Sew Deadly (15 page)

“Okay.” She bent quickly, planted a kiss on the top of Lulu’s head, and then stepped back against the railing. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”

Seemingly satisfied, Lulu slipped her hand inside her teacher’s and fairly pulled him across the lawn to a small white and blue checkerboard tent, disappearing with him behind the flaps of the makeshift shop.

“Seems things are working well between you and the elementary school teacher, Miss Sinclair.”

Her head snapped up at the sound of her name, her stomach churning at the sight of the man who’d spoken it.

Investigator Daniel McGuire. In regular everyday clothes.

“I guess the threat Tiffany Ann Gilbert posed to your relationship is gone now.”

“Excuse me—” She bit the words from her mouth, anxious to avoid a repeat of the glares and gossip she’d left on the other side of the fairgrounds. Steadying her voice, she looked around at the still-uninterested fairgoers before meeting the officer’s gaze. “There is no relationship, Mr. McGuire.”

“
Investigator
McGuire. And that’s not what I was told.” Stepping his legs apart, the officer folded his arms across his chest. “In fact, I have it on good authority your attraction started almost immediately upon your arrival in Sweet Briar. When Mr. Wentworth first came to the library with his students.”

She opened her mouth to protest then closed it again. Who was filling his head with this stuff? Nina—no, she was in Tori’s corner. Who else knew?

And then she remembered. Everyone knew. Georgina had teased her about Milo’s flirtation at the sewing circle, had shared it with everyone there. Had she said something? Had Dixie Dunn?

Or had Leona?

Tori swallowed. “Assuming there was a relationship—which there isn’t—why would I see Tiffany Ann as a threat?”

“Because you were
told
of her feelings for Milo Wentworth.”

At the sewing circle.

Had Leona fallen for this man so quickly she’d sell Tori out?

“Then, Investigator McGuire, if you know that . . . you should also know that Milo Wentworth wasn’t the slightest bit interested in Tiffany Ann Gilbert. So why on earth would I have seen her as a threat?”

Dropping his hands to his sides, he stepped forward, his voice lowering to a brusque whisper. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

“What do you intend to find out, Investigator?” Milo Wentworth appeared at her side, a bag-wielding Lulu in tow.

Daniel McGuire looked from Tori to Milo to Lulu and back again.
“The truth.”

“Then may I suggest you start looking?” Tori reached down, grasped Lulu’s empty hand. “In the meantime, I have a fair to enjoy.”

She knew the officer’s eyes were watching her every move as she walked away, felt his attention perk as Milo jogged to catch up with them as they headed toward the picnic tables on the other side of the midway. But she didn’t care. Investigator McGuire had his mind made up. As a result, he was incapable of seeing the truth.

It was up to her to find it and drop it in his lap with a bright red bow on top.

“Hey, wait up. What was going on back there?” Milo grabbed her arm and spun her around gently. “Are you okay?”

Before she could answer, Lulu tugged at her arm.

“I have a surprise for you, Miss Sinclair. Wanna see it?”

“Wha—oh, yeah, sure, sweetie.” Squatting beside the little girl, Tori forced her mind to focus on something other than Daniel McGuire.

Slowly, Lulu reached inside the bag, her gaze bouncing between the contents and Tori’s face. “I hope you like it.” The words were no sooner out of the child’s mouth when a hard white object was placed in Tori’s hand.

“Do you? Huh, do you?”

Tori stared down at the white porcelain spoon rest bearing the inscription Sweet Briar Heritage Day.

“I wanted to get you a bonnet—like the one Laura wore. It was yellow and had white lace on it and it was so pretty. But”—the child glanced down at her empty hand—“I didn’t have enough money.”

“You spent the rest of your money on-on me?” She heard the tears in her voice, felt them hovering in her eyes.

“I wanted you to have a souvenir. Something to help you remember tonight.”

Chapter 11

She watched Margaret Louise’s back disappear in the crowd, six smaller ones following behind like a row of little ducklings. For two glorious hours she’d managed to do a fairly decent job of leaving her troubles behind, focusing instead on Lulu’s mood-lifting sweetness and the chaotic fun that accompanied the Davis clan.

But now that they were gone, Tori couldn’t help but feel empty all over—from her unclasped left hand to the suffocating silence in her head that gave way to the troubles she faced.

She shouldn’t have agreed to visit the sewing circle’s craft booth without Margaret Louise by her side for moral support. She shouldn’t have goaded Investigator McGuire. She shouldn’t have slid into the shadows and kept walking when Milo stopped to speak with a few parents.

Yet she had. And the whys weren’t that hard to figure out.

As much as she hated to admit it, Margaret Louise was right. She needed to act as if she hadn’t done anything wrong. By avoiding the women from the circle, she would make herself appear guilty.

Investigator McGuire had pushed her to the limit. All his talk about finding the truth had grated on her last nerve. If he wanted the truth so desperately, why couldn’t he open his eyes? Why couldn’t he accept the fact that being new to a town didn’t mean you were a killer?

And as for Milo, she’d simply moved on through the crowd alone because they hadn’t come to the fair together. He’d simply been drawn to her side because of a little girl who was on the verge of leaving. Watching him depart on the heels of Lulu would have made her feel more alone than she already did.

Alone in a crowd of people who believed she was capable of murder.

Tucking her empty left hand into the pocket of her oldest and most comfortable pair of jeans, Tori headed down the side path Margaret Louise had indicated before departing with her grandchildren. If people were still staring, she didn’t notice. Not at that moment anyway. Not when her heart was pounding and her feet felt like lead balloons.

As uncomfortable as it had been at first, Georgina’s sewing circle was the one place she’d felt as if she belonged. Any preconceived notions about her as an outsider had seemed to wane within the group. Everyone except Dixie Dunn had allowed their shared love of sewing to forge a connection that went beyond a common birthplace.

Now, as she forced herself in the direction of the circle’s booth, she couldn’t help but anticipate the worst. She may have earned their respect for her efforts with a needle and thread, but when push came to shove, Victoria Sinclair wasn’t a true member of the Sweet Briar community.

If Leona could turn her back on a budding friendship without so much as a glance backward, who was Tori kidding if she thought anyone else in the circle would come running to her side?

Margaret Louise did.

Summoning up every ounce of courage she could find, Tori rounded the corner of the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle booth and stopped. Bonnets and shirts, skirts and scarves, jackets and wall hangings, and a wide array of baby clothes hung from hooks and filled table upon table inside the white tent. Exquisite work created at the hands of some of Sweet Briar’s most prominent citizens.

A group she wanted desperately to be a part of . . .
if
they believed in her the way Margaret Louise did. Unfortunately, the lone woman working inside the tent was one of two circle members surely counting down the days to her conviction. With glasses ready for clinking.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Rose Winters said as she looked up from a bin of smocked dresses she was reorganizing. “I dare say, Victoria, you’ve looked better.”

Not quite sure how to take the woman’s gruffness, Tori simply nodded. “I’ve been better.” She lifted one of the dresses from the bin and studied the smocking. “Rose, this is exquisite. Did
you
do this?”

“I most certainly did,” the woman said, an undeniable lift surfacing in both her frail voice and body. “Have you ever tried?”

Carefully Tori turned the dress inside out, her gaze riveted on the detailed stitches. “No. I’ve wanted to—many times. I guess I’m just not confident enough in my ability yet.”

Rose waved her long bony hand in the air. “Nonsense, child. I’ve seen your work, your great-grandmother taught you well.”

Tori closed her eyes at the mention of her great-grandmother, a woman who’d taught her so much about stitches and thread and . . . life. “I’m not sure I was always the best pupil but I sure treasured her lessons.” She opened her eyes and turned the dress right side out. “I remember the excitement I’d feel when I saw the sewing box in her hand. Sometimes she’d just sew for herself and I’d sit quietly by her side, watching. And sometimes she’d take my hand and lead me to her sewing room—a tiny room off the back of her home that had a chair for her and a smaller one for me. The only things in that room were the chairs, a lamp, and a big window. Yet it was magical. Our time together
in
it was magical.”

She folded the dress then placed it back in the bin, aware of Rose’s eyes studying her every move. “I cherish every second of that time. I still wish I could go back and have just one more rainy afternoon with her.”

“She’s with you. Every time you sit in a chair and sew.” Rose hunched slightly at the waist, a loud cough racking her body. When she straightened, she moved on to the hooks that held baby bonnets in assorted colors. “How are you holding up?”

Still stunned by the woman’s gentle encouragement, Tori simply shrugged, her mind as far from the Tiffany Ann Gilbert issue as possible.

“You may be new and you may have robbed Dixie of a job but—”

“Rose, I had no idea your friend was removed to give me a job. I was under the assumption the head librarian spot was vacant. Please know that.”

Rose smoothed her hand across several pale yellow bonnets before removing a white lacy one from a top hook. “It’s hard when you get to our age . . . people think we’re not up to task any longer. They instantly think younger means better.”

Tori’s shoulders slumped.

“But after your first circle meeting”—Rose retied the bonnet’s strings and repositioned it on the hook—“and hearing your ideas for the children’s room, I can’t help but feel as if the library might benefit from a little freshness.”

Was she hearing what she thought she was hearing? Was Rose Winters putting down her weapon?

“When I was teaching, it was fairly easy to get children interested in books. But today—with all the distractions these young people have—I think they need to be helped along. I think your room might just be able to do that.” Rose stepped away from the hooks and shuffled over to a set of chairs arranged behind a table. Lowering herself into the first one, she pulled the flaps of her sweater tighter against her body. “Dixie can’t see that. Not yet, anyway.”

“Thank you, Rose.” It was all she could trust her voice to say without cracking.

The woman patted the vacant chair, waited for Tori to join her. “How are the plans coming?”

“They’re not.” Tori plopped into the folding chair, placed the bag with Lulu’s gift beside her feet. “My meeting with the board was cancelled because of Tiffany Ann’s . . . death.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she wished desperately she could recall them. Things were going so well with the elderly woman, why push it into unpleasant territory?

A soft clucking noise emerged from Rose’s mouth, her head shaking from side to side in accompaniment. “I hope they figure out what happened to her soon. It won’t bring her back but it will give Sweet Briar residents a person to blame.”

“Oh they have one.” She heard her voice crack, nibbled her lip inward to stop it from trembling.

Damn.

“They have the
wrong
one.”

Tori stared at the older woman, her heart thumping inside her chest.

What was it about compassion and scraps of support that moved her to tears so quickly these days? Oh yeah—they were few and far between.

“How do you know?” she managed to ask between steadying inhales.

“Fresh ideas may come with youth but wisdom comes with age, Victoria.” Rose reached up to the bridge of her nose and repositioned her glasses a hairbreadth. “Have you started on any costumes for the children’s room yet?”

“I’d planned to start this weekend . . . before everything happened. Laura Ingalls was going to be my first. But”—she looked down at her hands, linking them inside one another—“I just can’t concentrate. On the costume or my pillow or much of anything.”

“You need to try. Let the sewing quiet your heart and your mind.”

Tori heard herself gasp, felt her lower lip drop open. “My great-grandmother used to say that very same thing.”

“Then your great-grandmother was a smart woman.”

A group of women entered the tent, their gasps of pleasure at the hand-sewn clothes an unwelcome distraction. Twenty minutes earlier, Tori had been certain she knew where Rose stood on the murder gossip. And now she knew better.