Taken In (Southern Sewing Circle Mystery) by Elizabeth Lynn Casey

Author:Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-08-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Despite the fun she’d ended up having at the sea lion show, and the reassurance Charles’s offer had given her in terms of Dixie’s well-being that night, nothing was able to quiet Tori’s mind in quite the same way as hearing Milo’s voice on the other end of the line. Although they were a good seven hundred miles apart from each other in a physical sense, there was something about his soothing voice that made him feel infinitely closer.

“I’m worried about you, baby,” he said earnestly. “I can hear the exhaustion in your voice. Are you getting any sleep at all?”

She considered telling him the simple truth but knew that would only increase his worry. Besides, what was the point? There wasn’t anything he could do to change the situation and, thus, her lack of sleep.

Instead, she took a deep breath and told him just enough to keep his radar from going off. “I’m trying to, Milo. But it’s hard. Every time I drift off to sleep, I invariably wake up with thoughts of Dixie and the cell she’s being forced to sleep in.”

“I still can’t believe the police actually think Dixie killed this guy. I mean, do they not see she’s in her seventies?”

“They do.” Tori flopped onto the couch in the empty sitting room and stared up at the ceiling, the occasional snore from Margaret Louise the only discernible noise aside from her own quiet breathing. “But they don’t care, Milo. Dixie had the other half of the scarf found at John’s apartment and that’s all they seem to care about.”

“But she said she’s never seen it before, right?”

“Right. But they say she’s lying.”

“They’re wrong.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, the certainty in his words a perfect match for the certainty in her heart. The problem, though, was how to spread that same level of conviction to the police. Oh, how she wished her say, and that of Margaret Louise, Leona, Beatrice, Debbie, and Rose, mattered.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on the window across from the couch, the one that provided a view of New York City in all its nighttime glory. It was a sight that had enthralled her their first night there, yet frightened her now, four days later. “That’s why we’re still here. We have to make them see that.”

“Any luck on that yet? Any viable suspects?”

It was a valid question. Her answer, though, left much to be desired. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Maybe?”

“I mean, there are three people that have our attention right now, none of whom we’ve spoken to directly.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Ms. Steely Eye doesn’t have an official name yet. Just a picture.”

Milo’s laugh tickled her ear and brought a much-needed, albeit fleeting, smile to her lips. “Ms. Steely Eye?”

“If you’d seen her that first time like we did, you’d understand.”

“You’ve seen her more than once?”

“Twice, actually, though we didn’t realize the second instance until after the fact.”

At his confusion, she did her best to explain. “We saw her the first time the morning of the murder.

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