Her eyes went a little wild and she grabbed me by the sleeve, pulling me into the front room. “I don’t know what to do,” she confided in a panic.
“Do about what?” I asked, wondering why people kept saying that to me.
She dropped her head into her hands and her shoulders shook. The emotions she’d been trying to block were coming out in full force. She looked up at me, her eyes glassy but clear, her lips trembling but resolute. “I think I know why Nell died,” she said.
Black dots danced before my eyes. I wanted to poke a finger in my ear. Had I heard right? “Wh-what?”
She glanced into the workroom. The girls sat on the floor, gushing over a bridal magazine. Will was still fiddling with the shelf.
“Nell’s dead,” she said, turning back to me. “It’s too late to protect her, so . . . so what do I do? Go to the sheriff and tell him who I suspect killed her? But . . . but, no, I can’t.” She notched her head toward Holly. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”
As we spoke, a vision of a dress I wanted to create for her daughter appeared in my head, as strong and clear as ever. I’d begun to wonder if being able to see the perfect outfit for a person was my family gift. I hadn’t been able to conjure up an image of anything for Nell, though. Why not? My pulse raced as the answer slammed into my mind. As long as I could see a design for someone, maybe that meant they were safe.
“Nothing’s going to happen to her,” I said, hoping I was right. “The sheriff—”
“No. Nell is dead. A person who kills once will kill again—isn’t that what they say?”
As she uttered the words, Miriam’s dress in my mind’s eye suddenly stretched and twisted, the green and off-white hues of the fabric distorting as if someone had dragged a paintbrush through the colors. “Does . . . whoever it is . . . does he know you know?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not yet.”
“You have to tell someone, Miriam. Don’t you see, if you keep this to yourself and the killer finds out you know, you’ll be the one in danger.” I suddenly couldn’t picture the dress for Holly, either, and my breath hitched. “You and Holly.”
Chapter 37
The Buttons & Bows atmosphere I’d imagined as I prepared to open my shop never included people coming in and announcing that they knew the identity of a murderer. But now that I found myself in that situation, there was nothing to do but forge ahead.
“Tell me, Miriam,” I said, my palm flat against my chest. “I’ll go to the sheriff so you don’t have anything to do with it.”
She hesitated and I could tell she was thinking about it. Her lips parted, her tongue pressed against her front teeth as she deliberated. I was on the edge of my seat, holding my breath, praying she wouldn’t say a name I didn’t want to hear. Finally, a sound came from her throat. The beginnings of a name. I leaned forward, wishing I could grab hold of the letters and pull them out of her mouth.
Before she could form a single complete syllable, Gracie and Holly bounded into the front room. Holly plopped down next to her mom. “I’m hungry.”
Miriam snapped her mouth shut and just like that, the moment was gone. “You can eat at the bead shop after the funeral,” she said.
“But—”
Miriam leveled a look at her daughter—one eerily similar to her mother’s—that stopped Holly cold but propelled me into action.
“I’ll get them something.” Practically catapulting off the couch, I ran into the kitchen, feeling like a rodeo cowboy wrestling a steer. I was scrambling to rope and tie Miriam so she’d cough up the name of a killer. I spilled crackers onto a plate next to a couple spoonfuls of Nana’s spicy pecan goat cheese, and threw a bowl of red grapes on the table. “Something to tide you over,” I called to the girls, but it was dead quiet.
I peeked into the front room.
No Miriam. No Holly.
Leaving the plate on the table, I dashed down the three steps leading from the kitchen to the front room. “Where’d they—”
Gracie pointed to the open front door. “They just up and left.”
No! I skidded across the hardwood floor, grabbing the door before it slammed shut. Holly was already at the sidewalk, walking in the direction of the square. “Wait!” I bounded down the porch steps two at a time, flying over the flagstone walkway, almost colliding with Miriam at the arbor. White flower petals showered over us in a frenzy.
“I didn’t . . . measure . . . Holly,” I said as I tried to catch my breath. Years of walking everywhere in Manhattan had kept me in shape. But a few short months of chicken-fried steak and queso had already reversed the effects and I was exhausted by the effort of chasing after her. “I can’t make her a dress for the wedding if—”
She shot a quick glance at her daughter before looking me square in the eye. A spark of determination flickered. “Forget I said anything, Harlow. I’ll take care of everything.”
Before I could react, she ran down the sidewalk. Within seconds, she and Holly had turned the corner and disappeared.
When I got back inside the shop, the things she’d said, as well as the things she hadn’t said, came together in my mind. She knew who the killer was, but believed she would be endangering her daughter if she said anything. She wouldn’t go to the sheriff.
Who had Miriam been about to call out as the killer? I parted my lips, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth just like she’d done. “N-N-N-N.” I made the sound over and over again. And then I uttered a name.
My skin pricked with the sensation of a thousand needle jabs. One of the names I didn’t want to hear. “Nate,” I said under my breath just as the click of footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor behind me.
Chapter 38
“What got her all riled up?” Will asked as he sidled up next to me.
“Nell’s”—Murder, I thought grimly—“funeral. She had to go help set up for afterward.”
“That woman’s gotta get her own life,” he said under his breath.
I shot him a look. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s too worried about that damn family of hers and what they’ll think to live her own life.”
He sounded a little bitter. I flicked my finger at him, then toward the window. “Did you and Miriam ever . . . Were you, you know, together?”
He gave me a long, searching look. “Now why would you ask that?”
“Just curious.” I hooked my thumbs in the belt loops of my jeans. “Gracie mentioned that Miriam and Holly stayed with you for a while after her divorce, so I thought—”
“So you thought there was something between us.”
I nodded. “Was there?”
“I’m curious why you’re curious,” he said, a hint of a grin pulling up the corner of his mouth.
“Gracie and Holly are best friends and they stayed with you, but you hardly said two sentences to Miriam when she came in. I was just wondering why.”
He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his voice had dropped so Gracie and my mother wouldn’t overhear. “Let’s just say that the Kincaids are not my biggest fans. Miriam can’t ever decide if she should listen to her parents about her friends or make up her own mind. When her mother threw a fit that they’d stayed with us, she took Holly and left and Gracie didn’t see her for a long time. I managed to make her see that the girls’ friendship had nothing to do with her parents, but now I just try to make it easy on her. If she doesn’t get into it with her parents, Gracie and Holly can be friends and everything’s good.”
“But Mr. Kincaid acted like you and he were thick as thieves last night.”