Chapter 3
Jane tried to focus on the people around her, but she couldn’t help but be worried about Cora. What exactly did the police want with her? After their last near disaster, with Jane being accused of murdering the town librarian, she was a little suspicious of the local police force. She didn’t share Cora’s almost blind belief in the justice system, with all its flaws.
She took in the place to ground herself. She wanted to stop thinking of all the bad possibilities. The same red-checked curtains as always hung in the windows. Familiar faces moved in and out of her vision. Even a few unfamiliar ones—a man stood at the register and caught her looking at him, then shifted his focus quickly. With stringy, long brown hair, thick glasses, donning his favorite old gray sweatpants, the man came across like a reject from Wayne’s World. Must be a tourist, she thought.
“So, Jane, I have one of your pieces,” said Sheila Rogers, a scrapbooking expert, paper crafter, and award-winning paper doll designer. She was small and wiry, with blue glasses framing light brown eyes, and had a wide smile. “The Venus vase. It sits in my foyer. I love the way you combine mythology, artistry, and utility.”
Jane smiled as she felt a blush coming on. “Thank you.”
The waitress walked up to their table. “Have you made up your mind?”
Jane hoped Cora would show up in time to order with the others. But she could see that the group was hungry and she could no longer delay ordering.
“Yes, I think we’re ready,” Jane said. London snuggled up to her as the others placed their orders.
“I don’t feel good, Mommy,” she said. “I’m so tired.”
Sheila was ordering a Greek salad and asking about the dressing. Jane’s hand went to London’s head. She was warm—not hot, but still, she’d take her temperature when they could get home.
“Oh, sugar, I’m sorry. How tired are you? Do you need to go home? We can go home as soon as Cora gets here,” Jane said.
Sheila’s daughter, Donna, was asking about the strawberry-walnut-spinach salad. Did it have feta cheese or blue cheese in it?
But Jane focused on London. The child’s eyes appeared glassy. If she was sick, what would Jane do? She was scheduled to teach a class this weekend. Who could she call to watch her? Gracie was supposed to sit with her. Normally, London could just tag along during class. But not if she was sick. Could Jane cancel her class? Oh no, that would be letting down Cora and the crafters who were coming here, paying good money, just for her class. Shoot.
“Let’s get something to eat and see how you feel,” Jane said.
London nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“What can I get you,” the waitress said to Ruby, who had been in what appeared to be in an intense conversation with Marianne Wolfe, the basket maker. Jane had taken a weird dislike to the basket maker. This was a rarity, but something disturbed Jane about her. Off-putting. She held herself with a stiffness that made Jane uncomfortable. True, she made some gorgeous baskets—but Jane found herself wondering how such a cold and stiff woman could fashion such lovely things.
Ruby, the other regular teacher in the craft retreat, was spouting off her order when Cora walked into the restaurant, flushed and overheated. She must have been running to get there. What was so important that Officer Glass kept her so long?
“Glad to see you could make it,” Ruby muttered under her breath. Ruby was an acquired taste. She was grandfathered into the contracts when Cora purchased the house, as Ruby had worked for the previous owners. Good thing her talents as an herbalist, crafter, and gardener aligned with Cora’s goals. Otherwise, they’d have their hands full with an opinionated woman of a certain age living on the property.
Cora took a chair next to Jane, her red face almost matching her red curls. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” Cora said, sitting down next to Marianne, who was quiet, unassuming, and probably the most gifted person at the table. Jane reminded herself of this and tried to tamp down any unwarranted bad feelings about the woman.
“It’s okay,” Jane said quietly. “We’re just now ordering. No worries.”
“Can we get a couple bottles of house wine? One red and one white,” Cora said as the waitress approached her. “And I’ll have the veggie burger on a whole wheat bun.”
Few places in Indigo Gap offered vegetarian options, but this place did, which is why Cora liked it so much. She wanted to make certain everybody could get something.
Jane sensed something was wrong—it probably had to do with Officer Glass’s visit—and she couldn’t wait to get the scoop. But she was worried about London, hoping that she was just tired and needed to eat and sleep, and was not really coming down with something. This was a big weekend for her, the first that she’d be teaching at the craft retreat.
They were not prepared for pottery classes during the first retreat. But since then they had been working hard to transform half of the downstairs of the carriage house into a proper teaching studio. They had purchased a new kiln as well. The other half of the downstairs was growing into a pottery shop. Jane loved living in the carriage house and was beginning to love living in Indigo Gap, a place so different from any of the other places she had lived—London, Pittsburgh, New York. The pace was more manageable, sure, but it was also the lifestyle. Artists and crafters populated the town. People appreciated art and crafts and antiques. The active historical commission made certain that the historical integrity of the town thrived.
She felt her daughter’s body slump against her. London had fallen asleep.
“Is she okay?” Cora asked.
“She said she’s not feeling well,” Jane said. “I think I’m going to need to find a sitter for her when I teach. She may not be able to tag along. Since Gracie’s not around, I thought London could come with me to classes. But now, I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“We’ll manage,” Cora said with a lowered voice. “Don’t worry. Your sitter is still missing.”
“Was that—”
“Yes,” Cora said.
Why would the police be questioning Cora about Gracie? Why not Jane since she was the person who had hired Gracie? Not that she really wanted to be questioned by the police. The thought of it made her nauseated. Jane just wanted to be a mom, an artist, and a friend. Yet, trouble kept finding them.
“Is Adrian still out of town?” Jane asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Cora replied, vaguely. “I’m not sure when he will be back.”
Jane wished that Cora would open up a bit more about what had actually gone down with her and Adrian, the new school librarian. But Cora kept her own counsel.
Chapter 4
Cora preferred not to think about Adrian. Very Scarlett O’Hara of her. And she delighted in Jane’s unspoken curiosity about Adrian. The truth was probably more mundane than Jane could imagine.
Cora and Adrian had gone on one date, which went well, even without a kiss good night. A little awkward fumbling at her front door prompted her to let him off the hook and slip inside the house. She planned to take matters into her own hands on their second. However, the next day, a huge snowstorm blew in, so they had canceled. By the time he called to arrange another date, his mother had gotten sick. Within a week or so, he’d been called home to take care of his ailing mother. He was still in New Jersey, being a caretaker. Jane knew all of this, but Cora had not revealed anything else about the future of their relationship.
But there was hope. Cora liked Adrian. She really liked him. Everything from his horn-rimmed glasses framing his jade-green eyes to the one-dimpled grin and those beautiful hands—with slender but strong looking fingers that she imagined lost in her messy red hair. And he was sweet and geeky and kind. He was home taking care of his mother, after all. He was the kind of man you could imagine as a father, a sort of perfect mix of sexy and sweet. But . . . There was no kiss. She tried not to make a big deal of it in her mind. But it was worrisome. She really liked him—but what if there was no sexual chemistry? What if their first kis
s went badly?
She felt her eyebrow raise and she bit her lip as she imagined leading the way to that first kiss with Adrian.
“Hey, what are you thinking about?” Jane poked her.
“Who, me? I was just thinking about all the lovely paper we organized today,” Cora said. They had boxes and boxes of paper for the craft retreaters. And boxes of ribbons, thick, silky black thread, and fabric, along with doodads for Sheila’s paper doll class. Not only was the paper in every color imaginable, but it also came in different textures, such as the rough mulberry paper, the delicate rice paper, and handmade paper from different fibers.
“I can’t wait to learn how make your charms,” Sheila said to Jane with enthusiasm. “We’ve always been so into paper in our house. It will be wonderful to learn a new craft.”
Jane planned to teach a clay-charm class, which was a different take on regular pottery classes. The sample charms were lovely, of course, showing how versatile the charms could be; she mostly used them for necklaces and bracelets, but she made samples showing them as adornment for gift packing, earrings, and bookmarks. She made a big fuss picking out complementary beads and other embellishments for her students’ projects. She’d gotten a deal on some beads from a new company—they came in earth tones, with gold flourishes.
“I’m excited about the nature walk,” Donna said. She and her mother, Sheila, had started a paper doll company and were teaching a paper doll–making class. Cora was utterly charmed by the dolls—and Sheila was a friend of her aunt and uncle, so she had agreed readily to come teach at the retreat.
“It’ll be fun,” Ruby said, her gray eyes shining with excitement. “You’ll be amazed at the crafts you can make from what you can find in these mountains. I grew up in these hills wildcrafting. My mother used to make some gorgeous herbal wreaths. Oh, and sometimes these beautiful floral swags.”
“I’ve always loved pressing flowers,” Cora said.
“You know, I once saw a scrapbook made with pressed flowers and herbs. It was a kind of a Book of Shadows,” Sheila said. “It was absolutely lovely.”
Ruby dropped her fork of spaghetti and swiveled her head toward Sheila. “We need to talk more about that. I have something similar that’s been handed down through my family. My great-grandmother planted according to the moon and she recorded all of her observations in this book, along with flowers and plant clippings and herbal remedies.”
“Fascinating,” Sheila said, sitting up straighter. “I’d love to see it. What a wonderful keepsake for you to have.”
“I come from a long line of women who craft, but we didn’t take pictures or keep a book about it,” Marianne, the basket maker, said. “I suppose your ancestors were herbalists?”
Ruby nodded and clucked her tongue. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Are all of your ancestors basket makers?” Sheila asked Marianne.
Marianne smiled slowly. “Of a sort,” she said.
“I wish more of my family were into scrapbooking,” Sheila said as she scooted some salad around on her plate. “I think that’s one reason I find scrapbooking so compelling. I have no real answers about my family. My mom died young. I’d really like to know some things, but there’s no real record of anything.”
“Well, Mom, I’m glad you’ve kept such beautiful scrapbooks for us,” Donna said, and held up her glass. “To the record and memory keepers!”
“Hear, hear,” said Cora.
“Things are changing so quickly with all the digital scrapbooking and blogging and so on. I wonder what the record keepers of the future will be like,” Sheila said.
This brought Cora’s mind squarely back to Gracie and the police and wondering exactly what was going on. She was amazed the cops could trace her phone number from a completely anonymous texter, but it still made her antsy.
“It’s very strange,” Marianne said. “I think about it sometimes, too. I’m not a big blogger or anything like you are, Cora. I’ve hired someone to do my blog. But I suppose we’re leaving records for future generations in a completely new way.”
“Blogs, my butt,” Ruby said, after sitting her wineglass down. “It’s not the same as a handmade record. Something your ancestors have touched. I think we are just making it easier for the man to track us down by putting everything online.”
The group chuckled.
Cora would have asked Ruby who The Man was, but she knew exactly what Ruby was talking about—and given what had just happened to her, she feared that maybe Ruby, even given her usual paranoia against all things virtual, was just a bit right.
Chapter 5
An hour later, with everybody off to their own rooms in Kildare House, Jane and Cora caught up on the day’s events in Jane’s refurbished carriage house. Jane woke London up long enough to give her some ibuprofen before the child slumped into bed.
Cora told Jane about the evening’s odd happenings, while she was working on an embroidery project she brought along with her.
“Man, that is some scary stuff,” Jane said. “How did they track you down?”
“Did you give my name as an emergency contact to Gracie?” Cora asked, then took another sip of dandelion wine, one of Ruby’s concoctions. It wasn’t bad at all. She then went back to her stitching.
Jane appeared to think a moment. She twisted strands of her long dark hair around her finger. “I think I must have. Who else would I use?”
“That’s got to be it,” Cora said. “It must be some kind of hoax or prank. Why would a real kidnapper send out a text message announcing they kidnapped someone? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Jane sat her wineglass down. The light reflected in the amber-colored liquid. “Let’s hope it was a hoax and Gracie’s okay. She seems like a young woman who can take care of herself. Very together, just doing this nanny thing until law school.”
“Just what the world needs, another lawyer,” Cora said. She rolled her eyes. She clipped a thread.
Jane laughed. “Well, she’s planning on corporate law. So chances are she’ll end up in New York or someplace like that. If she’s okay. I mean, she has to be okay, right?”
Fear seeped into the edge of her voice. If someone could kidnap a young woman right out from everybody’s noses, they could kidnap anybody.
“She’s young,” Cora said. “Even though she’s smart and has it together, young women do stupid things sometimes. Run away to get married. Stuff like that. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe she was swept away in some romantic getaway.” She threaded her needle with bright yellow thread. Her embroidery project, a detailed sunflower, was almost finished. When she came to this point in a project it was hard to put it down.
Jane laughed. “Girl, you are such a silly romantic.”
Cora shrugged. “It’s just that I remember what it was like to be that age—don’t you?”
“Yes, sure,” Jane said. She gazed off into the distance briefly, as if remembering something or someone. Cora didn’t want to push. But she knew things hadn’t worked out with Jane’s latest romance. She found out the man had a drug problem—and even though he said he was clean, Jane cut him out of her life for the sake of her daughter and herself.
“She has a boyfriend, right? That’s what Glass said today. I remembered meeting him when he painted your kitchen. I wondered if she went off with him or if he was the one who sent the text. He said no. Something about that would be too easy,” Cora said.
“Yeah, that’s right. She does have a boyfriend. They went to school together. She’s so special. I mean, London loves her, so does Jillie. I just hope she is okay,” Jane said. The worried edge crept in her voice again. Cora knew it well.
A knock came at the downstairs door. Cora dropped her embroidery in her lap and peered at Jane. “Are you expecting someone?”
“At this time of night? No,” Jane said. Her deep blue eyes flicked with impatience. “Who’d be coming here at ten at night?”
She peeked out of the window and drew back
quickly. “It’s Paul with some strange man.”
Paul was Gracie’s boyfriend, Cora remembered. Cora set aside her project and walked over and peeped out the same window. One of the young men had his face turned away. When he glanced back and knocked again, Cora recognized his youthful face immediately. “We’d better let him in.”
Jane stopped her. “What did Glass say about him?”
“Glass said he wasn’t a suspect,” Cora said. “I’ll come with you, just in case . . .”
“In case?” Jane said as they made their way downstairs. She flicked on the outside light once they reached the front door.
“I’m here no matter what. That’s all I mean. For goodness sake, open the door,” Cora said.
Gracie’s boyfriend was pretty close to their age, Cora surmised, and he oozed sexuality and charm—or perhaps it had been way too long and every good-looking guy oozed it for her. But judging from Jane’s flushed face, that wasn’t it. The other young man stood in the shadows, so Cora could not see his face.
“Jane?” Gracie’s boyfriend asked, after making eye contact with her.
She nodded. “What’s wrong, Paul?”
“I’m just going around talking with people and kind of, you know, tracing Gracie’s footsteps,” he said. “You know she’s missing, right?” His voice cracked and suddenly Cora saw unfathomable rawness and fear in him. He looked weary. And frightened.
“Hi, Paul. Why don’t you come in?” Cora said, leading them inside. She caught a glimpse of Jane’s open mouth. She smiled back reassuringly. Yes, I’ve just let two young men into your house and it will be okay. Trust me.
Chapter 6
“Let’s have a seat here,” Jane said, gesturing to her studio couch and the few chairs she had in the room. Cora loved the old hot-pink couch—it was 1950s retro, and still in great shape.
No Charm Intended Page 2