"You said not to tell him until he was back, but I was afraid he would walk in and find them here with no warning."
"What did he say?” Connie asked.
Carla looked down, letting her hair fall around her face.
"I only told him that the sister of a friend of his in Africa had come to see him, and that I'd let her stay here until he came home."
"You didn't mention the baby?” Harriet asked.
Carla looked up, her cheeks crimson. She shook her head.
"I know you didn't want to-” she tried to explain, but Harriet interrupted her.
"That was good,” she said. “He did need to know someone was staying here, but you saved the big news until he could come home and see for himself. He hasn't been here yet, right?"
"No, he called and said he was going to be at the clinic and would probably just catch a few hours sleep on the couch there. He said it would take a while to get the vet techs up to speed on the hoarding survivors, and he said he would call when he was on his way here."
"FYI, he's asleep at my house at the moment,” Harriet said. “He came by to say hi, but he was asleep on his feet. I persuaded him he wasn't going to be able to help his patients until he got some rest."
The doorbell sounded, and Carla went downstairs to greet the arriving Loose Threads. Mavis and Jenny had come together, and while they were fixing their cups of tea and coffee, Sarah arrived followed shortly by Lauren. Harriet went downstairs to refill her cup as Lauren was taking her jacket off and hanging it in the coat closet in the front entry.
"Follow me,” Lauren said.
"What's up?” Harriet asked.
Lauren glared at her. “Could you keep your voice down?"
Harriet sighed but followed her until they were out of earshot of the others.
"What?” Harriet, following her.
"There is a spy among us,” she murmured dramatically.
"What are you talking about?” Harriet whispered.
"I was just at the senior center, giving yet another training session on their patient-tracking software. I went into their big dining room to get a bottle of water, and I saw the Small Stitches group meeting in a smaller dining room they have that opens off the main one."
"And?” Harriet prompted.
"They were facing away from me, looking at a flip chart they'd set up. They had a list of quilt block names-our quilt block names. And they were assigning people to make them."
"Huh,” said Harriet. “That's weird. Why would anyone do that?"
"Why does anyone do half the stuff they do? What should we do?"
"What do you mean?"
"We can't keep letting our ideas be passed directly to the enemy."
"First of all, we don't know for sure there is an enemy. It still could be a coincidence."
"Once maybe, but twice? They had all our block names except your experiment."
"We better join the others. Let's see what everyone's done. We may have a new list by the end of the meeting."
By the time Lauren and Harriet got their tea and climbed the servants’ stairs from the kitchen to the second floor parlor, Robin had arrived by the main stairs and was adding her block to the array already stuck to the portable design wall. The design wall was a plastic pipe framework with a large sticky flannel fabric laced to the pipes. Its light weight allowed Carla to reposition it once everyone was seated so they all had a clear view.
Mavis settled in an overstuffed chair, her feet on the matching ottoman and her tea on a heavy cherry side table.
"You better be careful, making us so comfortable,” she said to Carla. “People might decide they want to meet here all the time."
Carla's cheeks turned pink.
"That would be okay,” she stammered.
"We wouldn't do that to you, honey,” Aunt Beth assured her and reached over to pat her hand.
"So, who wants to talk about the blocks first?” Robin asked, bringing them back to the reason they were there.
"I want to take mine back, now that I've seen Jenny's,” Mavis said, referring to Jenny's intricate appliqué design. She had created the face of a Yorkshire terrier out of batik fabrics in tan, brown and grays, complete with a pink bow holding the dog's hair out of its eyes. The face was surrounded by a wreath of dog bones intermingled with a green ribbon.
"Yours are cute,” Robin protested.
Mavis and Beth had been assigned the snowball blocks. They had fussy-cut squares with dog faces in the center of novelty print dog fabric, with Beth using realistic images of dogs and Mavis using a cartoon-style print. They'd chosen contrasting corner triangles to form the snowball image.
"They would be easier to make, too,” Jenny offered. “I won't pretend my appliqué was quick or easy. It was the only thing I could think of that wouldn't make the dog bones look goofy.” She turned to Sarah. “Sorry."
Everyone couldn't help but focus on Sarah's block after Jenny's comment. Lauren had been right-Sarah's images didn't look like dog bones at all. No one wanted to say out loud what they did look like.
"I like-” Carla started to say, but she was interrupted by a loud screech from the baby monitor now sitting on the table. Carla grabbed it and turned down the volume, but not before Wendy's bottom lip started trembling as the toddler prepared for a sympathy cry.
Connie stood up and carried Wendy to the picture window at the back of the parlor. The view was of the back garden.
"Hey, chiquita,” Connie called to Harriet, “Aiden's dog looks upset."
Harriet came to the window. Connie pointed at the kennel, where Randy was jumping wildly and howling like a whole wolf pack. She threw herself against the chain link walls of her enclosure.
"That's weird. I'm going to go see what's wrong with her."
She had just started to turn away from the window when something at the edge of the garden caught her eye. By the base of a large rhododendron was a splash of lime green that didn't belong to the landscape.
Harriet froze.
"Chiquita, what is it?"
"I'm not sure.” She pointed to the patch of green.
"Dios mio,” Connie murmured and made the sign of the cross.
"I'm going down to look."
"I'll come with you,” Mavis said.
"How about I go instead,” Robin offered. “No offense,” she added, referring to an incident during the summer when Mavis had fainted after going to investigate a suspicious situation with Harriet.
"It was very hot that day,” Mavis protested.
"We know,” Aunt Beth said, “but it's probably nothing, so let's not climb the stairs for no good reason."
Robin grabbed her cell phone from her bag and followed as Harriet went down the servant's stairs and out the kitchen door. They took the gravel path around the house to the large back yard.
"Randy,” Harriet said in a firm voice. “Hush."
Randy stopped howling and switched to barking as Harriet and Robin crossed the large grassy area and finally arrived at the rhododendron bushes. The mature shrubs had to be ten feet tall, and were at least that wide. The leathery dark-green foliage was dense and nearly touched the ground at the bottom of each bush.
"It's Neelie,” Harriet said and rushed the last few feet to the woman's side.
She was curled in a fetal position, facing toward the center of the rhododendron. The curve of her spine was all that had been visible. Harriet put a hand on her shoulder and rolled her out from under the bush and onto her back. Robin knelt beside her and felt for a pulse.
"She's alive.” She started punching numbers into her cell phone. “We need an ambulance,” she said when the 911 operator answered.
Harriet pulled her zip-front hoodie off and laid it over Neelie's chest.
"Are you okay?” she asked.
Obviously, Neelie wasn't okay, but Harriet's first aid training had kicked in, and it was what they taught you to say.
Robin shrugged out of her Lycra yoga jacket and handed it to Harriet, who added it to her own shirt on the supine woman. She took Neelie's cold, clammy hand in hers.