Death Threads (6 page)

“This”—Tori parted her lips ever so slightly and then inhaled deeply—“that’s the sound of my arteries clogging as we speak.”

Milo waved the comment aside with his free hand. “We’re at a festival. We don’t hear those sounds at a festival. The only thing we hear is laughter. And an occasional screaming kid.”

“I’ve heard a few expletives myself.” Tori pulled the paper from under her arm and held it out to Milo. “In fact, I’ve heard threats.”

“Threats?” Milo swapped the funnel cake for the paper. “What kind of threats?”

“Well, Carter Johnson said he wanted to burn the news tent down.”

Milo’s head snapped back. “That doesn’t sound like Carter at all.”

“I know. I thought the same thing.”

“Now that you mention it though, Dirk Rogers said something about shoving a computer in places a computer shouldn’t be shoved.”

Tori gestured toward the paper. “I’m thinking that whatever has everyone so fired up is on page three. At least that’s what the kid in the tent said.”

“Page three,” Milo repeated as he unfolded the paper and flipped back the front page. “Page three—ah, here we go. The only thing here is Colby’s—oh no . . .”

“What?”

“Oh no,” he mumbled again, as Ella May moved in from one side and Tori from the other. “Oh, Colby, what did you do?”

“What are you talking—” She stopped, midsentence, as the object of Milo’s displeasure sprang into view in the form of a bold black headline that stretched from one side of the page to the other.

Tori sucked in her breath as she scanned the rest of Colby’s column, the enormity of his charge bringing a new clarity to Carter Johnson’s words. “The matches were for the tent . . . the rifle must have been for . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as reality dawned.

“What rifle? What are you talking about?” Milo asked.

She met Milo’s worried eyes with her own. “Matches weren’t the only thing Carter Johnson wanted to bring back after he read this. He said”—she swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat, her words growing raspy—“he said a rifle might not be a bad idea either.”

“A rifle?” Ella May ran the tips of her fingers slowly down the article in front of them, her gaze never leaving the paper. “Why on earth would he need a rifle?”

Pushing the paper in Ella May’s direction, Milo raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why? Because Colby Calhoun just destroyed a legacy with the sweep of his pen . . . and placed himself firmly on the top of everyone’s Most Hated list in the process.”

From the moment she stepped inside Melissa Davis’s home the aura was anything but normal. In fact, if she didn’t know any better, Tori would have thought she was at a funeral rather than the weekly sewing circle meeting that had managed to turn Mondays into one of her favorite days of the week.

Gone was the sound of the animated chatter and good-natured gossip that was as much a part of each meeting as the sewing itself. Gone was the verbal banter over who brought what for the dessert table. And gone were the smiles on the faces of women who treasured the opportunity to spend a few hours with close friends while engaging in a hobby they all loved and respected.

Instead, the chatter and gossip had been replaced by the intermittent sound of throat clearing laced with a suffocating silence. Instead of a dissertation about a particular recipe’s lineage, covered plates were merely plunked down on the table and ignored, their claim to fame left unspoken. And instead of smiles there were only sullen faces—sullen and angry.

Except Debbie Calhoun’s. Hers simply looked sad. Heartbroken, even.

Tori stood just outside the doorway of the family room and studied her friend. The woman’s normally upturned lips drooped low and her eyes cast downward as if she were waiting for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. And if the expressions on the faces of the other women in the room were any indication, they were not only waiting but hoping she’d meet with the same fate as well.

Milo was right. The steadfast loyalty she’d grown to admire among the residents of Sweet Briar could, indeed, be a double-edged sword—a sword that was now pointed in Debbie Calhoun’s direction.

“Oh, Tori, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.” Melissa strode down the hallway from the back of the house, an assortment of toys nestled against her side by one forearm, an infant propped atop the other. “I just finished nursing Molly Sue and Jake took the rest of them—plus Debbie’s two—to the park to play for a little while. If we’re lucky he’ll get them nice and tuckered before bringing them back home.”

Tori shook her head and smiled, her hands instinctively releasing her sewing box and tote bag in favor of her hostess’s most recent addition to the family. “I don’t know how you do it, Melissa.”

“The secret is to not think. If I did, I’d have to be committed.” Melissa released an audible sigh of relief as she handed the wide-eyed baby to Tori. “I apologize for this place”—she gestured around the room with her newly freed hand—“looking the way it does. But housecleaning is an art form I’ve yet to relearn since baby number seven arrived.”

“That’s okay. You’re focusing on the important part first. Anyone who’s spent more than two seconds with your kids knows they’re rare—respectful, creative, encouraged, and loved.” Tori looked down at the baby in her arms and smiled as they locked gazes. “Molly Sue will be no exception, I’m sure.”

“Thanks, Tori, I think I needed that more than I realized.” Bringing her mouth within inches of Tori’s ear, Melissa lowered her voice to a whisper. “Would you see what you can do about lightening the mood in there? It’s been like this since Debbie showed up with Jackson and Suzanna. But before she came . . . wooo, I needed earplugs for the kids’ ears so they wouldn’t pick up the nasty things being said in this very room.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.” Melissa looked around briefly then whispered in Tori’s ear once again. “I think it’s safe to say Debbie Calhoun is public enemy number two.”

“Two?”

“The top spot belongs to Colby.”

Tori nodded, her heart aching for the woman who sat quietly in her chair, the pattern for a child’s summer dress lying completely ignored in her lap. It was hard to see anyone shunned by people who were supposed to be their friends, but it was even harder to see it happening to a woman like Debbie Calhoun—a woman who’d treated her with nothing but kindness and compassion since the day they’d met.

“Here, let me take Molly Sue so you can work your magic.” Melissa’s free hand swooped in, scooping the tiny infant from Tori’s arms and drawing her against her body with ease. “There’s an empty seat over by Rose.”

“Okay, thanks.” With one final smile at the still wide-eyed baby, Tori reclaimed her sewing box and tote bag and stepped inside the family room, the normal round-robin welcome replaced by a few slight head nods and even less eye contact.

To her left sat Leona, busily flipping through the pages of the latest travel magazine she’d received. Beyond her was Rose, the elderly woman’s frail frame slumped over one of four portable sewing machines that traveled from meeting to meeting. Georgina Hayes sat on the opposite side of the room, one of her trademark straw hats gracefully poised atop her dark brown hair as she quietly worked to secure the first of many buttons on the navy blazer she’d been fussing over for weeks. Beside her was Beatrice Tharrington, the youngest of the group, who diligently worked on a patchwork quilt for one of her charges, her mouth serious, her eyes never leaving her latest project.

And then there was Debbie, tucked in a corner by herself, her shoulders slumped downward as she stared—unseeingly—at the birthday dress she planned to make for her ten-year-old daughter, Suzanna.

Squaring her shoulders against the glares she suspected she’d receive, Tori bypassed the empty spot beside Rose and claimed the less comfortable folding chair to the left of Debbie. “So where is Margaret Louise tonight? Playing hooky?” Without waiting for an answer, she set the sewing box at her feet and placed the tote bag on the empty snack table between her and Debbie, offering a wink of encouragement to the woman as she blathered on. “Or do you think she got lost?”

She knew it was a ridiculous question—the kind of inquiry akin to asking whether a librarian was familiar with the Dewey decimal system. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and the present situation lurking over the heads of the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle more than qualified as desperate.

“The day Margaret Louise can’t find her way to this house, dear, is the day she takes her last breath.” Leona looked up from her magazine long enough to acknowledge Tori’s choice of seats with a slight nod of her head. “And even then I suspect she’ll get herself here before she officially keels over.”

“But not before she braids Lulu’s hair, reminds Jake Junior to look after his siblings, reties Sally’s shoes, plucks Travis from a dirt pile somewhere, coaxes Julia from her mother’s makeup case, teaches Kate how to ride her bike, and makes goofy faces at Molly Sue,” Rose muttered as she shot visual daggers in Tori’s direction.

“And prepares a five course meal for Melissa and Jake to enjoy at three in the morning after the last of the brood is finally asleep,” Georgina added before pursing her lips and returning to her buttons.

The conversation, which would have normally been peppered with laughter, fell flat as everyone said what they wanted to say and then turned back to their immediate task at hand—ignoring Debbie while pretending to sew.

“Okay, so maybe she’s not lost. Any other guesses?”

Debbie met her attempt to keep the chatter alive with a shrug and a voice that failed to disguise her sadness. “She’ll be along soon. She’s at the bakery using the kitchen.”

“She’s trying to put us all to shame with her dessert, isn’t she?” Tori reached into her canvas tote and pulled out the sample cloth gift bag she’d put together after the festival. The project—which had started as a whim—had ignited an idea she was anxious to share with the group.

“She’s experimenting with her recipe from the fair, dear, trying to see if she can turn her blue ribbon into ten thousand dollars and the chance to grace an upcoming cover of
Taste of the South
magazine.” Leona peered at Tori over the top of her glasses, her hand poised mid-page turn. “It’s been a dream of my sister’s since . . . well, since I can’t even recall.”

Setting the gift bag on her thigh, Tori seized on the opportunity to stoke a conversation. “Ten thousand dollars? I had no idea winning the side dish competition at the Re-Founder’s Day Festival carried the possibility of a prize like that. Perhaps I should spend more time cooking and baking.”

“The festival doesn’t have anything to do with this latest contest—not really, anyway.” Debbie worked her bottom lip with her teeth, the uncertainty in her voice hard to ignore. “But she was tapped by the magazine because of the contest.”

“I’m confused . . .” And it was true, she was. But under normal circumstances Tori would simply wait things out, let the answers reveal themselves in subsequent conversation. This, however, was not normal circumstances and subsequent conversation was not a given.

Unless she cast the hook and reeled it in nice and slow . . .

A hook Georgina Hayes impaled herself on in quick fashion.

“William Clayton Wilder, president and CEO of Lions Publishing—the company that makes
Taste of the South
magazine—just happened to be passin’ through Sweet Briar on Sunday as he traveled from a meetin’ in Richmond to his summer home in Boca.” Georgina positioned the next button on her blazer and held it in place with her index finger.