“Don’t start with that. He and Sean have gone out to the canyon where that arson investigator was killed. His death’s been weighing on Sean’s mind. Nick’s, too.” Hannah stood next to Beth at the edge of the pool. “It’s good that you and Grit found that woman, Beth. Her family and friends must have been looking for her and had no idea she was there.”
“Assuming they even realized she was missing. Sometimes people don’t, not for a while. If she was new in town, if she…”
“It must have been awful,” Hannah said.
“It wasn’t great.”
“What can I do?”
Beth turned to her friend. “Tell me if I should call Scott.”
“Beth—”
“I know you can’t,” she whispered. “I know it wouldn’t help if you could.”
“I’m sure of one thing. Scott wouldn’t want you to be afraid and hurt right now.”
“No,” Beth said, “my dear, uptight Trooper Thorne would want me hiding under a rock for the rest of my life, so I wouldn’t do anything or have anything happen to me that might interfere with his next promotion. I don’t even blame him.”
“We’ve all had a run of bad luck.”
“Not bad luck, Hannah. We’ve been targeted by a bunch of murdering sons of bitches. I’d like to haul Lowell Whittaker out of his jail cell and make him tell us who electrocuted that poor woman.”
“He might not know. So much of his work was done anonymously. His killers weren’t even aware he was the one arranging their hits. It’s possible he didn’t know the identities of all of them, either.”
Beth raised her eyebrows at her friend. “I see your prosecutor’s mind hasn’t been baked by the California sun.”
Hannah gave a small smile. “I’ll make us sandwiches. We can sit by the pool, and you can tell me everything. In the meantime, call Scott, will you?”
“Hey, I thought you weren’t going to interfere.”
Hannah was already through the door, and Beth pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open, debating what to do—and there was a text message, already, from Scott: Call me. Tell me you’re okay.
The feds would have been in touch with him, maybe even her sister.
Beth stared at the message, seeing Scott right here by Sean’s pool just a few days ago, pacing, tense, unable to articulate what he was feeling. She hadn’t done any better. Neither of them was particularly introspective, but the past few months of their lives demanded at least some insight and understanding.
She dialed his number but got his voice mail. “I’m okay,” she said. “Thank you for calling. I—” She almost said she loved him, but stopped short. “Call me anytime. I’m here.”
When Hannah returned with the sandwiches, Beth opened an umbrella at one of the tables at the edge of the pool and sat down, keeping her phone close in case Scott—or anyone else—called.
Fifteen
Black Falls, Vermont
R ose fingered squares of the soft, old fabric left over from the quilt that she’d helped stitch over the past month. She was at a riverside table at the café, which had just closed for the night. She remembered how she and Hannah had discovered the fabric, which seemed to be from the 1940s, neatly stacked inside the nineteenth-century trunk up they’d hauled up from the cellar. Hannah had given the trunk to Dominique to refurbish for the house she was renovating in the village.
Nick was down in the cellar now. He’d already checked out the struggling gallery next door, with its offerings from New England artists. Rose knew he was giving her a chance to regroup. There’d been no news of Robert Feehan. For all anyone knew, last night had been an outburst—a frightened, nervous man caught off guard and overreacting.
The square Rose held in her hand now was obviously from a man’s blue oxford-cloth shirt, much worn in its day before being cut up. Some of the pieces hadn’t survived decades in the trunk, but enough had for a simple, authentic, beautiful quilt. Rose welcomed the distraction after talking with Beth Harper in Beverly Hills, the impact of her discovery of the murdered woman evident in the strain in her voice.
“I’m glad Hannah didn’t find a murder victim in January,” Beth had said. “That’s one thing, anyway, don’t you think, Rose? You and I have more experience with injuries and death because of our work.”
Rose hadn’t known how to answer. Hannah had almost become a murder victim herself. Was that any better? But Rose understood that Beth had been grasping for something positive to hang on to—some reason she’d been with Grit Taylor that morning and found a woman dead.
Was Portia Martinez’s murder connected to Derek’s death and Nick’s presence in Vermont?
How?
Rose knew she’d be better off contemplating leftover quilting pieces than speculating.
Myrtle Smith came out from behind the glass case and joined Rose at her table. “Are you thinking about starting your own quilt?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. There’s enough fabric here for a pillow or a wall hanging, anyway.” Rose set her square back on the table. “My mother loved to quilt.”
“Mine, too.” Myrtle plucked a blue calico square from the pile and held it to the fading afternoon light in the window. “I swear this could be from one of her dresses. My mother, my sister and I would sit under a pecan tree in summer, with a pitcher of tea and a plate of pimento cheese sandwiches. Granny would be there when she wasn’t coughing up a lung in the back room. She lived with us until she died.”
Rose smiled. “I can just see you. Where are your sister and mother now?”
“Still in South Carolina. Mother’s in assisted living. Gorgeous place.”
“Do they still quilt?”
“I doubt it. Mother has arthritis in her hands, and my sister’s a high school principal with four kids—two in high school, two in college. Husband’s a doctor. They’re on the go all the time.”
“But you’re the one who left home,” Rose said.
“I am. No husband, no kids. No house these days, either. Well, it’s still there but I’m not. Grit and Elijah are minding things for me. A SEAL and a Special Forces soldier.” Her lavender eyes sparked with unexpected humor. “Couple of macho guys, the two of them.”
“I don’t think of Elijah that way.”
“Of course not. He’s your brother. Maybe he and Grit will change the chi in the house. I tried burning sandal-wood incense. That’s supposed to help, but it just reminded me of the fire. I’d have burned up if Grit hadn’t rescued me. I don’t like to admit that. I was in shock. Stunned. Frozen in place.” Myrtle carefully placed the calico square back on the pile. “Classic, huh? I never thought I’d be like that, completely useless.”
“You don’t know what you’d have done if Grit hadn’t come along,” Rose said. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about getting rescued by a Navy SEAL. You’re a reporter. Grit would probably freeze in place if he had to interview someone.”
“I don’t think Grit freezes in place for any reason.”
“He’s a Southerner, too.”
“I don’t get the impression he ever wants to go back.”
“Do you?”
Myrtle seemed startled by the question, although Rose couldn’t imagine she hadn’t considered it before now. “Washington’s far enough south for me.”
“It’s home,” Rose said.
“I didn’t say it’s home. I said it’s south enough. You’ve never lived anywhere else but here. If you did, wouldn’t Black Falls still be home?”
“I guess it would be, but I’m almost thirty. How old were you when you left South Carolina?”
“Twenty-one. I’ve been based in Washington for thirty years, but I’ve traveled a lot, spent long stints overseas. A tumbleweed.” She seemed to make an effort to pull herself out of the past. “I told the police to find out if Derek Cutshaw and Robert Feehan were in Washington around the time of the fire at my house.”