”

“But it wasn’t signed with my pen . . .”

Holding up his finger, he disappeared into the same room from which he’d come when they arrived. Margaret Louise reached into her bag, pulled out the spray and her phone, and readied both for immediate use.

Less than twenty seconds later, Jim was back, a silver pen in his outstretched hand. “Julie gave me this pen when I opened the shop. It’s the only one I use when I sign authentication papers.”

“And you can tell, lookin’ at these papers, that a different pen was used?” Margaret Louise asked.

“This pen”—he waved it in the air—“is black. Those papers have been signed in blue.”

Tori spun Milo’s set of paperwork around and looked at the signature line. “This isn’t your signature?”

He crossed back to the counter and looked at Colby’s papers, and then, Milo’s. “I couldn’t sign it better myself. But regardless of how dead-on it is, I didn’t sign either of these papers.”

“Then who did?”

She watched as he lifted Colby’s papers off the counter, looked again at the signature in the bottom right
corner, and then slowly moved his gaze up to the top. “This is dated July of this year. What’s that one dated?”

“A year ago this past April.”

“Okay, so it’s been just Ryan and me since—”

And then she knew.

It wasn’t Jim Brady who’d been laundering money from selling fake gems through the Nanny Go Round Agency. It was Ryan, the clean-cut employee who’d been so charming . . .

“Does Ryan know your sister?”

“He’s a friend of Tara’s son,” Jim said, lowering the papers to the counter once again. “It’s why I hired him.”

“And he’s here often?”

“All the time. Within the first six months of him being here, he was adept enough at the way I did things to be able to leave him on his own. It gave me more time to be with Julie and the kids, especially with Kellie getting involved in more and more sports.” Jim cupped a hand over his mouth and exhaled as reality dawned amid disbelief and growing rage. “I trusted him explicitly when it came to this shop and my reputation. Heck, I even gave him a key to my house to bring by the day’s earnings if I wasn’t there when we closed up shop.”

“A key to your house?” Tori and Margaret Louise echoed in unison.

“He was my right-hand man!” Jim marched to the back door of the shop and peered out over the parking lot that served all of the shops up and down Main Street. “He even dated our former nanny off and on, although I often wondered if he really liked her. And . . .”

Tori followed him to the back door and placed a calming hand on his upper arm. “And what?”

“Tara is my
sister
. Yeah, she’s always been jealous of my success, but to strike back like
this
? It’s . . . it’s too much.”

As much as she hated being the bearer of bad news, Tori couldn’t help being glad it wasn’t Jim who’d orchestrated everything. Somehow, knowing Chief Dallas’s cuffs wouldn’t be on the father of three quieted the ache that had settled over her heart during the night.

“I have to ask you one last question, Jim.” She turned her thoughts to Beatrice and Miss Gracie and the bond the women had shared throughout Beatrice’s life. It wouldn’t be easy telling Beatrice her beloved governess had been killed out of greed, but at least she’d know the truth. “Was Ryan at your house the night of Miss Gracie’s accident?”

“No, he—” Jim pounded his fist on the wall, releasing an angry groan as he did. “It was a Monday, so he closed up the shop for me at five and then dropped the day’s earnings off on the desk in my home office just like I asked.”

“So he
was
there that evening?”

Slowly but surely he began to nod, the horror in his eyes impossible to ignore. “Yes. He came in through the side entrance, put the money in the locked drawer beneath the mirror as he always does, and exited the same way.”

“Side entrance?” Tori questioned.

“Yes. It’s between the hearth room and the basement access . . .” His words trailed off as the reality that had been slowly assembling itself in his head came into complete focus. Tori stole a glance at Margaret Louise and knew the expression on the woman’s face matched the conviction in Tori’s heart. They had their man and they had a motive.

“He killed her, didn’t he?” Jim whispered.

At Tori’s nod, he groaned again. “How could I have been so incredibly
blind
?
How could I not see him for what he was?”

“You saw what he wanted you to see,” Tori whispered. “The only one worthy of blame in all of this is Ryan.”

Jim reared back and gave the wall one last punch, the pain in his voice nothing short of heartbreaking. “Ryan and
my sister
.”

Over the course of her life to that point, Tori had witnessed many sunrises. Some were on vacations as a child, some were from her dorm room window when pulling an all-nighter for a college exam, and some had been on her great-grandmother’s front porch as she waited for her parents to come for a visit.

Yet, as beautiful as so many of them had been, none had ever been as beautiful as the one that greeted her that morning.

From the moment Milo had popped the question, she’d eagerly looked forward to the day they would become husband and wife. And now, finally, it was there. In a little over six hours, she’d be standing next to the love of her life, each vowing to be true to the other throughout their remaining days on earth. It was a promise she couldn’t wait to make, and a life’s journey she couldn’t wait to start.

A soft knock at her bedroom door widened her smile even more. “Come on in, I’m awake.”

The door swung open and Rose Winters shuffled into the room carrying a teacup and a piece of toast on a small plate. “I figured you were already up.”

Tori reached out, transferred the cup and plate from the elderly woman’s trembling hands to the nightstand, and then patted the spot next to her on the bed. “Did you sleep well?”

“I did.”

“Thank you for letting me stay with you last night. There’s no one I wanted to share my last night as a single woman with more than you.”

Rose wrapped her hand around Tori’s and squeezed. “I know you wish your great-grandmother could have been here with you but—”

She quieted her friend’s words with a gentle finger. “She
was
here, Rose. She always is. But I needed you, too.”

“I’m glad.” Slowly, Rose pulled her hand back just enough to reveal Tori’s engagement ring. “I imagine Jim is going to make this right?”

“He already did. He gave Milo a full refund.”

“But this looks like the same ring.”

She extricated her hand from beneath Rose’s and held it out for them both to see. “That’s because it is. I don’t want a new one. I want this one. It’s the one Milo gave me when he asked me to marry him.”

“But it’s fake,” Rose said.

“The sentiment with which Milo gave it to me, though, wasn’t.”

“And Milo is okay with that?”

Shifting her body to the side, she leaned against the
headboard and allowed herself a moment to digest the question. “He wasn’t at first, but when I explained to him why I wanted to keep this one, he gave in.”

“Leona would have a heart attack if she knew about this,” Rose groused. “In fact, I think she’d consider having you committed.”

“I already told her.” Tori thought back to the conversation she’d had with her injured friend in the wake of Ryan’s arrest and smiled at the memory. “And you know what? Leona actually told me I have something more precious than any diamond on the face of the earth.”

“And what’s that?”

“Milo.”

*   *   *

Tori peeked around the vestibule’s potted tree and watched, mesmerized, as Lulu Davis began her way down the aisle, her long dark hair, curled to perfection, cascading down the back of her goldenrod-colored dress.

“She’s getting so big, isn’t she?” she whispered to Rose, who stood nearby, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “When I moved here, she was still so little.”

When Lulu reached the altar, she stepped to the left and smiled out at Tori and Milo’s guests with such quiet confidence, Tori could hardly breathe.

Next went Melissa, her choice of Hushed Ginger stunning against her dark blonde hair. Tori’s eyes immediately went to Jake Davis, the awe in his face as he watched his wife glide by, nothing short of touching.

Nina was next, her dark skin gorgeous against the Simply Sienna she’d selected to wear. When she passed
Lyndon on the way to her spot, the baby clapped, sending up a chorus of laughter throughout the church.

Debbie waited until Nina was positioned next to Melissa and then started her own walk down the aisle, her dark blonde hair glistening around the neckline of her Soft Russet gown. As Jake had been with Melissa, Colby couldn’t keep his eyes off his wife.

The always-shy Beatrice, who blushed her way down the aisle in Quiet Barley, turned more than a few heads in her direction, a fact Tori vowed to share with the nanny in the very near future.

Georgina, decked out in Dusky Sunset, made short work of the white carpet thanks to her long legs and go-go-go personality.

Dixie, quietly elegant in Muted Pumpkin, helped slow things down a bit, clearly relishing her moment in the spotlight.

“I swear, Victoria, if my twin doesn’t show for this, I will never speak to her again,” Margaret Louise whispered as she moved into position, taking one last glance over her shoulder at the door as she did.

“She said she’d be here,” Tori whispered back. “So that means she will be. Now go.”

Margaret Louise set off in her Warm Cinnamon dress, the happy squeals the beloved grandmother received halfway down the aisle perfect on so many levels.

Tori tried to focus on her friends that were there, rather than the one that wasn’t, but it was impossible not to when Rose was the only one left prior to the start of the wedding march.

A sudden burst of sunlight at her back made Tori turn
in time to see Charles wave and then push a wheelchair-bound Leona into the vestibule. “I’m here. I’m here. And so is Paris.”

Leona snapped her fingers and in walked Sam, carrying Paris and the miniature satin pillow that would soon be tied around the animal’s neck. “Who’s going to carry her?” the EMT asked.

“No one. She’s going to hop all on her own.”

“Leona?” she gasped. “I—I didn’t realize you’d have to be in a wheelchair . . .”

“I don’t.” Snapping her fingers softly in the air to alert Charles to her needs, their Big Apple friend opened the metal contraption previously tucked under his arm and set it in front of Leona.

Rose pointed but said nothing.

Leona, however, didn’t have that problem. “Yes, you old goat, it’s a walker, and it’s mine. For now anyway.” Reaching into a bag attached to the arm of her wheelchair, Leona removed a pair of shiny silver flats, which Charles promptly put on her feet. “Looks like it’s up to you and me to make flats stylish again, wouldn’t you say?”

It was fast and it was fleeting, but there was no denying the way Rose’s lips twitched in response to Leona’s suggestion, and Tori waited with bated breath to hear her response.

As Margaret Louise reached the end of the aisle, Sam set Paris on the white runner and gently nudged the rabbit on her way, to the delight of the crowd. When Paris and the wedding rings reached the edge of the altar, Rose stepped forward, helped Leona to her feet, and then looked back at Tori, waiting.

“I’m not supposed to be crying yet,” Tori whispered.

Charles pulled a tissue from his pocket, pressed it into her hand, and then entered the church from a side door as Tori finally acknowledged Rose’s unspoken question with a nod.

Rose smiled in return. “That’s our cue, Leona. Let’s go.”

As two of her dearest friends set off down the aisle—Leona in Smoldering Blaze, and Rose in Harvest Wheat, Tori let her gaze skip ahead to the rest of their crew. Any surprise or momentary glee they may have felt at seeing Leona with a walker quickly disappeared behind pure joy.

For Tori.

Smoothing her hands down the sides of her dress one last time, Tori took her place at the top of the aisle and waited for the wedding march to begin. There wasn’t a single, solitary thing she’d change about that moment.

Yes, it would have been wonderful if her great-grandmother could have been beaming from the front row as she became Mrs. Milo Wentworth. But if she’d learned anything since moving to Sweet Briar, it’s that the people you held close to your heart were always there.

And because of that, her great-grandmother was in that church just as surely as her mom and dad, Lulu, Melissa, Nina, Debbie, Beatrice, Georgina, Dixie, Margaret Louise, Leona, Rose, and Charles.

She watched through tear-dappled lashes as her husband-to-be stepped onto the altar and turned to look at her with such love and devotion she could hardly breathe. And when he mouthed the words
I love you
as she made her way toward him, she knew, without a doubt, that she was the luckiest girl in the
world.