Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9) (27 page)

“I’m here,” Connie announced as she came down the stairs. “And Beth and Jorge pulled up as I was coming in.”

“Four down, two to go,” Lauren counted.

Harried looked up a few minutes later and saw Marjorie Swain coming down the stairs.

“I heard you ladies could use some help.”

“I thought you were keeping the store open on Sundays,” Harriet said and resumed stitching.

Beth smiled.

“What my niece meant to say was, yes, we can use all the help we can get. Especially from a prize-winning hand-quilter.”

Harriet’s cheeks pinked.

“That’s what I meant to say. Here, let me get you a chair.” She got up and went to the rack that sat against the wall to select a folding chair for Marjorie.

“I plan on opening on Sundays once school gets out and the tourists start coming to town, but for now the doors are still closed. I love to hand-quilt, so I’m happy to be here, but the word on the street is the guy who’s getting this quilt doesn’t even want it.”

“Yeah, the ingrate,” Lauren said.

Harriet looked at Marjorie.

“Wow, word travels fast. It’s complicated. Josh Phillips is Molly Baker’s ex, and she had a restraining order against him. He donated ten K so they would have to let him attend the fundraiser and donor thank-you event, and he’d be able to see Molly. Now that she’s passed, he wants his money back and doesn’t want the quilt. Unfortunately for him, that’s not going to happen. He signed a pledge agreement, which is a contract, and he already gave them at least part of the money.”

“I figured it was something like that. Patrice Orson came in for some buttons yesterday. She was trying to be coy.”

“She probably thought she was being professional,” Lauren interrupted.

“Well, whatever she was being, she pretty much told me the whole story. She said the unnamed donor was hopping mad. He wanted his money back, and he has no use for a quilt. I already knew who he was and how mad, since he’d come by my shop to find out how much a quilt like the one he was getting would sell for. I tried to be generous, but I think he already knew it wasn’t worth ten thousand dollars. He was like a three-year-old who’d had his lollipop taken away. For a minute, I thought I was going to have to get him an ambulance, his face turned so red.”

Mavis handed her a spool of thread and a packet of needles.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with our ‘friend’. And I’m glad you’re here to help. Getting enough stitches in this quilt before Saturday is going to be touch-and-go.”

Beth looked over at Harriet and Lauren.

“The task is made all the more difficult by our resident investigators and their frequent fact-finding sojourns.”

Harriet stopped stitching.

“Hey, I was ready to give up.”

“Yeah, like that was going to happen,” Lauren muttered.

Jenny came down the stairs and hurried over to her place at the frame.

“Sorry I’m late. My husband took my car to the car wash and didn’t pay attention to the time.”

“You’re here now, that’s what matters,” Beth told her.

Lauren stood up.

“And with that we have a quorum.” She picked up her messenger bag and looked at Harriet. “Are we ready?”

Harriet rose and followed her up the stairs and out.

Lauren drove, since Harriet had come to the church with Mavis. She was quiet, which was out of character. Harriet watched the small muscle in her jaw twitch.

“What are you not telling me?”

Lauren glanced at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You obviously want to say something to me, but you’re holding back, for some reason.”

Lauren’s eyes narrowed. She refused to make eye contact.

“I know you’ve had a lot going on lately, I get that having your livelihood threatened is a big deal, even though we both know you don’t really depend on your long-arm quilting to pay the bills, but we’ll pretend you do. It probably worried you a little when your aunt got hurt. I get that, too.”

“Thanks for that,” Harriet interrupted.

“Let me finish. I know you’ve had some real stuff going on, but I’m getting whiplash here with all the flip-flopping. One minute you’re Nancy Drew, girl detective, ready to go cave-hunting and doing anything to solve the crime, but then the next you’re Princess Buttercup—life is too difficult in Foggy Point, and you’re going to turn in your detective license and run home to California.

“And don’t even get me started on the romance thing. First you’re so depressed because Aiden dumped you that all you can do is work, and next time the group sees you, you’re playing footsie with the cute chef. And still you feel sorry for yourself. Lots of us would be happy to find
one
good guy. You’ve got three, and still you’re not happy.”

Harriet was quiet for a moment. She slumped in her seat.

“Wow, I didn’t realize I was such a burden.”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I mean. I’m just saying, you’ve taken a leadership role in our group, especially as it relates to some of the situations we’ve gotten into in the last year. In that role, you don’t have the luxury of being wishy-washy.

“And don’t forget, all of us have had a hard time this last year. I was suspected of killing someone. Mavis had that business with her husband, and then there was Jenny and poor Sarah. And DeAnn went through that whole adoption thing, and now her sister is dead. Imagine how she feels.”

Lauren reached over and put her hand on Harriet’s arm.

“I know you’re not being a drama queen on purpose, but it’s time to buck up.”

“Have the other people in the group been saying things?”

“Not to me, but I
have
seen a few looks exchanged.”

Harriet turned and stared sightlessly out the window.

“Hey, I’m not trying to minimize what you’ve gone through. I know it’s been rough. I’ve been with you for most of it. I think you need to think a little about the rest of the group, that’s all. Every one of us has had stuff happen. I’m sure Carla would like to get off the merry-go-round sometimes, too, but she doesn’t have the luxury of pulling up stakes and leaving. She’s got a child and has to work to support her.”

“Enough. I get it. I’m an insensitive ingrate.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. And if you really think going to California is the best move for you, just go. Stop with all the drama. If you’re going to stay and help figure out what happened to Molly, then do that and stop threatening to leave all the time.”

“It’s hardly been all the time, but I get it. You’re right. I have been feeling sorry for myself.”

“In reality, if you hadn’t spent weeks working night and day and barely eating while you worked on those quilts for that lady, you probably would have been better able to cope with all this mess, but that isn’t how things happened, and as they say, life is messy.”

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

Lauren laughed.

“That’s what friends are for. And hey, maybe I’m off-base. Talk to your aunt or Mavis; see what they think.”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone, I may not agree with everything you said, but you made your point. I
have
been self-indulgent lately. You’re right about being tired, too. Between the client quilts and then these three for Molly’s benefit, I haven’t been getting enough rest, and the business with Aiden hasn’t helped my sleep. I have to say, the ‘cute chef’ is helping on that score, so don’t knock him.”

Lauren rolled her eyes.

“Is that the trail sign?” she asked and pointed out the windshield as she slowed the car and pulled off the road.

“Looks like it.”

Harriet retied her tennis shoes and got out of the car while Lauren popped the trunk then fished out two bottles of water and handed her one. Lauren picked up a flashlight and slid it into her messenger bag.

“Now, we walk,” Harriet said.

The trail was rocky and steep, so it took almost an hour to reach the smaller trail Pete had described.

“This has to be the rock formation,” Harriet said when they reached the end of the path. “It’s the only one.” She walked to the right for the third time and poked into the brush along the rock face with a stick. On her second poke, her stick slid in without resistance.

“I think I found something,” she called.

Lauren, who had backed up the trail to take a broader look, returned; and both women began pulling branches away from the rock.

“Interesting that none of these bushes are rooted,” Harriet commented. “It’s like someone piled them here.” She rubbed her fingers on one of the leaves. “These feel like someone spray-painted them green.” She picked up a bush. “I think these are permanent set pieces.”

Finally, between the two of them, they moved enough of the dry brush to reveal an opening about the size of a washing machine.

“Uhh…” Lauren said and backed up.

“Yeah, me, too. I was expecting something a little bigger.”

“If the whole cave is this big, I can’t do it. I’m sorry, I’m claustrophobic.”

Harriet squatted down and bent her head to look.

“We’ve come this far. I have to at least try, especially after your pep talk.”

“I was talking about being decisive, not being a risk taker.”

“Hand me the flashlight. I’ll go in a little way and see if it opens out or stays small.”

Lauren handed her the light, and she turned it on and disappeared into the dark hole.

“Hey,” Lauren called almost immediately. “I thought you weren’t going in too far.”

“Come on in,” Harriet answered.”It’s huge once you get past the first six feet or so.”

She heard Lauren suck in her breath and then the scraping sounds of someone crawling.

“See, that wasn’t so bad.” She helped Lauren brush the dirt off her jeans as she stood up.

“That was the longest hundred feet of my life.”

“Lauren, if you lay down you can almost reach the outside from in here.”

Harriet turned and flashed the light around the large cavern. Against one wall were two cots with sleeping bags on them, a lantern, and a jug of water. A few feet away sat a large trunk. She walked to the trunk and swept it with the light. A combination lock secured a central hasp on the front.

Lauren came over and rapped her knuckles on the top of the trunk. A dull thud sounded.

“Sounds like it’s full of something.”

“It looks like someone could have been held here, but something’s off. First, don’t you think the opening would be more secure?”

“Not if the prisoner was secured inside.”

“But there aren’t any bolts in the wall or anything else I can see that would allow you to shackle someone inside here.”

Lauren looked around.

“You’re right.”

“It’s also pretty clean in here. Doesn’t it seem like if Mavis’s son and his friends came here when they were young there’d be at least a little litter? Kids aren’t that conscientious, are they?”

“You’re asking me?”

She shone the light on the dirt floor and leaned down to get a better look.

“It looks like it’s been swept.”

Lauren came closer and looked.

“Someone’s been using this cave for something.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything to suggest it has anything to do with Molly’s death. And if this was the place Amber was held, it’s been too long ago for there to be any evidence of it. Let’s see if we can find the second cave Pete told Mavis about.”

Harriet crawled out into the daylight and was searching the rock face for another opening when Lauren made her way out, white-faced and shaky.

“Maybe you should sit down for a minute.”

“Look,” Lauren said and pointed. “There’s a path.”

She did and could barely make out a faint trail. She followed it around the rock formation.

“Found it.”

She was facing a wide, low opening that led into a shallow chamber. A quick look showed that this was the place where the local kids hung out. There were cigarette butts, candy wrappers and beer cans littering the dirt floor. A tattered blanket was rolled up against the wall. Like the first cave, there was no other opening leading out of the main chamber.

“There’s nothing here.” She called back to Lauren.

“Good, ’cause I don’t have another small closed space in me today.”