The Stitching Hour (Embroidery Mystery, Band 9) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Amanda Lee is the author of the Embroidery Mysteries, including Wicked Stitch and Thread End. She is married and has two gorgeous children. Like Marcy, she enjoys needlecrafts and pop culture.

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Chapter One

I reached down and patted the head of my Irish wolfhound, Angus. At only two years old, he still had a lot of puppy in him, but he was mannerly and well behaved. The patrons of my embroidery shop, the Seven-Year Stitch, loved him.

“Can you believe we’ve been here in Tallulah Falls for almost a year?” I asked him. I jerked my head in the direction of Jill, the mannequin-slash-Marilyn-Monroe-lookalike that stood by the cash register. “Jill says she can’t.” I looked at her, as if she’d actually said something. “What’s that, Jill? What you can’t believe is how I haven’t dressed you in a beautiful new dress befitting the occasion?” I blew out a breath. “All in good time, Jill. All in good time.”

Okay, so maybe having a mom who was a Hollywood costume designer led me to do more than my fair share of play-pretend as a child, and maybe . . . just maybe . . . that trait had followed me over into adulthood. But I got lonely when I was the only person in the store. And when the only “people” around to talk with were Angus and Jill, I made do. Besides, I was pretty sure that Angus not only understood every word I said but that he communicated with me too. He had such expressive eyes. And that smile! With Jill, you just had to make it all up as you went and hope she wasn’t one of those cursed paranormal items that would come to life and try to kill you one day.

So on that creepy thought, I gazed around the store and firmly directed my thoughts back to my upcoming anniversary open house. Since it was October 1, Jill was wearing a witch costume. She wasn’t scary—she was more of a Samantha from Bewitched type. Before the open house, I planned to change her into either a white or pink dress—more Marilyn than Sam.

Everything else in the store would probably be all right as is, other than tidying up and borrowing a few folding chairs from the library. Since I was good friends with the librarian, Rajani “Reggie” Singh, I didn’t think that would be a problem. Under normal circumstances, I had plenty of seating in my sit-and-stitch square—two navy sofas that faced each other across an oval maple coffee table, a red club chair at either end of the table, and ottomans matching the chairs. I wondered briefly if I should shampoo the red-and-blue braided rug that lay beneath the table, but I decided a thorough vacuuming would be fine.

I turned to the merchandise part of the store, where I’d been marking down prices and placing specials on the shelf nearest the door. I looked over the embroidery projects that lined the walls with a critical eye. Should I add more? Take a few down? There was the redwork swan . . . the Celtic cross . . . the sampler I’d made from Louisa Ralston’s original . . . the bunny done in crewelwork . . . the Bollywood-inspired elephant . . . the pirate map tapestry . . . the cross-stitched bride. . . . With a slight smile, I decided to leave them all. I didn’t think it was necessary to add another one . . . yet . . . but there weren’t any I wanted to take down.

I went over to the sit-and-stitch square, moved aside one of the candlewick pillows, and plopped down on the navy sofa facing the storefront window. I’d come a long way in the past year, professionally and personally. Just before I moved here, I’d adopted Angus, and we were living in an apartment in San Francisco where I worked in an accounting office. Then Sadie MacKenzie had called and urged me to come to Tallulah Falls and open my own embroidery shop. Sadie had been my best friend and roommate in college. She and her husband, Blake, had a coffee shop called MacKenzies’ Mochas right down the street from the Stitch. She hadn’t had to twist my arm; and despite my ups and downs in Tallulah Falls, I was happier here than I’d ever been.

I’d barely sat down when Vera Langhorne came through the door.

“Good morning, Marcy,” she said.

“Hi,” I said as Angus trotted over to greet Vera.

She scratched his head and cooed to him for a minute before joining me on the sofa. Vera had also come a long way in the year that I’d known her. She was no longer the mousy brunette in baggy clothes that I’d met when I’d first arrived in Tallulah Falls. Now she wore her hair blond with subtle highlights, and she always dressed with style and class. Today she wore gray slacks, black pumps, and a royal blue short-sleeved sweater twinset.

“You’ll never believe what’s coming in next door to you,” she said.

“Please tell me that whatever it is won’t be operated by a relative of Nellie Davis,” I said with a groan.

Nellie Davis owned the aromatherapy shop down the street, and she and I had never been friends. Heck, we’d hardly been civil. I’d tried over the past year to warm up our relationship, but Nellie was convinced that all the mishaps that had befallen Tallulah Falls had coincided with my arrival and that either I or my shop—or both—was cursed. She’d been so antagonistic toward me that she’d recently talked her sister, Clara, into renting the space next to the Seven-Year Stitch—a knitting shop, no less, where she’d also planned to sell embroidery supplies! Unfortunately, Clara had met with a bad end, and the shop was once again for lease. Well, not anymore, it seemed.

“It’s gonna be a haunted house!” Vera clapped her hands in excitement. “Won’t that be fun? They’re only here for the month of October, but from what they told Paul, they plan to do it up right.”

Vera was dating Paul Samms, a reporter for the Tallulah Falls Examiner.

“They’re going to take the first few days of the month to decorate and move in all their creepy crawly stuff, and the actual haunted house is going to open the following weekend,” she continued.

I frowned. “Are they only going to be open during the weekends? If so, how will they make enough to justify renting the building?”

“According to Paul, after that opening weekend, they’re going to be open every night,” said Vera. “So they believe—and so do I—that they’ll make their rent back many times over. They’ll have special events throughout the month to draw repeat business, like themed costume contests, local celebrities—news anchors and people like that . . . Paul might even be one. And they’re having concessions!”

“They’re having concessions at a haunted house? That seems a little odd.”

“I’m surprised Sadie hasn’t mentioned it to you. She and Blake are in charge of the food.”

“Neither of them has said a word to me,” I said. “How will that work? I can’t imagine where they’ll find the time to run a concession stand on top of operating a busy coffee shop.”

“Paul says they’re going to do fairly simple stuff—caramel apples, popcorn and kettle corn, cookies, some hot chocolate and a couple of other beverages maybe—and the patrons have to eat outside of the actual haunted house,” said Vera. “The haunted house operators don’t want to wind up with a colossal mess. And one of the MacKenzies’ Mochas waitresses will work the haunted house each night. So it really shouldn’t interfere with Sadie and Blake’s schedules all that...