Read The Devil's Puzzle for Free Online Page A

it,” she said.
    “It does sound that way,” I admitted.
    Truth was, between the skeleton and helping Oliver, I hadn’t really thought much about it. Now, with the Fourth of July weekend less than two months away and Glad looking over my shoulder, I had to start thinking. And fast.
    Kathryn had gone back to the bolts, choosing, rejecting, then re-choosing fabric after fabric until she’d accumulated a pile. She ran her hand along Alex Anderson’s newest collection, a colorful medley of polka dots and stripes. I could see she was debating, the way quilters do, whether she should indulge in them.
    “Are these new?” she asked.
    “Just came yesterday.”
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do with them.”
    “When has that ever stopped a quilter?”
    She laughed. “I’ll take a yard each. I’m trying to get my daughter interested in quilting, and I think she would love these. I think it’s wonderful the way quilting has been passed down from one generation to the next.”
    “It is. You could trace the entire history of the country just by looking at antique quilts,” I said. “I’ve always thought of it as a really subversive way that women have expressed themselves. Over the centuries we’ve used quilts to make political statements or religious statements, show off our wealth with expensive fabrics, show off our talents with amazing stitch work . . .” I stopped myself from rambling. It was a subject I could talk about all day. “I’m always so humbled when I think about all the amazing quilters there have been.”
    “It’s a good thing we have shops like this one, to keep the tradition alive,” she said, looking around. “Maybe I should pick up a couple of reproduction prints while I’m here.”
    “We’ve got a great selection,” I told her. “They’re getting so popular we can hardly keep them in the store.”
    Kathryn grabbed a few bolts of Civil War reproductions, then went back for some 1970s psychedelics. Like so many of our regular customers, she’d come from quite a distance to check out the newest fabrics we had in stock and didn’t want to miss something special. Someday Quilts was the only quilt shop for about thirty miles. Quilt shops, just like any other specialty business, suffer from dips in the economy, competition from the Internet, and the changing interests of their customers.
    Somehow, though, my grandmother’s shop was doing better than ever. She’d doubled the square footage over a year ago and because of it had been able to hold more classes and bring in more specialty fabrics. And now the shop was offering quilting services. Or, rather, Natalie and I were, as we’d become quite good at the longarm machine we’d convinced Eleanor to buy.
    It was turning out to be the shop’s best year. As Jesse had said, she was an independent woman used to running her business—and her life—without interference. It was something to be proud of, and as her granddaughter, something to aspire to. But I didn’t think the shop was the reason—at least not the entire reason—why Eleanor was shying away from a marriage to Oliver.
    I could see Eleanor at her desk in the tiny office at the back of the shop. Barney, as usual, was curled up at her feet and there were piles of newly arrived books sitting on the edge of her desk.
    After I finished waiting on Kathryn, I walked back to Eleanor, looking for an excuse to talk.
    “Do you want coffee?” I asked.
    Eleanor looked up at me, startled, as if I’d woken her from a dream. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, more to herself than to me.

CHAPTER 9
    “A bout what?”
    She blinked at me a moment, then seemed to wake up. “About all this work I have.” She took a breath. “Did you want something?”
    “I asked if you wanted coffee.”
    “Desperately,” she said. “And I’m guessing you could do with a cup yourself. You didn’t get home until early this morning.”
    “Four,” I admitted.
    I yawned. I hadn’t slept