A Custom Fit Crime (2 page)

With nothing but my wits, I descended the stairs. They were even colder against my bare feet, but I made it down, turned left into the part of the house that doubled as my shop, Buttons & Bows, and stooped to snatch up one of my red Frye harness cowboy boots. Not much in the way of defense, but better than felt beads, and definitely better than empty hands.

The scraping turned back to a knocking and I had another thought. Nana’s goats! Maybe it wasn’t an intruder at all. Nana and Granddaddy’s property was directly behind mine, and Thelma Louise, the grand dam of Nana’s herd of dairy goats, managed to escape the farm more frequently than not. She was as mischievous as all get out, and she liked to pick on me.

“Harlow?”

I froze, my elbow bent, the boot cocked behind my head. Nana’s goats didn’t speak. Neither did Meemaw’s ghost, for that matter.

With my ear up to the door, I held my breath and listened.

“Harlow, are you there?”

The voice was familiar. It was a woman. Low, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her calling my name, which was silly since it was the middle of the night and she’d already wakened the entire neighborhood with her ruckus at my door.

The doorknob jiggled and I jumped back. “Who’s there?”

The doorknob jiggled again. “Harlow, it’s Orphie.”

Orphie! I dropped the boot, turned the lock, and pulled open the door.

Black, curly, shoulder-length hair. Tall and thin like a model. Bronzed skin. It really
was
Orphie Cates. “You’re early!” She wasn’t set to arrive for two more days. If I had to be rousted from my sleep in the middle of the night by anyone, Orphie would be in the top three on that list.

I squealed, rushing onto the porch, wrapping her in a bear hug. “I can’t believe it! Orphie? Is it really you?” I pushed her back, stared at her, and then drew her in for another embrace. I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, although we’d talked on the phone and had a constant stream of e-mails back and forth.

“In the flesh,” she said after I finally let her go. A wry smile graced her perfect lips. We’d worked at Maximilian together, a top New York designer, but really, Orphie should have been on the runway. She was
that
beautiful.

And she was right about the flesh part, too. The dress she wore had a low-cut scoop neck that draped at her cleavage. Two thin spaghetti straps went over her shoulders and crisscrossed in the back. The pattern had been cut on the bias and hung in silky waves over her body. It was her own design, I knew, utterly sexy, and absolutely out of place in a down-home town like Bliss.

But Orphie was Orphie. She had style in spades and she wasn’t afraid to show it. I was the same way, but my style was a little less revealing.

As she looked over my shoulder at the shop, I grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her into the house, shutting and locking the door behind her.

“So, this is where the magic happens, eh?” she said, a playful grin on her face.

That one little sentence made me gasp. Only a handful of people knew about the Cassidy charm. My family, of course, since they were all charmed, too. Madelyn Brighton, the town photographer and a good friend, and Will Flores, the man Meemaw had set me up with from the great beyond. His daughter was charmed, too, but didn’t know it yet. The little town was bursting at the seams with secrets.

But Orphie didn’t know, and she wasn’t referring to my magic. She was talking about my dressmaking. “This is it,” I said, spreading my arms wide.

She wandered around, looking at the antique armoire that held stacks of fabric, the custom designs hanging on a freestanding rack against the back wall, a bulletin board with favorite sketches pinned to it, oohing and aahing the whole time. Finally she made her way to the French doors dividing the front room of the shop and what had once been Meemaw’s dining room. I’d turned it into my workroom. Her gaze took in the cutting table that sat in the middle, a wooden pulley contraption for fancy gowns that was affixed to the ceiling thanks to Will’s handyman skills, Meemaw’s old Singer sewing machine and my PFAFF, my Baby Lock serger, dress forms, and a shelf unit with Mason jars of buttons, baskets filled with trim, and every other sewing supply I might need as I developed Cassidy Designs.

“It’s really great, Harlow,” she said, stopping at my newest purchase, a commercial sewing machine. “And look at this!” She lovingly brushed her fingers over the top.

“Business has been getting better,” I said. I’d made custom designs for a few of Bliss’s most prominent matrons, including Zinnia James, wife to a local senator. I’d worked on several festivals, including the local debutante pageant and ball, and the town’s holiday extravaganza. Word was getting around about my designs and how they made people feel.

No one knew it was thanks to my ancestor Butch Cassidy wishing upon an Argentinian fountain. That magic charm had bestowed gifts on all of Butch’s female descendants—Loretta Mae was able to get whatever she wanted, Nana had turned into a goat whisperer, and my mother, Tessa Cassidy, had a thumb greener than the Jolly Green Giant’s.

“And you’re sewing for your mother’s wedding now?” She looked around, searching for a wedding dress.

The gown, if you could call it that, was on a dress form in the seating area of Buttons & Bows. It was anything but a typical wedding dress, but I was quite sure the design fit Mama to a tee. From the lace sleeves to the slight ruffle at the neckline, it was Southern sass that fit her age and temperament.

“That, and I’m just finishing my fall collection for the feature in
D Magazine
.” I’d recently spent two days in the Dallas Design Center to meet with the journalist who was writing the article, and the two other designers who’d be featured. A day in an artsy showroom and another in the warehouse that housed an atelier had been exciting and new, but by the end of the trip, I missed my quaint little shop in my little yellow farmhouse.

Now it was their turn to see how the other half lived . . . the half outside Dallas.

Orphie went back to wandering the room, as if she were absorbing every last detail. “You said they’re coming here tomorrow for the photo shoot?”

“Right. The journalist wants to see both sides of the fashion world. Designers in the Design District, and”—I spread my arms wide—“my little outfit here in Bliss. Tomorrow, the models and designers will come here and they’ll shoot pictures to showcase my so-called country sewing space. Big contrast to where the others work and live. I just hope they don’t make me seem all Green Acres compared to the new-money bling of Dallas.”

“They won’t.” She trailed her hand across the cutting table, looking longingly at the length of fabric stretched out and ready to be cut first thing in the morning. “It’s about up-and-comers, right?”

“Right.” I notched my thumbs toward myself, smiling. “And I’m one.”

The exact words of the journalist who’d contacted me, Lindy Reece, were committed to memory
. We’d like to do an article featuring Dallas-area fashion designers who offer a unique perspective in the industry, both in and out of their own workspaces. You’ll spend a few days in Dallas. The other designers will spend some time in Bliss. Your work has a distinct perspective that’s vastly different from what I normally see. It’s an aesthetic worth sharing with our readership. I’d like to feature you, Ms. Cassidy.

My newest collection was entitled “Country Girl in the City” and I’d been working round the clock to flesh out the collection, finalize my lookbook, and make sure every piece had a cohesiveness, both in textiles and presentation, but also with my voice and what I brought to the fashion world. “Midori’s bringing her models—”

Orphie gaped. “I love Midori! What she does with pattern and cut is amazing.”

I did, too, and to have my designs featured next to hers made my skin prickle with nerves and excitement. The Japanese cultural influence she brought to her designs made her unique around these parts. I thought Midori’s perspective could steal the show, and I wanted my clothes to show well in comparison.

“The third designer is Michel Ralph—”

“Beaulieu,” she finished. “You mentioned that. He’s . . . interesting. His aesthetic is a little muddied.”

Temperamental was a better word. He got plenty of play on fashion blogs and was plenty popular—if not well liked. “You know what they say.”

“Yeah. He
borrows
from other designers,” she said, invisible quotations around the word “borrows.” “Wonder how true that is.” She collapsed onto the red velvet settee in the seating area of Buttons & Bows. “I can’t believe he ended up in Dallas.”

He’d been there for a long time. “For about ten years now.” We both knew Michel Ralph Beaulieu from our days at Maximilian. Back then he’d been everywhere, making the rounds and ingratiating himself with every designer he could. When he’d gone off on his own, we’d seen his success as a sign of what could happen for each of us. Our own lines. A show at Fashion Week. A real future as a designer.

I was developing my own line, and I saw myself as a designer. I no longer cared about showing at Fashion Week. I was content right where I was.

She frowned, but not even that marred the perfect, Botox-free silk of her skin. “Don’t you think a lot of his stuff is imitation?”

I’d definitely seen similarities between Beaulieu and Jean Paul Gaultier, whose brilliance was drawn from the world around him, from different cultures, cinema, and rock music, for starters. His designs were worn by icons like Madonna and Lady Gaga, and he brought something utterly new to the fashion world.

“Beaulieu’s stuff seems more Prêt-à-Porter.” Orphie stretched her long legs out on the settee, stifling a yawn. I hid my own, suddenly reminded that it was now nearly two thirty in the morning.

“I do some ready-to-wear pieces, too, Orphie,” I said. She’d glanced at some of the clothing on the portable rack. I preferred couture, like any designer, but Bliss didn’t have much use for stagelike costuming or artistic statements through clothing. My Country Girl in the City collection was unique, practical, and truly represented my hybrid perspective. It wasn’t boudoir or urban jungle or mishmash like Beaulieu, and it wasn’t Japanese punk or metropolis like Midori, but it was
me
, and I was proud of it. Everything I created was a combination of body, heart, and soul. Like with most designers, what I created always expressed who I was as a person. Emotions, complications, layers . . . it was all woven into every seam, every cut, every tuck and pleat. I had an appreciation for sewing with care, for reenvisioning couture. Intricately crafting a garment from the design stage to the last seam was all part of what made sewing such an enjoyable experience for me.

“Orphie,” I said, sinking down on the love seat opposite her, the coffee table that had been repurposed from an old door between us. My lookbook and another bowl of felt beads I’d been working on for my collection’s accessories sat in the middle of it. Another yawn came. I plumped a pillow under my head, and it suddenly felt as if we were back in Manhattan in our minuscule loft apartment. “What’s going on?” She’d called out of the blue, telling me she was coming for a visit, but she hadn’t said why. Now it was time for her to fess up.

“You said your mom’s getting married to that cowboy sheriff,” she said drowsily.

I tried to follow her lead, but I could feel sleep slip over me like a veil. “Right.” My mother and Hoss McClaine were getting hitched, and it was going to be a really eclectic Southern wedding. I’d been charged with making her dress, which I had done, and my sister-in-law Darcie’s bridesmaid dress, which was mostly done. I was maid of honor and hadn’t even started on
that
design. On my list of things to do was something for Will Flores’s daughter, Gracie. After that I’d be done, but I hadn’t come up with the right design for either dress yet. And I only had a matter of days.

Orphie’s eyes had begun to drift closed, but she pried them open again, her gaze falling on the red and black suitcase she’d set by the steps to the little dining area. “And you have the photo shoot. I haven’t seen you in ages, and I figured you could use a little help with all of it.”

She was a true friend, and she sounded sincere, but there was a tenseness in her expression and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. Southern women had several rules they lived by, one of which was being well versed in doublespeak. True, Orphie wasn’t Southern—she was as Midwestern as they came—but she’d picked up some tricks from me over the years, and I suspected there was a little subtext under her statement that she’d come to help. “Orphie?” I said, stretching out her name, my voice lilting on the last syllable.

“Harlow?” she replied.

“What’s going on? You did not drive ten hours and arrive in the middle of the night to help me with my sewing, although, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here.”

She sighed, sitting up and propping her elbows on her knees. I mirrored her, but then she got up and trudged, as much as a five-foot-ten-inch lithe woman can trudge, over to her suitcase. She plopped it down flat, unzipped it, and lifted a book off the top of the neatly folded clothes.

I recognized that book. Hard black cover. Crisp white interior pages. Maximilian logo embossed on the front. I jumped up and backed away as if it were a coiled snake. “Orphie, what are you doing with that?”

“I never told you the reason I left Maximilian,” she said, her voice slow and tired.

I didn’t like the sound of that simple statement. The fact was, she’d just up and quit. Packed up one day and left, with no explanation. “Family,” she’d said later when I’d pressed her.

“Why’d you leave?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.

She strode to me, book outstretched in her arms. “This is why,” she said solemnly. “You’re one of my closest friends, Harlow. And . . . and I need your help.”

Oh Lord. So Orphie hadn’t come to help me with Mama’s wedding to the sheriff, and she hadn’t come to be my assistant for the
D Magazine
photo shoot. Which left only one possibility. Had she come here because . . . was it possible that . . . oh no. Could she have stolen one of Maximilian’s prized design books, the thing that held his ideas and sketches? I stared at her, trying to make sense of that absurd thought and wondering just how on earth she thought I could help her.