Thread Reckoning

by Amanda Lee

  “I will.” Even though I thought Ted was going a little overboard, I did as he asked me to. I stayed on his heels as he did a quick search of the house. When we popped into the bedroom, I took off my shoes.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” I said.

  “Not at all. Would you like to change clothes before we go back downstairs?”

  I contemplated his face for a moment, trying to decide whether he was being flirtatious or serious. I couldn’t read him.

  “Do you mind?” I asked. “I can change while you’re looking over the rest of the upstairs.”

  “Go ahead. If I finish before you do, would you like for me to go down and let Angus inside?”

  “Sure.” I smiled. “Thank you.”

  Ted stepped out of the bedroom and pulled the door closed behind him. I traded my suit for jeans and a fuzzy pink cowl-necked sweater.

  When I joined Ted downstairs, he and Angus were playing tug-of-war with a rope toy.

  “Would you like something to drink?” I asked.

  “A bottle of water would be great.”

  “Are you hungry? Did you eat at the restaurant?”

  “Oh yeah. I had a burger while you and Mr. Santiago were scarfing those filets.” He allowed Angus to win the tug match.

  I grinned. “Don’t make me feel bad about having steak while you were having a burger. I didn’t even really get a choice.” I went into the kitchen and got us each a bottle of water. “Not that I minded. The steak was great.”

  “What do you mean, you didn’t get a choice? He just ordered for the both of you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I got the impression he’s the kind of guy who’s used to making decisions and having everyone else go along with them.” I handed him his water.

  “Like you with dinner tonight.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I wanted the information he had to offer, he made a good choice, and he made the decision so seamless that I never even thought to question it.”

  “He’s good.” He took the cap off the bottle and had a sip of the water.

  “Yeah.” I frowned as I sat down on the sofa beside him. “It kind of makes me wonder just how smooth he is. Is he smooth enough to get away with anything he wants?”

  “Like ordering the killing of Francesca Ortega?” Ted asked.

  “Maybe. It seems highly unlikely, though. I mean, what reason would he possibly have for doing that? He’d already gotten rid of the woman. He fired her.”

  “True. But fired employees are often vocal employees.” He took another drink of his water before replacing the cap. “What did he say about Ms. Ortega?”

  “Not much,” I said. “He told me she wasn’t very computer literate and that’s one of the reasons he fired her. But he didn’t put it past her to steal the jewels.”

  “Were the jewels stolen from the Santiagos?” Ted asked.

  “No. Or, at least, he didn’t say they were. I asked him if she might have access to jewelry stores his company serviced, and he said she probably did.” I curled my legs up under me. “He seemed to think that if she did steal the gemstones, she couldn’t have done it without help—probably from Frederic.” I stifled a yawn.

  “You look exhausted. I should go so you can rest.”

  “I’m all right. I just didn’t get much sleep last night,” I said.

  “Why is that?”

  “I had a lot on my mind.” I told Ted about going out with David just to make sure I was doing the right thing in turning him away.

  “He obviously doesn’t take rejection well,” Ted said.

  “Well, that could partially be my fault. David came to the store earlier today to ask me for another date. Actually, he asked me where we were going as if we already had a date.”

  “Sounds like Mr. Santiago minus the charm.”

  “When I said I was going to Toledo to the Grand Mountain Lodge this evening,” I continued, “David asked if I was going with Todd. Todd came in just as the question was asked.”

  “And Todd went with it. Obnoxiously, if I know Calloway.”

  I nodded. “I could’ve cleared up the misconception, but I didn’t. I was hoping David would get in a huff and leave—which he did—and that would be the end of it . . . which it obviously wasn’t.”

  “Do you think David is a threat to you?”

  “No. I think he’s angry, his ego is bruised, and he’s not ready to take no for an answer yet. But I don’t think he’s dangerous.” I cocked my head. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s one of the reasons I took the precautions I did when I followed you home.”

  “And the other reason?” I asked.

  “Ms. Ortega’s killer is still out there. We have no leads, but I don’t like the fact that she was murdered outside your shop.”

  “That makes two of us. Are you saying I’m no longer a suspect?”

  “You know I can’t say that,” he said.

  “What’s with your new partner?” I asked. “She doesn’t seem to like me much.”

  “She’s a rookie I’m training, and she doesn’t like anyone very much.”

  “She appears to like you fairly well.”

  “You think so?” he asked with a mischievous grin. “What gave you that impression?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the way you and she were yukking it up with the his-and-her travel mugs when you were walking from MacKenzies’ Mochas the other morning.”

  He scooted closer to me. “You’re jealous.”

  “Not jealous. Only curious.” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “She is pretty.”

  “I guess,” he said, still grinning. “If you go in for that type.”

  “Is she married?”

  “No.” He laughed. “You are jealous.”

  “I repeat: I’m not jealous. Only curious.” I rested my head against the back of the sofa.

  “Since we’re confessing—sort of—I’ll admit that I was fairly curious about David Frist Thursday morning when he said he was your fiancé in order to get into the shop,” Ted said. “It felt good to take him down tonight.”

  “He’s gonna be so mad at me,” I said.

  “If he comes around bothering you, call me,” Ted instructed.

  I nodded. I could feel my eyes drifting closed.

  “Lie back and put your feet in my lap,” he said.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He got up, eased me against the arm of the sofa, and sat back down. He lifted my legs onto his lap. He gently took one foot in his hands and began massaging it.

  I sighed. “That feels . . . so . . . good.”

  When I opened my eyes, the room was dark and I’d been covered by a soft green fleece blanket. The light in the living room had been turned off, but the light in the foyer had been left on to provide me sufficient light to see to go to bed. I sat up and stretched my arms up over my head. I stood and noticed that the clock read twelve forty-five a.m. It was a good thing I didn’t have to go to work in the morning. Lying on the floor beside the sofa, Angus snuffled and changed positions.

  I walked slowly from the living room into the foyer and saw a note on the table near the door.

  Hi:

  I locked the door behind me. Found the blanket in the hall closet. Hope you don’t mind. I’ll call you tomorrow.

  —Ted

  I smiled slightly. The last thing I remembered before I dozed off was him rubbing my feet. What a special man.

  I turned off the foyer light and went on upstairs. I slipped off my clothes and got into bed. I dreamed I was in a science lab with Caleb Santiago, who was wearing a white lab coat.

  “I need a clone,” I told him. “Can you do that for me?”

  “You want a clone of what?” he asked. “We’ve cloned hard drives, of course. But if you’re talking mammals, you may choose from a sheep, a rat, a mule, a monkey, or maybe a rabbit.”

  “No, no,” I said. “I want you to clone me.”

  “What on earth for?”

>   “Because I can’t choose between Todd and Ted. I care for them both.” I began to cry.

  “Sometimes decisions are hard to make,” Mr. Santiago said. “Take my dad, for example. He liked Francesca Ortega. She’d been a loyal employee for years.” He smiled. “But she wasn’t family. He had a difficult choice to make, too, but he made the right one.”

  “Yes, but you said Francesca didn’t keep up with the times and that she wasn’t trustworthy.”

  “I did say that, didn’t I? Where do you think she got those pretty gemstones?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”

  He gave me another enigmatic smile. “Of course I do.”

  “Where?” I leaned closer to hear where Francesca had gotten the jewels.

  “On eBay,” he whispered. And then he pressed his cold, wet nose to my forehead.

  I jerked awake. “Angus! You scared the daylights out of me.”

  Angus, tail wagging, leapt onto the bed and back down again. He raced down the hall, ran back, and jumped back onto the bed. Once again, he tried to put his face in mine.

  I pushed him away, yawned, and looked at the clock. It was seven thirty. He needed to go out. I quickly got out of bed and slipped on the jeans and sweater I’d been wearing last night.

  “Let’s go.” Angus hurried down the stairs ahead of me and went straight to the back door.

  I opened the door, and he rushed outside. As I made coffee, I wondered about the dream. It wasn’t hard to interpret the cloning part of the dream. I really did care for both Ted and Todd. I knew that eventually I’d have to choose between them, but right now I simply couldn’t. But as for the latter part of the dream, had Caleb Santiago done or said something that had made me believe—subconsciously—that he knew more about the jewels than he was indicating?

  Sadie called while I was finishing my breakfast. Someone who knew someone who’d heard about the fiasco at Grand Mountain Lodge came into the café and was telling Sadie and Blake all about it. Of course, in their version, David had put a knife to my throat and was threatening to kill me and then himself. Ted had intervened—taking a vicious stab to the shoulder in the process—and had managed to wrestle the knife away from David.

  I laughed. “That’s much more exciting than what actually happened.” I relayed to her the actual course of events.

  “Oh,” she said, sounding a little deflated. “The version I heard was better. Still, yours isn’t bad. I’m glad Ted came to your rescue.”

  “So am I. I wish David hadn’t been cited for stalking, though. He’s going to be furious with me over that.”

  “Why should he be furious at you?” Sadie asked. “He admitted he’d changed rental cars to throw you off and that he followed you to the lodge. It’s his own fault he got cited.”

  “Yeah, well, David doesn’t accept blame graciously. I’m sure he’ll think I blew everything out of proportion and made him pay the price for it.”

  “Do you think he’ll retaliate?”

  “In what way?”

  “In any way,” Sadie said. “You don’t think he’ll come after you, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to get an angry phone call from him today, but maybe he’ll take this as his cue to return to San Francisco.”

  “I hope so. You know Blake and I are here if you need us.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  No sooner had Sadie and I finished our conversation than my doorbell rang. Angus was still outside romping in the backyard.

  I went to the front door and wasn’t terribly surprised to see David standing there.

  “Are you alone?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “May I come in?” He didn’t seem as angry as I’d feared he’d be.

  I stepped back from the door and allowed David into the foyer. I knew he’d been angry, but I couldn’t really make myself believe I had anything to fear from him. “Would you like to talk in the living room?”

  He nodded.

  We went into the living room. The green blanket Ted had draped over me last night was still on the sofa. I picked it up and folded it before placing it on the ottoman. David sat on the chair, and I perched on the edge of the sofa.

  “Last night was stupid,” he said. “That guy made me crazy—acting like you and he were having some kind of romantic getaway at a fancy hotel. And then when you walked out with the cop . . .” He shook his head. “I lost it.”

  “David, I called Ted—the cop—because you frightened me by following me to the lodge. Didn’t it cross your mind that I might be freaked out since a woman was stabbed outside my shop earlier in the week?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked thoughtful. “No, actually, that thought never occurred to me.”

  “If you hadn’t started flinging accusations about my plans when you first came into the shop yesterday—and if Todd hadn’t overheard you slamming him—I could’ve explained that I went to the lodge to try to get information on Ms. Ortega, the stabbing victim.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Why would you want information on her? She’s dead, for goodness’ sake. There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

  “I realize that,” I said. “But the person who killed her might be aware that she’d given me some of those gemstones to put on Cassandra’s gown, and they might think I still have some.”

  “So you’re afraid the killer will come after you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And until the police make an arrest and are sure they have the right person off the street, I’ll have that fear.”

  David got up and came over to the couch. “Then let’s go to the police department in Toledo and have those stupid charges against me dropped so we can go home to San Francisco.”

  “My life is here.”

  “Your death might be here, too. Come on, Marcy, think. We’ll leave Tallulah Falls and open a shop in California. We’ll sell the embroidery stuff . . . and maybe some art supplies. I used to sketch in college. Maybe I could take it up again . . . or do some painting. It’ll be fun.”

  “What about the shop here?” I asked. “And my house?”

  “Somebody will lease the shop,” he said. “The woman who runs the aromatherapy shop said she had a sister just dying to open up an antique store. She said she’d intended to lease the building you’re in, but you snapped it up first.” He shrugged. “As for the house, maybe we can keep it as a summer home.”

  “Do you think I’m independently wealthy or something?”

  “No, but your mom will help us.”

  I stood. “David, there is no us. Despite all of the other giant holes in your plan that you seem to be avoiding, that’s the biggest one of all.”

  “There could be an us.” He rose off the sofa and took my hands. “You just need to get away from all these distractions and give us a fighting chance. We were great together once. We could be again.”

  “We’re different people now.”

  “How long are you planning to punish me for getting cold feet on our wedding day?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready then. I’m ready now.”

  “You’re not the only one who has a horse in this race, David. It’s not all about you.”

  He sighed. “You need to put this stabbing behind you. I get that. But maybe we can get these bogus charges against me dismissed and go from there.”

  He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head so that his lips landed on my cheek.

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  He dropped my hands. “I’m not leaving Oregon. Not until I’ve brought you around to my way of thinking.”

  As he left, I thought, David might be in Tallulah Falls for a lo-o-o-ong time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Vera called around ten a.m. and asked me to go with her to Lincoln City to the costume shop where she’d seen the “perfect dress” for me to wear to the masquerade ball. And she wanted me to help her find her “perfect dress.” I agreed to go, got ready, and placed Angus outside with
his food, water, and favorite toys.

  “I know I’ve been leaving you out here quite a bit lately,” I told him as I held his face in my hands and looked into his dark eyes. “But I’ll make it up to you when I get home. I promise. We’ll have a movie and popcorn night—just you and me.”

  He looked skeptical, but I heard Vera’s silver BMW pull up, and I didn’t have time to further convince him. I hugged him, rushed back inside, locked the door, sped through the hallway, grabbed my purse off the table in the foyer, and went out the front door.

  “Good morning,” Vera said cheerily as I got into the car. “Can you believe it? Sunshine and warm weather—for us, in February!”

  “I know. I didn’t even need a heavy coat today.” I held out the hem of my jean jacket. “It’s gorgeous out.”

  Vera chattered on about the weather and how we should enjoy it while it lasted because that darn groundhog had seen his shadow the other day. Then she talked about the upcoming Valentine’s Day, the masquerade ball, her latest cross-stitch project, and the friends she’d made while attending one of my needlework classes.

  Mainly, I just listened. That’s the good thing about Vera. She’s more than willing to keep up both sides of a conversation if necessary. And I didn’t have a whole lot to say this morning. Besides, I had to be careful about what information I chose to impart to Vera, because—as I’ve already indicated—Vera loves to talk. That’s great unless she’s talking about something you’d rather she didn’t.

  When we arrived at the dress shop in Lincoln City, she could hardly wait to show me the black and maroon ball gown. And I could hardly wait to see it. That is, until I saw it.

  It was not what I’d imagined or hoped it would be. The dress was pretty—it had a black and maroon print bodice and underskirt with a black velvet overskirt—but it wasn’t a dress I could imagine myself wearing to the masquerade ball. It was bulky and wide and heavy.

  “Try it on,” Vera said, smiling broadly.

  Not wanting to disappoint her, I tried on the dress. Luckily for me, it was much too large and was the only one they had of its kind, so I didn’t have to make excuses for not buying the dress.