A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (22 page)

I pulled my arm back, trying to loosen his grip. “No, but wait—”

“Ma’am, you need to stop now,” the principal told me.

The walkie-talkie crackled and a tinny voice came back with, “Ten-four. What’s your location?”

“South wall inside the cafeteria.”

“Copy that.”

“Sir, please, you don’t understand,” I said.

“Excuse me.” Madelyn stepped forward, holding out a badge. I tried to get a better look at it, but the light was too dim. “I’m with the sheriff’s department. I’m here to keep an eye on one of your students. She’s the daughter of a man who was brutally attacked yesterday.”

I gasped, staring. “Madelyn,” I said with a hiss.

The principal didn’t look to me like he’d just fallen off the turnip truck. He spoke into the walkie-talkie again. “Officer Cole, are there law enforcement personnel authorized to be on campus?”

I held my breath, waiting for Madelyn’s exaggeration of the truth to come back and bite us. “Affirmative.”

“I can explain—” I started to stay, but then the “affirmative” registered. “Wait. What?”

Law enforcement personnel authorized to be on campus. That couldn’t include Madelyn, so that meant Gavin had to be here. Hallelujah!

“Who’s on campus?” the principal asked, looking at Madelyn with a wary eye.

“Deputy sheriff,” the tinny voice of Officer Cole said. “Almost at your location.”

I pulled my arm again. This time, instead of holding tight, the man let go. “Thank you,” I said.

“We’re not done here. Let me see that badge.” He held his hand out to Madelyn.

The jig was up. She started to hand it over, but I stepped in the way and spoke loud enough to be heard above the music. “Sir, one of your students is in danger. There’s a murderer . . .”

I trailed off as the music stopped and the teacher who’d introduced the homecoming court onstage stepped back to the microphone. “Let’s give our homecoming court another round of applause,” she said.

The kids started clapping. From where I stood, it looked like Carrie’s entire body was trembling. Her hands fidgeted in front of her, and then she caught sight of someone in the crowd and all the color drained from her face.

I followed her gaze and saw the girl I suspected was Sue Blake. “Oh no,” I muttered, starting toward the stage, but the principal pulled me back.

“You need to stay put, ma’am.”

Carrie’s lips started moving but without a mic, there was no way to know what she was saying.

As if on cue, one of her classmates yelled, “We can’t hear you!”

“Yeah, speak up!”

A roar went up, someone started clapping, and before long, the kids chanted, “Carrie! Carrie! Carrie!”

Support, I knew, because of the ordeal her family had just gone through. She was the new girl in Bliss, but she’d made an impression on people.

I couldn’t be sure from this far away, but I thought her eyes looked glassy. The teacher onstage raised the mic to capture Carrie’s voice, the sound system catching the tremors in it midsentence. “. . . and he almost died. Why?”

The room fell utterly silent, everyone’s eyes glued to Carrie; then, as if they were all connected, they turned to look at who Carrie was addressing.

Sue Blake stood there, her hands twisting around the small purse slung over her shoulder, staring back at
Carrie. She didn’t speak, but her lips pressed together into a harsh, thin line.

“Leave me alone!” a woman screeched from the back of the room. “That’s my daughter up there!”

All eyes turned in the direction of the ruckus. “Ma’am,” another woman yelled. “You can’t come in here!”

I recognized her instantly. Sally Levon.

A woman tried to stop Sally from barreling forward, but Sally was on a mission, determined to get to Carrie and protect her. She dodged another parent or teacher chaperone who’d stepped in her way, skirting around clusters of kids.

The silence that had fallen over the students had been replaced by the sound of chaos.

“Carrie!” her mother yelled.

At that moment, a loud clatter ripped through the PA system. Carrie’s group of friends had all climbed onto the stage. It looked like a small riot, with Gracie and Shane in the center. Carrie’s voice cracked with emotion. It sounded far away, the mic unable to capture it fully. “The first time I saw you, I
knew
,” she said. Her voice cracked and I knew the emotion I heard was fear. And it was no wonder. She was confronting a killer.

“How could you kill Shane’s dad? Why try to kill mine?”

It took a few seconds before her words seemed to sink in with her classmates. Shane stared at her, then searched the crowd. “What? Who are you talking to? That woman, that Barbara Ann Blake, she confessed.”

Carrie shook her head. “She lied. She’s protecting her daughter.” Her voice still cracked with tension and fear, but grew louder.

Shane’s jaw went slack. He grabbed Carrie by the shoulders, staring at her. “What are you talking about?”

Carrie wove her hands up in between Shane’s arms. Abruptly, she pulled them apart, breaking Shane’s hold on her. She raised her arm to point just as a girl pressed her way through the crowd on the stage. “That’s your half sis—”

The words froze on her lips as Danica Edwards lunged.

Danica came up short in front of Carrie. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said. Then in a louder voice directed at the homecoming group watching, she said, “She’s completely lost her mind.”

Carrie backed away, but her voice carried as she said, “Tell them who you are.”

Danica, bless her twisted heart, pressed her palm to her chest. “Danica Edwards,” she said.

“Tell them who your father was,” Carrie insisted.

“I don’t
have
a father—”

“Because you killed him!”

Everyone in the room watched in silence, riveted.

“Carrie,” Danica started, but Carrie interrupted her, raising her hand, palm out to Danica’s chest.

“Don’t,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “You
had
a family. You ran away and left them.”

“I live in Serendipity House,” Danica said, referring to the transitional home for kids on their own. “I don’t
have a family. It’s only thanks to Mrs. James and Helping Hands that I can even be here tonight.”

The teacher with the mic managed to usher both Carrie and Danica off the stage, the rest of the group following closely, but the girls didn’t stop. “No family?” Carrie asked when she made it to the bottom of the steps. “You’ve
never
had a family?”

Danica spun toward her. She hesitated before responding, and I knew she had at least a shred of feeling for her mother, even if she’d never admit it here. “That’s what I said. No. Family.”

Tears streamed down Carrie’s face, her words barely audible through her sobs. “Because you killed your father when you learned what he’d done. But why my dad?” She spun to face Danica head-on. “Just tell me why.”

“You’d better stop,” Danica threatened. There was no more mic, but there wasn’t a single sound in the cafeteria other than the two girls, and we heard every word, and the threat behind them.

“Are you gonna kill me, too?” Carrie said, but she shook her head, backing away as she lobbed the rest of what she wanted to say. “Did my dad figure it out? Is that why you . . . why you . . . ran him over?”

“You did that . . . ?” Gracie moved toward Danica. Instinctively, I took a step toward them, but once again the principal grabbed my arm and held me back. I flashed a scowl at him, but he nodded toward the side of the room. Gavin and another deputy hugged the wall as they made their way toward the girls, moving slowly enough that Carrie and Danica didn’t notice.

I scanned the crowd looking for Will. I spotted him a few yards behind the deputies, a third deputy behind him. We locked eyes, understanding passing between us. We both had to be careful, protect Gracie, and hope that Danica didn’t unleash the violence that had led her to kill her father and nearly kill Otis Levon.

“She set you up to take the fall,” Carrie said to Shane, flinging her arm out to point at Danica. “Broke into your house, stole some of your things, planted stuff in your locker . . .”

Shane stared at Danica. “Is it true?”

The utter coldness on her face said it all. Shane stumbled backward, distancing himself from her.

But Danica schooled her expression and threw her shoulders back. “I don’t have a family. You are not my brother.”

I thought about the fact that Danica had chosen Edwards as a last name. Was that a snub to her lying father? And Danica . . . another nod to her dad and their race-car interests? She’d left Granbury, and she might have disowned her family, but they—especially her father—were still part of her.

Danica swung her head, her gaze scanning the crowd as if she were trying to gauge who people were believing—her or Carrie. I couldn’t tell what she decided, but her shoulders stiffened and she turned back to Carrie. She was all-in at this point. She had no other choice. She clutched her purse, her hand sliding down the gold chain and gripping the main part of the bag. There was something about the way she moved, the look in her eyes, that unsettled me.

Shane stared her down. “Did you kill him?” he demanded. “Did you really kill my dad?”

And then I saw it. Danica’s hand emerged from her purse gripping the handle of something, the light reflecting off the exposed shiny portion of whatever she held. A knife?

Her gaze was intent on Carrie, and she moved stealthily toward her. An alarm went off in my head, but too late. Danica lunged, her arm outstretch.

“Carrie!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, my voice reverberating in my ears. It did the trick. Carrie lurched to the side in the nick of time, moving with lightning speed, managing to dodge the flashing blade in Danica’s hand.

I broke into a run, skirting around the people who were riveted by the drama unfolding before them.

“Is this for real?” someone asked.

Oh yes, it was for real. Danica had done exactly what Carrie had accused her of, and now she was a caged animal doing whatever it took to escape.

Danica drew her arm back, the knife in her hand clear as day. “He ruined my life!” she bellowed, and then she lunged, swinging her arm down in a stabbing motion.

Carrie sidestepped her, careening into Shane. He yanked her out of the way, but Danica slowly turned and fixated on Carrie again. “You’re just like your dad, butting in where you don’t belong. He knew about my dad’s other life. He
knew
. He used to come to our house, and then one day on the square, I saw him talking to my dad’s other . . . other . . .
wife
.” She spit out the word as if she could hardly stand to say it.

“And that’s why you tried to kill him?”

“He
knew
!” she said again, as if that explained everything, and then she drew her arm back, the knife clutched in her hand.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Will. He’d sprung into action, charging through the kids in their homecoming finery. At the same time, I barreled toward the two girls. “Danica, no!” I screamed.

She hesitated just long enough for Shane to wrench Carrie out of the way, for Will to grab Danica around the shoulders to disable her, and for me to snatch the knife from her hand before she did something else she’d regret forever.

“Carrie!” Sally yelled her daughter’s name as she battled through the rest of the crowd. For a second, Carrie seemed disoriented; then she blinked, her eyes going wide, and she fell into her mother’s embrace, sobbing.

The homecoming dance was over, and the kids had all gone to their after parties. With the exception of Carrie, who’d gone home with her mother, Gracie’s friends converged at Will’s house, as planned. But instead of playing spoons and swimming, they sat on the sofas, still in shock.

“Will they charge Danica with attempted murder?” Shane asked.

That was a good question, although I didn’t think it mattered. Yes, she’d attacked Carrie, but she’d actually killed her father, and she’d be charged with that crime.

“How’d Danica get the knife?” I asked.

“She must have taken it from the restaurant,” Gracie said.

“She didn’t get one at her place setting.” Libby twirled a strand of her dark hair around her finger, creating a soft ringlet. “She asked the waiter for one.”

Gracie snapped her fingers. “I bet she
did
get one, but she put it in her purse right away.”

“So she planned on attacking Carrie the whole time?” someone asked.

The kids fell silent at that revelation, no doubt trying to reconcile the girl they thought they’d known with the murderer she turned out to be.

“She snapped,” Will said. We sat side by side. He had his arm draped around me, his fingers absently tapping against my shoulder. “How’d she figure Carrie knew the truth?” he asked.

Shane looked at me, shaking his head slightly. “How did
you
figure it out?”

“I think Carrie recognized Danica as Sue Blake the first time she saw her here in Bliss. The day y’all were taking pictures with your mums in the park, she even told her she looked like someone she’d known. Someone said that everyone had a twin, and Carrie laughed it off, but I don’t think she ever doubted who Danica really was.”

“How’d Danica get into my locker to plant that stuff?” Shane asked.

“She was an office aide,” Gracie said.

Everyone nodded, as if that simple fact explained how she might have gotten access to secure information.

“But why’d she do it?” Shane asked, half to himself.

I’d given that a lot of thought. “She killed her father, and I’m guessing she blamed your mother for making your father fall in love with her. Which means she probably blamed you, too. What better way to get back at you than to frame you for murder?”

“Twisted.” He snapped his fingers, his eyes popping open. “My dad taught me and Teagen how to break into our house by picking the lock. He probably taught her how to pick locks, too.”

Gracie nodded. “Yeah, and how’d she know what to do to the car?”

Shane sat forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “My dad taught her,” he said, as if he were one hundred percent sure of it. “He was always talking cars, showing me and Teagen his car magazines, and explaining things under the hood. Anything mechanical, he messed with it and taught us. I bet he did it with her, too.”

“I think you’re right,” I said, remembering the line of cars outside the Blake’s home. She’d grown up with cars, learning just as Shane had. “She went to driving school, too. Her mom said she was really good. Believing that she tampered with the steering and then barreled down on him, forcing him off the road, isn’t a stretch.”

I thought about what Sue Blake had wanted deep down inside. She’d learned the truth about her father, plotted a way to make him pay for his betrayal, and had started a new life as Danica Edwards to put the ball in motion. But I’d made her a homecoming dress, so what deep desire had she realized? Was it revenge, pure and simple? I closed my eyes for a minute, reeling at the horrible way the Cassidy charm could manifest itself.

“Her poor mother.” Gracie cast her gaze down. Her own mother had chosen to leave her behind, so the idea that a daughter would choose to turn her back on her mother was something she probably couldn’t understand.

Now Danica couldn’t go back. She’d made irreparable choices and she’d pay for them for the rest of her life.

*   *   *

Texas’s Hill Country. No sewing. No dress designing. No murder. Only the rugged hills topped with limestone and
granite, a tiny town outside of Austin, and a bed-and-breakfast with Will Flores.

“I heard that Otis is past the danger zone,” Will said. He had one hand on the wheel of his truck, the other clasping my hand in my lap. He wore his cream, woven cowboy hat, jeans, and a T-shirt. With his goatee and swarthy skin, he was wickedly handsome. But with his compassion, his Southern sense of humor, and our shared passion for our crafts, he was everything I’d ever wanted in a man, and I melted inside.

And we were headed for three days and two nights of our own bliss in the Hill Country. “That’s what Sally told me, too. Carrie’s doing better. Still upset about everything, but better.”

“Good deal,” he said. “The girl was wound tighter than a tick, all that anger and fear up under her skin.”

He got that right. Now that her dad was out of the woods, I hoped she’d be able to let it all go and move on. “I’m going to make her a dress.”

He kept his attention on the road, but gave my hand a squeeze. “Good idea.”

“So maybe her desire will be for her dad to make a full recovery—”

“Which means it’ll happen,” Will said.

“Right. Sometimes I love having a charm.”

He flashed that wicked grin of his. “If you make your own dress, will
your
wishes come true?”

Good question, and one I’d thought about many times, but hadn’t quite gotten around to testing. “I don’t know,” I said, honestly.

“And if you make something for me, will I get what I want?”

I gave him my own flirty grin. “Depends what you want.”

He turned into the driveway of Biscuit Hill, pulled off the road, and leaned over to kiss me. “Darlin’, I already have you, so I guess I’m good.”

“Shucks,” I said, laughing. I hadn’t felt this light and happy, maybe ever. I’d helped Gracie and Shane, I had Buttons & Bows, and I was here with the man I loved. “Will Flores, I’m good, too.”