Twisted Threads by Lea Wait

you? Anyone else I’d know?”
    “Six of us work at it steady. Ruth Hopkins helped at the beginning, but she’s getting on. When her arthritis flares, she has to stop for a while. She hasn’t taken more than a couple of jobs in the past year.”
    I nodded. Mrs. Hopkins had seemed ancient to my teenaged eyes ten years ago. No surprise she was “getting on.”
    “And one more?” I asked, counting on my fingers. The business wasn’t as large as I’d thought, especially if Ruth wasn’t contributing much now.
    “That’s Sarah Byrne. She’s our newest. New to Haven Harbor, and new to the United States, actually. She’s from Australia.”
    “Australia! How did she get to Haven Harbor?”
    “I don’t know her whole story. Says she was driving up the coast on vacation and got to Haven Harbor and decided to stay. She bought up that little shop on Wharf Street . . . the place where they used to sell candy. Do you remember?”
    “Sure. They sold saltwater taffy—had one of those taffy-pulling machines right in the shop window—and all flavors of popcorn. Red Hots and whoopie pies. Is Sarah Byrne still selling candy and popcorn?”
    “Goodness, no. It was a candy shop three owners ago. Sarah’s trying to make a go of an antique shop there. She goes to auctions all over the state and picks up pieces of china and silver and small pieces of furniture—a motley collection, if you ask me—but the summer folks seem to like what she’s selling. They may go in just to hear her accent! She closes the shop in winter. Does her buying then. She’s really skilled with a needle. She heard I could use extra hands and came looking for a job. She likes that she can stitch at the shop, or at an auction, or at home. She’s got no family to be a distraction. And she’s good. She’s one of us now.”
    “That’s six of you working actively, plus Ruth Hopkins.”
    “Right. Every one of them was at the church to pay their respects this afternoon. Sarah and Ruth left before you could meet them.”
    “You all seem to get along.”
    “Most of the time, although we’re all stubborn in our own ways and don’t always agree. I’m the only one who’s full-time on the job. They all have other obligations—work or family or both.”
    The people who did the stitching were important, but I needed to know more about Lattimore. “Do you have a contract with Lattimore?”
    “We do. I may not be an expert on business, but we all knew we wanted to get down in writing what Jacques agreed to do. Not notarized or anything like that, which was probably a mistake. But we have a paper we all signed.”
    “And it worked?”
    “Worked so well we got to depend on those monthly checks. It all worked fine until last December.”
    “That’s six months ago!”
    “Close to six. And don’t I just know it! December and January are big months for us. We prepared orders for the holiday season, and Jacques would pick them up in October or November, and then the checks would come in, in time for the holidays. All right as rain. Until last December. Jacques said some accounts weren’t paying up as well as they should, so he only paid us needlepointers half of what each should have gotten.”
    “That’s a major difference.”
    “Made for pretty sparse Christmases around here, I’ll tell you. But we figured we’d all get even in January. That the checks then would make up the difference. We had no reason not to trust Jacques. Lauren told me she ran up credit card bills on his promises, and I suspect others did, too.” Gram got up and poured herself another cup of tea. “But January came, and, again, our checks were far smaller than we’d expected.”
    “And . . . ?”
    “And January’s the last time I saw Jacques Lattimore. In March I sent him a letter, registered and all, telling him he owed us money, but it came back. Couldn’t be forwarded. I have no idea where he is now.” Gram looked down at her mug of tea. Her hands were shaking. “And