Spin a Wicked Web (14 page)

"No, I'm here to see you. Like Jake, I'm worried about how this
terrible incident has affected the co-op members. I'm really here
because I wanted to check in with you about how Jake is taking
it."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why would Jake be taking it worse than
anyone else?"

I shrugged. "He seemed more upset about Ariel's death than
some. He's a very caring man"

She held my gaze for a long moment. "Meaning?"

I licked my lips. "Nothing. Only ... you know... he's a nice guy."

"Particularly to Ariel."

Thin ice here. I could feel it beginning to crack under my feet.
"I don't know. Was he?"

Felicia stood. "I'll let Jake know you stopped by."

"Oh. Um, okay. Thanks." I rose to my feet as well.

She walked me unceremoniously to the front door and opened
it. "Thanks for stopping by, Ms. Reynolds. 'Bye, now."

"Um," I said, nonplussed by how smoothly she'd kicked me
out. The door shut in my face.

No wonder Barr and Robin hadn't gotten very far questioning
the Beagles.

Meghan met me at the front door. "Hannah came by."

My eyes widened, and I began looking wildly up and down the
street for Barr's ex or her rental car.

"Oh, she's gone now," Meghan said. "I don't think she looks
that much like you."

I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside the house. "What did
she want?"

She gently pulled out of my grip and studied me. "To talk to
you, of course"

"About what?"

Another long look. "About Barr, I expect. I don't know for sure
because we didn't chat all that long."

"Did she seem ... you know?" I swirled my finger by my head.

"Bonkers?"

I nodded.

Meghan's shoulders relaxed, and she laughed. "She seemed like
a perfectly reasonable woman, certainly nice enough. When I said
you weren't here she said she'd try again tomorrow."

"Ha! Well, I won't be here tomorrow. And come to think of it,
she's not supposed to be, either. Did she say where she's staying
now that she's checked out of the Horse Acres B&B?"

She shook her head. "No. And I asked if you could call her, but
she said she didn't know when she'd be near a phone."

"Probably doesn't want Barr telling her to leave town again"

Meghan said, "That'd be my guess"

"I'm sorry she bothered you," I said. "And it sounds like she's
going to do it again tomorrow."

"Will you relax? It's not a big deal. And you said she only took
a week off from her job in Wyoming, so she's going to have to
leave town pretty soon, anyway."

As long as Hannah didn't quit her job at the Ambrose ranch
altogether, thinking she'd soon be swimming in money.

"She came by the house, Barr. What does she want from me? Why
isn't she bugging you?" I was clenching the phone so hard it hurt.
One by one, I forced my fingers to relax.

He sighed. "I don't know, hon. I really don't. I've asked the patrols to keep a look out for the car she listed on the registration at
Horse Acres, but no one has seen her. I'm doing my best to get her
out of your hair."

I felt guilty for making a big deal out of it. He had better things
to do. "Oh, heck. It's okay. I'm going out of town tomorrow anyway.

"Have you already gone over to CRAG?"

"Yessir. And that phone call Ariel's roommate picked up was
probably from Felicia Beagle. Ruth told me Jake had `fatherly feelings' for Ariel, but his wife misunderstood them."

Barr snorted.

"I agree. She probably didn't misunderstand at all. Apparently
Felicia found some e-mails Jake had written to Ariel, and she
didn't care for what they said."

"I wonder when she found them," Barr said. "Recently?"

"No idea. I even dropped in on her, thinking she might open
up to me."

"Any luck?"

"None at all. Does she have an alibi for the time Ariel was
killed?"

"I'm afraid she does. Jake said he was home with her."

"Oh"

"Don't worry. We'll figure it out. Listen, I need to go. Call you
tonight, okay?"

"Okay." I hung up feeling disgruntled.

For one thing, I didn't know if I bought the idea of Jake providing the alibi for his wife. And secondly, it had been several days
since Barr and I had spent the evening together, and he'd only offered me a phone call later.

A phone call? That was it? Sheesh.

THAT NIGHT I wAs putting a few things away in my workroom
when Erin came down to say good night. She hugged me for so
long that I asked if anything was wrong.

She shook her head against my shoulder.

"You sure, Bug?"

A nod, then, "Do I act all snotty about being smart?"

I pulled back so I could look her in the face. She wasn't crying,
but she looked pretty miserable nonetheless.

"No. You do not act all snotty about being smart. Who said you
did?"

She looked at the floor.

"Zoe?" I guessed.

"Uh huh."

"Do you know why she said that?"

"No" Erin's voice was sullen.

"So when did this come up?" I asked.

"At dinner last night. I was telling her about some of the stuff
we did in math camp yesterday." She turned her face up toward
mine. "Do you know anything about Fibonacci numbers?"

"Nope. Never heard of them."

"Well, they're this really cool series of numbers that represent the
ratio of all sorts of things in nature-the spirals in sea shells and
sunflower seed heads and pinecones and-you know about phi,
right?"

"Uh ... sort of."

Her face fell.

"I'm sorry, Bug. I'm just not into math. But you're obviously getting pretty passionate about it, and that's great. No, really," I said,
seeing her skepticism.

"Well, when I told Zoe about it, she said I was being all conceited
about being smart. She's smart, too, you know. It's not my fault her
mom makes her go to soccer camp instead of math camp. So I told
her she was being snotty about being a big jock."

"You guys don't usually fight."
"

She shrugged and looked away. "Yeah"

"Feel pretty bad now, huh," I said.

I guess." She ground the toe of her flip-flops into the poured
concrete floor.

"I bet she feels pretty bad, too. Why don't you give her a call?"

"... maybe"

"Tomorrow. After you've both slept on it a little longer"

She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. G'night, Sophie Mae."

"'Night, Bug."

At the stairs she turned around. "Are you going to move in with
Barr?"

Oh, gosh. Deep breath. "I don't know."

"Well, I hope you don't," she said. "I want you to stay here."

I could only manage a nod.

Planning to leave early the next morning, I called it a night at ten
o'clock and went to bed, but for some reason I couldn't settle down.
I lay in bed feeling twitchy and itchy and wide, wide awake. Finally,
I gave up and went down the hall toward the stairs. Through
Meghan's closed bedroom door I could hear her murmuring, talking to Kelly out in New Jersey. As I walked past Erin's open door,
Brodie raised his head, his big pointed ears silhouetted against the
night-light.

The spinning wheel Ruth had brought over still sat in the living room. She'd also brought two paper bags of fiber for me to
practice on. I retrieved a straight-backed chair from the kitchen,
set it next to the wheel, and added two small pillows from the sofa
to provide back support while I perched on the edge. Chairs actually designed for spinning had very shallow seats, more like stools
with tall, narrow backs to enable the spinner to freely pump the
foot peddle that rotated the wheel. Carefully, I oiled the moving
parts of the wheel to reduce friction and wear and tear. This was a
traditional wheel made by the Ashford company. I wondered if
something like this was what I would ultimately choose for myself.
There were many reputable wheel manufacturers and different
designs of wheels. There were even portable ones that folded up
and had a handle for carrying.

Of course, the most portable way to spin was the drop spindle,
a device that looked like a stick with a perpendicular disk near one
end. You stood and spun the spindle, which twisted the fiber attached to the top into yarn. Gravity provided the draw for the
yarn. As the spindle neared the floor, you wrapped the yarn around
the stick and began the process again. Of course, for me this was
all merely theory; as fascinated as I was by the idea, Ruth hadn't
taught me how to use one yet.

Expecting to find more of the natural wool I'd used to make
what turned out to be a murder weapon, I opened a bag. Instead, I
found a luscious rolled batt of Thea Hawke's hand-painted bamboo fiber in sunset hues-the exact thing I'd been so excited to try
when I went in for my lesson and instead found Ariel. I'd mentioned how much I liked it to Ruth, and she'd remembered. What
a sweetheart. I'd pay her back for it.

Oh, but how it felt, smoothly gliding through my fingers, the
colors twisting together to make a gorgeous, variegated yarn that
looked good enough to eat. As the spool gradually filled, the tension in my shoulders abated, my breathing deepened, and one by
one the thoughts racing around in my head fell still. After awhile, I
wasn't thinking about anything at all, the act of spinning fiber into
yarn capturing my entire attention. I'd tried to meditate before,
but never with an ounce of success. This had to be the most Zenlike thing I'd ever done.

When I ran out of raw fiber, I came back to myself enough to
look at the clock. I'd been sitting there, pumping my foot up and
down for over an hour! Better than any sleeping pill; I'd drop right
off now. Plus, several yards of incredible yarn filled the spool. I'd have to find something marvelous to make with it. Heck, anything
I made with it would be marvelous.

I removed the tension from the brake band and slipped the
drive band off the wheel, then stood, stretching my palms up to
the ceiling to work the kinks out of my back.