Stitches In Time (42 page)

Pat hesitated, and then threw his hands wide in a
despairing gesture. "Don't bother. There are several more things I want to try, but at the moment I can't think straight. I feel as if I'm suffocating in this damned mask."

The others were as anxious to leave as he. Ruth was gray with fatigue and tension; forgetting Rachel, Pat put his arm around his wife and led her out, cursing himself for his thoughtlessness and demanding why she hadn't told him she was getting tired.

Adam went to Rachel. "Everything all right?"

"Fine, thank you," she said, smiling.

The smile and the courteous response seemed to bother him. "Let's get out of here," he said curtly. "Kara?"

Pat had settled his wife in a chair and was making tea, or trying to; he was still looking for teabags and swearing at the kettle for refusing to boil faster when the others joined them. Kara dropped onto the sofa and blotted her face with a tissue.

"I could use a little something myself," she said. "I don't know why I'm so tired. Rachel?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you hungry?" Adam asked.

"I am, now that you mention it." Rachel rubbed her forehead. The headache wasn't severe, just a dull discomfort. "Did we have lunch?"

"No, we didn't," Kara said. "No wonder we're all feeling weird."

"I'll make sandwiches," Adam offered.

"Forget the sandwiches." Pat presented his wife with a cup and saucer. "Let's go out to dinner. My treat."

"None of the restaurants will be serving for another hour, and we'll never get a reservation on New Year's Eve," Ruth said, surreptitiously blotting the spilled tea.

"I know a place," Pat said, smiling ominously.

"Not one of your awful diners," Ruth protested.

"I don't care where we go, so long as we go out," Kara
said suddenly. "We all need to get away from here for a while. Someplace loud and noisy and vulgar."

"That's the sort of place Pat has in mind," his wife said resignedly. "Darling, maybe you had better call first."

"No need. Joe knows me, he'll fit us in. Hurry up, I'm hungry too. Don't fuss over your faces, ladies, you're a lot better groomed than Joe's usual clientele."

The sun was setting as they headed out of town; by the time they reached the restaurant, some ten miles south of Leesburg, darkness had fallen. Curls of magenta and green neon proclaimed the presence of the Casa Cassidy, and Kara, who had been silent during the drive, burst out laughing.

"My God, Pat, you sure can pick 'em. The sign is awful enough—"

"What's wrong with a few shamrocks?"

"They wouldn't be so bad without the Santa and the reindeer and those thousands of Christmas lights."

"You said you wanted something vulgar. I aim to please."

The bar was already crowded with people getting a head start on their celebration, but Joe welcomed Pat with a raucous shout and found a table for them.

"It's got everything," Kara said happily. "Red checked plastic tablecloths, plastic flowers in a plastic vase, even a candle in a Chianti bottle. I haven't seen one of those since Mark and I were courting."

"He'd love this place," Pat said.

"Yes," Kara said. "He would."

Pat insisted on buying a bottle of wine and then a second—"At ten bucks a crack I guess I can afford it"—and by the time they finished the first bottle and a gargantuan plate of antipasto the atmosphere was a good deal more cheerful. In his wool plaid shirt, his hair rumpled and his glasses riding low on his nose, Pat looked like one of the
boys, instead of a learned professor. Rachel was sitting next to him; while the others were engaged in a spirited debate on Italian versus Irish cuisine, she caught his eye, which was fixed on her.

"This was a good idea," she said. "You weren't thinking only of food when you suggested it, were you?"

"Elementary psychology. Prolonged tension leads to arguments, tears, and inefficiency. But there's nothing wrong with food," he added, as Adam offered them a basket of bread.

He waited until they had finished eating before rapping on the table and calling the meeting to order.

"Okay, Rachel. I thought it the better part of wisdom to leave you out of the proceedings this afternoon, but it's high time we consulted you. I'm not going to ask you any questions and I don't want you to force it. Is there anything you want to say?"

"It was a waste of time."

"Ah. Are you speaking in your professional capacity, or as ... or otherwise? Shut up, Adam, she has sense enough to know when to stop."

"I don't know," Rachel said slowly. "It was something
I
felt. That it was a waste of time."

"You were right."

"Then why the hell did we spend the whole afternoon on it?" Adam demanded angrily.

"Because we had to try, you opinionated young idiot. Do you want coffee?"

"What?" Adam glared at the hovering waiter. "I don't care. Yes."

"I'll have an espresso," Kara said. "And add my curses, you should excuse the word, to Adam's. What are you going to do now?"

Pat leaned back and loosened his belt. "Honey, I've just begun to fight. We haven't got to the really serious stuff yet."

"Such as what?"

"Such as dissecting the damned thing. Rip out every stitch, reduce it to a pile of scraps." Rachel moved involuntarily, but didn't speak. Pat glanced at her and went on, "The methods that offer the greatest hope of success will result in the destruction of the quilt. Fire is the most favored counteractive, and we may have to resort to that, but not until after we've tried everything else. There are certain . . . dangers involved in burning it."

"I thought we had tried everything else," Adam said.

"Good God, no. I haven't tried Pennsylvania Dutch unhexing spells, or voodoo, or the peculiar methodology of the Trobriand Islanders. Drink your coffee. It's time you young folks went home to beddy by."

Pat insisted on singing as they drove home. "Auld Lang Syne" had never been rendered with greater feeling. Rachel joined in; she knew the song well enough to be able to sing and think at the same time. She had to get to the quilt before Pat started his "serious stuff." What she wanted to do wouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes, but she would have to wait until after Adam was asleep. She couldn't risk telling him, he was already antagonistic and suspicious.

They had almost reached the house before Pat returned to the subject with an abruptness that made Rachel wonder if he had somehow read her mind. "Try your milk routine tonight, Adam. It's probably not worth a damn, but a good researcher doesn't overlook anything. We'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning. With holy water."

Rachel bit back an exclamation of angry protest. It would be almost impossible to do what she had to do after the quilt had been hung, dripping, on a clothesline in the backyard. She'd have to think of some way of getting Adam out of the house for half an hour. An errand of some kind . . .

"Aren't you coming in?" Adam asked, opening the car door.

"No. It's New Year's Eve, and I'm going to celebrate by checking a few more references and then taking my wife to bed."

"Really, Pat." Ruth sounded more amused than offended.

"You're a disgusting old man, Pat," Kara said, laughing.

"What's disgusting about being madly in love with your wife?"

"Nothing." Kara leaned forward and kissed Ruth's cheek. "Good night, my dears. See you tomorrow."

She started toward the house. Rachel was about to follow when Pat called to her. "Rachel."

"Yes?"

"Happy New Year, kid."

"Happy New Year."

He meant it as a promise, and such was the force of his personality that she almost believed it—until Adam opened the door and she saw the man who was waiting for them.

Tony.

She had anticipated everything but this. The unexpectedness
of the disaster was as stunning as a blow against defenses that were too new and fragile. The crack was hairline-thin, but it was wide enough for what waited. First a trickle, then a sudden flood, it filled her as liquid fills a container, compressing her consciousness into a small area impossibly remote from the centers of speech and movement. Her parted lips never shaped the words they would have uttered.

"Tony!" Kara ran to her brother-in-law and threw her arms around him. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here, remember?" Tony said. "I might ask what you're doing here. I thought you and Mark would be out tonight getting drunk with the hotshots of Washington."

Kara's face went blank as she tried to come up with a plausible explanation. Fortunately for her, Tony didn't wait for an answer. "In fact, brilliant detective that I am, I deduced you were here when I went into what I thought was my room and stepped on unmistakable evidence of the presence of Alexander. I managed to limp away before he attacked."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry." Kara sank down onto the floor next to his chair. "I was going to destroy the evidence and clean the room, but we didn't expect you till Monday."

"Didn't you get my messages?" His eyes moved from her to the form that stood rigid and silent next to Adam. "I called twice."

Rachel
had
unplugged
the telephone in the workroom. They had spent the entire afternoon there, and no one had thought to check the answering machine. Another link in the chain.

Standing behind her, one hand near but not quite touching her shoulder, Adam said, "Something has happened."

"Yes. It's good news," he added quickly, as Kara looked at him in alarm. "Cheryl and the kids are fine, this is something else. Why don't you two sit down and relax—you look like a couple of statues—and I'll tell you about it."

She let Adam lead her to the couch. He sat down beside her. "They found the burglar."

"You got it." Tony's lips twisted wryly. "Calling it good news is rather callous, but it can only come as a relief to Rachel."

"To all of us," Kara said. "What do you mean, callous? We should break out the champagne. Where did they find him?"

"Less than twenty miles from here, in the woods. Champagne might be in bad taste," Tony said. "He'd been there for a long time. We're not sure how long yet; the coroner's office is backed up because of the holidays."

"Dead." Adam made it a statement. "How—"

Kara didn't allow him to finish. "They dragged you all the way back here for that? I thought Tom was handling the case."

"Somebody had to identify him as the alleged thief. I didn't want Rachel to do it, he was . . . not a pleasant sight."

Lines of fatigue and strain marked his face. The hasty, unexpected journey must have been difficult for him. He had gone to all that trouble to spare a virtual stranger, a woman who meant nothing to him. A woman named Rachel, reduced to a faint flicker of awareness, helpless as a fly in a spider's sticky web.

The lips she no longer controlled smiled at Tony. "Thank you," they said.

"All in a day's work." The lines of strain smoothed out as he returned her smile, relieved she had taken the news so quietly. "To be truthful, I was glad of an excuse to get away. My mother was driving me nuts, shoving eggnog at me every half hour and smothering me with pillows."

"You look terrible," Kara said bluntly.

"Thanks. I could use a drink, at that. Why don't you break out the scotch, Kara? It's New Year's Eve and
I
think we're entitled to a modest, tasteful celebration. Unless you kids were planning to go out?"

He raised an inquiring eyebrow at Adam, who glanced at the woman beside him on the couch.

"No, we kids weren't," she said pleasantly. "Sit still, Kara, I'll play bartender, and then Tony can have the floor.
I
have a feeling he hasn't told us the whole story."

"Most of it. If you want details . . . The body was found early this morning by a couple of kids out hunting. They practically stumbled over the corpse, it was uncovered except by the brush into which it had fallen. Like good citizens they immediately reported the discovery, and one of them brought in the wallet they had found—lying next to the body, he said. When Tom saw the name on the driver's license, he called me."

"Wait a minute," Adam exclaimed. "You knew his name?"

"We were pretty sure he was the guy we wanted, yes. It was mostly a process of elimination; there were several
possibles, but when we called on one Eddy Whitbread, we found he hadn't been heard from for over a week. His family hadn't reported him as missing, since he had a habit of disappearing for days at a time. There are several other children, and Tom got the distinct impression the parents were relieved when Eddy took himself off. He'd been in trouble before. Anyhow ..." He paused, drank, and grinned. "You have a generous hand with the booze, Rachel. Anyhow, his disappearance confirmed our hunch that he was the man we wanted. We assumed he'd skipped town, but he may have been dead all this time. A couple of weeks, from the condition of the body."