Arlene Sachitano - Quilt As You Go

Jorge came into the room again. He carried a stack of folded maps.

"Here, you can have these,” he said, and handed them to Harriet. “The Business Association had these printed up for the tourists. They have all the streets in Foggy Point."

She looked at him with amazement. He laughed and pointed to a speaker mounted near the ceiling in a corner of the room.

"Intercom,” he said, and left the room with a laugh.

"You didn't sweep the room for bugs before we started?” Lauren asked in disbelief.

Harriet laughed. “Somehow, I never guessed Jorge had the place bugged for his own purposes."

"Don't forget I can hear you,” said a disembodied voice, followed by a maniacal cackle.

"Now, one more thing,” Harriet said. “Does everyone know how to use conference call and speaker phone on your cell phone?"

She waited while everyone pulled out their phones.

"I'm not sure I know how to do conference calls,” Connie said.

"Me, either,” Jenny said.

"Okay, let's see what kind of phone we all have."

Lauren and Jenny both had the style with a segment that flipped up and spun around. Connie had an iPhone. Robin and DeAnn had the same brand of smartphone, and Sarah had one that was similar.

"Come on, Jenny,” Lauren said. “I can see where this is going. Let me show you how to make a conference call."

They divided up by phone style and began making calls to each other, practicing until each one could quickly initiate a conference call and add in the rest of the members, using speaker phone or not at will.

"Okay,” Harriet said finally. “Is everyone comfortable with our communication plan?"

"We get the phones,” Lauren said, “but let's run over the plan."

"Who wants to sit outside the motel until he moves?” Harriet asked. “I would, but I'm supposed to eat at Carla's first. I told her I needed to eat early, so we should be done well before dark. I'm making an assumption about him waiting until dark, based on when he's visited Carla, but I could be wrong, so I'd like to have someone there pretty much as soon as we're finished here. We can take one- or two-hour shifts. It doesn't have to be the same person the whole time."

"I took the rest of the day off,” Sarah said. “I can go sit there. I don't need a copilot until close to dark when we think he's going to move. I have a new Carola Dunn novel to read."

"That's good,” Connie said. “I can join her around seven."

"Everyone needs to keep their phones close to them and turned on. If he moves early, we'll have to react quickly,” Harriet cautioned. “Let's get our maps out and mark the intersections where we'll place the follow cars."

They spent the next half-hour marking their maps and deciding who would do each part of the plan. When they finished, Jorge came in with bags marked with each of their names. Sarah's was the fullest, and in addition, Jorge instructed her to choose the drinks of her choice to go along with it. He had packed Harriet's guacamole in a plastic bag with ice.

"Thank you so much,” Harriet told him as the women filed out.

"De nada,” Jorge said. He hugged her, being careful of her shoulder, and sent her on her way.

Mavis and Aunt Beth had moved into the kitchen and were sitting at the island bar with mugs of hot tea in front of them.

"What have you been up to?” Aunt Beth demanded.

"Oh, just checking up on Carla's new boyfriend,” she said, trying to maintain a casual tone in her voice.

"What did you find out?” Beth asked.

"Nothing yet,” Harriet said. “I'm just having trouble believing his story about why he's here. I'm not going to give up until I find out the truth, either.” She reached between the two women and grabbed a cookie from the plate on the bar. “Mmm, these are good."

"And you should be snacking on fruit,” Aunt Beth scolded.

"What have you two been up to?"

Mavis sighed. “Ilsa and I met with Pastor Hafer and planned a funeral for Gerard. He's an amazing preacher.

"The service will be divided to address the two parts of Gerard's life, then he'll talk about how we may never know how or why this one man had two lives, but that both parts were, in fact, one man fulfilling God's plan for him."

Her tone of voice let Harriet know she wasn't fully buying it yet, and she couldn't help but notice she was calling him Gerard instead of Gerald now.

"When will it be?"

"We have to wait until the police release his body, but they told Ilsa they expect to be able to do that in another day or so. Given a day or two to notify people, it will probably be early next week."

"If there's anything I can do, just say it,” Harriet said.

"I wish there was something you could do. I need to know what happened twenty years ago and what happened this last week. Until I know that, there's nothing anyone can do."

Harriet grabbed a second cookie and retreated to her bedroom, where she called Aiden's cell phone and left him a message, letting him know there had been a change in her as-yet-unrevealed-to-him plan and he would now be required to pick her up. When she'd finished, she called Carla to see if she needed them to bring anything to dinner. Carla said she thought she had everything and was anxiously awaiting their arrival.

"Where is everybody?” Aiden asked an hour later when he came into the studio. Harriet was sitting alone at her computer.

"Aunt Beth finished the show quilt she was working on and went home. The Willis group is having a family dinner later at Mama Theresa's. They've all scattered to points unknown in the meantime, so me and Fred are all you get."

"I'll take it,” he said and crossed the room quickly, scooping her into his arms and kissing her. He kept his arms around her as he looked into her eyes. He sighed. “Something tells me we aren't going to be late to dinner because we're taking advantage of your empty house and making out."

"That would be a good guess,” Harriet said and stepped away from him. “Not because I don't want to, but we've got a mission tonight and we need to get started."

"Okay, the suspense is going to kill me before dinner's over. What's the plan?"

"Actually, the plan is already in motion. We're following Terry to see where he's going at night."

"We who? We you and me? What have we already started?"

"I realized Foggy Point's too small for the two of us to follow Terry without him noticing, so I called the Loose Threads.” She started pacing between her desk and the long arm machine.

"I knew I wasn't going to like this."

"Wait until you hear the plan,” Harriet said, and explained how the Threads would position themselves at successive intersections, the last cars leapfrogging ahead based on Terry's moves and the lead car dropping off as he turned onto new roads. “He won't have a single car following him more than a few blocks at a time. We'll communicate with our cell phones."

"Okay, I hate to admit it, but that could work, and I like that you're working in teams. But say you follow him and you find him…” He paused. “…somewhere. What then?"

"I don't know, I'll have to see where he goes. If he meets up with other people, we could follow them, or if he's obviously dealing drugs or some other criminal activity, I'll call nine-one-one. I really don't know what the next step is. I just have to do something, and this is all I can think of."

Aiden grabbed her good hand as she came back toward her desk. He pulled her into his arms again.

"You know what I like about you?” he said. “Your loyalty to your friends-even the ones you don't like, you still defend."

"You're going to make me blush, talking that way,” Harriet said. “But seriously, Carla's life has been so hard. I can't stand the idea that this guy is just using her. She deserves better. And who knows-there's always the chance that I'm wrong."