Cross-Stitch Before Dying by Amanda Lee Page A

asked him if it was a popular hangout.
    “I can see why kids might like the thrill of that rocky terrain, but no one should be out there alone,” he said. “That’s a dangerous area. I’ll check with the county officers and see what they say about it.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
    “Hopefully, I’ll know something by lunch,” he said. “What are you in the mood for?”
    “I could really go for a chef’s salad.”
    “I could go for a chef’s salad between two slices of rye.”
    I laughed. “I think they call that a club sandwich, don’t they?”
    “Something like that,” he said.
    After talking with Ted, I called Mom and asked her how things were going. It was only midmorning. I hoped things couldn’t have gotten too bad already. They had. Mom launched into a tirade about Babs and how spoiled she was and how she didn’t have any decency in her whatsoever.
    “Furthermore, she doesn’t have an ounce of acting ability,” Mom said. “I don’t know how in the world she got this job.”
    “Have you heard any rumors . . . about Babs and Henry?” I asked.
    Mom was uncharacteristically quiet.
    “Are you there?” I asked, afraid the call might’ve been lost.
    “Yes. I’m just processing your question. It isn’t a random one, is it? Someone said something.”
    “One of the locations experts,” I said. “He told me to tell you that if you can’t work with Babs to leave now.”
    “Before they throw the old broad out and ruin her reputation?” Mom spat the question out of her mouth as if it were poison.
    “He didn’t say that in so many words. . . .”
    “But that was the gist, yeah, I get it.”
    “Mom, I’m only telling you this for your own good. I have a bad feeling about this entire project.”
    “I appreciate your concern, Marcella, but I will be completing this project. I’m in for the long haul. I’ll prove myself to that guttersnipe if it kills us both. I’ll talk with you soon, darling. Good-bye.”
    With that, she was gone. But that wasn’t the last I’d heard of killing that morning. About an hour after I’d first spoken with Ted about the dirt bike incident, he called to tell me that the Tallulah County Police Department had gone up to investigate whether or not there were dirt bikers trespassing along the trail. I hadn’t considered that we were trespassing this morning, but there were more important issues to think about.
    The officers hadn’t found trespassers, but they had found the body of the gunman who’d shot at Ted. The biker who’d nearly hit Reggie was more than likely the person who’d killed him. Lunch was canceled. Ted and Manu were on their way to assist in an examination of the crime scene.

Chapter Six
    G iven the fact that Mom was determined to continue on with the movie, I began working on one of the costumes in between customers. I had been given a sky blue tunic which I was to embellish with chikankari around the neckline, hem, and cuffs. Thankfully, this particular tunic called for a simplistic design. It was for one of the low points in Sonam Zakaria’s life—either during her late childhood or after her first divorce. I felt it was a good starter piece for me.
    I used a washable fabric marker to freehand the design onto one of the cuffs. I decided I’d begin with the wrists. The fabric on the cuffs was a little heavier and would better tolerate my ripping out the stitching if I wasn’t satisfied with the work and had to start over.
    I was sitting in the sit-and-stitch square working on the cuff when Reggie came by the shop. After kissing Angus on top of the head, she flopped onto the sofa across from me and sighed.
    “Uh-oh. You look like you have bad news,” I said.
    “Not bad really . . . just not great. Ted told you the gunman they’ve been looking for was found dead near the location we visited this morning, didn’t he?”
    I acknowledged that he had. “He also said it’s likely the biker we saw killed the