The house phone was ringing when Harriet came downstairs and into her kitchen Monday morning. It was Connie. She and Lauren had convinced Mavis and Aunt Beth the Threads should meet without Sarah to test their theory she was leaking their designs to the Small Stitches. The Threads were meeting at her house at ten o'clock.
"I'm in,” Harriet said. “As long as I'm not the one who has to deal with Sarah when she finds out."
Connie assured Harriet she would take care of Sarah and that Harriet should just worry about bringing a winning dog design. Harriet laughed and said she would see her in an hour and a half.
Fred was doing his usual morning dance around her ankles, so she dished up his breakfast. She'd spent her morning shower time thinking about DeAnn's situation. Phyllis and Joseph had pretty much said the same thing-any child who was taken from a familiar living situation and thrust into a strange one, no matter how much nicer the new one was, would feel the stress of the change. Logically, she understood the explanation, but something didn't feel right. Why, in that case, was Kissa so calm. Hadn't she traveled halfway around the world, too? Could it just be the difference in their personalities? Maybe Kissa came from a family. Maybe Neelie had been her mother.
She had a hard time believing that last thought.
She kept coming back around to the quilt Iloai clung to. There had to be something they could learn from it. She picked the phone up again and dialed Mavis.
"Do you think I could spend some time with the quilt Iloai brought with her?” she asked when she'd connected with her friend. “Maybe I could stitch it to a piece of flannel, to stabilize it."
"I think that's a great idea. I took a rag doll over this morning,” Mavis said. “I had a couple left over from a batch I made last spring for the church bazaar. That baby grabbed onto the doll like a life preserver. She dropped the blanket. You could check with DeAnn, but I'll bet she'll think it's a good plan."
Harriet thanked her and rang off, then called DeAnn, who confirmed Iloai was sufficiently distracted by the doll she probably wouldn't miss her blanket until bedtime. She agreed that anything Harriet could do to keep it from falling apart would be welcome.
"Robin stopped by this morning and was just telling me you're all going to meet at Connie's at ten. If you want, I can send it along with her. Just promise me you can have it back before eight o'clock."
"That shouldn't be a problem. I'll work on it as soon as the meeting is over."
Harriet fixed a piece of toast and a cup of tea and took both into her studio. She cut out two more sets of diamonds then played with her block layout until she'd tried every variation twice. She still wasn't happy with it, so she pinned the pieces onto a piece of paper instead of sewing them.
"What am I going to do, Fred?” she asked as she came back into the kitchen. “It's not time to go, but there's not enough time to do anything else."
Fred jumped onto the counter in front of her and pressed his face into her hand.
"Do you have to drool when you do that?” she asked and wiped her hand on her jeans. “If that's your best idea, I'm leaving."
She put another small spoonful of food into his dish, gathered her purse and quilting bag and left. It was her turn to drive, so she headed for her aunt's.
Beth had moved into a cottage on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was smaller than the Victorian home Harriet now occupied, but it did have three bedrooms and a garden space that was much more manageable. Harriet took a shortcut over Miller Hill and arrived at Aunt Beth's a few minutes later.
"You're early,” Beth said as she opened the door before Harriet could knock. When Harriet didn't move immediately, her aunt grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. “Don't just stand there, make yourself useful. Fetch my quilting bag from my sewing room, will you?"
She retreated to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
Harriet went to the upstairs bedroom turned into a sewing room. Colorful quilt blocks were stuck to the design wall. Beth had tried several different color combinations, and Harriet assumed the winner was in the bag, so to speak. The requested canvas tote hung by its handle from the back of a wooden chair. She grabbed it and went back downstairs. Aunt Beth was standing by the front door with her purple rain jacket draped over her arm.
"What's the hurry?” Harriet asked.
"Since you're so early, I thought we could stop by Little Lamb and chat with Phyllis. I tried to call her, but her phone was busy. When I tried later, her machine answered, so I left her a message."
"Okay. Do you think she'll be able to tell us anything new?"
"Oh, I don't know,” Aunt Beth said with a sigh. “I feel like we have to try something to help DeAnn. Phyl has a lot of experience with adoption, so if there's anything to be done, she can tell us."
Harriet waited for her aunt to buckle her seatbelt then headed her car back up over Miller Hill and on to downtown Foggy Point.
Phyllis was sitting at the reception desk in the front room of the Little Lamb Adoption Agency office, shuffling papers without looking at them. A tendril of her cotton-candy hair hung limply across her forehead. She looked up when the door's warning bell chimed as Harriet and Beth entered, her eyes wide.
"Hi, Phyl,” Beth said. “Is everything all right?"
"No, everything is not all right,” Phyllis snapped.
Harriet and Beth stood in shocked silence.
"I'm sorry,” Phyllis said with a sigh. She hoisted her bulk to a standing position. “It's just Joseph."
"What about Joseph?” Harriet asked.
"He didn't show up for work today. He's not answering his house phone or cell phone.” She again shuffled the papers she still clutched in her hands.
"Maybe he just overslept,” Aunt Beth offered.
"He's never overslept before, especially when he was supposed to be taking a baby to Angel Harbor this morning. I had a courier pick up a baby at the airport in Seattle. Joseph was supposed to meet him at seven and take the baby on to the adoptive family. The courier arrived, and no Joseph."
Aunt Beth looked around the office. “So, where's the baby?"
"Jennifer had to hustle in and take over for him,” Phyllis said, referring to the other social worker she employed. “Fortunately, none of her clients is at a critical stage today. I was just trying to find the paperwork for the meeting she was supposed to do this morning so I can fill in for her.” She collapsed into Jennifer's chair. “This is just not like Joseph."
"Is there anything we can do to help?” Beth asked.
"No. Why are you here? I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude, but were we meeting?"
"Oh, no, we wanted to ask you something,” Harriet said. “We can wait until a better time."
"If you were going to ask me what to do about DeAnn's new daughter, I'll tell you what I told Connie and Mavis when they each called me-tincture of time. That's all she can do. Love the child and wait for her to settle in. I know it seems like an eternity now, but I guarantee that a month from now it will seem like that girl has always been a part of their family.
"I do hope you know that if we were seeing any problem with a placement, we would be intervening. Joseph has been monitoring the situation, and he told me he hasn't observed anything out of the ordinary. Of course, that was before he disappeared.” Phyllis covered her face with her hands.
"I'm sorry we bothered you,” Harriet said, and ushered her aunt toward the door. “I hope you find Joseph.” She waited until they were back in her car before she spoke. “Was that weird or what?"
"She did seem a little stressed,” Beth agreed, stating the obvious.
"A little stressed? She seemed more than a little stressed. I don't know her like you do, but she seemed pretty upset to me."
"Normally, she's pretty steady. I think she's really worried about Joseph. It does seem weird he would no-show like that."
"Aiden and I saw him last night, and he was acting pretty strange.” Harriet recounted her encounter with Joseph. “It was weird the way he said ‘what difference does it make, anyway’ when I asked about the child being from Uganda."
"That young man has always been a little odd,” Aunt Beth said. “I'm not sure what a social worker is supposed to be like, but he's a little high-strung, if you ask me."
They talked through the morning's strange encounter two more times before they got to Connie's house, but they didn't come to any useful conclusions.
Robin pulled up to the curb at the same time they arrived.
"Hey, you guys,” she said when they were out of their cars. She was dressed as always in black yoga pants, their longer length her only concession to the cooling weather. “I have something for you.” She pulled the tattered baby blanket from her bag and handed it to Harriet. “I hope this tells you something."
"How are things going over there?” Beth asked.
Robin held her hand up, fingers spread, and rocked it back and forth.
"Iloai is sleeping a little, but more from exhaustion than anything."
"I wish there was more we could do,” Harriet said.
"Fixing her quilt will help, and if you can figure out anything about her origins from it, all the better."
"We better get inside,” Aunt Beth said. “It looks like Jenny is already here.” She gestured toward a late-model BMW sedan parked in Connie's driveway.
Baby Kissa was balanced on Connie's hip when she opened the front door and welcomed them inside, Connie's knitted lace shawl wrapped around both of them. Kissa smiled when Aunt Beth made a silly face for her.
"Has anyone called you about her yet?” Robin asked.
"Not so far,” Connie said.
"The longer this goes on, the more I worry about it. We can plead ignorance for a few days, but eventually, that won't cut it. It's obvious we have a baby here who doesn't belong to any of us. If anything happened to Kissa, and she had to go to the hospital, and you gave permission to treat her, that would be another whole set of problems."
"I'll call Phyllis when our meeting is over and see what she thinks,” Connie said. “Maybe she can help me get certified as a temporary foster home. Besides, she must have experience dealing with children who don't have normal documentation."
"I'm not sure I'd call Phyllis today,” Harriet offered, and then explained their encounter that morning.
"That's strange that Joseph pulled a no-show,” Robin said. “Delivering a child to adoptive parents isn't the kind of thing a social worker flakes on without a real good excuse."
The doorbell rang, ending the discussion as Carla and Lauren both arrived. Connie took drink orders from everyone then handed Kissa off to her husband.
"Let's go into the family room and get started,” she said when Mavis had arrived and the drinks had been made and distributed. Jenny pulled a plastic bag from her quilting tote that turned out to be chocolate chip cookies.
"I thought a little chocolate might help us think,” she said with a smile as she handed the bag around.
Connie brought a large flannel-covered foam-core panel from her sewing room and set it in front of the fireplace, leaning it back against the mantle-her version of a portable design wall. One by one, the assembled women put their block or blocks on the board.
"Things are starting to look up,” Aunt Beth said.
Carla and Robin had taken Beth's and Mavis's idea of fussy-cutting the dog image from a print fabric and surrounding it with solid fabric of the same color as its original background, and then using the resulting isolated image to make the center of their star blocks.
"That technique looks better in the stars then in our snowballs, don't you think?” Beth said to Mavis.
"I agree,” Mavis concurred. “I think the snowballs with the smaller-scale print and the solid corners are the best of our lot."
"They'll make a serviceable quilt, but they aren't going to win any prizes,” Beth said. She stuck her print snowball block next to Mavis's on the board.
"I like Lauren's doghouse,” Carla said in a quiet voice. “Connie's, too,” she added. “It looks hard to do, though."
Lauren and Connie had worked with their landscape and dog prints, carefully cutting out dog faces and raw-edge appliquéing them into the door opening of the doghouses.
"It was easy,” Connie told Carla. “I cut out the dog face with my embroidery scissors then glued it to the doghouse door with a glue stick. I used clear nylon thread in my machine and ran a narrow zigzag stitch around the face and, voila!” She pointed at her block.
"I can't help but notice a big blank spot where Harriet's blocks should to be,” Lauren said and looked straight at her. “Aren't you supposed to be working on the super-secret design that is going to guarantee a win?"
Harriet pulled the paper mock-ups of her block from her bag and pinned them to the design wall. One was a basic tumbling block using medium-scale dog prints; the other included one side that had been cut to position a dog image on the block face.
"The color scheme isn't quite right yet, but I think you guys can see the general idea."
"I think this has real potential,” Jenny said thoughtfully.
"Did everyone bring patterns and instructions for their blocks?” Mavis asked.
The group nodded and murmured their assent. Each person would do two blocks from each pattern, and then the original pair who had designed the block would assemble the quilt top.
"What shall we do about the dog bones?” Jenny asked, referring to her complicated appliqué block.
"I'm game,” Harriet said.
Connie, Mavis, Robin and Beth also volunteered to make the difficult blocks.
"I'd be willing to try,” Carla said. “I'm not sure the result would be usable, though. I'm still getting the hang of inside curves."
Her face turned pink as she finished speaking.
"That's okay, honey,” Mavis said. “I had trouble with that myself when I was a beginner."
"If we made them larger, we could do six blocks, each one with a different dog breed in the middle of the bone wreath, and it would make a nice wall hanging,” Jenny said.
"That sounds good,” Aunt Beth said. “Harriet, are you ready to hand out patterns for your tumbling blocks?"
"Not yet, but I'll make sure everyone has them by tomorrow night."
"So, how are we going to handle Sarah?” Robin asked.
"I can check up on the Small Stitches,” Lauren volunteered. “The senior center staff is still having trouble with the new software. It's totally simple, but their employees don't want to use it. One of them is sabotaging the system. I'll probably still be going there this time next year."
"We still have to tell Sarah something,” Robin said. “She's going to start wondering if we suddenly aren't having meetings, which is how it's going to seem to her if we keep meeting without her."
"I think we should let her run with her dog-bone design,” Lauren said with a wicked smile.
"No one would believe we were really making a quilt from that block,” Mavis said.
"If the Small Stitches are willing to steal to try to win, they might bite,” Lauren argued. “And we know Sarah thinks it's a great design. She won't be able to keep quiet about it."
"So what, exactly, are you proposing?” Aunt Beth asked.
"I think we should ask Sarah to make several variations of her block with different backgrounds. If the Stitches are stealing our ideas, they should show up with Sarah's very distinctive bone design."
"But what about Sarah?” Carla asked. “What's going to happen when we don't make her quilt?"
"If Lauren verifies the Small Stitches are making the same quilt, we'll tell Sarah they copied her work and we therefore aren't going to do the same quilt."
"What if they don't copy her block?” Harriet asked. “What do we do about Sarah?"
"That won't happen,” Lauren said. “If it does, just leave her to me."
Right, Harriet thought. That wouldn't be pretty, but frankly, she had bigger fish to fry at the moment-like who had killed Neelie, and who might be next.
"Are you ever going to tell Sarah's dad they have a saboteur?"
"Oh, right, Harriet, I'm just some mercenary computer hacker who is collecting beaucoup bucks from Sarah's simple, unsuspecting parents."
"I didn't say that,” Harriet said, trying hard to keep her voice neutral.
"It's what you meant, though. For your information, I've told them every way I can, including in writing both on paper and in an e-mail, which, by the way, they didn't read since they are among the worst when it comes to not using the computer system. They want the employees to use it, but not themselves.
"They refuse to consider the possibility one of their slavishly devoted work crew could do such a thing. So, I go each week and undo the mischief and collect my customary fee each and every time. And no, I don't feel a bit guilty about it."
Harriet didn't know what to say. She'd didn't think she'd ever met Sarah's parents, but if they were anything like Sarah, she could see how Lauren's situation might have developed.
Lauren shook her head in disgust and turned away.
The meeting went on for another thirty minutes as the women exchanged the details that would insure each quilter would produce blocks that were all the same size and shape.
"We should get going,” Aunt Beth said when the discussion finally ebbed. “I'd like to stop at the police station on our way home."
"Something I should know about?” Harriet asked, her curiosity piqued.
"Detective Morse called and asked me if I had the pattern for a slash-and-stitch baby quilt I showed her the other day. I told her I could drop it by today. Is that okay with you?"
"In principle, its fine, I just don't like the idea of you cozying up to a police detective, given what's going on."
"She's a quilter,” Aunt Beth said, as if that fact over rode everything else.
"Fine,” Harriet said. “Let's not linger, though. I don't want them thinking they get to question us again just because we're in the building."
"You worry too much,” Beth said and picked up her purse and bag.
Harriet put on her gray hoodie and picked up her stitching bag. Connie walked them to the door and was about to open it when it swung wide and Rodrigo burst in waving a piece of paper.
"We're legal,” he shouted. He handed Kissa to Connie. “You are legal, my little one,” he said and kissed the baby on her fuzzy head.
"What happened?” Robin asked as she came into the entryway, followed by Carla and Jenny.
"I didn't want to say anything until I checked it out, but years ago, when I first started working for the county, I used to go on domestic abuse calls with the police, to translate. Since there were often kids involved, and it sometimes took hours and sometimes a couple of days to sort things out, Connie and I got certified for short-term foster care.
"It was mainly to give me official standing so I could remove the kids from the scene as quickly as possible. We had a list of Spanish-speaking foster care homes, and if the children had to be removed, I would arrange for them to stay there, but once or twice we kept kids overnight at the office."
"I didn't realize we were officially certified,” Connie said.
"It was a special circumstance,” Rodrigo said. “They didn't expect us to take the children home, so they didn't do all of the home inspections that typical foster parents go through."
"So, what does this mean for Kissa?” Robin asked.
"It means she has been temporarily declared a ward of the county and released to our care until they can investigate her circumstances,” Rodrigo said.
"Why didn't you say anything?” Connie asked and batted her husband's arm in mock annoyance.
"I didn't want you ladies getting into any more trouble than normal. Besides, I know people-I knew I could ask a few pointed questions, and if I didn't like the answers, they wouldn't press the matter. As it turns out, it was easy. Kissa and I picked up the papers while you all were meeting."
"I'm glad someone was sensible about this,” Robin said. “Now we just need to figure out who she really is."
"And more to the point, who her mother was,” Harriet said.
"Or is,” Lauren said, joining the group in the entry at last. “We don't know that Kissa isn't a kidnap victim."
A collective groan came from the assembled group.
"Didn't think of that, did you?” With that, Lauren brushed past Jenny, Carla and Mavis. “Ciao,” she said, and went out the door.
"Do you really think she was kidnapped?” Carla asked Harriet.
"I hope not, but I guess anything's possible."
"Let's go,” Aunt Beth said. “We've got work to do."
Harriet and Beth said their goodbyes and followed Lauren out the door.
"Lauren's right, you know,” Harriet said when they were settled in her car. “Kissa could be a kidnap victim.” She headed toward downtown Foggy Point and the police station.
"Let's not borrow trouble. She's in legal foster care for the moment. She could as easily be Neelie's or her sister's baby. We don't know. I'm sure the county will explore all those possibilities. You need to concentrate on fixing Iloai's quilt and making up your patterns for the dog quilt."
Harriet hated it when her aunt treated her like she was still a child dropped unexpectedly into her kitchen by her globetrotting parents, but she was right.
"Okay, a quick stop at the police station, and if it's okay with you, I'd like to stop in Pins and Needles and see if she's got flannel backing that's a better match for Iloai's quilt than the off-white I have."
"That sounds good. I need to get more fabric to make borders for the rest of Joseph's quilts, and this will save me a trip."