A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (2 page)

“Family,” I said, but I held my breath.

Her lip twitched almost imperceptibly and she closed her eyes in a slow, sad blink. “The people you choose,” she said softly, and once again, my heart went out to her.

She’d lost her family, so from here on out, the people she peppered her life with would be those she handpicked.

As I patted her arm and rattled off the next word—home—the front door opened, the strand of bells hanging from the inside of the front door jingling.

“Deceitful—” Danica said, stopping short when she saw Gracie Flores and her boyfriend, Shane Montgomery, tumble in, laughing. Gracie and Shane couldn’t have heard what she’d said, nor would they know what she’d been talking about, but still, she looked as if she’d been caught sneaking cookies at midnight.

Gracie and Shane stopped just inside the door, Gracie’s eyes growing wide and excited as she took in the trims and mum accessories. A shimmering trail of diffused light circled inside the house like the tail of a shooting star. It was the ghost of Meemaw, my grandmother Loretta Mae. Gracie’s mouth drew into an O, her gaze following the glittery stream, but no one else seemed to pick up on Meemaw’s presence.

She knocked the back of her hand against Shane’s arm, grinning up at him. “It’s like an enchanted land,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows and I got the impression that Buttons & Bows was nothing like any enchanted land he’d want to spend time in, but then he nodded and pulled her forward. “This is, like, the total opposite of Bubba’s.”

Shane’s family owned Bubba’s Auto Repair, and Shane worked there part time. I’d taken Buttercup, my old Ford pickup truck, there for service plenty of times.
Growing up with a dad who works on cars means I work on cars
, he’d told Gracie. She’d added that he made good money. “Enough so we can go out on real dates.”

Two teenagers couldn’t ask for more than that.

Danica stepped down from the fitting platform as Gracie and Shane came into the workroom. “Hey,” Gracie said.

Danica dropped her gaze shyly, but threw up her hand in a quick wave. “Should I come back tomorrow?” she asked me.

“Perfect, yes. Thanks for playing along. I’ll work up some sketches, and you can tell me what you like and what you don’t.”

“I’ve never had a dress like this, Ms. Cassidy. My dad died and my mother, she couldn’t afford it—”

She paused, her voice heavy with sorrow. This was the most she’d said about her parents. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. “I’m happy to do it, darlin’,” I said, ushering her toward the front door.

The fact that I’d used a Southern endearment wasn’t lost on me. The more time I spent back home in Bliss, the more my Southern roots took hold of me again. Sure, I was a Texan first and foremost, but like most of the folks I knew, unless they were from the border, I also felt Southern. Downhome accents and shared idioms could do that for people.

By the time I’d been twenty-four and living in New York, I’d all but ditched my accent, but it wasn’t long before I’d had a big realization. You could take the girl out of the small town, but you couldn’t ever take the small town out of the girl.

Now I was thirty-three, back home in Bliss, and before long, I’d sound just like my mama, dropping every G and saying
might could
and
right quick
.

“See you at the bakery,” Mrs. James called, coming out from the kitchen.

Danica draped a Bliss High letterman jacket over her arm, smiled, and waved to her. “Yes, ma’am. Skinny hazelnut latte—”

“And an Italian cream puff.” Mrs. James touched her mouth as if she could taste the sweet cream on her lips.

“Good grief,” Nana said, following her. “Pastries will clog your arteries. But a good smearing of persimmon chèvre on a thin slice of French bread? That’s a treat worth havin’.”

The bells on the door tinkled again as I shut it behind Danica. A minute later, her car revved and she was gone.

I went back to the workroom to get ready for Leslie’s consultation, which I knew would go more smoothly than Danica’s had. I pulled out the sapphire jacquard and the confetti-sequined fabric for the underskirt, setting it on the worktable. I already had my sketches for her dress, so I was good to go.

Gracie bopped up and down on her toes, looking like a child at her first rodeo who was trying desperately—and unsuccessfully—to stay cool and calm. She snuck a glance at Shane, who looked a bit stricken by the array of colorful ribbon assortments, small stuffed bears in cheerleading outfits, and cowbells.

But to his credit, he seemed to sense her excitement and put a grin on his face. “Go big or go home,” he said. My exact sentiment just a little while ago.

It was all the encouragement Gracie needed. She went from toe-bopping to full-on bouncing, moving around the worktable and picking up different adornments. “I don’t want a teddy bear,” she said after a minute, referring to the center focal piece of the mum.

“Not even a bear holding a pair of sewing scissors?” he asked.

Wow, I was impressed. He knew Gracie and her passion for sewing—and respected it. That was pretty major
for a fifteen-year-old girl and her sixteen-year-old new boyfriend.

But the moment was lost on Gracie. She just shook her head and said, “No. Something besides a teddy bear, for sure.” Miniature bears were traditional, and while Gracie wanted a mum, I knew she was going to do it her own way. I could see her wanting squares of colorful fabric, an honest-to-goodness pair of Ginghers, or a rolled-up measuring tape.

He ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. The dark blond color set off his tanned skin. Gracie, on the other hand, had a beautiful olive complexion, courtesy of her father, Will. Shane and Gracie fit together, both sun-kissed and fresh-faced, clearly smitten, without a care in the world. “I guess we’ll figure it out,” he said.

“I’ll make it,” I volunteered. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Oh, but I want to help,” Gracie said. “Can I?”

“Absolutely. Darlin’, you and I are going to have a mum-making party,” I said, just as Leslie, my second Helping Hands student, and another girl, came in the front door of the shop.

Leslie’s brown doe eyes opened wide. “Where you, like, get together and everybody makes their mums?”

“Awesome,” the second girl said.

“Everyone,” Leslie said, gesturing to her friend, “this is Carrie. She’s pretty new to Bliss. Carrie, this is everyone.”

Carrie smiled, a faint dimple marking her cheek, and waved. She immediately headed across the room to look at the prêt-à-porter.

“Do you have one yet?” I asked Leslie.

She shook her head.

“Then you can come and help make yours.” The more, the merrier. “You, too, if you like,” I said to Carrie.

“I have mine,” she said. “But thanks.”

But Leslie’s eyes grew even wider. “I get a mum?” Her gaze slid to Shane for the briefest second. “But I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said, her voice dropping.

“You don’t need a boyfriend to wear a mum,” Gracie said. “You just need a mum.”

Leslie looked at Gracie, then at Shane, as if she were trying to decide if this were true. “It’s the twenty-first century,” I said. “You can give yourself a mum if you want to.”

Leslie relaxed, but her shoulders lifted and her chest rose and fell with her excitement. “Then I want the biggest mum at Bliss High! I want to show those girls who . . . who—”

She broke off, once again looking at Gracie and Shane, her attention focusing on Shane for an extra few seconds.

“Those girls who what?” I asked.

She rooted her feet to the ground and raised her chin slightly. “I want the shy girls and the geeky girls and the girls like me to believe in themselves,” she said. “I want them to hear what you just said. That this is the twenty-first century and we can give ourselves mums.”

I smiled at her, part of me wanting to applaud her confidence. She and Danica both came from foster homes, but they seemed to handle things so differently. Danica was quiet. Removed. Almost injured. But Leslie was bent on proving that she was as good as everyone else. If proving that was what she wanted, the dress I was going to make her would help her get there.

This was the second time I’d met Leslie, and when I closed my eyes, I still saw her in the sapphire confetti dress. The vibrant colors matched her vibrant personality. Carrie was in the love seat studying my lookbook, which was perfect. It gave us time to work.

“Come here, Leslie. I want to show you the sketches I came up with.” I flipped open my sketchbook, turning to the pages where I’d drawn variations of the dress I envisioned for her.

She looked at the sketches, glanced in the freestanding oval mirror in the corner, and a slow smile lit her chocolate brown face, a rosy glow dusting her cheeks. “I love it!”

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding air in my lungs, but now I breathed out, relieved. There was always a moment of apprehension when whomever I was designing for saw my ideas for the first time. What I visualized and what they thought they wanted didn’t always mesh. But in this instance, Leslie saw my vision. And she liked it.

Shane’s cell phone rang as I showed Leslie the fabric choices I’d come up with. He stepped back into the front room to answer it. Ten seconds later, the sound of his guttural cry sent a chill down my spine.

Gracie ran to the front, stopping short when she saw Shane’s face. His cheeks had gone ruddy, his eyes glassy. His jaw pulsed, hollowing out his cheeks and giving him a drawn, angry look.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, holding back as if she were afraid he might explode.

He shoved his phone back into his back pocket, looking shell-shocked. “This can’t be happening,” he said. He wheeled around, pacing the room, weaving in and out of
the paisley love seat, couch, and red settee. His hand tore through his hair, pulling angrily at it until it stood straight up.

Gracie took a step backward, her lips trembling.

I squeezed her hand as I scooted past her. Leslie came up next to her, looking more curious than anything else. Mrs. James and Nana had wandered out from the kitchen, and Carrie sat forward on the love seat.

“Shane?” I said sternly, trying to break through to him. “What happened?”

He abruptly stopped his pacing, digging all ten of his fingers through his hair. “There was a car accident,” he said. His chin quivered and he struggled to get the rest of the words out. “My dad . . . my dad was in an accident. He’s . . . he’s dead.”

“Poor Shane,” I said, handing Will Flores another dish to dry. We’d spent our dinner talking about the car accident, Gracie’s boyfriend, and how Shane would handle having lost his father.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said, and from the tone of his voice, I knew part of him was wondering how Gracie would manage if something ever happened to him.

We processed for a few more minutes, and then Will did a complete about-face on our topic of conversation. First, he moved to the archway between the dining area and the kitchen of 2112 Mockingbird Lane, his arms folded over his chest, a cream-colored straw cowboy hat on his head. He looked like a cross between Toby Keith with his bandanna-biker look, and Tim McGraw, goateed and lean. Only with a deep olive complexion. “When things have settled down, let’s do a weekend getaway, Cassidy. You. Me. The hill country.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“The place is called Biscuit Hill. A bed-and-breakfast. You’re going to love it.”

I pushed aside my sorrow for Shane as much as I was able to and asked the first thing that came to my mind. “Do they have homemade scones?” After all, no bed-and-breakfast would be complete without sweet biscuits, British style.

“I’m sure they do.”

“With Devon cream? If you’re going to have scones, you have to have clotted cream to go with them. Or lemon curd. Lemon curd could work, too.”

He stifled a grin. “I’ll call and make a special request for lemon curd and cl—?”

“Clotted cream,” I repeated.

He pushed off the wall and ambled over to the sink where I’d been rinsing our dinner dishes.

“Supper was good,” he said, taking up the dish towel and drying my hands.

“Secret recipe,” I said. We’d grown easy with each other since I’d moved back home to Bliss and Meemaw had done her matchmaking from beyond the grave. Dinner together a few times a week, a shared teacup pig that Will and Gracie had given me for Christmas, and even comfortable silence when I was working on a project and Will was drawing sketches to restore an historic building in Bliss on my sofa all got me thinking more and more how we belonged together.

“Biscuit Hill sounds lovely. But being alone with you for the weekend,” I said with a wink, “sounds even better.”

He tossed the dish towel on the counter beside me,
and then he placed his arms on either side of me, moving in close and lowering his lips to mine. I started to wrap my arms around his neck, but stopped as the bells in the front room jingled, announcing someone’s arrival.

“Dad! Harlow!” Gracie’s voice bellowed, echoing in through the rooms as if she were shouting into a megaphone.

“In the kitchen,” Will said, pulling away from me and dropping his arms to his sides. The warmth that had seeped in between us chilled. It was more than just the space created when Will stepped back. Meemaw, I knew, was reacting to something.

The second I saw Gracie’s face, I knew she was the reason for the chilled, tense air. Will and I moved forward at the same time. “What’s wrong?” I asked as Will clutched her shoulders and said, “What happened, are you okay?”

She half nodded, half shook her head. “It’s Shane,” she said, breaking down into a sob.

Will’s spine stiffened and he went into what I was beginning to recognize as full protective mode. “If he hurt you—”

“Daddy, no. He didn’t. He wouldn’t!”

“What is it, Gracie?” I asked. Her anxiety flooded the room, weighing down the air and pressing down on us.

“The sheriff said they think someone tampered with Mr. Montgomery’s car, and . . . and . . . and they think maybe it was Shane.” Her voice rose an octave, nearing hysteria. “Just because he works at Bubba’s, they say he’d know how. They think he might could have
caused
the accident that killed his dad. Like he might have tried to kill him!”

Will and I both stared at Gracie. Death wasn’t a mystery to either one of us. We’d each seen our share, and helped solve a mystery or two right here in Bliss. But Gracie’s young boyfriend being accused of murdering his father? That was too close to home.

“Harlow,” she said, dragging the back of her hand under her nose. “You have to help him.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Will rolled his eyes and jumped in with a quick, “Whoa, Harlow may like poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, but I’m sure the sheriff has it well under control.” He held his hands out to her, palm first, the message clear. Simmer down and knock that thought right out of her head.

Her mouth dropped open and her head jutted forward. “But they don’t, not if they think Shane had anything to do with it. Daddy, he couldn’t possibly kill anybody. He just couldn’t!”

Will’s jaw pulsed and his eyes narrowed. He looked like a panther ready to strike, and I was grateful Shane wasn’t anywhere near Buttons & Bows, because he’d get the brunt of that attack. “I hope not,” he muttered.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” I said to him under my breath, stepping closer and putting my hand on his arm to simmer him down.

“He’s innocent,” Gracie said again, but this time, instead of looking at her dad, she looked at me. Tears pooled in her eyes and her lower lip quivered again. She was barely holding it together.

“I’m sure he is, darlin’,” I said, taking her hand. “The sheriff”—who just also happened to be my new step-daddy—“is a fair man. He’s got to look at all sides of a situation before he can know what happened.”

“What about his son? The deputy. You don’t like him much, Harlow. What if he thinks Shane’s guilty?”

“I like Gavin McClaine just fine,” I said. More, even, since he was carrying on a real, albeit long-distance, relationship with my good friend Orphie Cates. The deputy sheriff had grown up with a chip on his shoulder, but love at first sight with Orphie had dug away at it. His attitude could still stick in my craw, but not quite as often as before. “But more important than that, he’s good at his job. He and Hoss both believe in justice. They’re not going to do anything that would falsely imprison an innocent person.”

I hadn’t really thought about it so succinctly before, but now that the words had left my mouth, I knew it was true. The McClaine men were good, God-fearing, honest people, and both of them would fight for the truth.

Gracie didn’t look like she believed me, though. I gave her hand another squeeze. “Let them do their jobs,” I said. “You just be a friend to Shane right now. He’s going to need that more than anything.”

“So you can’t help him?”

I sighed, pulling her into a hug. “Darlin’, I’ll keep my ears open, okay? If Shane’s innocent—”

“If? He
is
innocent!”

She tried to pull away, but I held her like I would have held my own daughter, rubbing her back. “Then the sheriff’ll figure that out and find out what really happened to Shane’s dad. You have to let it be.”

“Let it be.” She repeated it like a mantra, her breath calming. Her heartbeat settled down to a more steady rhythm and I let her go. She stepped back, her eyes
red-rimmed, but dry. “He’s innocent,” she said, her voice calm and full of conviction.

“I’m sure he is,” I said, but from the pulsing of Will’s jaw and the tightness of his eyes, I wasn’t so sure Will agreed.