A Quilt in Time (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery) Read online

  “That will depend on how badly she’s hurt,” Harriet said.

  “We aren’t going to know that till we get there,” Aunt Beth said and stared into the dark outside the car window.

  They were silent until Harriet guided her car into the hospital parking lot.

  “Let’s go find out what’s going on,” she said.

  Aunt Beth pointed to a car two rows over.

  “Isn’t that Connie’s car?”

  “Looks like,” Lauren said. “If she’s still here, Sarah must be, too.”

  “We’re here to see Sarah Ness,” Harriet told the woman at the reception counter.

  “We’re out in the waiting area,” Lauren said into her cell phone at the same time. She touched the face of her phone, ending the call, and turned to Harriet and Aunt Beth. “Connie will be out to get us in a minute.”

  Harriet mouthed a thank-you to the receptionist, who was fielding another call, then followed Lauren to a row of plastic chairs in the middle of the room.

  “Over here,” Connie called to them from one of the two doors that led to the interior of the hospital. She held it open as they filed into the hall beyond.

  “She’s having another x-ray, but we can wait in her cubicle.”

  “How bad is it?” Harriet asked once they were all crowded into Sarah’s space.

  “Her eye socket may be cracked or broken, and her right arm has a bad enough break that she’s going to need surgery. If nothing’s broken on her face, her eye will certainly have to be stitched up. They’re trying to get a plastic surgeon here tonight to look at it.”

  “That sounds awful,” Beth said, her face pale.

  “I don’t suppose we can just kidnap her,” Lauren suggested.

  “That would make us like her abuser,” Harriet said. “Sure, we’d be kinder and gentler, but we’d be making decisions for her she should be making herself.”

  Lauren stood up and rocked from her toes to heels and back again.

  “But she’s not taking care of her own safety,” she argued.

  “We might need Robin,” Harriet said and pulled her cell phone from her purse. “I think I’ll give her a heads-up, and she can decide if she needs to join this little party. I’m going to step outside to make the call.”

  She returned a few minutes later. Sarah wasn’t back yet.

  “Robin says to let her know what Sarah says. The only way anyone can intervene is if Sarah’s declared incompetent, which is a long court process, or if we observe her in imminent danger, in which case we can call nine-one-one.”

  “That’s not very helpful,” Lauren said.

  “Unfortunately, it’s the law,” Harriet told her.

  The curtain at the end of the cubicle was swept aside, and Sarah entered, riding in a wheelchair pushed by a young woman dressed in pink scrubs. A clip-on badge said the woman’s name was “Taylor Morgan, RN.”

  “You all can’t be in here,” she said. “Two of you can stay, if Ms. Ness wants you to.”

  Connie took Lauren by the arm.

  “Come on, let’s go find some coffee.”

  “If you go back to the reception desk and take the left-hand door, you’ll be in a hallway that leads to a family waiting room. There are vending machines, and the coffee one isn’t half bad,” Taylor told them with a practiced smile. She ducked out of the room, returning a moment later with a second wheeled stool, which she slid to Harriet. “I’ll let you three talk while I go check with the doctor.”

  She gave Harriet a silent but telling look before turning and leaving them alone.

  “Can you tell us what happened to you?” Aunt Beth asked.

  “I told that nurse. I was out on the porch at the cabin. It was raining, and I slipped and fell down the steps.” A tear slid from Sarah’s swollen eye.

  “Sarah,” Harriet said in a soft voice, “things won’t get better if you just ignore them. And next time you might not be as lucky as you were today. You’re hurt, but you’re still alive. I’m afraid for you.”

  “You don’t care. None of you do. My family’s mad at me. He’s all I have.” Tears were now flowing freely.

  “Honey,” Aunt Beth said and got up, crossing the small space and crouching in front of Sarah’s chair. She took Sarah’s good hand in hers. “We all care about you. That’s why everyone has tried to get you to come to quilting, or come to coffee with us. That’s why we’re here. We want to help you. You need to let us in.”

  “We’re going to be married,” Sarah said with a sob. She took her hand from Aunt Beth’s and raised her ring finger, displaying a small solitaire diamond.

  “You can’t be serious,” Harriet said before she could stop herself.

  “See, you don’t understand.” She let her hand drop to her lap.

  Harriet wheeled her stool next to her aunt. Beth slid onto it, smiling at her niece as she did. Harriet crouched down in her aunt’s place.

  “I’m not judging you,” she said. “I just hate seeing you like this. You have to be in tremendous pain.”

  Sarah looked down at her hands.

  “Aiden is working on a project at the women’s shelter—making a pet enclosure so people can bring their animals with them. He asked the Threads to make quilts for the pets,” Harriet continued. “Robin and Lauren and I went to tour the shelter. We decided to make quilts for the women, too. It’s a safe place you could go. I know they have room.” She hoped she was telling the truth. “You could take Rachel with you when Aiden’s building is finished.”

  “The location is kept secret from the outside world.” Aunt Beth took up the story. “No one could come there unless they’d been cleared, and no one who’s related to the residents is allowed in except for their minor children.”

  “But we’re engaged,” Sarah blubbered.

  “Honey, if he loved you, he wouldn’t do this to you.” Aunt Beth reached out and retook Sarah’s uninjured hand in both of hers. “Can you at least think about it? Maybe talk to the women who run the place?”

  “Where are you going to go when you’re released from here?” Harriet asked.

  “Home.” Sarah sniffed. “To the cabin.”

  “With your fiancé?” Aunt Beth asked.

  “He stays in an apartment at the senior center during the week. He gets paid extra to sleep there and take care of any problems that the night staff can’t handle.”

  “So, he won’t be back until Saturday?” Harriet asked.

  Sarah nodded, her black hair falling into her face.

  “Connie mentioned you’d be having surgery. I assume that will be tonight or tomorrow,” Harriet continued. “That means you wouldn’t be released until at least tomorrow night or even the day after. I can bring you an application for the shelter before you leave here. Then, if everything goes well, you could move there before the weekend.”

  Sarah sighed. “How can I leave him?” she moaned. “Who will do his laundry? He’s helpless when it comes to taking care of himself.”

  “He’s a big boy,” Aunt Beth said. “And he can’t go on hurting you like this.”

  “He doesn’t mean to hurt me,” Sarah whined. “It’s my fault. I knew he didn’t like spaghetti. I didn’t know he was coming for dinner, but I should have known he might. Some nights he does come home, and I know he hates spaghetti.”

  “Sarah,” Harriet said as gently as she could, “this isn’t about spaghetti. You don’t break someone’s arm because they made spaghetti for dinner.”

  “But I should have known,” she protested.

  “Honey,” Beth shook her hand gently to get her attention. “Look at me. This is not about what you did or didn’t cook for dinner. It’s about power. Right now, he has all the power. It’s time for you to take some back.

  “A man who loves a woman would never break her arm—not for any reason. I know this is hard, but there are plenty of nice men out there, men who will love you just like you are. You don’t need to settle for this guy.”

  Sarah sighed, and
it sounded to Harriet like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “It’s so much more complicated than that,” she said finally.

  “Will you at least consider what we’ve said?” Harriet asked.

  Sarah was quiet for so long, she was afraid she wasn’t going to answer.

  “Okay,” she finally said.

  “Can we bring you anything?” Aunt Beth asked. “Pajamas or toiletries?”

  “Could you go by the cabin? I could use a change of clothes and my overnight kit. Maybe a nightgown.”

  “Sure,” Aunt Beth replied. “We’ll wait until they tell you what the plan is. Do you have the key with you?”

  “The nurse put my purse in the cupboard back there,” Sarah nodded toward a cabinet at the back of the room then winced in pain at the movement.

  Harriet located the purse and pulled a key ring from it.

  “It’s the one with the purple rubber thing on it,” Sarah said.

  “How did you get here?” Harriet asked as she put the blood-splattered purse back in the cupboard. “Tell me you didn’t drive yourself.”

  Sarah’s silence was all the answer they needed.

  Harriet and her aunt found Connie and Lauren in the family waiting room a half-hour later.

  “They took Sarah to check into a room for the night,” Harriet told them. “She’ll have her surgery first thing in the morning. We told her we’d get her some stuff from the cabin.”

  “Oh, good, you’re still here.” Nurse Morgan came through the door from the emergency room area and joined them near the coffee machine. “Did Sarah listen to you?”

  “The jury’s still out,” Harriet said. “We’re bringing her an application for the women’s shelter, and I’ll see if they have anyone who can talk to her, but she’s not convinced yet.”

  “If he’d shot her or stabbed her, I’d already have the police here, but failing that, our hands are tied. She has to agree before the hospital can call anyone.”

  “One of our quilting friends is a detective,” Aunt Beth said. “We can let her know what’s going on.”

  “I hope someone can get through to her,” Morgan said. “If not, there will be a next time, and it will be worse.”

  “Thanks for letting us stay with her,” Connie said.

  “No problem. She wouldn’t let us call anyone, and no one should be in her condition with no support.” She turned toward the door. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Harriet waited until the door closed behind Nurse Morgan then turned to the others.

  “Anyone up for a road trip?”

  “To the cabin?” Lauren asked. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Connie and I better come along and make sure you two don’t get into trouble,” Beth slipped her coat on and picked up her purse. “Let’s not dawdle—Brownie’s waiting for me to come home and tuck her in for the night.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lauren said. “You’re not the only one with responsibilities.”

  Chapter 5

  “Boy, it’s dark up here,” Aunt Beth said in a quiet voice as the road wound up Miller Hill. “Jorge said there’s been a cabin here since before they had building codes. It’s built on a rocky shelf of land that’s the only buildable spot on that whole section of the hill.”

  Harriet slowed her car.

  “So, apparently, the county isn’t going to spend the money to pave the road.”

  Her car jolted as they left asphalt and drove onto hard-packed dirt sprinkled with a thin coating of loose gravel. The road narrowed as it wound its way up the steep hill.

  “This can’t be a very fun commute when it’s icy,” Lauren observed.

  “Can you imagine how this was during last winter’s storm?” Harriet asked. “And she was here all by herself!”

  “Whose house is this, actually?” Lauren wondered.

  “I thought Sarah said it was her boyfriend’s place,” Aunt Beth said. “But I’m not sure. She said she had to take care of his cat at the cabin. I assumed it was his place.”

  “Didn’t she live in that apartment in town when I first moved back to Foggy Point?” Harriet asked.

  “That’s what I thought,” Connie said. “It’s been so long since Sarah has been her old chatty self, I’m not sure what’s true and what she let us assume was true.”

  Harriet guided her car through an opening in an overgrown bramble hedge.

  “Here we are,” she announced. “Let’s go in and see what the cabin can tell us.”

  Harriet had envisioned a log cabin, since everyone kept calling Sarah’s place “the cabin,” but in reality, it was a small, square cedar-sided house with a wide porch across the front and the dormant stems of some sort of climbing plant dangling from the front gutter for most of that length. It was probably lovely in the summer, when the stems would be green and laden with fragrant flowers.

  A wrought iron bench sat under a picture window to the right side of the door; an old-fashioned wooden milk box was to the left. A one-foot-square ceramic tile with the log cabin quilt pattern glazed onto its surface and “The Cabin” painted in black cursive letters hung beside the door, below the house number.

  Aunt Beth joined Harriet at the screen door.

  “Are you going to open the door or just stand here and stare at the place.”

  “Sorry. It just isn’t what I was expecting.”

  “Me, either,” Lauren said as she and Connie joined them on the porch. “I thought there’d be logs and an outhouse.”

  “I have to admit, I didn’t expect to find such a pleasant little cottage,” Connie agreed.

  Harriet opened the screen door and slipped Sarah’s key into the lock, turning the knob as she did so. The door let them into a tidy living room that was simply furnished with an inexpensive sofa and two chairs upholstered in a nondescript gray fabric. A black wood stove sat at one end of the room, judging by the cool temperature, the only source of heat for the house.

  “Be honest, group, raise your hand if you thought Sarah’s quilts would be all over the place,” Lauren said. “Anyone?” She looked at the other three. “Who expected the drab gray decorating scheme?”

  “Shush, you,” Aunt Beth scolded. “If Sarah is a victim of domestic violence, this would be one more way for him to control her—not letting her have her quilts or any other personal items.”

  Harriet walked toward the back of the house, where a central hallway opened into a kitchen on the left. Sarah’s bedroom was behind the living room.

  “Hey, guys, come look at this.”

  A beautiful red-on-white Baltimore Album quilt covered the bed. The traditional flowered squares had been hand-appliquéd and then embellished with embroidery. Touches of blue, green and yellow accented the red baskets, birds and flower vases that made up the pattern.

  “I hope you’re not going to try and tell me Sarah made this,” Lauren said as she joined Harriet. “There is no way our friend did this. No amount of battering could have turned her into this kind of quilter.”

  “Of course she didn’t make it. The question is, who did? And why does Sarah have it?”

  “What have you got in there?” Aunt Beth asked as she, too, came into the room. “Wow,” she said. “Connie,” she called to her friend. “Come here, you need to see this.”

  “Sarah didn’t make this, right?” Lauren said. She looked at Connie and then at Aunt Beth.

  “Anything’s possible,” Beth said. “But you’re right. It’s not likely.”

  “I guess the question is, who did?” Harriet mused. “But let’s worry about that later. We need to get Sarah’s things together. She needs pajamas and slippers, her toothbrush, hairbrush. She has some vitamins in the bathroom, she said.”

  She crossed to a closet that went the length of the outside wall and opened the folding doors. The blazers and slacks she was used to seeing Sarah wear were nowhere in evidence. Instead, five long black skirts hung in a neat row next to several dark tunic-style sweaters.
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  “What on earth is going on here?”

  “What?” Connie asked her.

  “There is no trace of the Sarah we knew in this place. It’s like she joined a cult or became a Stepford wife or something.” Harriet found a nylon duffel bag on the floor of the closet then crossed to the unfinished wood dresser that sat opposite the end of the bed and started pulling nightclothes and underwear from the drawers. “See if you can find anything that isn’t long and black for her to wear home. If you can’t, maybe we can buy her something.”

  Connie opened a large cardboard box that was deep in the back corner of the closet.

  “There’s something here,” she said and pulled out a pair of pants followed by a jacket and blouse. “I think there’s a quilt underneath the clothes.”

  “Let me help,” Harriet said, and together they hauled the box out then dug out one of Sarah’s quilts.

  “That’s more like it,” Lauren said. “Machine appliqué with stiff fusible web between it and the background fabric.”

  “Don’t you make fun of that poor girl while she’s lying there in the hospital with a broken arm,” Aunt Beth said.

  “I was just saying,” Lauren mumbled.

  “Why don’t you go see what you can find in the kitchen?” Harriet asked.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “I don’t know. Anything that might explain any of this. I’d certainly like to find some evidence of the boyfriend.”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Lauren said. “You know I can probably find out more on my computer and do it in half the time.”

  Harriet stopped packing and glared at her.

  “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

  Aunt Beth went through the bedroom door and crossed the hallway to the bathroom.

  “I’ll get the vitamins.” She slid open the pocket door and disappeared.

  A stacking washer and dryer filled the end of the hall between the bedroom and bath. Connie opened the dryer unit.

  “There are clothes here,” she called out. “And the pants look like they belong to a man.”

  “Whoever he is, he keeps his toiletries on a shelf in the linen closet,” Aunt Beth reported from the bathroom. “And there’s an empty shelf below it where he probably puts a duffel bag when he’s here.”