by Janet Bolin
Dutifully, I launched into my spiel. “You know, you don’t have to—”
Ashley interrupted me. “Chief Smallwood told us the same thing.”
“What?” Samantha asked. “Told you what?”
Macey and Ashley filled her in, allowing me to merely walk along, trying not to think about the man a block behind us. Despite the revealing velvet dress and the stiletto heels, I felt like a dowdy chaperone.
We dropped Macey and Samantha off at their apartment, then headed toward Ashley’s house.
Ashley asked me, “Don’t those shoes hurt to walk in?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“We can slow down. It’s like you’re trying to get away from Clay. You don’t have to worry about Edna’s mother stealing him from you. She’s old.”
I stifled a laugh. Apparently, Ashley hadn’t recognized the real threat, despite Loretta’s coy reference to lipstick.
It was all my imagination, I told myself.
No, it wasn’t.
Ashley stopped at the walk leading to her front porch. “Are you going to wait for Clay and Dora?”
“They’re probably having a conversation about design. They don’t need my input.”
In the darkness, illuminated only by streetlights, Ashley cocked her head and gazed up at me. “You’re acting weird tonight.”
I summoned up a smile. “What a thing to say to your boss.”
Ashley clapped a hand over her mouth and squeaked between her fingers, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
I interrupted her. “Only joking. See you tomorrow.”
Speed-walking the rest of the way home, I tried not to hobble too obviously or precariously.
However, in those shoes, I wasn’t about to negotiate the downhill slope through my side yard to my apartment. Instead, I went into my shop.
I locked the door, unplugged the night-light, and hid in the darkness. I was sure that Clay would accompany Dora all the way through my yard to the door of Blueberry Cottage, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him.
Sure enough, I heard their voices out on the sidewalk, and then the gate to my side yard clanged.
Seconds later, from downstairs in my apartment, Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho began the excited barking that signaled they’d heard or seen someone they liked outside. They raced up the stairs to the door of In Stitches, which I kept closed, and down again. They knew I was in the shop, and they were trying to get me to let them out to greet their friends.
I didn’t move.
After a few minutes, the dogs settled down. Listening, I stayed out of sight of the front door and windows.
I knew I was being silly. I was stressed from staying up late every night for weeks to complete the garments I wore in the fashion show. I’d have enjoyed all that pattern-making, sewing, and machine embroidery if I had designed the clothes, or if I had liked them. And then last night, the dress rehearsal hadn’t been a lot of fun.
Tonight had been even worse.
If Antonio hadn’t possibly damaged Ashley’s ego, I could have laughed off his joking insults about our seven threadly sins, but the undercurrents of nastiness surrounding TADAM had been too much, especially capped by Paula’s accusations of assault and murder.
No, the worst part of the evening, of the past weeks and months, had been seeing Clay’s arms around Loretta.
I heard footsteps on the shop’s front porch. I crouched behind sewing cabinets. Someone tapped on the glass door. I held my breath and didn’t move. What if Clay wanted to tell me how happy he was to find Loretta again after all these years?
The dogs barked, galumphed upstairs, snuffled at the door at the top of the stairs, barked again, and thudded downstairs.
After a few minutes, I decided that whoever had been on my porch was gone. I tiptoed to the door at the top of the stairs.
Four furry bodies greeted me the second I opened it.
I decided that if Clay was persistent enough to return to my backyard and apartment door, I would talk to him after all.
Bravely, I turned on lights, tromped downstairs, slipped into the moccasins I kept by the patio door, and let the animals outside.
“There you are,” Dora called out.
The dogs romped to her back porch. They loved Dora, but they also loved Clay. My carefully suppressed hopes returned. Was Clay, by any chance, sitting with Dora on her back porch?
I waited for the cats to finish their careful digging, then shooed them inside and closed the patio door before I wandered down to talk to Dora and whoever might be with her.
Dora was in one of her Adirondack chairs. “Clay was looking for you,” she said. Except for my two dogs, she was alone.
“I must have been upstairs in my shop.”
The dogs had arranged themselves on each side of her, conveniently close to her hands. She scratched their ears. “He said he would check there. Didn’t he find you?”
“I guess I was downstairs by then. Too bad I missed him.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
I merely shrugged and crossed my arms over the low-cut dress. I should have thrown on a sweater before I came out into the rapidly cooling evening.
Dora prodded, “Don’t you want to hang on to Clay?”
“You can’t hang on to something that’s beyond your grasp.”
“He’s not. He likes you. I can tell. I couldn’t get him to say even one word about that redhead. She probably threw herself at him.”
Easy for Dora to say. “I’ll let him make his own decisions.”
“If you hide from him,” she countered, “what’s he going to think?”
“That I’m giving him time and space to sort things out.”
“And playing hard to get?”
“I hope he doesn’t think I’m ‘playing’ anything. I need to sort my feelings out, too.” Oops. I’d told Dora too much.
“I didn’t like that so-called first love, anyway.”
“She’s pretty, and that auburn hair is fabulous.”
Dora harrumphed. “A big tangle.”
Especially after her long rendezvous with Clay in the carriage house . . . But I only said, “And she’s the only staff member at TADAM who seems to have much fashion sense.”
“That won’t matter to Clay. If he’s after beauty and fashion sense, he only needs to look at you.”
I laughed and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re sweet. But it’s been a long day. I’d better say good night.”
“I’m always here if you need me.”
It was strange to think that less than a year ago, I’d believed that I would never get along with her. Then I’d learned that her occasionally caustic personality hid a kind heart. Life had a way of changing one’s mind.
Like about Clay. No, I wasn’t going to dwell on him and my squandered chances.
The dogs and I went to bed. Now that they were grown, the cats made a pretense of being ready to spend the night quietly, but I knew them. They’d get up around three and prowl around.
Dead tired, I hoped to fall asleep immediately, but I kept seeing that carriage house door opening, and light surrounding Clay and Loretta, locked together like a pair of lovers.
And then Loretta taking his hand, pulling him toward the door, and turning out the light . . .
I gave up, eased out of bed, and dressed again, this time in dark jeans, a black hoodie, and black sneakers. I paused beside Sally’s and Tally’s beds. Sally was snoring. Tally opened one eye, looked at me, and closed it again. They were no longer puppies, eager for every adventure.
Even the cats only watched from my great room as I tiptoed upstairs to my shop and shut the door to the stairway.
9
Outside, streetlights cast puddles of brightness, but my friends’ shops and apartments were dark. Tiptoeing onto my front po
rch and locking the door of In Stitches, I wished I could talk to Haylee, but she was probably asleep. Besides, what would I tell her? That I was about to walk around town, definitely not really checking up on Clay or looking for his truck?
It was more like I wanted to prove to myself that his truck wasn’t parked near Loretta’s home.
Wherever that was.
Antonio had mentioned a director’s suite on the third floor of the TADAM mansion. Did Loretta also have a suite up there? Probably not, or she wouldn’t have asked Clay to help her lock the mansion.
Not knowing where else to go, though, I pulled my hood up to cover my hair, jammed my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, and headed toward the TADAM mansion. The night was quiet, and bright stars almost filled the black sky. I missed the comforting presence of Sally and Tally, but they tended to be noticeable, and I didn’t want to be recognized, especially if I saw Clay’s truck. Clay lived several miles outside the village, so his truck shouldn’t be anywhere near.
Shouldn’t be . . .
But I wasn’t really looking for him, I reminded myself. I was walking around to calm myself so I could eventually go home and sleep.
A light burned in the third floor of Ashley’s family’s gingerbread-trimmed Victorian house. Was Ashley doing homework? Or was her father fretting and revising his résumé?
My footsteps deliberately quiet, I eased around the block and kept going until I was across the street from the two-story apartment building where Macey and Samantha lived. I hadn’t seen Clay’s truck. Maybe I should wander to the village’s wide beach on the shore of Lake Erie, sit on the sand, hug my knees, watch the waves and the stars, and risk becoming so lulled that I would barely make it home before I dozed off.
An unoiled hinge squeaked, the sound drawn out as if someone were trying to keep anyone else from hearing.
I froze beside the thick, lumpy trunk of a beech tree.
Across the street, someone came down the porch steps of Macey’s apartment building.
I edged behind the tree trunk.
For a second, the girl was underneath a streetlight. It was Macey, wearing black tights, running shorts, and a matching long-sleeved T-shirt. Her long blond hair was bundled into a black scarf. She turned as if checking to cross the street. No vehicles were coming, but she stayed on her side. Tall and limber, she loped almost silently down the sidewalk toward the lake.
I supposed that a modeling student would jog whenever her schedule allowed it, even after midnight, but the all-black outfit, her furtive movements, and the quiet way she had disappeared into the night were almost eerie. Maybe I was assuming that other people would be as nervous as I was about being seen. Maybe she had not been checking to see if anyone was following her or watching her.
And then I did hear a vehicle, a block or so southeast of me. Its engine was smooth and quiet.
I looked south, the direction that Macey had checked before jogging north. No vehicle or lights, but a pedestrian on the sidewalk across the street from me was hurrying in my direction.
Only one person had been wearing flowing ivory silk that evening. Loretta.
Hoping she wouldn’t spot me, I stayed in the shelter of the beech tree.
Loretta trotted up the steps to the porch of the apartment building where Macey lived, pulled the door open, and went inside. Moments later, a glow lit trees behind the building, as if someone in a rear apartment had turned on lights.
The two-story building housed, I guessed, four apartments per floor. Did many of the TADAM staff and students live there?
Had Loretta just left the vehicle I’d heard?
And had that vehicle been Clay’s truck?
Even a block or two away, his powerful engine and big tires would have sounded noisier, wouldn’t they? Almost confident that Loretta had not been in the vehicle I’d heard, I eased out from behind the tree and strolled south, where I might catch sight of the vehicle, and it would not be Clay’s truck. Would not be.
I did not question my logic.
But where had Loretta been? She would have locked the TADAM mansion, with Vicki’s help, more than an hour ago, and Vicki’s squad car had not been near the totally dark mansion during my almost-purposeless meandering of the past thirty or so minutes.
At the first corner, I turned east and again walked toward the TADAM mansion, looming behind its wrought iron fence and overgrown gardens.
It looked so Gothic and menacing that I couldn’t help crossing the street, which took me closer to other Victorian houses. They were a few years newer, but almost as gloomy.
There was no sign of Clay’s truck, and I again told myself that the quiet vehicle I’d heard could not have been his pickup with its heavy-duty tires.
I was almost famous for denying what I didn’t want to believe.
Cars were parked in driveways, but none were on the street near the Elderberry Bay Conservatory where we’d modeled our “threadly” sinful outfits. I could almost smile about the entire mess now.
And I could go home. Maybe I would be able to sleep. I hadn’t brought my phone along. What if I’d missed a call from Clay?
A dim beam of light moved inside the conservatory.
I stopped as if I’d collided with one of its antique glass panes.
One of the beautiful Gothic wooden doors, the one that Loretta had locked behind us when we left the conservatory, was ajar. The person inside the conservatory could not be Loretta unless she had run through the park while I skulked past the TADAM mansion. So who was in the conservatory at this hour?
I should have brought my phone.
Vicki was Elderberry Bay’s police chief, and its only police officer. She patrolled the village and many square miles of countryside around it. Whenever she wasn’t on active duty, troopers from the Pennsylvania State Police took over. Maybe Vicki had driven to Erie to fetch Gord and Paula from the hospital, if Paula could leave her husband’s side. If so, the state police would be on call.
I told myself not to be suspicious of everyone and everything. The village could have hired a security guard to check on its buildings and parks during the night.
Still, no vehicles were parked nearby.
Maybe the security guard lived within walking distance of the conservatory. It made perfect sense.
And I was getting cold. I started north, toward home again. I’d walked a half block when the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Although it seemed impossible to actually feel someone watching me, I turned around.
Muscle Shirt was on the sidewalk near the conservatory. Standing with his feet apart and his arms folded over his chest, he was facing me. Watching me?
Glad that my hood hid my long, light brown hair, I forced myself to stride normally, away from him, toward home.
When I looked again, he was gone.
I really, really wanted to know if he’d been the person inside the conservatory, and if the door was now closed. But there was no way I was going anywhere near that man’s vicinity in the dark by myself.
Maybe Loretta had been with Muscle Shirt a few minutes ago, and not with Clay.
And earlier in the evening, maybe Clay had not wanted to hug her. I would give him the benefit of the doubt. He would explain it all to me, and we’d end up in a satisfying clinch.
I nearly floated up the steps to the porch of In Stitches. Finally, I would be able to sleep.
Maybe not right away, however—the dogs greeted me at the top of the stairs. Sally cast longing looks toward the leashes hanging near the door.
Why not? They hadn’t been with me a few minutes ago, and if Muscle Shirt saw me with them now and recognized me, he might not guess I’d been the woman in the black hoodie. I snapped leashes on the dogs, pushed the hood off my head, and shook my head to make my hair cascade over my shoulders. To add to the disguise, well, really not a disguise since I wa
s now trying to be recognizable as myself, I grabbed an embroidered white fleece jacket that I’d hung as a sample in the shop and put it on over the sweatshirt. My hair should mostly cover the lump of sweatshirt hood under the back of the jacket.
In the past, Vicki had occasionally come upon me when I was dressed all in black and snooping, with or without a dog or two, where she didn’t think I should be. If she saw me sauntering around in a white jacket with the dogs at this hour, she might think I was on the completely innocent mission of walking my dogs at night. It wasn’t like I was snooping into one of her cases, either. Originally, I’d come out to see if I could find Clay with Loretta, which was none of my business, but wasn’t Vicki’s, either. Vicki might even agree with me about that.
Now, though, I admitted to myself, I was checking on the mysteriously open conservatory door. Maybe that was really Vicki’s job.
And maybe Muscle Shirt worked nights as a security guard.
I let the dogs set the pace as I guided them to the conservatory.
I didn’t see anyone around. Sniffing the ground, the dogs happened—with only a little guidance from me—to lead me to the door that had been ajar. It was now closed. A wedge of wood that probably often served as a doorstop was in the grass nearby. I tried the knob.
Locked.
After we were safely out of the park and back on the sidewalk, the dogs wanted to continue toward the TADAM mansion. I’d seen enough of that place, and now it was nearly one thirty, but I let them lead me there, anyway. What if they were tracking Clay?
If they were, they didn’t find him. We went on and turned the corner in time to see Macey run lightly up the front steps of her apartment building. She must have gone inside, because by the time we passed the front porch, no one was there and the door was shut.
We passed Ashley’s house. The light in the third floor was off. Apparently, most of the village had gone to bed for the night, and the dogs and I should, too.
