“Talked a lot—real hard for me, don’t ya know? I have the opportunity to see most everyone in town on one day of the week or another,” she said. “And no one could keep me from putting up a flyer in my own establishment. I’d be glad to tack up a picture of your cat in here. Just fax it to me. Sandy up at the counter will give you one of my business cards. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
A few minutes later I left for the Cotton Company feeling as if I’d perhaps taken an important first step in joining the Mercy community. Time would tell. The fabric store was down the block, and I wrapped my peacoat tighter around me as I walked in that direction. The wind was up today, and the temperature must have been hovering close to forty.
Martha was cutting fabric for a customer when I walked in. Bolts arranged by color filled the store, and bright finished quilts hung on the walls of the high-ceilinged old building. She also sold folk art, candles, pottery and other things that a quilter might enjoy, and this month she was ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving with an orange and brown color scheme. There were also racks of patterns, old-fashioned wooden mailbox cubbyholes filled with folded fabric fat quarters and stands with every color of thread imaginable. Quilt stores and libraries rank as my top two places to spend time, and I could already feel the tension melting away from my neck muscles.
“Hey there, Jillian,” Martha said. “You find your cat yet?”
“No, I’m sad to say I haven’t,” I answered, heading for the prints for children’s quilts. I was no longer surprised to find that everyone knew about Syrah. Indeed, now I was counting on it.
“Which one was it?” She was intent on her work, a large rotary cutter slicing through several layers of the fabrics her customer had picked out.
“Syrah.” I saw a fabric with bunnies and frogs in pastel colors. The Halloween designs seemed a little intense for sick children, but I did snatch up a Laurel Burch cat print.
“Syrah is the one who only eats salmon,” Martha told her customer, an older woman resting heavily on a three-pronged cane.
“I know. David at the Piggly Wiggly told me,” the woman said. She didn’t even bother to look at me, even though she was talking about my cat. “Poor David. You know his story, don’t you?”
Martha started to speak, but the woman went on.“Heard tell his mama dropped him on his head when he was a baby, but neither me nor my friends can confirm or deny. See, every time someone asks her why his head is shaped so funny, she starts up cryin’. And we don’t want to be upset-tin’ her, so we just leave it be.”
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Martha asked.
“No, my dear. One quilt at a time, I always say.”
Martha walked with the woman to the register in the middle of the store while I continued to pull bolts for the patterns I had in mind.
Martha helped the lady out of the store after the purchase and then came over to where I was appraising the flannels. “What does Syrah look like again? Because I can describe him to my customers. Who knows? Someone might have found him already.”
I reached into my bag for my phone. “I can show you. I took several new pictures of him before . . . before . . . Anyway, I have this fancy new security system so I can even show you the other two.”
I’d brought up the live feed and saw neither Chablis nor Merlot. But what I did see was my overturned lamp, its ceramic base shattered on the floor.
I stared, wide-eyed. No way could this be happening again.
Six
Five minutes later, I swerved into my drive, sped up to the garage and slammed on the brakes. Everything seemed so quiet, so normal—
Just as I got out of the car, a Mercy patrol car pulled up behind me. Candace and Morris. I’d called Candace’s cell on my way home, hoping she was the one who would respond to the alarm. When she’d told me she was on her way, I felt a small bit of relief. Not bothering to close my car door, I started for the house. “There’s a lamp knocked over. Something’s happened again.”
Morris’s hoarse whisper stopped me from taking another step. “You stay right here while we investigate.”
Why wasn’t I hearing the alarm? I couldn’t remember if Tom told me the noise cut off on its own after the system called the police station. And how did this new thing send the alert anyway? A phone call? A buzzer? What? Why couldn’t I remember?
Candace motioned she wanted to go around to the back of the house, so I walked ahead and pointed out the gate. As she ran by me, I saw no one racing away down the slope toward the lake and heard no sounds coming from the house.
Morris reappeared and whispered, “Your key?”
I gave it to him, thinking that at least that meant the lock wasn’t broken.
