Harriet took the tray and headed for the studio. “You'll probably be fine tomorrow."
"Dios mio!” Connie said as Harriet walked over to the cutting table and set the tray down. “What happened?"
"A rival gang of quilters wanted to insure a win,” Aiden said, and tipped the piecrust table back onto its feet. He put the electric kettle on it and plugged it in. “Tea anyone?"
Connie ignored him. “What do you think happened?” she asked Harriet.
"I wish I knew. I can't imagine my aunt having enemies, and I don't think enough people even know I'm here for me to be a target. So far, it doesn't look like anything big has been stolen. The sewing machines are here, the TV, VCR and computer are all here. It really does look like the quilts were the target."
Connie raised her eyebrows, “Maybe Lauren really does want to insure a win."
"Come on,” Mavis said. “Let's not start any rumors."
"Okay, so what do we have here?” Connie asked.
"Harriet and I are sorting quilts,” Mavis said. “I think we've found all the show entries. The two piles on the cutting table are the barely damaged and the really hurting. Jenny is dividing the damaged ones into categories according to type of repair. The ones in the chair seem to be okay. They need to be checked a second time and dusted off if they were on the floor."
"I'll work on reattaching binding. Those quilts have a chance of making it.” With that, Connie grabbed a pastel floral-blended quilt and started pinning the binding back into place.
DeAnn arrived, and the women settled in to some serious stitching. Aiden stayed another hour picking up tools, spools and broken glass.
"Before I forget, I've got my mom's quilt in my car. Should I bring it in?” he asked.
Harriet nodded.
The dry cleaners had gotten most of the bloodstains out, and where they hadn't it looked like part of the dye pattern.
"At least one person in the group will have a repair-free entry,” DeAnn said.
Aiden shot a panicked glance at Harriet, and then looked relieved when she kept silent.
"Is there anything else you ladies would like me to do before I go?"
"Unless you can sew binding with an invisible stitch, I guess not,” Mavis said.
Harriet walked him to the door. “Thanks for your help tonight. And I am sorry about your head. I'll pay if you want to go to the doctor."
"I am the doctor. Besides, I've been in Africa, remember? This is just a scratch.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and looked intently at her with those big pale eyes. “Thanks for your help with my mom's quilt.” He held her gaze a moment longer then turned and walked out the door and got in his car.
Harriet took a deep breath and shut the door behind him. A slight flutter awakened in her stomach, but she pushed it down as quickly as it had appeared.
The women stitched for two more hours, fixing everything that could be salvaged without extensive reworking. DeAnn's quilt was a total loss, but she said she had one she'd made for her sister but had not yet mailed off she could substitute. Harriet agreed to pick it up on her way to Tacoma.
Mavis stood up and stretched. “I think we've done all we can here,” she said. “Try to get some sleep before you leave."
"You want me to stay here with you?” Connie asked. “Give me a pillow and a quilt, and I'm good to go."
Harriet was touched.
"No, but thanks. The police are going to drive by every hour. And Darcy gave me a door alarm to hang on my bedroom doorknob. She uses it when she travels."
After crawling into bed late one night when she'd returned from girl's night at the movies and rubbing her foot up Steve's cold dead shin, she'd needed several years of therapy just to be able to sleep in a bed again. Several more years with the shrink, and she'd learned that sleep is a great way to escape anything and everything. Probably not Dr. Weber's idea of a successful outcome, but the net result was the same.
The women left, and Harriet turned off the lights in the studio and went upstairs. When she came out of the bathroom in her pajamas, Fred was lying on her pillow. She set her alarm and crawled into the flannel sheets. In spite of everything, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately.
Chapter Twelve
A furry head butt woke Harriet up a half-hour before her alarm would have gone off at the ungodly hour of five-thirty a.m. Four hours of sleep had left her feeling as though wet sweatsocks had been stuffed into her head. Her eyes felt swollen, and her mouth was dry.
The night's excitement had apparently had the opposite affect on Fred. He was hungry and ready to start his day. She pushed him off the bed, but he jumped right back onto her chest and started licking her eyelids.
"Can't you be a normal cat and hole up somewhere for hours if not days to recover from your trauma?” she asked him. “Food is not the answer to everything.” She wasn't sure how well she could sell that one, since she tended toward chocolate ice cream and M &M's in a crisis. “Come on, let's go see if we can find your food."
She pulled the plaid flannel robe Aunt Beth had loaned her on over the Oakland A's T-shirt that doubled as a nightshirt in her wardrobe. Fred wove in and out of her legs as she headed for the stairs.
He was in luck-the food cabinets in the kitchen were untouched. His bowl proved a little harder to find. There was a puddle on the placemat where his water dish had been.
She finally found the dishes under the dining room table. She could imagine her thief kicking them in frustration. Good, she thought. I hope he was real frustrated.
Now that she'd had a little rest, she was mad. The beautiful quilts her friends had made for the show had been vandalized for no apparent reason, and her aunt's studio-her studio-had been trashed. And she hadn't done anything to deserve it.
She fed Fred then called the police station. She was ready for some answers. Unfortunately, no one was ready to provide them. The desk sergeant assured her no one knew anything more than they had last night, and that they were doing everything that could be done to find out who was responsible. He also suggested she might want to call her insurance person.
Harriet made a mental note to call Bill Young when she got back. She didn't know what kind of coverage Aunt Beth had, but in Foggy Point, if you had insurance you bought it from Bill.
She ate a quick bowl of cereal then went into the studio to box up the show quilts. She grabbed a can of Dr. Pepper from the six-pack she'd kept hidden in her car until her aunt had departed. She hid them behind the orange juice in the refrigerator, just in case the diet police had the box bugged. She was trying to cut back on caffeine, but she'd earned this one.
The Loose Threads had gotten the quilts repaired and put back in their various carry bags, but she needed to find the show entry forms each person had filled out.
It was a shock all over again to walk into the studio. Aiden had picked everything up off the floor, but books, papers, batting and scraps of fabric were piled on every available flat surface, waiting for her to make some sense of them. She picked up a pile of papers and sat in the wing chair and started sorting.
It took most of an hour, but she found forms for all the entrants save one-Avanell's was missing. She thought back over the sequence of events the night before. Aiden had brought his mother's quilt into the studio just before he left for the night. She couldn't quite remember if she had seen a sheet of paper with it or not.
She was reluctant to call Aiden before seven in the morning after keeping him up so late. Besides, she was beginning to feel a little guilty about hitting him in the head with the sprinkler. In the end, she decided that, after a quick shower, she'd swing by the Vitamin Factory and have Avanell fill out a new entry. Avanell had told her at lunch she'd made a practice of arriving thirty minutes before her factory workers, no matter what. She claimed it had curbed an epidemic of tardiness a few years back, and she'd found the quiet time at the start of her day so useful, she'd just kept it up. Harriet hoped she wouldn't mind an intrusion.