Free Threading the Needle by Marie Bostwick Page A

to make sure I didn’t take anything that wasn’t “mine,” I’d spotted the bottle of Delamain sitting on a counter-top. When the agent’s back was turned I slipped it into my voluminous handbag, but only as an act of defiance. I don’t even like cognac.
    However, desperate times . . .
    Halfway through my second glass, I realized I really should eat something, but the cupboards and refrigerator were bare. By that time, driving to the supermarket on the edge of town was out of the question—the last thing I needed was a ticket for DUI—and the shops within walking distance were already closed for the night. Riffling through my purse, I’d found two tiny bags of peanuts left over from my last airline trip. I sat down in the dark kitchen and ate them one by one, washing each down with a swig of cognac.
    Stupid. And now I was paying the price.
    I stood over the commode, considered throwing up, decided against it, then pulled on a pair of slacks and a sweater before going downstairs to look through the kitchen cupboards, confirming what I already knew. There wasn’t a scrap of food in the house. If I wanted breakfast, I was going to have to go out and buy some.
    The thought of wheeling a shopping cart through the aisle of the grocery store was more than I could face. So I fished my darkest pair of sunglasses from the bottom of my purse, hid my disheveled hair under a baseball cap, and walked downtown in search of a café. I knew I shouldn’t be spending money eating out, so I promised myself that starting tomorrow, I’d be frugal. Besides, I reasoned, the fresh air might do me good.
    It did.
    Summer had a few days left to run, but the morning chill made it clear that fall was fast approaching. Here and there, the trees showed spots of yellow and pale orange. A gust of wind in the branches made a rustling sound, as if the leaves were made from paper. The sun shone bright and clear in a sky of brilliant blue that, even through the shaded lenses of my glasses, was impossible to ignore.
    Pretty. I had forgotten.
    New Bern, with its tree-lined streets, neatly trimmed hedges, and rows of quaint white-clapboarded, black-shuttered antique houses—real antiques, not ersatz “reproductions” that never quite look or feel like the real deal—was very pretty indeed. A picture postcard for “the good old days.” Charming.
    It was easy to see why tourists in search of the quintessential New England village and city dwellers looking for a peaceful weekend retreat put New Bern on their not-to-be-missed list. In their shoes, I’d feel the same. And for a moment, even with my head aching and the light filtered through smoke-colored lenses, I did. For just a minute, the length of the village block where the white clapboard houses with trimmed hedges give way to a row of wide-windowed, no-chains-allowed storefronts, I allowed myself to be charmed by New Bern.
    But only for a minute.
    I heard her a split second before I saw her, a disembodied voice blown around the street corner. Even all these years later, there was no mistaking it—that upper-crust, eastern-seaboard, non-rhotic accent of hers, all absent “Rs” and extended vowels, delivered with the lower jaw slightly jutted and the eyebrows slightly raised, a voice that could only belong to Abigail Burgess Wynne.
    â€œI know I said I’d be there, darling, and I will be. I just want to stop by the quilt shop and say hello to Evelyn. I haven’t seen her since she got back from Ireland.”
    She rounded the corner, cell phone to her ear, walking briskly, wearing good wool slacks, pearls, and a summer-weight cashmere sweater over a starched snow white blouse, not a hair out of place. That had not changed. I hadn’t supposed it would.
    She was older but not yet old. There were more lines around her mouth and her hair was pure platinum now, pulled into a low knot at the back of her neck, but