Skein of the Crime Read online

  “Don’t I know it,” Megan said, plopping her bag on the table. Settling into a chair across the table from Kelly and Jennifer, she withdrew a shamrock green wool.

  “Your color, Megan,” Kelly observed. “No one can wear that green as well as you can with your fair skin and dark hair. Are you doing a sweater?”

  “Yeah, but it’s for Marty, not me this time,” Megan said, picking up the stitches she’d begun. Only five rows appeared on her needles. “So, I hope this green looks just as good with bright red hair. It’s against knitting rules to mess up your boyfriend’s sweater.”

  “Not to worry. I saw Marty wear a bright green scarf once last winter and it looked great,” Jennifer said.

  Megan glanced over to Kelly. “Another hat? Don’t you have enough hats, Kelly? I swear, you’ve gone overboard in the hat department.”

  “This one is for Steve. I’m hoping he can wear it skiing this winter. Assuming he has time to ski.” Her voice couldn’t conceal her concern.

  Time was something Steve didn’t have enough of. Ever since he’d started working with the architectural firm in Denver in July, spare time had evaporated. Kelly had envisioned summer would be a repeat of the year before—hiking and camping in the mountains, sleeping under the stars with Carl by their sides. Plenty of baseball and softball games, plus summer nights in Old Town with friends Megan and Marty, Lisa and Greg, and Jennifer and café owner Pete.

  But it didn’t happen. Steve had thrown himself into his new job in Denver, hoping to make enough money to keep his business going. Kelly got to play ball and go out with her friends, but Steve was rarely there. When he did get home, they’d grab a pizza on the way to a game. Kelly would stay, and Steve would go to his Old Town office instead, trying to keep his own construction business afloat. By the time he returned to the cottage, he’d fall asleep beside Kelly, exhausted.

  Megan glanced over at Kelly. “Maybe the housing market will get better this winter. What do you think, Jen?”

  Jennifer gave a deep sigh before answering. “I wish I could say that will happen, but I really don’t think so. There are still too many houses for sale now, and buyers are looking for bargains. That’s why they’re scooping up those foreclosure homes.”

  “Let me guess what you guys are talking about,” Lisa said as she strode into the room. She pulled out a chair beside Megan. Long blonde tendrils had escaped the scrunchy hair band holding back Lisa’s hair. She pulled out a multicolored shawl and picked up her stitches. “How’s Steve holding up?”

  “As well as you can expect, considering Steve,” Kelly observed wryly. “He can’t control any of this, and it’s driving him crazy. He’s holding on, but if Jennifer’s right, I don’t know what will happen. If he loses Baker Street Lofts . . .” Kelly’s voice trailed off.

  Baker Street was the project nearest Steve’s heart. The one he’d dreamed of doing ever since he was in college. Remodeling an old warehouse in Old Town into a distinctively designed building with offices below and trendy loft apartments above. With their great view of the Cache La Poudre River meandering nearby, the lofts had sold out quickly as had the retail space. But now . . . the constantly deteriorating real estate market was causing chaos all over northern Colorado, including Steve’s last building site in Wellesley.

  Lisa’s pretty face puckered into a worried frown. “Darn it, I hadn’t planned to mention this, but I guess I have to.” She looked over at Kelly with concern. “Another foreclosure sign appeared at Steve’s Wellesley site. I saw it this morning when I drove into work. I’m sorry, Kelly.”

  Kelly winced. “Damn,” she said softly, so as not to disturb customers who were browsing the yarn bins lining two walls of the knitting room. Bookshelves stuffed with books and magazines on every fiber subject imaginable lined the other two walls. “I can’t tell him, I just can’t.”

  “Don’t worry. The mortgage company will tell him,” Jennifer said gently. “I saw that sign today when I took a buyer out to look for foreclosed homes.”

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Kelly repeated in frustration, her stitches getting tighter. The emotions ran straight through her all the way into the yarn. “Now Steve will have to work even harder. He’s just started to work a second job at night to earn extra money. This builder-developer guy, Fred, hires extra architectural help whenever he needs it. It was only a couple of nights a week. Now he’ll have to work more, which means he’ll be staying in Denver more.”

  “It’ll get better, Kelly, it’s got to,” Megan said, her face revealing her concern.

  “Will Steve be coming back this weekend?” Lisa dropped her knitting on her lap. “We’ll all get together at our place and have one of those crazy games. That always seems to relax him.”

  “I don’t know if that will work this time,” Kelly said. “We’d better take him out to the batting cages instead. Let him take it all out on the baseball.”

  Jennifer placed her hand on Kelly’s arm. “Steve will get through this, Kelly. We’ll all help him. There are only three foreclosures over at the Wellesley site—”

  “Don’t forget the one at Baker Street,” Kelly remarked bitterly. “That was the cruelest blow. I mean, he’s watching everything he’s built up over ten years as an architect and builder crumble right in front of him. And no matter how hard or how much he works, he can’t stop it. It . . . it just breaks my heart to watch.”

  Kelly’s friends sat in silence, not saying a word. Finally, Lisa spoke again. “Has Steve ever thought about taking on a partner? I mean, an investor, maybe. Someone who’d like to have an interest in prime Old Town property? I know how Steve feels about Baker Street, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  Kelly let Lisa’s words play through her mind. It was not the first time she’d heard them. “I actually suggested that to Steve once, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “He may have to, Kelly,” Jennifer added. “Every builder in town is in the same boat. Some have folded already. If Steve wants to pull through this hard time, he may have to take on an investor.”

  “I agree with you, Jen, but Steve won’t even discuss it. He just shuts down—” A woman’s loud voice cut into their conversation suddenly.

  “That sounds like Barbara. I wonder who she’s talking to?” Jennifer said.

  Kelly glimpsed Barbara through the classroom doorway, standing next to the loom, cell phone pressed to her ear.

  “Tommy, you have to stay in Denver and study. You can’t keep coming down to Fort Connor to babysit Holly. She has to learn to take care of herself,” Barbara said, a distinct note of pleading in her tone. “Holly will be fine. She doesn’t need you here—”

  “Uh-oh,” Kelly said. “I think I know what that conversation is about. Someone in this morning’s class said Barbara’s son is the boyfriend of the same girl who showed up in my backyard last month. You’ve probably seen her here at the shop. Cute little blonde named Holly.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen her a few times,” Megan said. “Looks like she’s doing okay now.”

  “She’s really turned herself around since August,” Kelly continued. “She’s even taking a class at the university.”

  “That’s because Mimi practically adopted her. She had Holly over here at the shop every day, keeping her busy,” Jennifer added.

  “Mother Mimi,” Lisa said, fingers working the colorful yarn.

  “You know, I still can’t believe she wandered from Old Town down that river trail and wound up on your patio,” Megan said. “That would have freaked me out.”

  “Well, it did give me a start.”

  “A start!” Megan snorted. “I would have screamed so loud it would have woken the dead.”

  “How’d she get there, again?” Lisa asked.

  “She probably looked across the golf course and saw the cottage all lit up across the greens. I always leave the lights on when I’m coming back late. I don’t like walking into a dark house.”

  Megan shook her head vigoro
usly. “Me, either. I even leave the music on. Marty’s been working late several nights lately.”

  “You know, Megan, if you’re that spooked, you ought to get a dog,” Kelly said. “I never worry about my safety as long as Carl is there. He scares away anybody who’s up to no good.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be so spooked if there hadn’t been six women assaulted this past summer.” Megan shuddered as she knitted.

  “Megan, those women were all walking alone in the wooded areas of town or on the trails late at night,” Kelly said. “You’re safe in your apartment.”

  “That girl, Holly, is darn lucky someone didn’t grab her on the river trail that night,” Megan added, knitting at warp speed.

  “You better believe it,” Lisa chimed in. “Six attacks in three months. It’s enough to make me want to get a dog.”

  “You can borrow Carl if you have an urge to walk at night,” Kelly said with a smile.

  “I couldn’t imagine walking down that dark trail at night. All the drunks go there to sleep it off. Scary.”

  “Well, it was clear that all of Holly’s brain cells weren’t working that night, so decision-making was definitely impaired,” Kelly said.

  She glanced up to see Barbara talking with the shop owner, Mimi, in the central yarn room. They were obviously having an animated conversation. Barbara was gesturing, clearly agitated.

  “Actually, most of those drunks are rolled up sound asleep under the trees,” Jennifer observed as she brushed her auburn hair behind her ear. “I know, because I helped with the last census. Our group had to count the homeless who were on the streets in Old Town. The ones sleeping outside and all.”

  Lisa looked up. “Really? What’d you guys do?”

  “We were assigned to small groups to survey different areas. My group was assigned the river trail section down from Old Town. We had to walk the trail in the middle of the night and shine our flashlights along the ground and under the trees all along the river. That’s where these guys usually roll up and go to sleep. It was cold as hell as I recall, especially at three o’clock in the morning in February.”

  “Whoa, that must have been scary down there.” Megan’s blue eyes were huge.

  “Well, we were together in our little clusters, so we were okay. And they gave us doughnuts and coffee afterwards.”

  Kelly chuckled. “Is that all they paid you?”

  “Oh, no, we got a paycheck. That year was a downturn, too, so I was scrambling for money.”

  “Did you find many homeless sleeping outside?”

  “Several, as a matter of fact. Not everybody can get into the Mission. Especially on a cold winter night. It fills up quickly.”

  Well, hello, girls,” Mimi said, greeting them as she entered the knitting room. “It’s so good to see all of you at once.” She scanned the yarns each of them was working. “Megan, that’s your color,” she added with a grin.

  “It’s for Marty, so make sure you tell him it looks good when he wears it,” Megan said.

  “How’s Barbara doing, Mimi? We couldn’t help but overhear some of her phone conversation,” Jennifer said. “She really sounded upset.”

  Mimi’s smile disappeared. “Oh, she is. With good reason. Her son, Tommy, is making some very poor decisions right now.”

  “It sounds like you know the families well,” Megan said.

  Mimi settled into the chair at the end of the large library table where they all sat working their yarns. “Yes, I do. I’ve known Barbara for years from church. And I watched both Tommy and Holly grow up. Holly was over at Barbara’s house as much as her own. Holly’s mother died several years ago, so she lived with her father. But he worked long hours and was out of town a lot and didn’t really supervise Holly. So she kind of grew up without much direction. She and Tommy were friends from childhood in school together, and they just gradually became boyfriend and girlfriend. That was okay with Barbara, except Holly got addicted to the party scene and drugs when she and Tommy went to the university a few years ago.” Mimi sighed and glanced across the room toward the paned windows. “Tommy concentrated on his studies, but Holly stopped studying and dropped out.”

  “It sounds like Tommy made the right choice,” Kelly offered.

  “Yes, he did. Tommy went on to become an honor student. He got his degree in premed and worked as a paramedic for three years, trying to get a scholarship to medical school. And this year he landed a plum.” Mimi’s eyes lit up in maternal delight. “A full scholarship to the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Barbara is so proud. She’s raised him all by herself. She and her husband were divorced when Tommy was a baby.”

  “That’s great, Mimi. Tommy deserves congratulations,” Kelly said. “But Barbara didn’t sound happy on the phone a few minutes ago. What did she mean ‘babysit Holly’? This girl in class, Patty, grew up with Tommy and Holly, and she says Barbara’s not happy Tommy’s still dating her.”

  “That’s Patty Warren, and she’s right. Barbara’s worried that Tommy’s attachment to Holly will jeopardize his medical studies. He moved down to Denver in August, right before Holly’s last drug escapade. Med school started in August, but he’s come back to Fort Connor every weekend to make sure Holly’s okay. He tries to study, but it’s hard when Holly keeps calling him.” Mimi’s worried frown pinched her pretty face. “I worry about Holly, too, but we can’t babysit her. Holly has to learn to be strong on her own and not lean on Tommy. Apparently Holly calls Tommy every day in Denver and several times a day when he’s here trying to study on the weekends.”

  “Uh-oh, not good,” Lisa commented, glancing up. “Holly sounds like a manipulative personality to me.”

  “Spoken like a psychology major,” Megan said with a grin.

  “It sounds to me like Tommy needs to make better decisions,” Kelly interjected. “I’ve had friends in med school, and that’s a whole lot of homework. He can’t run back and forth to Fort Connor and still do his work. What’s the guy thinking?”

  “I know, Kelly,” Mimi nodded. “And you’re right. But Tommy’s always felt responsible for Holly, so whenever she needs him, he drops everything and rides to the rescue.”

  Kelly shook her head. “He’s going to lose that scholarship if he’s not careful,” she warned.

  Mimi flinched. “Oh, please don’t even say that.”

  “As intriguing as this little drama is, I have to leave,” Jennifer said, shoving the red sweater back into her bag. “Pete has a catering job and I have to meet him over there at five thirty. So, I’ll see you guys.”

  Kelly checked her watch and saw it was nearly five o’clock. “Oops, me too. See you tomorrow, Mimi. I’ve gotta go back and feed Carl and myself before practice tonight.” She pushed Steve’s hat into her bag. “Where are we practicing, Megan?”

  “At the ball fields near Rolland Moore Park.”

  “Oooo, wasn’t that where the last woman was attacked? She was walking through the trees bordering the fields,” Lisa said, pushing back her chair.

  Megan looked at Lisa, aghast. “Thank you so much for reminding me. Now that’s all I’ll think about on the way to practice tonight.”

  “You gotta get a dog, Megan,” Kelly said as she headed for the front door.

  Two

  Kelly examined the drilling company documents Curt had handed her. “So it looks like all the wells are producing. They’re all online and up and running, right?”

  “Yep. Gas is flowing smooth and easy. You’ve got a good patch up there in Wyoming, Kelly girl.” Curt leaned back in the booth at the coffee shop. “Those royalty checks are pretty substantial, too,” he added with a grin. His suntanned, weather-lined face revealed a life spent outdoors watching cattle and open land. Denim shirt and jeans. Stetson hat resting on the booth seat. Curt was the picture of a Colorado rancher. He was also Kelly’s trusted mentor and advisor.

  “Yes, they are, Curt, and they’re certainly nice. That’s the only way I could let go of the alpaca accoun
ting clients. The income from those royalty checks allowed me to make that change.” She took a sip of coffee. Strong coffee, just the way she liked it. “Of course, when I took on those two new consulting clients you introduced me to, that made all the difference. I could let every one of the alpaca clients go except Jayleen.” She smiled at him over her cup.

  “Jayleen’s real grateful you’re keeping her on. She’s gotten used to having a CPA do her work.” Curt grinned. “Kinda like once you taste sirloin steak, you can’t go back to hamburger.”

  Kelly had to laugh. “Those bookkeepers are hardly hamburger, Curt. They’re good, experienced accountants and they’ll take care of the rest of my old clients.” She looked out over her favorite Old Town coffee shop. Non-corporate and non-chrome, the walls were covered with paintings from local artists. There was even a large rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night taking up half of one wall, giving the coffee shop its name. “I’d gotten really fond of several of them, but . . .”

  “But the work just wasn’t challenging enough, right?” Curt sipped his coffee. “I wondered how long it would take before you got bored. Every time I asked about your job, your answers got shorter and shorter. Face it, Kelly. Alpaca ranching doesn’t provide the same challenge as Bob Houseman’s company, right?”

  “You’re right about that. Houseman’s got properties all over northern Colorado.”

  “And now that you’ve taken on Werner Development, I guarantee you won’t lack for challenge.”

  Kelly took another sip of coffee and watched the customers line up for lattes and other specialty drinks. “I can’t thank you enough for recommending me to those companies, Curt. That was perfect timing.”

  “Well, I was watching you and kind of figured out when was a good time, judging from your restlessness. Plus, the Wyoming wells were settling in and producing at a steady rate, so I figured you’d be receptive to my suggestion.” He grinned over his cup. “It’s nice to be successful, isn’t it?”

  “Ohhhh, yeah,” Kelly said with a laugh. “In fact, I think now would be a good time for me to refinance the cottage and get out of that awful loan Aunt Helen made three years ago. It’s been over two years, so those penalty clauses have run out.”