Streak of Lightning (7 page)
Read on for the first chapter to Clare O'Donohue's novel
The Double Wedding Ring: A Someday Quilts Mystery Featuring Nell Fitzgerald
, coming soon from Plume.
It was dark. Whatever sliver there was of a moon had hidden behind the buildings along Main Street, leaving only the slightly open door to light my way. I grabbed the trash from the cutting table, bits and pieces of fabric so small that even seasoned quilters would find little use for them, and headed into the alley.
I threw the trash into the Dumpster, my last chore of a very long day, and turned toward the back door to the shop. The wind picked upâan icy January wind that made me glad I'd thrown on my coat before venturing outside. I heard a noise behind me, and just as I turned to see what it was, the wind slammed the shop door closed, locking it. I had my car keys in my pocket, but my purse, cell phone, and, most important, the keys to the shop, were still inside.
“Eleanor is going to kill me,” I muttered, my breath forming icy circles in the night air. The question was would I call her, and let her kill me now, or leave it until tomorrow. It wasn't a hard decision. Jesse was waiting for me at his place with a hot meal and a tall glass of wine. Tomorrow would do.
I walked around to the front of the shop, checked the front door just to be sure. Also locked. I'd volunteered to stay behind and close up. We had post-Christmas markdowns out and everyone, especially my grandmother, had put in lots of additional hours. Eleanor Cassidy owned the shop and said the extra work was her responsibility, but she was in her seventies and had a lot on her mind these days. I wanted to help, both as a granddaughter and an employee. And now I'd locked my set of keys in the shop.
Someday Quilts would be fine, I decided. The place was locked up tight and the only thing I hadn't done was put on the new alarm we'd had installed. It was Jesse's idea after a string of vandalisms hit the town during the summer. He'd had something similar installed at his house, and both alarms went directly to the police station in the event of a problem. Jesse, the town's chief of police, was still careful about setting his, but at the shop, once the culprit had been caught, we'd pretty much forgotten about the alarm.
Besides, Eleanor had made the bank deposit on her way home. There wasn't anything to steal except some fabric and the twenty dollars in my purse. Assuming someone would bother to try. Things had been pretty quiet in Archers Rest lately.
“It's fine,” I said to no one.
But as I spoke I thought I saw something through the window. I clenched my jaw and kept looking. As the moon moved slightly I could see that a pile of small fabric pieces, known to quilters as fat quarters, had fallen over. Fat quarters I thought I'd stacked low enough to stay in place.
“When the door slammed shut they must have gotten knocked over,” I said to myself. That made sense. One stack of fat quarters out of place was not a crisis. But my freezing in front of the shop was quickly becoming one. I headed to my car.
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The streetlight that normally lit the way to Jesse's driveway was burned out. No matter. My headlights worked just fine, and once I turned off the car, I was only a few feet from his front door.
I stepped out into the cold night and the silence that descends on Archers Rest when the sun goes down. I glanced to my left, suddenly nervous. I couldn't tell what had attracted my attention. Maybe it was the smoke, small wisps of cigarette smoke escaping through the open window of a dark SUV parked just outside Jesse's house. I could barely make out a figure inside. A man; that was all I could tell.
“Good evening,” I said, sounding cheery while letting him know I'd noticed him.
There was no answer.
I shrugged. It was cold and dark, and I wasn't much in the mood to chat anyway. The man I loved was inside waiting for me, and he was making me dinner.
After more than a year of uncertainty, difficulties, and dead bodies, my life in Archers Rest was finally filled with good news. And I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of just how happy it made me feel.
For more quilting and mystery in Archers Rest, check out Clare O'Donohue's other Someday Quilts Mysteries, also available from Plume.
