by Holly Quinn
“Wait. Break? What kind of break? You mean break from investigating, right?” Sammy leaned in closer as if sure she was mistaken in what she’d heard.
“Yeah, I’m sure he wants us to put the brakes on that too.” Heidi paused and then added, “No. Break from our relationship.” She raised the cup to her lips to blow on the steam again.
“Oh nooo.” The sudden realization made Sammy sit upright. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?” She shifted again on the love seat to place her mug down on the end table, then reached out her hands to touch her cousin’s lap as a sign of empathy.
“We were a bit tired. Borderline delusional, actually. I figured last night was all just a bad dream, but it all came back to me when I woke up in your chair with a stiff neck.” Heidi reached to the floor with one hand for the chenille throw and then draped it across her lap. Sammy helped her adjust it and then sank back into her seat.
“Are you okay? I mean, how do you feel about this?” Sammy reached for her mug and then settled in, tucking her legs beneath her.
“I dunno. It’s not like I had much choice in the matter. He made his decision pretty clear.”
“I’m so sorry, Heidi. This is all my fault. I dragged you into this.” Sammy felt horrible. It was because of her that her cousin had agreed not to share the news of Marty’s ransom note with the police right away. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe her cousin would’ve made the opposite decision and the police would’ve gone straight to Jackson, looking for answers. Instead, out of her own selfish need to find the truth, she had again taken the sleuthing too far. This time to the detriment of her cousin’s relationship with Tim.
“Don’t be so silly.” Heidi waved her off with a casual hand. “I’m responsible for my own decisions. I can’t half blame him, though. If he manipulated me the way I did him …” She sighed heavily, leaving her words hanging in the air between them. “I guess I kinda deserve it, don’t I?” She took a sip of coffee after blowing on the steam again.
“Now what? What are you going to do? Are you just going to let him walk out of your life? Just like that? Or are you going to fight for him?” Sammy was surprised at the casual ease with which her cousin was letting her boyfriend go.
“Not much I can do except try to regain his trust. I guess I’ll just respect his time away from me and hopefully get the chance to repair things when he’s cooled down a bit. Honestly, I’m still a little shocked. Since we’ve dated, we’ve never taken a break from each other. I’m sure after I replay everything in my head, I’ll feel differently, but right now all I feel is confused and sort of terrible that we broke Jackson’s trust by sharing the ransom note so quickly. But shouldn’t my loyalty have rested more strongly with Tim than with Jackson? What’s wrong with me? Perhaps that’s a mirror into our relationship, if that’s the case.” Heidi breathed deep and then took another sip of coffee.
“What other choice did we have besides sharing Jackson’s secret? Was it even our choice to make? I feel like we were caught between a rock and a hard place, to be honest.”
“No, I know, I hear you. And in the long run, hopefully it helps Randy too. Boy, I’d love to know what they have on Randy, wouldn’t you?” Heidi whispered after she glanced at the staircase to make sure they were still alone.
“Yeah, and I guess with you and Tim on a so-called break”—Sammy raised one finger to make air quotes while her other hand gripped her coffee—“we’ll never know.”
“You got that right. My intel within the Heartsford Police Department is officially cut off,” Heidi said as she set her coffee on the end table and began to rub her shoulder muscle as if she were kneading a loaf of bread dough.
Sammy decided to refrain from telling Heidi about her private conversation with Liam Nash before he’d left during the wee hours of the morning. It was barely comparable. After all, as much as she might want it to be otherwise, they weren’t technically in a relationship. She didn’t dare bring up her relational issues in comparison with her cousin’s loss of Tim. Instead she said, “I have an idea. Bacon always makes things better.” She winked. “I think I may have some in the fridge and the fixings for my crustless quiche. How about I throw one together and we can refuel our minds after a really rough night?”
“Oooh, quiche, yes please!” Heidi batted her eyelashes. “Finally, speaking my love language,” she teased. “I’m sure Ellie can use something in her stomach when she wakes too. Good idea.”
The two plodded to the kitchen with Bara following closely behind. Sammy opened the back door to let her dog out and quickly realized the rising snow would soon be a factor. The wind whipped the cold wet flakes into the kitchen, and the path she’d shoveled earlier for her dog was already a distant memory. Heidi reached for the snow shovel by the back door to clear a new path for him. “Looks like we’re gonna have to hunker down here for a while. It’s wild out there!” she said after she made a short path and closed the door behind Bara for a private moment.
“Yeah, poor Bara won’t last too long out there,” Sammy said as she fished the breakfast fixings out of the refrigerator.
Before long, the bacon was sizzling on the stove, and Ellie made an appearance in the kitchen. “Smells good in here. Maybe this baby will be a bacon eater,” she chuckled as she rubbed her abdomen. “Usually meat smells get to me, but the bacon actually smells delicious.” She stifled a yawn.
“I’m surprised that cauliflower didn’t get to you the other night. I’m sorry, but that vegetable smells horrid!” Sammy said as her face lit with a smile.
“Yeah, I know, right? But not so much. This pregnancy, only meat smells seem to get to me for some reason. Who knows? Maybe my little one will love cauli mac and cheese as much as her brother.”
“Her?” Heidi questioned with a raised brow. “Did I just hear you say her?”
“A girl can dream. I’m hoping for a ‘her’ this time.” Ellie smiled.
Sammy reached to give her sister a hug. “You look much better this morning. Feeling rested?”
Ellie sighed. “Yeah, I slept like a log. I guess I needed it. How can I help?”
Sammy laughed at her sister. “It doesn’t surprise me that you want to take over in the kitchen, but why don’t you just relax and let me handle it this morning? How does that sound?” She encouraged her sister to move out of the way with a nudge of her shoulder.
“It depends. What are you making?” Ellie eyed the fixings strewn atop the large kitchen island. The island was so massive, it took up the majority of the space, and Sammy had room for only a small table and two ladder-back chairs tucked into the far corner of the room.
“I have a new crustless quiche recipe I think you’ll love. It’s lower calorie because you skip the pie crust, but trust me, it’s almost as good and you don’t really miss the crust. The only real calories are in the bacon, but I’ll try not to overload it.”
“Well, you’ve piqued my interest for sure!” Ellie smiled. “But don’t skimp on the bacon on my account,” she winked. “Now that I’m eating for two, I have an excuse.” She smiled and rubbed her abdomen again. “Bring it on.”
At that moment Sammy knew her sister’s constant weight management program was over for the next few months, now that she was pregnant.
“We have some good news and bad news, but I think you’ll be happy to hear this,” Heidi said as she plucked the chair from the corner table and brought it closer for Ellie to take a seat by the door. She then opened the door, letting Bara back inside, where he sauntered past them, back to the front room, seemingly to curl by the fireplace.
Sammy was shocked he didn’t stop to try to snag some bacon first. He must’ve known it would be a losing proposition. She smiled as she watched her dog do exactly what she had imagined he would and go slump in front of the roaring fire.
“Okay, bad news first,” Ellie said, before taking a seat in the chair.
“Bad news.” Heidi held up a finger. “We had to tell the police about the ransom note Jackson
received,” she said, and then took the mushrooms from Sammy’s grasp and began dusting them off with a paper towel over the sink.
“Oh, I kind of figured that would be the only thing preventing us three from being arrested.” She swirled a finger between them. “I’m kinda glad that secret is out. The guilt was killing me. I don’t know how much longer I would’ve lasted anyway. What’s the good news, then?”
“The police are holding off on questioning your husband, as now they’re busy with the ransom, and possibly the FBI might soon be involved. It seems the case is hopefully heading in a different direction. Far away from Randy—at least for now.” Heidi yawned.
Ellie put a hand to her heart and sighed. “Oh, I’m so thankful to hear that.”
“Not to scare you, E, but he’s not completely out of the woods yet. We’re going to have to solve this thing to get him completely in the clear,” Sammy said as she cracked organic eggs she had purchased from a local farmer into a ceramic bowl and whisked them with a fork.
“With no help from Tim,” Heidi piped up.
“I’m sure Tim’s pretty hot with us, huh?” Ellie’s face scrunched into a wince. “Boy, I’ve never seen him so ticked off.”
“Oh, it’s more than that,” Sammy added. “He broke up with Heidi over it.”
“What?” Ellie gasped, and her eyes flew to her cousin.
Heidi agreed with a sad nod of her head.
“Are you okay?” Ellie looked at Heidi with dismay.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” Heidi admitted. “Maybe after a few days of not speaking with him, I’ll really believe he’s actually broken up with me.”
“Well, there’s only one thing to do then,” Ellie said as she rose to comfort her cousin with an arm around her shoulder.
“What’s that?” Sammy and Heidi said in unison.
Ellie surprised them both by saying bravely, “Us three S.H.E.s must solve this crime.”
Sammy’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Well, now, this is a definite switch,” Heidi said. She carried the cutting board covered with sliced mushrooms and met Sammy by the stove.
Sammy emptied the contents into the skillet and handed the cutting board back to her cousin.
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked.
“What she means is usually you’re the one who wants us to back out of an investigation, and now you’re front and center and Heidi wants to drop it,” Sammy clarified. “Am I right?”
“Well,” Heidi hesitated. “If I have any chance of regaining Tim’s trust, I should stop all involvement. Otherwise, I may as well completely kiss my relationship goodbye.”
“What if we just keep you behind the scenes? You can be the brains of the operation,” Sammy said as she rinsed her hands in the sink and dried them off with a nearby towel. She reached for her phone, plucked it from the charge cord, and scrolled to her photos. “Look.” She handed the phone to Heidi, whose eyes narrowed as she viewed the picture.
“What’s this?”
“This is the last thing someone recently Googled on the Wadsworths’ computer. Do you know anything about that chemical? Your parents farmed; did they ever happen to use it?”
“No. I know it’s thought to be controversial, though.” Heidi’s eyes left the screen and darted around the room as if she was deep in thought. “Wait. Give me a minute.” She steepled her fingers and placed them to her lips.
Sammy stood at the stove sautéing the mushrooms and onions in butter and filling the kitchen with a heavenly scent. She crushed a glove of garlic over the pan, then tossed in fresh spinach and continued to stir so it would wilt. “What do you mean, controversial?”
“Okay, the way I remember it, there are different ways to farm grain and soybean crops. There’s the organic farm, which doesn’t use any chemicals for weed control and meets or exceeds the high FDA standards to be labeled organic. And then you have farms that are considered Roundup ready, right?”
“No,” Ellie interrupted. “I don’t know what you mean by Roundup ready. I know what Roundup is, but I’m not following. Please explain.”
“All right. Let me back up. A Roundup-ready farm means that the seeds that were planted will sustain the weed killer. Meaning, the crops won’t be affected. The plants will grow, and the farmer will have a great yield or harvest minus the weeds completely taking over the field.”
“Okay?” Sammy said over her shoulder. “So, what’s the problem? What’s that dicamba or whatever it’s called have to do with it?”
“I’m getting to that,” Heidi said. “So, what’s happened over the years is now these superweeds are taking over. Roundup is no longer strong enough, as weeds have been popping up that can resist the weed killer farmers have been using for years. This is a real problem for farmers, as you can imagine. So they’re trying to come up with a solution.”
“And they think dicamba is a viable solution?” Sammy asked as she tossed grated cheddar cheese into the whisked eggs, then added the spinach mixture and crumbled bacon before pouring it all into a pie plate and placing it carefully in the oven.
“Well, yes and no. The problem with using dicamba is that certain seeds haven’t gone through the proper testing channels.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked. “I’m still a bit confused. And how have you become an expert on these chemicals?”
“There’s been talk throughout the farm community on how best to fight the weed battle for years. My parents debated this over the dinner table countless times. The problem is that the levels of dicamba haven’t been thoroughly tested. It takes a while to see how much of a chemical is needed without harming either the seeds or the nearby fields.”
“Nearby fields?” Sammy asked. “How could it damage fields nearby?”
“If the wind blows onto a neighboring farm and they haven’t used seeds that can withstand dicamba, they could lose their entire crop.”
Sammy wiped her hands with the dishrag next to the stove, then turned to face them and crossed her arms across her chest. “What would this do to Marty’s job?” Her eyes bounced between Heidi and Ellie. “Anything?”
“Didn’t you mention that he sells farm seeds for a living or something along those lines?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah. So he’s probably just researching work stuff. Although Wanda might have had a problem with it if her husband was selling seeds doused with heavy chemicals, as she shopped completely organic. I heard in a yoga class she was a fanatic about that with her whole vegan lifestyle,” Heidi said. “What else did you uncover? Anything?”
“Not much else on my end. I was looking for hidden paperwork but didn’t come across anything unusual. Ellie, did you?”
“No, just the empty gun cabinet. Hey, did you ask Heidi about the rhyme?”
“Rhyme?” Heidi reached for the dishrag and began to wipe the kitchen island top clean.
Sammy patted her jeans pocket. She was still wearing her clothes from the night before. What she’d really needed was a hot shower and some clean clothes. Instead they’d all collapsed after the heady night. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d crashed wearing uncomfortable jeans to bed. She handed the note to Heidi. “What do you make of this?”
“What is it?” Heidi accepted the note in her hands, and her eyes darted to the paper. “Where did you get this?”
“I found it within the batting of the quilt Wanda was holding on her lap the night of Fire and Ice. And that’s not all. When I looked carefully at the quilt blocks, one of the blocks was identical to the one painted on the side of Jackson’s barn. I found that very interesting. Right down to an exact color match.”
“The blocks pieced on this quilt release me of guilt,” Heidi said aloud. “Then what if the quilt isn’t a quilt at all but instead it’s a map? Like the trail maps we discussed in front of Jackson’s?”
“A map?” Ellie’s face scrunched in question.
“Heidi. You’re a genius!” Suddenly, in Sammy’s mind, it
was all clear. She reached for her nearby phone and showed Heidi and Ellie the ledger, the photo of the Excel spreadsheet. “What if Marty’s customers somehow coincide with Wanda’s quilt?”
The quilt that had lain across Wanda’s lap the night she died could potentially be a map that would enable them to sew together the clues of this mystery. Wanda was going to lead them to piece it all together into one astonishing quilt.
Chapter Eighteen
Sammy peeked outside the glass front door of Community Craft, willing the members of the quilting group to make an appearance. She turned her head and eyed the large clock on the wall above the cash register. They still had time to arrive; it was early. She couldn’t half blame any of them for skipping, as the roads were still dicey. Especially the back roads, where the plows were having trouble keeping up with the most recent heap of fallen snow. If this was a prequel to the winter Heartsford was going to experience, it was sure to be one for the record books. She was thankful the three S.H.E.s had had a chance to nap that afternoon. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure if she could’ve made an appearance herself. Not due to the weather, but due to lack of sleep.
She stifled a yawn and turned toward a rack of quilted pillows, noticing that they were askew. As she moved to rearrange them on the rack so they stood upright, Cheryl unexpectedly bounded through the door, eager for Sammy’s attention. “Hey, is Jas here yet? Doesn’t she usually come to the quilt meetings?”
“Oh, hey, Cheryl.” Sammy turned in the direction of the voice over her shoulder. “No, she’s missed the last couple due to some family stuff. I highly doubt she’ll make this one, especially with this weather. I’ll be lucky if anyone shows.” Sammy faced her and shrugged.
“Well, if you see her, tell her I need to speak with her immediately. She’s been ignoring my messages, but this is really important.”
Sammy turned away momentarily to be sure all the pillows were aligned, and Cheryl grew annoyed. “Did you hear me?”