Bound and Deceased
A Taylor Quinn Quilt Shop Mystery
Tess Rothery
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Also by Tess Rothery
About the Author
Chapter One
November rain battered the sides of the little house on Love Street. Taylor Quinn snuggled deep into her quilt. Her bedroom window was shut to the warring weather and her door was barred with the dresser she had dragged in front of it before turning out her light.
She’d managed to get her heart rate to settle down with the aid of her mother’s soothing voice on the phone.
If there was one comfort left in life, it was that Laura Quinn had recorded so many episodes of her YouTube show before her death almost nine months ago.
Some nights were better than others.
Some nights Taylor didn’t think of the murderer who had attacked her in the kitchen of her own home.
But most nights she did.
It was already midnight.
She needed to shut off her phone and go to sleep.
She missed sleeping.
She missed closing her eyes and the world turning off.
With her baby sister Belle living on campus now, Taylor’s mind never turned off, and neither did her phone. What if Belle needed her? She was only sixteen and that school was full of older guys who liked to drink.
Taylor gave her phone screen a quick, embarrassed kiss and closed YouTube. It was a little painful to turn her mom’s videos off, as though watching them would make up for all of the times she hadn’t returned her calls or hadn’t gone home for a visit.
The phone buzzed a text just as she was setting it on her side table.
Her heart twisted at the sound.
Had the worst happened? She grabbed it up and stared at the picture attached to the phone number.
It was a face she hadn’t seen in months, though she still thought about him every day. A picture she didn’t want to see. She froze, overwhelmed with anger and hope and dread all at once.
“I drove all night. I’m here. Can I see you?” Clay Seldon, the ex-boyfriend.
“What?” That single word response was all Taylor could muster. She sat up and hunched forward, not really trusting her senses.
After the initial shock of her mom’s death had passed, Taylor had been left to face everything else she had lost when she moved back to her hometown to finish raising her teenage sister: her home in the city, her career, and her boyfriend of four years.
“There aren’t any hotels in this town and I’m in the cloth top Rabbit. Please let me in out of the cold.”
It was a horribly wet night, but not all that cold, not hurts-you-cold. This was a mild November. Constantly damp, but not freezing. Clay could sleep in his car just fine or he could drive home again, the same way he had come. He could even warm up with a coffee from the twenty-four hour Arco to keep awake.
And yet, her heart nudged her to let him in, to help ease the fear and loneliness of this new life she lived, at least for a night.
She would have given anything for her mother’s wisdom right now. She navigated away from the texts that stood there like little temptations and opened the Flour Sax Quilt Shop YouTube channel again.
The smiling, warm, and loving face of her mother was practically begging to be listened to. Not that she needed the video. Her mom’s voice was in her head right now, telling her she needed to learn to be content with her own company.
Taylor turned to the video she had just watched.
Laura Quinn the famous quilter, teaching the audience how to pin the corners of their quilt blocks so they match.
Over and over she showed them dozens of wrong ways, and the one right way. As she worked, she said, “Spending time with practice squares will save you tons of heartache once you’re working on a real quilt. It’s soothing, too, in its own way. Contemplative, even. When my eldest daughter was little, I used to make her do this. She wasn’t much for playing by herself and it drove her to distraction, but I made her do it. ‘Taylor Rae Quinn…’ I’d say…”
Taylor backed up the video and listened to her mom give this advice again. And again. Be comfortable with her own company.
Someday she’d be comfortable alone again.
She turned her phone off and set it on the bedside table.
She took a deep, cleansing breath and reached up to the ceiling, stretching the muscles of her shoulders and back.
Grandpa Ernie was just downstairs.
She wasn’t alone.
The doorbell rang.
Taylor collapsed, shoulders curving forward, arms wrapping around her abdomen. She shivered.
It was just Clay.
It was just Clay.
It wasn’t a maniac who had stolen his phone and used it to find her.
This wasn’t a reasonable fear, but cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
She knew it was what they called traumatic stress response. Because of the fight she’d had with the woman who’d killed her mother, she panicked at unexpected midnight visitors. And loud noises. And people who popped by in the daytime, or who said “Hi!” too loudly when she didn’t see them coming.
Her phone buzzed, rattling on the old wooden nightstand.
She picked it up with a shaking hand, turned it over, and swiped it open.
The text was a photo of Clay’s face, pouting. He stood on her front doorstep, the streetlight casting a gray-green haze on the road behind him.
She whacked the phone screen with her thumbs, angry texting as her heart raced. “Did Lila kick you out?”
“No. Please forgive me.”
“Not by text”
“Then please let me in so I can drop to my knees and beg for your forgiveness.”
She wondered if he had been drinking. This wasn’t his usual style.
She wanted to slap his soft, goofy face till her hand stung.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss him and feel safe again. To not be alone.
“Lila was just a roommate. I swear.”
She wanted him to quit texting.
She wanted the comfort of his presence because she was scared, and she was scared because she was the adult in the family now. The person responsible for an elderly grandfather and a teenage sister, and also because she had almost been killed in the room directly beneath her.
Taylor sat up and stiffened her spine. Now was not the time to be scared. Now was the time to be strong.
With a shaking finger, she sent one more text. “Go home. If you really cared about me, you’d have called first and made a plan.”
“But I don’t make plans, you know that.”
She turned off her text alerts. Clay’s bad planning was not her problem. She shoved her phone in the drawer of the side table, lay down, and pulled the comforting, well-worn, Dove-in-the-Window quilt back over her head. She would sleep tonight if it was the last thing she did.
* * *
“Hey.” Clay Seldon. The voice Taylor Quinn was most familiar with in the world, was right behind her. “I couldn’t go home last night.
Not without seeing you first. Please say you’ll forgive me. I was wrong for not coming back to Comfort with you. So, so, so, wrong.”
Taylor held her breath, counted to ten, then turned.
Clay’s rusty-plaid button down was rumpled, and so was his light-brown hair. His face showed a bit of scruff, but Taylor knew it was on purpose. He couldn’t grow that much beard in a week, much less overnight.
He scratched at his chin. “Let me buy you breakfast. Or coffee, or something, so we can talk.”
“I have a busy day.”
“Lunch then. Anything. I won’t leave until I can convince you how sorry I am.” Slowly he reached his hand to her, wrapped it around her waist, and pulled her to him. Their mouths met with ease, and he kissed her.
Taylor allowed it because it was familiar and because she wasn’t sure she didn’t want him.
She put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. “Breakfast. Now. My day is too busy after this.” Maybe it was the kiss. Maybe it was those puppy dog eyes. Maybe it was both. Taylor just knew she wanted him at least for breakfast.
Maybe he was sorry. Maybe he could make it all right again.
You never know.
Rueben’s Café was quiet at six in the morning. The kitchen was going strong, though, and the mingled aroma of bacon and coffee woke Taylor Quinn’s appetite.
Belle’s best buddy Cooper sat at a far booth with his mom Sissy and an older lady Taylor didn’t recognize. She looked like Sissy, though, like they could be family. Same round, smiling face. Same gap in the two front teeth. But where Sissy was a tall, imposing woman, this lady was a sweet looking butterball.
Taylor was distracted. She hadn’t expected the woman who judged her most harshly to be there for her reunion with Clay. Or the boy most likely to text Belle about what was happening.
Belle was firmly on #teamhudson even though Taylor swore up and down that wasn’t a thing.
“Tay, where are you?” Clay nudged her gently in the side with his elbow. “Let’s get a booth.”
“What? Yes.” They got a booth. Taylor sat with her back to the Dorney family.
The server came, one of the many Ruben’s nieces and nephews, Aviva, a sporty brunette who worked before school. Aviva was another who might text Belle to tell her about the stranger Taylor was eating with this morning. And of course, showing up at this hour with a man implied they had spent the night together. Taylor dragged her hand through her hair in frustration and pulled it back into a ponytail. “You are terrible about making plans.”
“I know. I know. But if I had called first, would it have helped? It’s much harder to turn down a surprise.”
“Like when you showed up homeless on my doorstep so many years ago?”
He grinned. “And look how well that turned out? Those were four happy years.”
“But it didn’t end well.”
“I know you can’t understand just yet, but you were asking too much of me. Leave my home, my work, my everything? It didn’t make sense.”
“It wasn’t an ultimatum, though.” Taylor stopped.
Aviva was back with their coffee and looked like she was very interested in their conversation. She set the mugs and little steel bowl filled with plastic containers of creamer on the table.
Taylor smiled at her stiffly, and she went away.
“How was it not an ultimatum? You didn’t give me any time to find a place to live.” Clay’s crooked smile and big gray eyes were hard to argue with. He was as guileless as a puppy.
“You couldn’t have just moved in with your parents while you were looking for somewhere to stay?”
His shoulders dropped. “Come on. You know I couldn’t. With my parents? We aren’t like you and your family. It’s not comfortable there.”
“I would hardly call my mom dying ‘comfortable.’”
“Now you’re misunderstanding on purpose.”
“It took you nine months to change your mind.” Taylor peeled open the little tub of creamer. For nine months Clay Seldon, who she had once hoped to marry, had been living with another woman instead of her.
“I never changed my mind about you. I have loved you since the day I met you. But yeah, it took me a long time to realize I couldn’t live without you, and that whatever sacrifices I needed to make would be worth it.”
“Please tell me you haven’t quit your job.” She wrapped her hands around the coffee, welcoming the warmth on the fall morning that was only getting colder.
He looked down at his mug and then back up with a sheepish grin. “No. But I did take two weeks off.”
“Hedging your bets.” Taylor cringed.
“Make up your mind. Which is it you want? I’ll quit my job this second if you tell me to.” He set his phone on the table. “I’ll do it. Lila will ship my clothes and I’ll never go back to Portland again.”
“Calm down. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Too late. I let you go. That was the stupidest thing I have ever done.” His voice went deep and a little loud.
“Now you’re putting on a show and I can promise you the Dorney family back there does not care.” She didn’t turn around, but she could feel Sissy’s nosy eyes burning holes in the back of her head. How long would it take for the story of Taylor Quinn’s new man to spread through the little town?
He lowered his voice again and reached his hand across the table. “In the years you’ve known me, I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.” He blushed. “You remember? How about when I walked out on my white-collar office job to help my buddy open his own computer repair shop?”
“Yes, that was stupid.” If he was aiming for sympathy points, he was missing. That little act of compassion had cost their savings a good deal of money.
“And then I had the genius idea to take up mountain biking.”
“Mountain biking isn’t as dangerous as you managed to make it.” She was determined not to laugh, but it was difficult.
“Both legs in casts. Two-story townhouse. I mean, that was stupid.”
“Indeed. You’re really selling me on you right now.” Clay had been such a dope in his two casts, stuck in the townhouse. But he had been a good patient, not demanding. Entertaining. Fond memories flooded her of their life in that little townhouse.
“But the stupidest thing I ever did was let you go.”
Taylor pushed her mug away, putting it between his outstretched hand and hers. “You didn’t let me go away. I was needed here and you refused to stick with me.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Of course not. Gaslighting me, yet again.”
Clay flexed his jaw. “Come on Tay, I’m not a bad guy. When have I ever tried to manipulate you, control you, or done anything other than support you?”
Taylor stared at him, her mouth slightly open.
“I mean besides this one really bad time that I made the worst decision of my life…” His voice trailed off.
A crash of plates jerked Taylor’s attention to the group at the booth behind her. Aviva was waving a menu at the rosy faced lady who was eating with the Dorney’s.
“Knock that off and call 911.” Sissy Dorney’s voice carried through the restaurant.
“Sorry! Yes! Sorry!” Aviva dropped the menu and scuttled back toward the kitchen.
“I’ve got it, Mom,” Cooper out-spoke his mom, trying to get her attention. “I’ve already called. Let’s lay her down.”
“Are you crazy? You want her to choke on her vomit?” Sissy had the loudest voice Taylor had ever heard.
“This isn’t exactly the atmosphere I was hoping for.” Clay said.
“I think something a little more important is going on.” Taylor stood to see if she could help, but the sound of sirens announced the ambulance had already arrived. Taylor sat back down to keep out of the way.
The few people eating at the café were eerily silent as the paramedics took the pale, unconscious woman out of the restaurant.
Sissy held her guest’s
hand as she was rushed into the ambulance.
Cooper was on his mom’s heels but paused at Taylor’s table and mouthed “help.”
“I wonder what that was about.” Clay’s face lacked sincerity for the first time that morning. It shocked Taylor, yet again, to see how much he meant what he had been saying to her about his regret.
“I’d like to know as well, but I have to get back to work. Have a safe drive home.” Taylor waved down the waitress.
“Woah, woah. Did you see that?” Aviva answered the summons to Taylor’s booth and leaned heavily on the table.
“We couldn’t have missed it.” Clay didn’t sound amused.
“She barfed. Right there.” Aviva waved the folder with the check in it at the back table. “Not a lot, but still really gross.” She locked her big brown eyes on Taylor’s. “If she dies, will they say I poisoned her?”
Taylor shrugged and reached for the folder.
“Because I served her. And I don’t think Uncle Gil would poison anyone and he’s in the kitchen this morning.”
“I doubt she was poisoned,” Clay said.
Aviva turned to him, eyes narrowed. “You have a lot of experience with poison? Because I have a lot of experience with Rueben’s and nobody has ever done that before.”
“I’m sure no one will think you did it.” Taylor tried for the folder again, but Aviva held it tight in her hand, and rested her hand on her hip.
“Then Sissy? Or Cooper? Someone’s in big trouble if she dies.”
Taylor slid a five onto the table for her coffee and a tip. “Cancel my order. I have to get back to work.” She left Clay to handle Aviva.
Taylor was in no mood for a panicked teenager or a possible murder. She was totally over that phase of her life.
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