Deadly Patterns (25 page)

Chapter 34

On Christmas Eve, I hadn’t thought Raylene or Hattie would ever be able to look at the courthouse without thinking of Bonnie and Clyde, Roosevelt’s coin, Dan Lee who’d died searching for it, and Arnie Barnett who’d killed to make it his.

Pearl Denison had surely never imagined that the pattern of one of her quilts would hold the key to something so sinister.

But now, on Christmas Day, the same limestone building was lit up for the holiday, looking like it was straight out of a movie set. Full of hope. Maybe
that’s
why I’d seen Raylene in the cheongsam dress. It represented hope and freedom from the burdens she’d been saddled with because of Dan Lee Chrisson’s hunt for that outlaw gold.

My nephews, Cullen and Clay, all bundled up and high on Christmas cheer, ran across the courthouse green, their new handheld video games tucked in their back pockets. We were filled to the brim with the traditional Thanksgiving meal, which we always repeated on December 25, and a light snow was falling around us. Mama and Hoss ambled a good ten yards ahead of me. Nana and Granddaddy fell behind, snuggling close to each other. Red and Darcie held hands as they walked, laughing at the energy their boys had.

“So Naomi Mcafferty and Sandra James are cousins?” Red asked a minute later.

“Distant.”

“Very distant.”

“Yup.”

“And they’re our . . . what?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t really sure exactly what they were to us. Sort of cousins. Distantly. The connection was thin, and only through Butch Cassidy, but his blood—and his charm—was strong. “They’re family.”

“The Cassidy clan is growing,” he said, giving Darcie a squeeze and a wink.

I knew that look. And I heard the playful note in his voice. I stopped short. “No.”

They grinned and nodded, and Darcie’s hand fluttered to her belly. “Yes.”

I leapt toward them, wrapping them in a big hug. “Another C baby! Cullen. Clay. And . . . ?”

“A growing family,” Red said.

A horn honked, snagging our attention. Will drove up Maple in his pickup truck, Gracie in the passenger seat. He pulled into a space in front of the courthouse. I left Darcie and Red to continue their walk as I hurried over to Will and Gracie. I couldn’t stifle the smile tugging up the corners of my mouth, and I didn’t want to. Seeing them both was the best Christmas gift I could get.

Will rolled down the window as I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck and rubbed my gloved hands together. I leaned my elbows on the window frame, the heat from the truck’s cab warming my cheeks.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, a sneaky grin on his face.

I pushed my glasses up, smiling, but wondering just what he was up to. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“We’re heading to the Mcaffertys’,” Will said, “but we have a little something for you.”

I peered past him. Gracie giggled, bouncing in the passenger seat. She held something in her lap, but all I could see was an enormous red bow.

“Oh yeah?”

He turned to Gracie, blocking me so I couldn’t see as she put something in his hands. “Close your eyes, Cassidy.”

I obliged, grinning, and when I opened them, he held out the tiniest, and possibly the cutest, little creature I’d ever seen, sitting in an enormous red ceramic soup mug. “What—?”

“It’s a teacup pig!” Gracie squealed. “I picked it out for all of us,” she said. “I thought . . .” She trailed off, hunching her shoulders nervously. “I thought . . . We thought . . .”

Will put his hand on hers and squeezed. “We figure we’re kind of connected now, Cassidy, and we—”

“We want to share Earl because that way, we’ll see more of each other. You and Daddy and me, I mean.” She hurried on. “And Earl, of course.”

I held back the laugh tickling my throat. “Earl?”

“Earl Grey,” she explained. “Since he’s a teacup pig and all. He’s yours, and ours, because we’re like family now.”

“Bound together now by Earl Grey,” Will said, a twinkle in his eye. “It was Loretta Mae’s favorite kind of tea, right?”

“I reckon it was, Will Flores,” I said, giving up on holding in my laugh. What Meemaw wanted, Meemaw got. “I reckon it was.”

* * *

For more books in this series click here

Sewing Tips

1. When working with wool and silk, have the cleaners do a hot press of the fabric before cutting so when cleaning time comes, the garment won’t shrink.

2. Use weights instead of pins to hold pattern pieces in place. Pins can cause fabric to stretch.

3. Always remember, cotton shrinks. Add one-third to three-quarters of an inch to the seam allowance to compensate for shrinkage.

4. Make your own pattern weights using a variety of large heavy washers, available in hardware stores, and use scraps of fabric to cover them.

5. When using pins, insert them carefully to avoid pushing fabric off the grain.

Acknowledgments

The story of the missing Saint-Gaudens double eagle coin, and its value, is real. Thanks to the deliciously dastardly outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, I was able to bring it to Bliss, Texas, and it became part of this story. Quilts, also, were often used as a real means of communication during the era of the Underground Railroad. Blending these and other historical elements in Harlow’s world fascinates me, and I hope it fascinates you as well.

As always, there are a lot of ideas that contribute to a story as a whole. Thanks to Joe Strong from SMU for naming Nana’s goat farm. Sundance Kids. Perfect! A huge thanks to Kym Roberts for her quick draw on the iPad, looking up information to help with a scene at just the right moment, and to the Book Carriage, my favorite indie bookstore, where so much brainstorming happens.

As always, thanks to Mom for teaching me the basics of quilting and sewing, and for passing on her love of fabrics, patterns, and trims, and to the women in the Bourbon, Massie, and Sears families for continuing to be an inspiration. Aunt Babe’s disappearing acts were real.

A big thanks to the real Michele Brown, who is now my go-to girl for titles.

Of course, a huge ongoing thank-you to my family, to Holly, to Kathleen Cook, to Jan McInroy for her amazing attention to detail and little notes that make my day and make me smile, to Mimi Bark for bringing Harlow’s shop to life on the Magical Dressmaking covers, and to Kerry for her continued support and love of Harlow’s world.

And finally, thank you to all the readers who’ve become fans of the Magical Dressmaking Mystery series and Harlow Cassidy. The books are a joy to write.

—MBR

Read on for a preview of the next

Magical Dressmaking Mystery,

A CUSTOM-FIT CRIME

Coming in July from Obsidian

When I first came back home to Bliss, Texas, I thought my hometown would be just as peaceful as it was when I’d been a little girl. It was still sweet and Southern, sure, but death had found a way of creeping in between the seams, and too often, I’d been in the mix.

In New York, a knock on the door in the middle of the night would have been enough to send my heart into a frenzied pattern. But I was in Texas now, and a late-night
tap-tap-tap
on the front door of my little yellow farmhouse wasn’t cause for alarm.

“Meemaw?” I rolled to my side, my voice sleepy. My great-grandmother had passed on before I’d come back home, but I’d learned that the Cassidy women didn’t always cross right over to the other side.

Meemaw hung around the farmhouse her daddy had built, trying to communicate with me. Or playing jokes on me, depending on how you looked at it.

If Meemaw was tapping on the door downstairs, she wasn’t letting on. “Meemaw, I’m sleeping,” I murmured, but the sounds continued.

Suddenly, through my bleary eyes, I saw the red and gold curtains on either side of the window rustle, and then heard a louder
tap-tap-tap
from downstairs. But if Meemaw was up here with me, then who . . .

I lay still in my bed, listening, wondering for a second if I was imagining things.

But then it came again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.

I peered at the clock. Two a.m. I was suddenly wide awake, my pulse zipping along like a sewing machine whose foot pedal was stuck. I jumped out of bed, stepped over Earl Gray, the sweet little pot belly pig Will Flores and his daughter, Gracie, had given me at Christmas, and padded barefoot across the cold wood floor and out to the landing, where I stopped to listen.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Mama wouldn’t knock. She’d just come on in. Same with Nana and Granddaddy, and
they’d
come into the house through the Dutch door off the back porch.

It could be Will, but he wouldn’t be out at this time of night. “Oh no—Gracie?” I murmured. She’d run to me here once before, when she’d learned the truth about her mother leaving her when she was just a baby.

The sound at the door changed, became more of a scraping, and seemed to move off to the window. Surely it wasn’t Gracie, I reasoned, darting a quick look around in search of a weapon. Just in case. An antique sidebar rested against the wall in the landing, a decorative metal dress form on one side, a bowl filled with handmade felt beads on the other. I could pelt the intruder with the little round balls of felt, but that probably wouldn’t do me any good.

With nothing but my wits, I descended the stairs. They were even colder against my bare feet, but I made it down, turned left into the part of the house that doubled as my shop, Buttons & Bows, and stooped to snatch up one of my red Frye harness cowboy boots. Not much in the way of defense but better than nothing.

The scraping turned back to knocking and I had another thought. Nana’s goats! Maybe it wasn’t an intruder at all. Nana and Granddaddy’s property was directly behind mine, and Thelma Louise, the granddam of Nana’s herd of dairy goats, managed to escape more frequently than not. She was as mischievous as all get out, and she seemed to pick on me.

“Harlow?”

I froze, my elbow bent, the boot cocked behind my head. Nana’s goats didn’t speak. Neither did Meemaw, for that matter.

With my ear up to the door, I held my breath and listened.

“Harlow, are you there?”

The voice was familiar. It was a woman. Speaking in low tones, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her calling my name, which was silly, since it was the middle of the night and how else was she going to get my attention?

The doorknob jiggled and I jumped back. “Who’s there?”

The doorknob jiggled again. “It’s Orphie.”

Orphie?
I dropped the boot, turned the lock, and pulled open the door.

Dark, curly, shoulder-length hair. Tall and thin like a model. Bronzed skin. It really
was
my former roommate and friend Orphie Cates.

I squealed, rushing onto the porch, wrapping her into a bear hug. “I can’t believe it! You’re really here?” I pushed her back, stared at her, and then drew her in for another embrace. I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, although we’d talked on the phone and had a constant stream of e-mails back and forth.

“In the flesh,” she said after I finally let her go. A wry smile graced her perfect lips. We’d worked together for a top New York designer, but really, Orphie should have been on the runway. She was
that
beautiful.

And she was right about the flesh part, too. The dress she wore had a low-cut scoop neck that draped at her cleavage. Two thin spaghetti straps went over her shoulders and crisscrossed in the back. The pattern had been cut on the bias and hung in silky waves over her body. It was her own design, I knew, utterly sexy and absolutely out of place in a town like Bliss.

But Orphie was Orphie, and she had style in spades.

She looked over my shoulder at the shop. I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the house, shutting and locking the door behind her.

“So this is where the magic happens, eh?” she said, a playful grin on her face.

That one little sentence made me gasp. Only a handful of people knew about the Cassidy charm: my family, of course, since they were all charmed, too; Madelyn Brighton, the town photographer and a good friend; and Will Flores, the man I’d recently started dating. His daughter was charmed, too, but didn’t know it yet. So many secrets in such a small town.

But Orphie didn’t know, and she wasn’t referring to my magic. She was talking about my dressmaking. “This is it,” I said.

She wandered around, looking at the antique armoire that held stacks of fabric, the custom designs hanging on a freestanding rack against the back wall, and a bulletin board with my favorite sketches pinned to it, oohing and ahhing the whole time. Finally, she made her way to the French doors dividing the front room of the shop and what had once been Meemaw’s dining room, which I’d turned into my workroom. Her gaze took in the cutting table sitting in the middle, a wooden pulley contraption for fancy gowns affixed to the ceiling, Meemaw’s old Singer and my Phaff, my Babylock serger, dress forms, and a shelf unit with Mason jars of buttons, baskets filled with trim, and every other sewing supply I might need as I developed Cassidy Designs.

“It’s really great, Harlow,” she said, stopping at my newest purchase, a commercial sewing machine. “And look at this!” She lovingly brushed her fingers over the top.

“Business has been getting better,” I said. I’d made custom designs for a few of Bliss’s most prominent matrons. I’d worked on several festivals, including the local debutante pageant and ball and the town’s holiday extravaganza. Word was getting around about my designs and how they made people feel. I could make people’s wishes and dreams come true through the clothes I sewed for them.

“And you’re sewing for your mother’s wedding now?” She looked around, searching for a wedding dress.

“The gown, if you can call it that, is put away for now. I’m finishing my fall collection first,” I said. “It’s for
D Magazine
, and kind of outside the norm for them.”

She trailed her hand across the cutting table, looking longingly at the length of fabric stretched out and ready to be cut first thing in the morning.

“They’re usually so Dallas-centric,” I continued, “but for this issue, they’re featuring up-and-coming designers.” I notched my thumbs toward myself, smiling. The exact words of the journalist who’d contacted me were committed to memory.
We’d like to do an article featuring Dallas-area fashion designers who offer a unique perspective in the industry. We’d like you to be one of the designers, Ms. Cassidy.

My newest collection was “Country Girl in the City,” and I’d been working round the clock to flesh out the collection, finalize my lookbook, and make sure every piece had a cohesiveness both in textiles and presentation, and also reflected my voice and what I brought to the fashion world. “They’re featuring me, along with Midori—”

Orphie’s mouth gaped. “Midori? I love what she does with pattern and cut.”

I did, too, and to have my designs next to hers made my skin prickle with excitement. The Japanese perspective she brought to her designs made her unique, and although it wasn’t a competition between us, I wanted my clothes to show well in comparison.

“And the third designer is Michel Ralph—”

“Beaulieu?!” she exclaimed.

“Yes.” I nodded gravely. “Beaulieu.”

She collapsed onto the red velvet settee in the seating area of Buttons & Bows. “That’s right,” she said, realization dawning on her. “He’s in Dallas now.”

“Moved here before I came back.” We both knew Michel Ralph Beaulieu from our days at Maximilian.

She frowned but not even that marred the perfect, unlined silk of her skin. “The magazine should feature Jean Paul Gaultier, not Beaulieu,” she said, shaking her head. “
He’s
the original. Beaulieu is just a cheap imitator.”

It was true. The haute couture fashion statements of Jean Paul Gaultier were in a league of their own, his brilliance drawn from the world around him, from different cultures, cinema, and rock music, for starters. His designs were worn by Madonna and Lady Gaga, among other fashion-forward celebrities, and he brought something utterly new to the fashion world.

“And Beaulieu only does the cheap prêt-à-porter stuff.” Orphie stretched her long legs out on the settee, stifling a yawn. I hid my own, suddenly reminded that it was now nearly two thirty in the morning.

“I do some ready-to-wear pieces, too, Orphie,” I said. She’d glanced at some of the clothing on the portable rack. I preferred couture, like any designer, but the town of Bliss didn’t have much use for stagelike costuming or artistic statements through bold clothing. My Country Girl in the City collection was unique, practical, and truly represented my hybrid perspective. It wasn’t boudoir or urban jungle like Beaulieu, and it wasn’t Japanese punk or metropolis like Midori, but it was me, and I was proud of it.

I sank down on the loveseat opposite her, the coffee table that had been repurposed from an old door between us. My lookbook and another bowl of felt beads I’d been working on for my collection’s accessories sat in the middle of it. I stifled another yawn. I plumped a pillow under my head, and it suddenly felt like we were back in Manhattan in our minuscule loft apartment.

“Orphie,” I said, “why are you here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“You said your mom’s getting married to that cowboy sheriff,” she said drowsily.

I followed her lead, letting sleep slip over me like a veil. “Right.” My mother and Hoss McLaine were getting hitched, and it was going to be a really eclectic Southern wedding. I’d already made her dress and a dress for my sister-in-law, Darcie, who was to be a bridesmaid. I just had to make my own maid-of-honor dress and I’d be done, but I hadn’t come up with the right design yet.

Orphie’s eyes had begun to drift closed, but she pried them open again, her gaze falling on the red and black suitcase she’d set by the steps to the little dining area. “And you have the big photo shoot with your collection. I haven’t seen you in ages, and I figured you could use a little help with all of it.”

She was a true friend, and she sounded sincere, but there was a terseness to her voice, and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. Southern women had a slew of rules they lived by, one of which was being well-versed in double speak. True, Orphie wasn’t Southern—she was as Midwestern as they came—but she’d picked up some tricks from me over the years we’d spent together, and I suspected there was a little subtext under her statement. “Orphie?” I prompted, stretching out her name.

“Harlow,” she replied.

“What’s going on? You did not show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night unannounced to help me with my sewing, although, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here.”

She sighed, sitting up and propping her pointy elbows on her knees. I mirrored her, but then she got up and trudged, as much as a five-foot-ten-inch lithe woman can trudge, to her suitcase. She plopped it down flat, unzipped it, and lifted a book off the top of the neatly folded clothes.

I recognized that book. Hard, black cover. Crisp white interior pages. Maximilian logo embossed on the front. I jumped up and backed away as if it were a coiled snake. “Orphie, what are you doing with that?”

“I never told you the reason I left Maximilian,” she said, her voice slow and tired.

I didn’t like the sound of that simple statement. The fact was, she’d just up and quit. Packed up one day and left with no explanation. “Family,” she’d said later when I’d pressed her.

“Why’d you leave?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.

She strode to me, book outstretched in her arms. “This is why,” she said solemnly.

And with those three words, I knew that Orphie hadn’t come to help me with Mama’s wedding to the sheriff, and she hadn’t come to be my assistant for the
D Magazine
photo shoot. No, she’d come because she’d stolen one of Maximilian’s prized design books in which he jotted down his ideas, sketches, and, if the rumors in New York were true, kept track of celebrity secrets and tidbits of information he’d gathered over time that he held over people. And Lord knew what else. From the grave look on her face, I knew it couldn’t be good.