Silence of the Lamb's Wool (A Yarn Retreat Mystery) by Betty Hechtman Page B
Authors: Betty Hechtman
Ads: Link
have done with all those tote bags. Somebody might have gotten a surprise cat in with their drop spindle.
I stopped off in my former residence, grabbed one of the bags, put one of the drop spindles in it and retraced my steps. No surprise the sky was white. Though this morning it was a very thin white that was turning apricot as the sun melted the layer of clouds.
Once I was on the grounds, I passed a group of people carrying yoga mats and heading toward an open area. One of them turned and gave me a head bow and said “Namaste.”
“Namaste back to you,” I said, hoping it meant something nice.
I was a few minutes late and hoped that Nicole was already in the meeting room, setting things up for the spinning lesson. She had such limited time for the lesson, I wanted to make sure my people got the whole hour. The meeting room was really a small building set amidst the larger ones that had the guest rooms. It had been built more recently, but done in the same style of dark wood shingles so that it blended in.
A walkway led through an open area of dry grass. The door was unlocked, but when I checked inside the room, no one was sitting at the long table set up in the middle. I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, expecting that any second Nicole would walk in with some kind of explanation.
After a few minutes, I took out my smartphone to call her, but remembered that there was no signal. Could there have been a misunderstanding about where we were supposed to meet? I walked out to the other meeting room I was going to use for the retreat and saw it was presently filled with the red- shirted group. I continued on, thinking I could use the phone in the Lodge. I was about to climb the stairs when I saw Bree running down the boardwalk. She reached the end and charged across the grassy area toward me.
“Call 911,” Bree called breathlessly. She was holding her phone trying to explain she couldn’t call. We rushed inside the social hall together and I explained to the woman behind the registration desk that there was an emergency.
It was a small town on a weekday, when there wasn’t a lot of tourist traffic, so the Cadbury Fire rescue ambulance arrived in a few minutes. They cut the siren on the red vehicle as soon as they entered the hotel and conference center grounds, but they still managed to be an attention-getter as they stopped on the roadway next to the Lodge. It helped that the morning workshops had all ended and everyone was hanging around getting ready for lunch. As the two men in dark blue uniforms got out and grabbed their equipment, the barefoot yoga group gathered around and a bunch of people in red polo shirts came out of the Lodge and stopped on the wooden deck to watch.
Bree was frantic, urging them to hurry as she ran toward the boardwalk to lead the way. The pair of paramedics rushed after her. I was a step behind. When I looked back I saw a whole crowd of people trailing along. I was sure Kevin St. John was somewhere in the pack.
Bree was running now, waving for the paramedics to hurry. Instead of going straight toward Sunset Avenue and the beach, she took a turnoff to the section of the boardwalk that twisted through the whole length of the dunes. The path went up a steep hill and then descended into a valley. Ahead, tall bushes obscured the view and it was only when we got close enough that I saw the bench next to the walkway. There was a woman sprawled on the ground. When I saw the aqua scarf artfully draped around her neck, I suddenly knew why Nicole Welton had never shown up.
7
“I’d gone walking to see if I could get a signal,” Bree said, holding up her cell phone. “Then I saw the woman on the ground. At first, I thought she’d fallen.” Bree still looked pale as we stood off to the side while the paramedics took over. “But when I asked if she was all right, she didn’t answer.” Bree’s face crumbled. “It was horrible. She looked like she’d been sick all over
I stopped off in my former residence, grabbed one of the bags, put one of the drop spindles in it and retraced my steps. No surprise the sky was white. Though this morning it was a very thin white that was turning apricot as the sun melted the layer of clouds.
Once I was on the grounds, I passed a group of people carrying yoga mats and heading toward an open area. One of them turned and gave me a head bow and said “Namaste.”
“Namaste back to you,” I said, hoping it meant something nice.
I was a few minutes late and hoped that Nicole was already in the meeting room, setting things up for the spinning lesson. She had such limited time for the lesson, I wanted to make sure my people got the whole hour. The meeting room was really a small building set amidst the larger ones that had the guest rooms. It had been built more recently, but done in the same style of dark wood shingles so that it blended in.
A walkway led through an open area of dry grass. The door was unlocked, but when I checked inside the room, no one was sitting at the long table set up in the middle. I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, expecting that any second Nicole would walk in with some kind of explanation.
After a few minutes, I took out my smartphone to call her, but remembered that there was no signal. Could there have been a misunderstanding about where we were supposed to meet? I walked out to the other meeting room I was going to use for the retreat and saw it was presently filled with the red- shirted group. I continued on, thinking I could use the phone in the Lodge. I was about to climb the stairs when I saw Bree running down the boardwalk. She reached the end and charged across the grassy area toward me.
“Call 911,” Bree called breathlessly. She was holding her phone trying to explain she couldn’t call. We rushed inside the social hall together and I explained to the woman behind the registration desk that there was an emergency.
It was a small town on a weekday, when there wasn’t a lot of tourist traffic, so the Cadbury Fire rescue ambulance arrived in a few minutes. They cut the siren on the red vehicle as soon as they entered the hotel and conference center grounds, but they still managed to be an attention-getter as they stopped on the roadway next to the Lodge. It helped that the morning workshops had all ended and everyone was hanging around getting ready for lunch. As the two men in dark blue uniforms got out and grabbed their equipment, the barefoot yoga group gathered around and a bunch of people in red polo shirts came out of the Lodge and stopped on the wooden deck to watch.
Bree was frantic, urging them to hurry as she ran toward the boardwalk to lead the way. The pair of paramedics rushed after her. I was a step behind. When I looked back I saw a whole crowd of people trailing along. I was sure Kevin St. John was somewhere in the pack.
Bree was running now, waving for the paramedics to hurry. Instead of going straight toward Sunset Avenue and the beach, she took a turnoff to the section of the boardwalk that twisted through the whole length of the dunes. The path went up a steep hill and then descended into a valley. Ahead, tall bushes obscured the view and it was only when we got close enough that I saw the bench next to the walkway. There was a woman sprawled on the ground. When I saw the aqua scarf artfully draped around her neck, I suddenly knew why Nicole Welton had never shown up.
7
“I’d gone walking to see if I could get a signal,” Bree said, holding up her cell phone. “Then I saw the woman on the ground. At first, I thought she’d fallen.” Bree still looked pale as we stood off to the side while the paramedics took over. “But when I asked if she was all right, she didn’t answer.” Bree’s face crumbled. “It was horrible. She looked like she’d been sick all over
Similar Books
