Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_04 by Unraveled Sleeve Read Free Book Online

earlier, but I don’t think she told me her name. She’s here for the stitch-in, I know that.”
    â€œWhat room are you in?”
    Betsy couldn’t remember, but thought of her key. She brought it out. “Twenty,” she said, reading the number off it.
    The man said, “Come with me,” looked around, and started toward the fireplace end of the room. There, he took the elbow of a young wait person with braids wrapped around her head and a coffeepot in each hand and said in a low voice, “Billie, I have to go with this woman to her room. Take over for me?”
    â€œSure.”
    Since they were at the fireplace end, he went out the door that let onto a short passageway, and up the back stairs she suddenly remembered she had come down originally. He didn’t ask for her key, but used a pass key of his own to open the door. Betsy, unwilling to see that still face again, hung back.
    â€œHello?” said the man.
    And Betsy heard a sleepy reply, “Hello?”
    Betsy peered around the man’s elbow to see a figure sitting up on the bed. It was Jill.

4
    J ill struggled to awaken. Recognizing the man’s voice, she asked, “What’s wrong, James?”
    His voice was strained. “I—I’m not sure, Ms. Cross. Your friend said—”
    â€œBetsy?” Jill said sharply. “Where is she?” She realized it was dark out. “Say, what time is it?”
    â€œSeven thirty-five,” said James.
    â€œI’m right here,” came Betsy’s voice from behind James. “But, I don’t understand. I came up here just two minutes ago and there was a dead woman on the bed.”
    â€œWhat?” Jill sat the rest of the way up. “Come in, come in. What happened?”
    James went to the fireplace to give Betsy room to come in. He turned and looked with Jill at Betsy for an explanation.
    But Betsy didn’t have one. Not a coherent one, anyway. “I was in the lounge knitting, and this woman came in and sat down across from me. She was very pretty but very thin. Blond hair, curly, cut short. She had ablue and white sweater, one of those Scandinavian sweaters.” She gestured at her shoulders, describing the starburst pattern with her fingers.
    Standing just inside the doorway, Betsy looked bewildered. She was wearing what she’d worn on the trip up, an old blue sweatshirt one size too large; and leggings, unflattering on her short, plump figure. Betsy looked anything but commanding normally, and now she looked ruffled and scared.
    But she didn’t lie.
    Jill said, “Go on.”
    â€œI don’t know what’s going on. I was asleep, you see, then I came up here to find you, because it’s dinnertime, and instead I saw her, on this bed, and she was dead. So I ran back downstairs to tell someone, and James came up with me, only it was you on the bed.”
    Jill looked over at James to see if he could shed more light on Betsy’s story.
    He shook his head. “No one matching that description has checked in while I was on the desk—and I’m the only one on the desk this weekend.” Trying to be helpful, he asked, “What time did you see her in the lounge, Ms. Devonshire?”
    Betsy shrugged helplessly. “I’m not sure. I came down there right after we got our luggage up to our room—”
    â€œThat was a little after three,” Jill put in.
    Betsy continued. “I brought my knitting down, but I dozed off, and this woman spoke to me, woke me up. It was still daylight, the sun was shining on her hair, I remember how it shone in the sun. We talked just a little while. She said she was here for the stitch-in and to reconcile with her ex-husband. Then she said she wanted to meet him for a cigarette and went out, and I went back to sleep, and when I woke up it was dark.”
    â€œYou fell back asleep?”
    Betsy nodded. “I had a dream about her, then I woke up again, and I