Cover Copy
Seamstress Daria Dembrowski must find a historically-minded killer before the fabric of her peaceful town rips wide open...
When the reality show My House in History comes to Laurel Springs, Pennsylvania, savvy seamstress Daria Dembrowski sees a business opportunity. The show follows two elderly sisters’ quest to restore their colonial mansion, and that means a heap of work for a seamstress who specializes in historical textiles. Although one of the old women is a bit of a grump, Daria loves the job—until she discovers one of the researchers dead, and the whole project threatens to unwind.
As a series of historical crimes pile up, from a stolen Paul Revere platter to a chilling incident of arson, Daria must find the killer quickly, for her life is hanging by a thread.
Also by Greta McKennan
The Stitch in Time Mystery series
Uniformly Dead
Historically Dead
Historically Dead
Greta McKennan
LYRICAL UNDERGROUND
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2017 by Greta McKennan
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Lyrical Underground and Lyrical Underground logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: December 2017
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0169-6
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0169-3
First Print Edition: December 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0172-6
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0172-3
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For Mom, who inspires me.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my editor, Martin Biro, for being patient with me throughout the writing process, and my agent, Jessica Faust, for her unfailing encouragement. Thanks to all the folks at Kensington who work their magic to transform a story into a published book and then send it out there for people to find and read.
Thanks to Laura Lippman and her Double LL Ranch workshop group from Eckerd College’s Writers in Paradise conference for helpful comments on the first twenty-five pages, especially Jami Deise, fellow workshop participant and copy editor of my first novel.
Thanks to Tim Barnhill for giving me tips on how the film industry works in Pennsylvania.
Finally, thanks to my family: Mike, Jamie, Laura, and Johnny, for supporting me throughout this ongoing journey. I couldn’t do it without you!
Chapter One
“What do you think? Do I look like an eighteenth-century lady?”
I stepped back to survey my client’s gown and overall appearance. Straight sleeves ending in a cascade of white organdy and lace—check. Flowered lavender petticoat falling over a hoopskirt stiffened with real whalebone—check. White linen fichu covering the stooped shoulders—check.
Orthopedic athletic shoes—not so much.
“You look gorgeous, Miss Priscilla,” I said. “General Washington himself would bow and kiss your hand if he could see you.”
She inclined her head and dropped a deep curtsy, no mean feat for a woman of eighty-odd years. “Of course, General Washington would never see this dress, my dear. This is only a house dress, after all.” She straightened up and held herself still and erect as I knelt at her feet and pinned up the endless hem.
A sigh escaped my lips at the thought of the hours of hand sewing ahead of me. I contemplated breaking my cardinal rule and running the hem up by machine instead of setting it in by hand, but I knew I wouldn’t. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice those little touches of craftsmanship that set my work apart. My historical sewing business, A Stitch in Time, was taking off nicely, and I wasn’t about to let any shoddy shortcuts drag me down.
My pins slid into the silky fabric. I’d stepped back in time on this job. The wooden floorboards I knelt on dated from the mid-1700s. Their lustrous surface was wavy from the passage of years and many a booted foot. The spacious living room had been emptied of its twentieth-century furnishings, leaving only a few graceful antiques. A drop-leaf table balanced the two tall windows, which were still covered by nothing but mini-blinds. A small arrangement of wingback chairs grouped around an occasional table stood before the cozy hearth. A tall chest of drawers in dark mahogany wood stood on spindly legs against the opposite wall.
Priscilla Compton, the quiet, reclusive mistress of this estate, was a tiny woman in her eighties. Content to sit knitting on her front porch, dressed in long calico gowns, she’d been a fixture in our small Pennsylvania town for a quarter of a century, almost the entirety of my lifetime. As a child, I’d always thought of her as the crazy old lady in the haunted house on the hill, practically a ghost herself. Nobody bothered much with old Priscilla Compton, until she gained notoriety through the reality TV show My House in History. Now the whole town watched while she transformed her home to its original eighteenth-century condition.
“When you get the hem pinned up, my dear, shall we talk about the curtains?”
I bit back a smile. Priscilla always called me “my dear,” as if I were her beloved granddaughter rather than a hired seamstress. She probably didn’t even know that my name was Daria.
“Yes, curtains. Were you thinking heavy, or light and airy?” I slid in the final pin and scrambled to my feet. I paced around her, checking the drape of the skirt. Perfect. “You can slip that off now, and I’ll have it hemmed up by tomorrow.” I moved to unfasten the row of hooks and eyes on the back of the bodice, and helped Priscilla ease the gown off her shoulders.
She pulled on her everyday clothing, a simple gown of sprigged muslin that fell to her ankles. “Light and airy for the parlor, I believe. Professor Burbridge has the drawings we’re working off of. Such a delight to have a learned historian on our team, isn’t it, my dear?”
Her enthusiasm for the project was what delighted me the most. “I’ll check in with the professor later.”
“Will you be around this evening, my dear? The new attorney is coming to meet all of us. He’s a delightful young man who Ruth has hired to tell us what all the lovely things in this house are worth.”
I glanced around the living room, noting the silver tea service arranged