Mrs. James turned the crystal doorknob and pulled. A gust of freezing wind shot through the opening. I folded my arms over my chest as I pushed forward, outside, and braved the cold. Mrs. James had her jacket on too, but Mrs. Abernathy shivered.
Out on the small platform, Mrs. James immediately stopped short. She slowly turned to look at Mrs. Abernathy. “Look at that railing. What in the devil? Where is Arnie Barnett?”
“Should I call Hattie?” I offered, peering through the door to get a better look at the problem. “If it can’t be fixed in time, we can make sure the door is locked.”
“He’ll fix it. With the amount of time he and his workers have spent here, nothing should be left undone,” she said tersely.
Mrs. Abernathy shoved past me. I followed, nearly plowing into her as she came to an abrupt stop. Suddenly I realized that the railing wasn’t loose at all. An entire section of it was missing, the jagged edges of the painted wood all that remained. Just below the flooring, where the roof sloped downward, shingles were torn off. The white tent where the fashion show would be held covered the majority of the yard. A narrow enclosed walkway led from the house, connecting it to the tent. My gaze kept going down, down, down, and then hitched suddenly on a patch of red and black peeking through the leggy winter brush, half hidden along the side of the walkway.
I pointed. “What’s that?”
The women leaned forward to see what I’d spotted. Mrs. Abernathy let out a high-pitched choking sound. Her hand flew to her mouth and she turned her back on the sight.
I peered through the downpour, trying to see what had upset her. “What is it?” I shouted over the rat-a-tat-tat of rain on the roof and the booming echoing in the sky.
Mrs. James pressed in next to Mrs. Abernathy. “Is that a boot?” She leaned farther over the gaping hole in the railing.
A boot? My heart shot to my throat. “No,” I said and tried to get a better look, just as Mrs. James’s foot slipped on the wet wood. She lost her balance and lurched into Mrs. Abernathy. Mrs. Abernathy careened forward, grabbing hold of the ragged end of the railing.
“Help!” She teetered on the edge of the widow’s walk. Mrs. James had regained her balance and gripped the other woman’s arm. I stepped to the right, trying to edge my body in front of hers to stop her from falling, but her foot slipped out from under her. Her body jostled into mine, knocking me forward as she fell backward. She landed with a thud on her behind, but her legs stretched out in front of her, kicking my feet out from under me.
I felt myself flying, my legs in the air for a second before they crashed against the roof, tearing shingles away. Someone screamed. Me? Mrs. James? I couldn’t tell.
Rain pelted my face. The back of my head thudded against the roof and everything went fuzzy. And then I was falling, headed straight for the red mound below.
Faces flashed like an old-fashioned picture show. Meemaw. Nana. Mama. Granddaddy. My brother, Red. Gracie Flores. Will.
The people who loved me and who I loved . . .
And then I crashed. It wasn’t the hard, bone-breaking collision of a body against the ground, but a soft landing against something pliable, almost like a trampoline, and it cradled me, cupping my body as I sank into it.
“Harlow!”
I tried to shake away the clouds in my head, peering up at Mrs. James’s horrified face. Her arm was stretched over the broken railing, as if she were still trying to catch me.
Just as I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Abernathy behind her, her back pressed against the door, I lurched, the fabric of the tented walkway that held me giving way. It pitched and a second later I was sliding, then falling, until I hit the ground.
Right next to the lump of red we’d seen from above.
I gasped for air, afraid to move. Blinking away the veil of fear from the fall, I peered up at the widow’s walk. Mrs. James and Mrs. Abernathy were gone.
Everything was fuzzy, but I tried to take inventory. I wiggled my toes in my boots. Moved my fingertips. Shifted my hips. Everything seemed to be working. Finally, I turned my head, just a touch, to look at what I was lying next to. Or rather, who.
I registered the fur-lined coat, the red and white hat, and the black belt. Dan Lee Chrisson hadn’t come back downstairs for me to fit his Santa suit because he’d slipped off the widow’s walk and—
My gaze traveled down the length of red until I saw black boots twisted awkwardly, and a wave of nausea filled my gut. Poor Dan Lee Chrisson was dead.
Chapter 3
Nurse Jude Cranford, a forty-something woman who lived in her nurse’s scrubs and Dansko clogs and whom I’d become tight with over the last several hours at Presbyterian Hospital, navigated my wheelchair through the corridor. She prattled on about the storm outside, how she lived just down the street from my grandparents, and how she was glad she’d taken the extra shift, since she got to meet me, because normally she worked Labor and Delivery. “Four days a week, twelve-hour shifts,” she said. “But I love the ward, and it’s good for J.R. to wash his own clothes and cook his own meals—not a bad thing, what with how he smells, what with running the farm.”
I shifted my aching body to take the pressure off my bruised hip and continued to half listen to Jude. At the mention of the pregnancy ward, my To Do list suddenly shot to the front of my mind. Finalizing my plans for my friend Josie Kincaid’s maternity outfits for the Winter Wonderland fashion show was at the top of it. I’d left her creations for last in case her baby bump grew. Which it had. She was five months along, but when she’d come for her last round of measurements, her belly had grown several inches.
Nurse Jude wheeled my chair past the information desk, heading straight for the automatic double doors. “So what really happened?” she asked me. “Was there ice? Did you see that poor man fall?”
“No,” I said, wishing, not for the first time, that none of us had lollygagged in the foyer. Maybe we’d have seen Dan Lee Chrisson go onto the widow’s walk and could have stopped him. Or saved him. Maybe then something would have turned out differently.
“He was going to play Santa at the festival?” Jude asked.
“He was,” I said, my mind suddenly spiraling. Not only was the poor man dead, but the kids wouldn’t have a Santa.
We approached the doors and they whooshed open, a wall of brittle cold pushing against us. I pulled my coat up over my lap and the scene from earlier replayed in my head. My chest tightened as I remembered the rush of the air against my face as I’d fallen. I’d had the fleeting thought that I would be joining Meemaw a lot sooner than planned.
I closed the door on those thoughts, thinking instead that I needed to touch base with Mrs. James to make sure the tent was fixed, find someone new to play Santa at the event, and . . . what else? I’m sure there were other things that needed doing, but for the life of me I couldn’t think what they were. The edges of my mind felt fuzzy, some of my thoughts out of reach.
Mama and Nana had left me with Jude while they went to bring Mama’s Jeep around to the pickup area. They arrived and were out of the car in seconds flat as they saw me, each of them taking one of my arms and pulling me up to standing. As Jude moved the wheelchair out of the way, Mama gave me a good once-over and said, “Bless your heart, Harlow Jane.” Her hand fluttered toward me for just a second before she pulled herself together, swallowing hard and throwing her shoulders back. Tessa Cassidy was a tough cookie, but having her only daughter fall nearly to her death had forced a crack in the veneer. “You sure you’re okay, baby?”
Nana scoffed. “She fell from a roof. Of course she’s not okay.” But she lowered her chin and with her next breath she said, “Now then, Ladybug, you’re gonna be just fine, you hear me?”
The Cassidy women weren’t known for their over-abundance of emotions. What with hiding our magical charms since . . . forever, we’d had to learn to be restrained. But Mama and Nana both looked about as strung out as I’d ever seen them. My eyes welled, but Jude clearing her throat broke the moment
. “The doctor’s given her the green light to go home. She just needs to take it easy. Probably should steer clear of the widow’s walk over at the Denison place,” she added with a chastising smile.
“You think?” I said with a little laugh. But truth be told, I knew I’d have to go back to the mansion soon. Although it could wait until tomorrow, assuming the raging storm didn’t knock the whole of Bliss off the power grid. Which would be bad. No power would mean it would be next to impossible to work on Josie’s ensembles and get them done in time for the show.
Mama and Nana fussed over me, helping me into the Jeep. I waved to Jude. She raised her hand and gave a little nod. The second Mama drove off of the hospital grounds, she peered at me in the rearview mirror and Nana whipped around to face me. “What in tarnation happened?” Nana practically barked.
I stared at them. “What do you mean?”
“How did you fall? That’s what I wanna know,” Mama said at the same moment Nana said, “You attract death like honey attracts a bee. Do you know that, Ladybug?”
“Whoa, what are you talking about?” I threw up my hands, grimacing at the shooting pain in my side. The doctor had given me the green light to go on home, but the painkillers hadn’t completely taken away the throbbing that the fall had inflicted on my body.
The rain changed direction and Mama hit a slick of water. The Jeep skidded and then lurched. I careened against the door, righting myself with a grimace as she straightened the car out.
Mama went on as if nothing had happened, heaving a sigh. “Hoss says those screws were stripped and that railing was an accident waitin’ to happen. He’s comin’ by to talk to you tomorrow.” She paused weightily. “And that boy of his—” She paused, gritting her teeth like she could hardly stand to utter his name. “His boy Gavin had the audacity to say how strange it is that you’re connected first with Nell’s death, next with Macon Vance, and now with Santa Claus.”
“The only unnatural deaths Bliss has had in who knows how many years,” Nana spit out. “Girl, you gotta stop gettin’ yourself involved in stuff like this.”
I stared at them both. “It’s not as if I’m asking for folks to up and die around me. And I certainly didn’t have anything to do with Dan Lee Chrisson falling from a roof. Why in the world does the sheriff think it wasn’t an accident? Dan Lee kept to himself, from what I know.”
“He didn’t say,” Mama muttered, turning her gaze back to the road, the windshield wipers slapping as they tried to keep up with the downpour. I stared at the back of their heads. From the outside looking in, I supposed it did look suspicious. The sleepy little town of Bliss had been just fine until I’d returned home. Now we were two murders in—three if what Sheriff McClaine and Deputy McClaine suspected was true and Dan Lee had been pushed off the widow’s walk.
“I hardly knew the man,” I said, more to myself than to them, and instantly, all the other people who’d been at the Denison place danced through my mind. Mrs. James and Mrs. Abernathy had both been working with Dan Lee, and Arnie and Hattie knew him well. Could anyone else have come and gone while none of us had been looking? I had heard the door slam once or twice, and Hattie had been talking to someone. Raylene, perhaps?
“Well, I knew him. Maggie’s been mighty sweet on him, and she’s beside herself. Hasn’t been back to the farm since she found out, and she practically lived there, you know,” Nana said, shaking her head sadly. “I don’t think she’s coming back to work, bless her heart.”
My head pounded. Even in the protection of the closed-in Jeep, the cold was suddenly bone-chilling. Why did Dan Lee Chrisson have to die, and why, oh why was I involved in yet another murder?
Chapter 4
The Cassidy family story goes way back, all the way to the days of famous outlaw Butch Cassidy. No one ever said outlaws were a faithful bunch. And I’d recently discovered that, thanks to Butch’s unfaithfulness, the Cassidy clan included other Bliss residents—namely Sandra and Libby James, the daughter and granddaughter of Zinnia.
Butch’s long-ago legendary wish in an Argentinean fountain had given good fortune to his descendants in the form of magical charms. Namely: What Meemaw wanted, she’d gotten, including me back home in Bliss. Nana could communicate with her goats. Mama could make plants grow or wither away and die, depending upon her mood. And me? I’d recently discovered that when I designed outfits for people, their deepest desires were realized.
Sandra and Libby James, descendants of Etta James and Butch by way of Senator Jebediah James, were also charmed.
Until now, I hadn’t had the occasion to experience their charms firsthand, but I’d woken up the morning after my fall from the widow’s walk to the soul-comforting scent of biscuits baking in the oven, gravy simmering on the stove, and my favorite Extra Bold Dark Magic coffee running through my coffeemaker.
I stepped gingerly down the stairs, taking it nice and slow, pausing and regrouping at the landing. I’d been sore the night before, but now I was stiff, too. And black and blue under my black stretch workout pants and long-sleeved gray thermal tee. Fuzzy socks with skid-resistant soles completed the outfit. A designer’s look it wasn’t, but for practical post-fall recovery? Perfect.
“We’re here to help,” Sandra, my half cousin, announced as I hobbled into the kitchen. “I don’t really sew, and neither does Libby, but we can cook and clean and help you with whatever you need while your mom and grandma help you with the dresses you have left.”
“Thanks—,” I began, but Libby piped up.
“And the Santa suit.”
The smile that had been forming on my lips, the only part of my body that wasn’t aching, froze. “What Santa suit?”
A visible shiver passed over her. “If I was a kid, there’s no way I’d sit on Santa’s lap if his suit had blood on it.”
I swallowed. “Blood?”
Sandra took the tray of biscuits out of the oven, plopped one on a plate next to an over-easy egg, and ladled white, peppered gravy on top until the biscuit and egg were practically floating in it. She set it down on the pine table, pulling the chair out and gesturing for me to sit.
“The impact from the fall,” she said, darting a worried glance at Libby.
Death was never easy, but the demise of Santa Claus, even if he was just playing dress-up, felt particularly bad.
“I figured you’d whip up a new one,” she said.
People who didn’t sew seemed to think a seamstress could simply bat her eyes, as in I Dream of Jeannie, and voilà! An outfit would be ready. Yes, I could make a Santa suit. It was just yards and yards of velvety red fabric trimmed with white fur. But it was one more thing to add to my To Do list. The same To Do list that was already the length of my left arm.
“I suppose I can,” I said finally. I’d have to take some measurements, do a fitting or two, but I could pull it off. “But we don’t have a replacement Santa yet,” I went on, taking a bite of gravy-smothered biscuit and egg.
We all turned as heavy-booted steps came from the back porch, the Dutch door swung open, and my protégée, Gracie Flores, rushed in. And then, as if the universe had heard my unasked question and was providing an answer, her father, Will, stepped over the threshold.
Long before I ever set foot back in Bliss, Meemaw did a fancy behind-the-scenes two-step with Will Flores. The deal they agreed on was that if he did handyman work for her, I’d give sewing lessons to Gracie whenever I returned home.
The handyman work continued, and Gracie’s sewing lessons had turned into an apprenticeship. The girl had talent. She was interested in draping, pattern design, and the intricacies of the fashion world, and having her around after her school day and on weekends made my days feel pretty complete. She could read fabric as if the cross grains were words on a page. The result was that the Floreses spent nearly as much time in my farmhouse as they did in their own house out on Hickory Creek Road.
All Meemaw’s doing.
Will stopped in the doorway, his gaze quickly landing on m
e, an unspoken thread of concern passing between us. A burst of emotion welled up in me at the expression on his swarthy face. His lips pulled into a frown above his goatee, and he pushed back the Longhorns cap he wore. It seemed as if he was ready to say something, but then he looked at the others in the room and closed his mouth, stifling whatever it was he’d wanted to say.
But the second Gracie laid eyes on me, she rushed forward, her brown-flecked green eyes puffy and red-rimmed. “I’m sorry we didn’t come to the hospital,” she blurted, swiping her fingers under her eyes and brushing her dark hair back from her face.
I fluttered my hands, waving away her concern. In all my years away from Bliss, I’d only ever been close friends with Orphie Cates. My jobs in fashion had kept me so busy that I didn’t have any time to form a real social circle in Manhattan. Now I looked around my kitchen with the distressed pale yellow cabinets, the butter-colored replica appliances, the deep white farmhouse sink, and the large red-and-white-checkerboard-patterned curtain on a pressure rod below the sink—and the people who were part of my family, both by blood and by choice.
Sandra was plating more biscuits and eggs. Southern hospitality meant feeding whoever crossed our threshold. Libby made another cup of coffee in one of my black and gold Maximilian mugs.
“I’m fine,” I said once I knew my voice wouldn’t tremble. “Truly.”
“Did you really fall off a roof?” Gracie blurted. In true teenage fashion, the girl cut to the chase.
“I sure did. Guess I can check that off my scuttle list.” I laughed.
Gracie’s brows pulled together. “What’s that?”
“You know, a scuttle. A bucket. Like a bucket list. Things to do before I die. Falling off a roof—” Holding an imaginary pencil, I made an invisible mark in the air. “Check.”
Sandra glided across the kitchen, sliding the two plates of biscuits and gravy onto the table. I breathed in the ribbon of scent from the food until a calmness settled over me. Her gift. Her cooking accentuated a person’s emotions. Thankfully, right now all I wanted was to feel calm, and Sandra’s food filled me with a sense of ease I hadn’t felt since the fall. I knew that with each bite of the biscuits and gravy, I’d find more and more tranquillity. As long as nothing else happened to stir the pot.
Deadly Patterns Page 3
