“We’re all going to work together,” Madeleine said. “And take a more active role in running Vista Del Mar. In other words, we are going to worry our pretty little heads about things,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “We’ll be wanting input from you, too.” I nodded enthusiastically, already thinking I wanted to help Sky do more with Vista Del Mar. He’d only faltered on the activities that Kevin St. John had planned. Everyone was raving about the Sound Bath and how he’d mixed the meditative aspects of the gongs and singing bowls with the fun of rock and roll and dancing. I certainly wanted to put in a lot of good words about Cloris. She was an employee to be treasured.
“We’ll talk later,” Cora said. “But right now we’re all going to meet with Kevin St. John and let him know there are going to be some changes.”
Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.
• • •
Everything closed early on Sunday night and the streets were practically rolled up by the time I headed for the Blue Door. There were loose ends still hanging. I had to call Frank and tell him what happened. He’d be surprised to hear who’d left me the threatening note. Though looking back on it, it made sense that it was Kevin St. John. He didn’t want me investigating since he was trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Cloris had been the one who tipped me off. She’d found an earlier attempt in the trash and figured out what it was.
I owed my mother a call, too. Sammy wanted to break in some new illusions, and Julius was out of stink fish.
Lucinda and Tag had already gone home and the restaurant was dark when I unlocked the door. I dropped off the bags of muffin ingredients in the kitchen and then went to turn on the soft jazz I liked to bake to. I glanced out the window at the quiet street. It felt like the whole world was taking a break before the new week began.
I had just taken out the ingredients for carrot cakes when I heard a knock at the door. Dane was holding up a paper bag and a holder with two cups of coffee when I went to the door.
“You know the way to my heart,” I said, looking at the bag.
“Always,” he said with a smile. “Now tell me everything.”
Mindfulness Tie
Finished dimensions approximately 2 inches by 60 inches
Supplies
Size 10.5 (6.5mm) knitting needles
1 skein Fair Isle Sutton yarn, 119 yards, 3.5 oz, 109m, 100g, 100 polyester
Tapestry needle
Directions
Cast on 6 stitches
Row 1: Knit across
Repeat Row 1 until approximately 60 in/152 cm
Cast off and weave in ends with tapestry needle
Raisin to Be, aka Biscuit Muffins
(Makes 12)
2 cups unbleached flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons butter cut in small pieces
¾ cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a 12-muffin pan with paper muffin cups.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add sugar and stir. Work butter into flour mixture using pastry blender. Mix raisins into flour mixture. Add vanilla to milk. Make a well in the flour mixture and add milk all at once. Mix for about 20 seconds. Spoon into muffin cups.
Bake for 12–15 minutes until golden.
Acknowledgments
It’s a crisp, sunny October day as I sit here in Chicago writing these acknowledgments. Outside the window I can see the leaves are just beginning to turn on the tree across the street. It seems like a long way from all the white skies and fog of Cadbury by the Sea, California. But it is time to say goodbye to this manuscript before it goes out in the world to readers. It’s time for me to move on to my next project, which happens to take place in Chicago in October.
I always have a hard time writing the acknowledgments because I know it is my last touch with a book.
I want to thank Bill Harris for his editorial advice. He has a great eye for making suggestions to improve the manuscript. Dar Dixon once again has come up with a fabulous book cover. I have been with my agent, Jessica Faust, for a long time and I give her credit for making my dream come true. I appreciate her persistence and how I always have her ear to run ideas by.
Back in the San Fernando Valley my knit and crochet group are probably sweating in the October heat wave. We have moved locations a number of times and people have come and gone. But our core group of Rene Biederman, Diane Carver, Terry Cohen, Sonia Flaum, Winnie Hinson, Elayne Moschin, Vicki Stotsman, Paula Tesler and Anne Thomeson have stuck together to stitch and talk. We all miss Linda Hopkins and Lily Gillis.
This is the first time I haven’t been able to include Roberta Martia as my cheerleader, but I’m sure she’s here in spirit. She would be so excited about my next project.
My family is probably sweating from the hot day in the Valley, too. Burl, Max, Samantha and Jakey have been great about giving me the space I need to come up with my books even if it gives them pause to think that I spend so much time figuring out weird ways to kill people.
Books by Betty Hechtman
Yarn Retreat Mysteries
Yarn to Go
Silence of the Lamb's Wool
Wound up in Murder
Gone with the Wool
A Tangled Yarn
Inherit the Wool
Knot on Your Life
Crochet Mysteries
Hooked on Murder
Dead Men Don't Crochet
By Hook or By Crook
A Stitch in Crime
You Better Knot Die
Behind the Seams
If Hooks Could Kill
For Better or Worsted
Knot Guilty
Seams Like Murder
Hooking for Trouble
On the Hook
Hooks Can Be Deceiving
About the Author
Betty Hechtman is the national bestselling author of the Crochet Mysteries and the Yarn Retreat Mysteries. Handicrafts and writing are her passions and she is thrilled to be able to combine them in both of her series.
Betty grew up on the South Side of Chicago and has a degree in Fine Art. Since College, she has studied everything from improv comedy to magic. She has had an assortment of professions, including volunteer farm worker picking fruit on a kibbutz tucked between Lebanon and Syria, nanny at a summer resort, waitress at a coffee house, telephone operator, office worker at the Writer’s Guild, public relations assistant at a firm with celebrity clients, and newsletter editor at a Waldorf school. She has written newspaper and magazine pieces, short stories, screenplays, and a middle-grade mystery, Stolen Treasure.
She lives with her family and stash of yarn in Southern California.
See BettyHechtman.com for more information, excerpts from all her books, and photos of all the projects of the patterns included in her books. She blogs on Fridays at Killerhobbies.blogspot.com, and you can join her on Facebook at BettyHechtmanAuthor and on Twitter at @BettyHechtman.
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