“Why?” Taylor glanced up the stairs. She was tired. She was snuggly. She saw no reason, in this moment, that Hudson had to stay downstairs with Clay when he could come up and snuggle her.
“Paramedics wanted me to stay with him to make sure he didn’t die in the night. If he sleeps here, then so do I. Unless you want to, I guess.” He flexed his hand like his knuckles might hurt.
“We could both stay down here.” Taylor yawned. It was only eleven, but she did keep early hours.
“Here, trade him spots.” Hudson nudged Clay awake. “You’d better sleep in the recliner. For medical reasons.”
Clay yawned but obeyed. He was out again in a matter of minutes.
“Definitely a concussion,” Taylor said, nestling into Hudson’s arms.
“What are you going to do about that guy?” Hudson asked, then laid a gentle kiss just below her ear.
“Get him back to wherever he’s staying first thing in the morning.”
Hudson responded with more kisses, but her phone rang interrupting them and waking Clay.
She would have ignored it, except for Clay hollering about the noise.
Caller ID said it was Sissy Dorney.
Taylor took the call to the kitchen.
“I hope it’s not too late to call.” Sissy didn’t sound apologetic. It was just the kind of thing people say when they call late.
“It’s fine. What’s up?”
“I got us a chance to dig around in Aunt Reynette’s place tomorrow morning. It’s before your shop opens so it shouldn’t be inconvenient.” There was a bit of defensiveness in her words.
“To hunt for clues, you mean?”
“Yes. Art’s overwhelmed. Gracie and Una went back home, and Fawn and Monty are making him go there too.”
“To his ex-wife’s house?”
“Yup. They said it would be good for him to be near his daughter right now, and that they’d take care of stuff. I offered to come in and clean in the morning while they drive him there.” Sissy related the information like it was top secret knowledge.
“Clever, but why are they driving him?” Taylor rinsed the ice cream bowls while she talked. Her jaw hurt from clenching it in anger. Things had been going so well with Hudson just now.
“To make sure he actually goes to the coast.”
“Fawn doesn’t want to search it herself? I mean, it is her mom.”
“She trusts me. Knows I know what’s up.”
“Well, okay. Just tell me what time and give me the address.” Taylor found a pen and paper to take notes.
Sissy gave her the address of one of the gorgeous Queen Anne Victorians the town founders had built when the flour mill was making folks rich. Taylor agreed to be there at seven the next morning.
She stood in the kitchen door and looked at the scene in the living room. Clay slept under a bachelor buttons quilt Taylor had made in high school. Hudson was stretched out, arms on the back of the sofa, face turned to her, one eyebrow lifted.
What the heck? What did she have to lose? She really liked him a lot.
She joined him on the couch, but he didn’t make a move.
She gave him a quick rundown of the call.
“Seven, huh? You’d better head to bed, then.”
“Are you sure?” Taylor thought the words were going to come out in a husky, sexy kind of voice, but they didn’t. Just matter of fact.
He sighed. “The thing is, you’re not sure. And until you are, you get to sleep alone.” He didn’t seem aware of anything but Taylor, his forehead touching hers, their eyes locked. “I don’t know what kind of man that guy really is, or who you dated before him. I just know who I am. When I’m with a woman, it’s because we’re both sure.”
Taylor leaned in and kissed him, a lot.
And then she went to bed alone.
* * *
“Nice place.” The words were inadequate to describe the scene Taylor had stepped into. The old Baily House was three-thousand square feet of architectural eye-candy. The last of the great, rich Baily family, Harrison, had only died in 2017. He had been a confirmed bachelor and had left no heirs when he passed away at ninety-seven years of age. Despite the age of the last resident, the house had not fallen into disrepair. The kitchen had been added to the house in the 1930s, but the old detached summer kitchen still stood on the property. Every inch of the woodwork was original and had been maintained with love and affection. The furniture was a mishmash collected through the hundred and fifty odd years of the house’s existence, but it was high quality and just as clean and well-loved as the room Taylor stood in.
The belongings of the newest occupants, Art and Reynette Woods who were renting the house furnished on a six-month lease, were another story all together.
Boxes were stacked precariously on top of one another filling the front room. “Where do we start? Did you offer to unpack this place?”
“No way. Not this mess. Come back this way with me.” Sissy had her hair wrapped in a silky pink head scarf. She wore serviceable jeans and a wildly patterned jersey tunic, a look that screamed “house cleaning day.”
Taylor followed her to what would have been a butler’s pantry—a smallish nook between the kitchen and dining room. “Reynette liked cozy places so she was going to use this as her office.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. In this house? It must have at least twelve better choices.” Taylor turned around in the tiny nook. There was barely enough room for a chair to sit at much less the files for organizing a multifaceted business.
“Eleven, actually. They all had uses as well. A work room. A stock room. Art’s study. Guest rooms. A library. But for the business finances and paperwork this was the one she liked.”
“There’s no telling with people, is there?”
“Nope. I told her she was crazy, but she laughed and said everything was in the cloud anyway. Let’s get looking.”
“The family’s going to accept our digging through the business boxes as cleaning?” Taylor stared at the boxes that blocked the dining room doorway.
“We’ll clean the kitchen and make some beds before we leave, don’t worry. I’ll take this side. You take that one.” Sissy opened one of the glass fronted doors that ought to have held china or crystal or something like that.
“What are we looking for?”
“You’re the detective.” Sissy didn’t sound like she believed it.
A wave of irritation rolled over Taylor. She was only here because Sissy had asked for help, and because she had developed a sort of mother-instinct for those stupid friends of Belle’s. If Cooper and Aviva hadn’t been so scared, she never would have stepped up. If Sissy didn’t think she was useful, why bother? After a moment of seething she spoke up. “I’m not a detective. I’m a friend.” Taylor paused at the word. “And I’m helping because I was asked to.”
“Fine.” Sissy was a large presence both literally and because of her ‘big personality’ for lack of a better phrase. She squared up her shoulders and for a moment Taylor wasn’t sure there was room for the two of them. “We’re looking for a motive. Seems like people get killed for sex or money and frankly, Reynette wasn’t all that sexy, God bless her. Sweet, sure, but not sexy. I think it was about money. Looks like the files in this cupboard have to do with her resale shops. Figure out what you’ve got and then see if anything looks fishy.”
“Can do.” Taylor thanked her lucky stars she had an MBA. She was fairly sure she’d be able to spot fishy financial dealings at least.
She dragged a stack of files off an open shelf and began her search. The first thing she came across was a record of all of the quilts Reynette had made, what contests she had entered them in, and how they had done. It was a tidy record, handwritten in a ledger book.
Reynette had been quilting quite a bit longer than her family had indicated. The first quilt had been entered in the Marion County Fair in 1999. It had placed third. The piece was a wall hanging, yellow brick road in cotton. It had sold thr
ee years later for $150. With a record like this Reynette must have kept photos too. But also, with a record like this Taylor had a hard time believing her as a primitive folk artist.
Taylor looked over each quilt on the list. In the twenty years Reynette had been quilting she had made around $100,000 on her quilts. Nice bit, but not all that impressive as a yearly sum. Nothing to kill over.
That said, her income had increased rapidly around 2016, and at least half of that $100,000 had been earned in the last few years.
Taylor set aside the log and hunted for a photo record of the quilts. Something major had changed for her in 2016, but it wasn’t anything that showed up on the log. The quilts were being entered in the same old fairs and shows that everyone else entered. They were just suddenly selling for thousands of dollars instead of hundreds. And they were all selling instead of just some of them. While maybe not a reason to kill her, it was certainly irregular.
In a box on the top-most shelf Taylor found an old photo album with the pictures she was hoping for. She flipped through the pages, glancing at each quilt quickly. They were unremarkable. Good, but not exceptional. Nicely made, but not innovative. This album had quilts from 1999 to 2011. Taylor found no other record. “Sissy, you said Reynette said everything was stored on the cloud. Do you have any way for us to get into her computer?”
“What?” Sissy jerked her head up. “I almost forgot you were here. You’re a quiet one.”
“I found some interesting stuff regarding her work as a quilter, but the actual images of the quilts only go up to 2011.”
“I don’t see a computer in here, and if I did, I wouldn’t know her passwords.”
“Maybe her computer bag is somewhere...” Taylor scanned the floor to see if a satchel of some sort was hiding behind one of the many boxes but didn’t see anything. “I can’t think she’d box up the computer she was using to run a business. Or even if she did, I can’t imagine it’d still be in a box. How long had they been in this house anyway?”
“They’d just gotten the keys a couple days before she passed.” Sissy leaned heavily on the counter. “I can’t find anything. She’s my aunt though, and as far as I know, she’s always been straight as an arrow.”
“Of course, she was.” Taylor shut the album and got it back on its shelf. “We’d better hit the kitchen.”
“I can’t think we’ve even scratched the surface,” Sissy said as they skirted the many boxes in the kitchen.
“I agree. See if you can get us another day or two in here. I’d like to do more looking. Something seems off in her career as a quilter. It might have nothing to do with her death…”
“But if it did, we’d better find out.”
There were only a handful of plates in the sink and they knocked it out fast, then went upstairs.
While Sissy made the bed, Taylor dug around in the bathroom. “I can’t really believe it, but there isn’t a single bottle of aspirin in here. No ibuprofen or acetaminophen either. No kind of pain relief except this little jar of Tiger Balm.”
“Reynette didn’t trust pain killers. So many people get addicted, you know. That’s why I’m positive she did not accidentally overdose.”
Taylor sat on a velvet wing back chair and admired the quilt on the bed. “I’d say that one is an early 2000s. Its store-bought fabric in a very traditional pattern.”
“I don’t know what Gracie was talking about,” Sissy said. “The corners all meet up real nice.”
“They do. It’s a beautiful quilt. Is there a chance someone else made it?”
Sissy flipped back a corner. “It’s got her signature. R with a little crown. Because Reynette means queen.”
Taylor laughed. “Technically it would mean little girl king, wouldn’t it?”
“And what’s that but a queen?” Sissy glowered at Taylor.
She’d have to remember to treat Reynette like a beloved family member and not like a case study. Sissy cared about this woman as much as Taylor cared about anyone in her own family. Likely more if you were talking aunts and cousins. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about her?” Taylor asked softly.
“She was my best friend for a lot of years.” Sissy crossed her arms. “And whoever did this to her is going to pay.”
Chapter Eight
Taylor should have expected Clay would turn up at Flour Sax as soon as it opened. He slid in quietly, his khaki pants and plaid button down looked like he’d been wearing them for weeks. His hair was tousled like he had done it on purpose. He took the seat by her mom’s videos again. She tried to ignore him, but it wasn’t easy. She had Hannah to train, though, so at least there was something important to keep her mind on.
Taylor ran through the register, the books, and inventory with Hannah in record time. Everything Guy Sauvage had said about her was true. She was bright and hardworking.
“It’s been a good few hours,” Taylor said at two. “Why don’t you go take a lunch?”
“Ok.” Hannah didn’t sound interested in lunch, but she was agreeable. But as Flour Sax opened at eleven Monday through Friday during the off season, the lunch hour came a little late in the day. She had to be starving.
Hannah found her purse, logged out in the time book, and left via the back door.
Taylor didn’t know where she’d take her lunch but was glad to see she was heading out for a bit. Taylor needed some time with Clay. This stalking had to end.
They were alone in the shop, so she pulled a chair over to where he sat absorbed with her mom’s quilt instructions.
“Man.” His eyes were glued on the little screen. “I’ve been watching this for hours and it feels like I know her now.”
“You could have known her.”
One of Clay’s eyes was purple and swollen shut, and his nose was red and purple, swollen and bent. A specific memory from their old life together flickered in her heart and made her want to kiss him better. They had been living together for two years and decided to take a week off to bike to the coast from their home in the suburbs. The trip was an easy two-day ride, and they decided to take it even slower, staying the night at a couple of Airbnb’s on the way, just for kicks. It was going to be a great adventure, and Taylor had suspected he was going to propose on the beach.
But he got hit by a car in the coast range mountains instead.
A little Volkswagen had flung him right off the edge of the steeply inclined hill. Her mind still refused to call it a cliff, even today. Clay should have died, but he’d let go of the bike, like a genius, and while it had tumbled down the hill breaking into bits as it fell, he had landed in a patch of great big sword fern. His nose had broken, and two legs. But he hadn’t died.
She had kissed his broken nose then.
He hadn’t proposed.
Hadn’t been planning on it either.
At this moment, he reached over to the little screen and pressed pause, then went back to the beginning. “Do you remember this video? It’s a good one.” He started it again.
“Fabric stashes are grown out of ideals and dreams and plentitude.” Laura Quinn held up a skinny remnant of cotton printed all over in tiny blue bunnies. “We buy a little extra just in case. We know we might mess up. We usually do, right?” She laughed, then touched the fabric to her cheek. It was a bit left over from the baby quilt Taylor had made for Belle. “But then, days come when we no longer have plenty. When our needs exceed our means. That’s when we dip into our stash and revel in our past glories.” Taylor’s mother was lost in some kind of happy dream. Maybe of those heady days with newborn Belle who had dragged both Laura and Taylor from under the shadow of grief that had been her father’s passing. “But it’s not just about fabric, is it? Are you keeping an emotional stash to get you through lean times? You should. You should store up in your heart the bounty from right now so that when times get tough you can call on it to comfort you. My mama had a heart full of old Bible verses. I bet your mama or your grandma did too. When she was fighting her cancer, my ma
ma had that to call on, to comfort her. I have memories of my husband. Strong, handsome, good.” She blushed. “He was so good in so many ways. People ask me all the time why I never remarried, but as nice as all the other men I meet are, they don’t live up to him.” She paused, looked down at the assortment of mismatched fabrics on the table in front of her and ran her hand across them. “In the comments, tell me what you store up in your heart, like a fabric stash, to feed you in your time of need. I’d love to know. Songs maybe, verses, poems, memories. Photos even. Or…fabric.” She smiled at the screen and the video ended. The brief pause before the next one would auto-play.
It had been nine months since Taylor and Clay had broken up.
Not even a year.
Her mom had always said you needed twelve full months after a significant loss to make any permanent decisions.
It had only been nine months since Taylor had lost her.
It was too soon to know if she never wanted to see Clay again or not.
Four years together…what was nine months compared to that?
He turned a little and caught her eye. “I store up your smile. Memories of times you laughed with me, laughed at me, laughed near me. So many times, over the last few months when it’s been the hardest, I’ve been able to pull up a memory of your smile to get me through.”
Taylor scrunched her mouth like she’d eaten something sour. Clay and his little manipulations. Even when she was hours away, he held her responsible for something that shouldn’t have been her job. “What’s been so tough for you?” Her nose curled, like the idea that he might suffer smelled bad.
“Losing you. Starting over.”
“You literally moved from one woman’s furnished home to another, a mile away. I don’t exactly consider that starting over.”
“Won’t you smile for me, just a little?”
“Clay, you’ve got to get out of here. Go back home.”
“Where is home?” He spoke wistfully.
She sat and dropped her head to her hands. “She did kick you out, didn’t she?”
Bound and Deceased Page 7
