Let it Sew (18 page)

Chapter 25

Tori could feel the weight of Margaret Louise’s eyes as she moved around the children’s
room making sure each and every box was properly labeled and ready for a quick turnaround
once Mrs. Claus had returned to the North Pole. It was a painstaking process but one
that had been necessary in order to get the board’s support to transform the popular
destination into a temporary winter wonderland.

And even with some of the boxes still awaiting Milo’s strong arms, the backdrop was
taking shape nicely.

“I can’t believe you reupholstered a chair just for Mrs. Claus.” Tori stopped beside
the room’s storytelling focal point and traced her finger across the whimsical fabric
of candy canes and cookie jars. “How long did it take you to do this? It’s perfect.”

Margaret Louise came out from behind the snack table she’d just erected and waved
aside Tori’s praise. “It wasn’t nothin’. The chair was just sittin’ in my family room
gatherin’ dust, and I decided to give it a second life.”

“But to go out and find fabric this perfect for an event that’s going to last less
than two hours?” Tori let the question hover in the air, knowing the reason for the
extra special touch was standing less than two feet away. With eyes that were finally
sparkling the way they were meant to sparkle.

“I love Christmas, Victoria. I love the warmth, I love the kindness, I love the homey
feel that comes with this time of year. And if I can’t help spread that ’round Sweet
Briar in the way I have before, I’m goin’ to seize the chance you’re givin’ me with
this.”

“And seize you have,” she said, spreading her arms wide and slowly turning in a small
circle. “The children are going to love this place.”

“Well now, that’s a relief.” Margaret Louise returned to the slew of shopping bags
she’d set beside the snack table and began to unearth everything from a Christmas
tablecloth to paper plates and napkins adorned with Santa’s jolly face.

“What’s a relief?”

Margaret Louise reached into the second bag and pulled out a roll of fake snow and
a jar of sparkly Christmas tree glitter. “That hint of a smile you had just now while
you were turnin’ ’round and ’round. It’s been missin’ the past few hours.”

Tori knew it was no use. Try as she might, the visit to the Devereauxes’ home the
night before still weighed heavily on her mind. But did she really want to bring it
into a room they were working so hard to holiday-ify?

No, she didn’t.

Not yet anyway.

She needed the magic Margaret Louise was creating just as much as anyone at that moment.

“Victoria?” Dixie poked her head into the children’s room then stepped to the side
to allow Kyle Jordan entrance. “Your helper is here . . .”

“Hey there, Kyle! Boy, are we ever glad to see you.” Tori crossed the room to welcome
the little boy with a warm hand on his shoulder. “So? What do you think? Do you think
it’s a room that will please Mrs. Claus?”

Slowly, Kyle pulled his gaze upward until it was fixed on Mrs. Claus’s reading chair
and the bare artificial tree positioned to its side. “Is that where I get to put my
mom’s ornaments?” he whispered in a voice far more burdened than fit an eight-year-old.

“It sure is.” She met Margaret Louise’s raised eyebrow with one of her own yet continued
on as if nothing was amiss. “In fact, Ms. Davis, here, secured all those wonderful
ornaments from the basement of the Town Hall just this morning and she has them waiting
for you now, don’t you, Ms. Davis?”

Margaret Louise leaned to her left, lifting a long rectangular storage bin into the
air for Kyle to see. “Your mom was the best ornament picker this side of the Mississippi.”

Kyle blinked once, twice. “Y-You knew my mom?”

Margaret Louise carried the bin over to the tree and set it down on the ground for
easier reaching. “You bet I knew your mom. Why, when you sprouted enough to go off
to kindergarten, your mamma joined my Christmas Decoratin’ Committee. Before I met
her, I didn’t know anyone loved Christmas as much as I did, but she sure proved me
wrong. That’s when I started callin’ her Holiday Sue.”

“Sue was her middle name.” Kyle’s eyes widened in earnest as he appeared to hang on
Margaret Louise’s every word.

“So the nickname fit, didn’t it?” Bending down to the child’s eye level, Margaret
Louise took hold of his hands, rubbing their topsides with her thumbs. “I can’t imagine
a more perfect choice than you, Kyle, to hang all those purty ornaments your mom picked
out. I reckon she’d be tickled pink to know you inherited her holiday spirit.”

Tori leaned against the wall, looking from Kyle to the tree and back again. “We weren’t
sure whether you like white lights or colored lights, so we got some of both.”

Kyle slipped his hands from Margaret Louise’s grasp, his mouth gaping open as he did.
“You mean,
I
get to pick?”

“That’s right. And you also get to choose whether we use garland or tinsel.”

“Wow! Thanks!” Kyle wiggled out of his lightweight jacket and practically ran to the
box of decorations, completely oblivious to the relief that passed between the adults
in the room. Whatever hurt the little boy had been harboring when he walked into the
room was long forgotten as he rolled up his sleeves and set about the task of decorating
the tree that would soon welcome Mrs. Claus to the Sweet Briar Public Library.

Ten minutes later, the first decision under his belt, Kyle wound his way around the
lower half of the tree, leaving colored lights everywhere he went. Next, came the
very tough garland-tinsel debate, with the notion of tossing tinsel at the tree winning
out in the end.

“It’s looking good, Kyle,” Tori called from the top rung of the ladder she’d dragged
into the room for the purpose of affixing some decorations to the ceiling.

“Just you wait and see, Miss Sinclair, it’s gonna look even better when my mom’s ornaments
are on it.” Flashing a thumbs-up at his own tinsel-tossing ability, Kyle returned
to the bin and retrieved the first of several dozen tissue-wrapped mounds from inside.
With careful, almost reverent fingers, he peeled back the paper to reveal the first
of many ornaments that would inspire the kinds of oohs and ahhs that made Tori wish,
for just a moment, that she, too, were a child once again.

When the tree was all but done, save for the star at the top, Kyle finally looked
around the room, his big brown eyes a testament to the success of their collective
efforts. “Wow. Mrs. Claus is gonna
love
this place.”

Margaret Louise’s hearty laugh filled the room, soliciting one from Tori in the process.
“You bet she is.”

Kyle snapped the lid of the bin into place and wandered over to Tori’s ladder. “Whatcha
gonna hang from all those strings, Miss Sinclair?”

She winked down at him. “Snowflakes.”

When he didn’t respond beyond a gaped mouth, she tried again. “They’re not as pretty
as the one you got your dad for Christmas, but they didn’t come out too bad if I must
say so . . .”

The words trailed from her lips as the boy’s shoulders lurched forward and began to
shake with the force of his sobs.

“Kyle . . . Kyle . . . what’s wrong?” She climbed down the ladder and pulled the child
into her arms, his tears quickly soaking a hole through the middle of her royal blue
blouse. When he didn’t answer, she simply held him close, quietly hushing his tears
and wishing Margaret Louise would hurry and get back from the latest trip out to her
car.

When the tears subsided enough to make speech even semipossible, she tried again.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. And I’m pretty good at fixing
problems. Just ask Ms. Davis when she gets back . . .”

“You can’t fix this,” he hiccupped. “Nobody can.”

She rocked back on her heels and studied him closely. “Try me.”

“M-Maime b-broke m-my d-dad’s or-ornament.”

“Did she drop the box?” Tori reached out and pushed a scrap of hair from his eye,
only to have it fall back in place with the emphatic shake of his head.

“She
threw
the box!”

Certain the boy had misunderstood, she tried again. “Sometimes, when something falls,
it can look like it was thrown but—”

“I asked her for some wrapping paper and tape. So I could wrap my dad’s present. When
she gave it to me, she asked what I needed it for.” Kyle stopped, took a deep breath,
and plowed on. “I showed her the sparkly snowflake and told her it was for my dad—for
his and Mom’s collection.”

Uh-oh . . .

“When I said that, she got all mad and said I couldn’t give it to him. When I said
I was gonna anyway, she took it out of my hands and threw it against the wall.” Kyle’s
shoulders began to shake once again as the tears reappeared on his cheeks. “I told
her she was mean and she said I—I sh-should get used to it.”

It took every ounce of restraint Tori possessed not to start yelling, to rail against
the mean-spirited woman who’d set her sights and her evildoing on an innocent child
whose biggest offense was cherishing memories of his parents together. She took gulps
of air. She nibbled her lower lip. She clenched and unclenched her fists. But in the
end, she gave Kyle what he needed most—a smile and a promise that he’d get to give
his father a snowflake for Christmas one way or another.

*   *   *

Tori had just hung up the phone when it rang again, Leona’s vow to put The Grinch
in her place still fresh in her ears.

“Good afternoon. This is the Sweet Briar Public Library, how may I help you?” She
heard the slight shake to her voice, knew her anger was still close to the surface,
but hoped and prayed whatever remnants remained from the latest Maime Wellington story
would go undetected over the phone.

“Mizz Sinclair?”

Her head snapped up at the familiar voice. “Frieda? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mizz Sinclair. It’s me.”

Tori inhaled deeply, allowing the movement of air through her lungs to relax her as
much as possible. “Did you see him today?”

“Brian was at the center just a little while ago and we struck up a conversation.
I asked him about some of the presents he liked to bring Mizz Charlotte. He talked
about his beloved storybook and the candy he used to bring to her in her chair.

“And then he said it. He said he brought her Ethan’s journal. He took it from Ethan’s
room when he was looking for a hat to go with the costume he was wearing for the center’s
Halloween party that day.”

Closing her eyes, Tori asked the question that needed to be asked. “When was the Halloween
party?”

“October eighteenth.”

Nearly five weeks before Charlotte’s death . . .

“It fits, Mizz Sinclair. It fits with the time Mizz Charlotte added that line about
being wrong.”

“It fits . . .” she repeated in a whisper. “Damn.”

Chapter 26

One by one Tori counted her way through the stockings piled on her dining room table
in anticipation of the sewing circle’s first-ever stuffathon the next evening. When
she reached one hundred, she allowed herself a moment to breathe before moving on
to the candy canes and miniature look-and-find books mounded together on the opposite
side of the table.

It was official. An event that had been born on a whim in an attempt to cheer a dear
friend had taken on a life of its own, proving to be therapeutic for virtually all
it touched behind the scenes. Including her if she let it.

But ever since she’d locked up the library and headed home, no amount of forced thinking
could keep her mind off Frieda’s call or the fact that she was right back to square
one where Parker Devereaux’s murder was concerned.

Sure, there was a part of her that considered giving up. After all, the person everyone
assumed was responsible was already dead. But no matter how hard she tried to bow
to that notion, she knew in her gut it was wrong.

It simply
had
to be.

Besides, Charlotte’s own words and the drawing she’d been adamant Ethan see meant
something
. The key was figuring out what that something was before she fell over from sleep
deprivation.

All the clues Tori had been so certain pointed to Ethan didn’t. Not the pictures,
not his father’s mounting disappointment, not Charlotte’s oft-repeated plea, and not
Brian’s storybook.

Brian’s storybook
.

She stopped midway through her candy cane count and opted instead to pour herself
a mug of hot chocolate. With any luck, the steaming liquid, coupled with a moment
to put up her feet and close her eyes, would do her body and her mind good.

But even as she made her way into the kitchen and over to the stove, she found her
thoughts revisiting the story she’d read to Molly Sue at the last sewing circle meeting.
Page by page the toddler had hung on Tori’s every word, her wide blue eyes soaking
up every detail of every picture. Something about the story of a messy kid who finally
gets it right, yet is still seen as messy because of his past ways, struck a chord
with both Brian Devereaux and Melissa Davis’s youngest.

A modern telling of a Little Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Tori moved between the sink and the stove as she filled the kettle and turned its
burner on high. She’d been so sure that Charlotte had folded one of her pictures and
shoved it inside Brian’s storybook for a reason. Yet now that Ethan’s hand in Parker’s
death seemed virtually unlikely, that reason no longer held weight.

Besides, the boy in the book hadn’t really made the mess.

And neither had Ethan . . .

Tori grabbed hold of the counter’s edge as her legs began to sway. Maybe Charlotte
had
put the picture in the book for a reason. Maybe Charlotte, too, had thought Ethan
was behind her husband’s murder and had only recently come to realize that she’d been
wrong all along . . .

I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t stand to lose them both. But I was wrong.

Suddenly Charlotte’s words and her drawings made all the sense in the world. For five
long years, the elderly woman had lived with the fear that her son had killed her
husband. As a result, she’d had to mourn the passing of her true love in silence for
fear that speaking of it would rob her of her son, too.

No wonder Charlotte had tried so hard to share her mistake with Frieda. No wonder
she’d been so desperate for Ethan to see the picture—so he’d know his father was dead.
To know such things, yet be powerless to make others understand, had to have been
maddening for a woman essentially trapped inside her own mind.

It was a heart-wrenching scenario, one that threatened to pull Tori into the doldrums
if she thought about it for too long. Instead, she lifted the steaming kettle from
the stove and poured its contents into a waiting mug and the mix of chocolate powder
that would soon be her evening’s treat. As she stirred, she allowed her mind to travel
back through the day, skipping through the bad parts and zeroing in on the good. But
even as she recalled the fun of decorating and the sweetness of Kyle’s smile while
he strung the lights and tossed the tinsel, her thoughts kept returning to Charlotte
and Ethan, again and again, like a tongue unable to leave the lone wiggly tooth alone.

Yet as she poked at it for the umpteenth time since Frieda’s call, an undeniable reality
began to take shape.

If Charlotte knew where the body was buried, and the likelihood she’d done it without
any help was slim to none, then how could she have thought Ethan was involved? Wouldn’t
she have known?

Hooking her leg underneath her body, Tori sat down on the couch and blew at the steam
that rose from her mug. Had Charlotte buried her husband all by herself? And if she
did, was it because she came across his body somewhere and assumed Ethan had killed
him? Or was someone else involved? Someone who helped dispose of the body after the
fact?

But who would do that? Who would help someone bury a body?

A trusted friend or loved one . . .

“Frieda,” she whispered.

Frieda adored Charlotte Devereaux and had said many times that she’d have done anything
for the woman. Whether that anything extended to helping dispose of a body, though,
was anyone’s guess.

*   *   *

Tori sat in the car, staring up at the Devereaux home, debating the merits of knocking
against the pull of heading back home.

If she knocked, she’d have to come face-to-face with a man she’d called a jerk not
too long ago. And having done so, she stood a good chance of being dressed down or,
even better, picked up on trespassing charges.

If she went home, she might be able to put on her comfiest pajamas and climb into
bed, but even if she did, she’d spend the whole night contemplating what she might
have learned had she only stayed and knocked.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned off the ignition and stepped from the car, the
glow of light from the second floor confirming that at least one, if not both, of
Charlotte’s sons was in residence. Would either one of them answer her knock, or would
one of Brian’s aids shoo her from the property?

“There’s only one way to find out,” she mumbled as she climbed the now-familiar porch
steps and bypassed the notion of knocking in favor of a doorbell capable of waking
the dead three counties over.

This time, her ring was answered by a man she’d never met yet knew immediately upon
first sight. “Hewwo . . . I’m Bwian, who are you?”

She stepped forward and extended her hand in the direction of Charlotte’s older son,
who shook it warmly. “My name is Tori. Tori Sinclair. I’m a friend of your mother’s—”

“Who’s at the door, Brian?” Ethan barked from somewhere just out of Tori’s field of
vision.

The short, brown-haired man turned toward the voice, shifting from foot to foot as
he did. “It’s Towi. Towi Sincwair.”

“Oh . . . is it now?” Footsteps sounded from around the corner, bringing Brian’s brother
into view. “Have you returned to insult me further?”

Brian’s face crumbled in the hallway light. “Towi is nice, Ethan. You should be nice
to her.”

“Brian’s right. I really
am
nice. Or at least, I try to be.”

“You should be nice to her,” Brian repeated before covering his mouth for a not-so-whispered
whisper. “Plus she’s a giwl. A weal, live giwl.”

Tori couldn’t help it—she laughed, the man’s endearingly sweet honesty magically dissipating
the tension she’d felt in every nook and cranny of her body until just that moment.

“We should invite her in,” Brian said. Then at the unexpected nod from Ethan, he did
just that. “Come in, Towi.”

Pushing aside her bent toward shyness, Tori stepped into the wide foyer that ran the
length of the Devereaux home. “I’m sorry to bother you this late in the evening but—”

Brian peeked around her shoulder for a better view of the mahogany grandfather clock
at the end of the hall. “Uh-oh. I need to go to bed.” And then, without so much as
another word, the mentally challenged man disappeared up the staircase at the end
of the hall.

“Great. My brother invites you in and then I get stuck having to deal with you.” Ethan
rolled his eyes skyward then brought them back down to stare at Tori in exasperation.
“Doesn’t that just figure.”

She rushed to make amends, even though a part of her cringed at the prospect. “Believe
it or not, we’re on the same side. And because of that, I’m sorry I was a little . . .
harsh the other day.”

Ethan folded his arms across his chest. “We’re on the same side?” At her nod, he smirked.
“And what side might that be, Miss Sinclair?”

“The side of the truth.”

He dropped his hands, only to link them across his chest once again. “The side of
the truth? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She considered asking him if they could move into the living room or the dining room
or anywhere with a pair of chairs, but let it slide. Ethan Devereaux wasn’t about
entertaining. Instead, she leaned her shoulder against the wall and got to the point
of her visit. “Your mother was trying desperately to tell you something about your
father’s death. She tried to tell Frieda at first, but then, when given a notebook
and a pencil, she tried to tell you.”

“Yeah, nothing like telling me the truth five years after the fact.” The bitterness
in Ethan’s voice was overshadowed by a very real, very raw twinge of pain.

For a moment, she considered telling him why his mother hadn’t informed him of Parker’s
death but opted to hold back on that truth until they had more answers. Telling a
man that his mother suspected him of murdering his father wasn’t exactly conducive
to ongoing conversation.

Instead, she jumped in headfirst. “What can you tell me about Frieda Taylor?” she
asked.

He shrugged. “You mean other than what I already told you about her being a hypocrite?”

Tori bit back the urge to defend the woman who’d cared for this man’s mother when
he himself was too busy even to walk in the room and say hello. But she knew that
if she did, she’d lose all hope of chasing down yet another possible scenario in Parker’s
death.

“How was she a hypocrite?”

“Was and is,” Ethan corrected with a vehemence that surprised her. “Frieda Taylor
liked to talk the talk about community service and doing your part as a human being.
She’d preach it to a doorpost if she had a chance. Even went after me a time or two
saying I should give of my time to those less fortunate.”

“Ooo-kay . . .”

His emerald green eyes flashed with irritation at the sarcasm in her voice. “She talked
a good game, yet did the complete opposite in her own life. Which—the last time I
checked—is the definition of a hypocrite.”

Tori felt the checked anger bubbling up in her chest and willed herself to remain
calm. Flying off the handle would get her nothing except a strong-armed assist out
the front door. Instead, she questioned the validity of his information. “I’m not
sure how you can say she doesn’t walk the walk when she was volunteering at the Devereaux
Center for months before she came here, to care for your mom.”

“Volunteering?” he hissed.

“Just like she is again now while she tries to find a new job.”

His hands moved to his hips as he squared his jaw. “I don’t know what it says in your
book, Miss Sinclair, but in
my
book, volunteers don’t get paid. They”—he raised his fingers into the air to simulate
quote marks—“give of their time freely and without compensation.”

“Frieda doesn’t get paid,” Tori protested. “She—”

“The hell she doesn’t! She’s gotten paid to work at the center since day one and she
gets paid damn well.”

“But—”

“In fact, she got paid as a consultant at the center even while she was working here,
for my mom, double-dipping her way through money that was supposed to be
mine
.”

“And Brian’s?”

“That’s debatable,” he spat through teeth clenched so tight she was afraid they’d
break. “But Frieda’s being a hypocrite. There’s nothing the slightest bit debatable
about that.”

Tori worked to keep up with everything he was saying, the words coming out of his
mouth not jibing with what she knew. Or rather, assumed.

“And sadly, in addition to Frieda and a handful of others over the past four years
or so, now there’s another one.”

Somehow she’d lost him between the jealousy and the anger. “There’s another what?”

“Another person slowly draining my father’s company dry via a center that was supposed
to be staffed with volunteers. And this latest one? She’s some local award-winning
cook who’s been brought on staff to teach Brian-alikes how to bake cookies.”