Blood Threads: The Star Seamstress Book One Read online

  "Oh, our cops are fine, although we luckily don't have much crime here. But chicken or egg, right?" she laughed in a melodic trill. Her face was just a bit geometric, and she could have been an illustration of a beautiful Scandinavian. "It could be they're so effective no one dares tries anything."

  "In a college town of this size, there's little to no crime?" My voice was incredulous. "Really?" I thought all sorts of ridiculous stuff happened where rich students gathered— drugs, secret prostitution rings, illegal beer pong leagues, etc.

  "Yes, really. We're quite proud of it." The look Breanna shot me suggested my questioning Maywen's law enforcement said a lot more about me than the town. Hell, she was probably right. "I know things are different in LA, but we simply attract law-abiding students. But when there are issues, our cops handle it just fine."

  "Okay," I said, suitably chastised, looking down at my yogurt. Being only a week into our acquaintance and pretty much owing her my life, I also didn't want to piss her off.

  She'd been the only person to respond to my pitiful online ad about needing housing at the last minute, and I was incredibly grateful that she had taken me with a significantly reduced security deposit and with only two weeks' notice. I didn't find out until I moved that she owned the building. That made her doubly generous since I was pretty sure she wasn't charging me the market rate.

  I cleared my throat, hoping to fix the damage I'd done by insulting her hometown. "Thanks again, by the way, for letting me live here and giving me some time to pay my rent. I should find out today about that trust I got, so hopefully I'll be able to get you the rest of the security deposit within a week or so."

  Breanna smiled and waved a graceful hand in dismissal. "Not at all. I'm so pleased to have a roommate again, and I know you're good for it."

  I nodded. God, I hoped I was. Bartending and peddling art supplies weren't the most lucrative of professions. My trust better be something special.

  "All right, I'm off," Breanna said sunnily; she seemed excited for her day as a music therapist singing for both humans and pets alike. This made me quite jealous, as I'd rather be crooning and playing guitar to golden retrievers and parakeets than slinging three-dollar Long Islands.

  "Have fun!" I gave a supportive wave. "Don't sing too hard."

  Her laughter rang in the air, and after she left, my hand dropped and I let my head drift down to the table. I was feeling the same sense of floating insecurity I'd had since my life unraveled in LA. Twenty-seven years old, no career after burning all my bridges and leaving the thankless world of celebrity personal assistants, and now stuck in a strange little college town making drinks and selling pencils.

  What a life.

  As I walked to work. I attempted to take solace in the considerable charm of Maywen, and more specifically, Fenris Street, the road where my employing arts and craft store lived. Fenris was lined with quirk-and-art filled cafés, microbreweries owned by brilliant hipsters in beards, an old-fashioned movie house that doubled as an event space, a couple of hardy bookstores and their bitter yet persistent owners, and bistros and bars of all stripes and styles.

  I eyeballed the Insane Sage, the local New Age store, and wondered if I should risk venturing in. I had a soft spot for tarot cards, crystals, and pillows that affirmed my personhood via embroidery, and Insane Sage appeared to offer all the above with a soothing side of tea.

  But the last time I'd been inside had been unsettling. The white-haired Indian woman with a massive braid and a colorful muumuu who stood behind the counter, actress beautiful and nun-level intimidating, had given me the stink-eye the second I walked in. I'd taken that as verification that I looked as broke as I felt and had skittered out again after a quick circuit around the store.

  "Veda!" Amari, my new coworker, said cheerfully as I walked into Barnes'. Born in Ethiopia but raised in Maywen, Amari's style made me downright envious. Today he had on skinny jeans, a green T-shirt and an artfully arranged scarf, and the whole effect was effortlessly chic.

  "How was your first night bartending at Tangerine?" He leaned over the counter and grinned at me. "70s night is not exactly the most happening of scenes."

  "It was fine, thank you, and I did notice that."

  "Were you working with the hot bartender?"

  I decided to play innocent, knowing it was unlikely to trick someone as sharp as he was. "Hot bartender? Maybe. Who do mean?"

  He laughed. "You so did, didn't you? Was he as nice as he looks?"

  "Nicer," I admitted, remembering Jordan's easy smile and sparkling blue eyes. "Guy's straight out of a romance novel." Honestly, his sweetness and warm interest in me as a person had been very appealing. "He's great, but nothing's going to happen—I'm done with men, at least for a while." Having a deep conversation with a possible boyfriend was hard when you didn't want to answer any of their questions.

  "Sure, Veda, sure. I totally believe you."

  I rolled my eyes and settled in next to him. Like downtown Maywen, Barnes' Arts and Crafts made me feel better my new life. There were a few students milling around the aisles and poking at the art supplies, but the store had an air of tranquility enhanced by the color of the supplies, and I was glad to be there. They didn't trust me to open the store yet, which I was grateful for. My last time in retail had been six years ago, and my related skills were rusty.

  Thinking about Tangerine made me remember a question I wanted to ask Amari. "I do have a question for you."

  "Shoot."

  "Is there something strange in the water in Maywen? I can't believe how many elderly people were there last night, shaking their groove thing. I'd never seen anything like it."

  Amari adjusted his yellow scarf and I admired his style and the matching of the canary hue with his bright green shirt. "Yeah, our water's super weird, but that's not why." Deciding that was a joke, I chuckled. "On the elderly booty-shakers, well, that's because 70s night is old hippies night." He leaned in conspiratorially. "What you are discovering, my dear Veda, is that Maywen is a very segregated town."

  I lifted my eyebrows at him. "Segregated?"

  "Heh, okay, not segregated that way, or any of the normal issues that divide our nation, but by local affiliation." He picked up a pen with a cute panda hanging from the end from the display in front of the register and began waving it for emphasis. "Tangerine, for example, is divided by nights. 70s nights, a lot of old, hippie townies come together and relive their youth. Each night has its own 'crowd'; I think you'll figure this out pretty quickly. All the bars in town are that way—for example, all the professors hang out at the Grand Machine."

  I'd passed that particular fancy looking bar, with its gear-covered sign, on the way to work the night before. "So it's a bar? Looks all funky and steampunk-themed."

  "It is, a bit, but it's famously snobby. I'd only been because of Leslie."

  Leslie was Amari's boyfriend, who I was looking forward to meeting and already knew quite a bit about. He taught British history at the university, and he sounded like a delightfully charming snob. He also had an old-fashioned name for a boy, something Amari told me never to mention to the man himself. I was tempted to do it anyways, just to see the reaction.

  "Anyways," he continued, still gesticulating with the panda, "Segregated. You won't see many college students in Visions, or many townies in Madame Maud's. The Tangerine is one of the only places where there's some crossover, and that's only on certain nights. Friday nights can get pretty spicy."

  "So no mingling at all outside of that, huh?"

  A young woman approached the register with a stack of supplies and Amari began to ring her up. "Well, undergraduates are dumb, so they're often wandering into places they shouldn't, like lost, entitled hamsters." I watched in amusement as the customer glared at him angrily, which he ignored. "But they tend to figure it out eventually."

  The woman stormed out as Frank Barnes, the owner, and Kristen, another one of his employees, came into the store carrying boxes. I rushed forward
to help them, and Frank gave me a grateful smile. A round, perpetually cheerful man in his fifties who wore sweater vests, glasses, and Crocs. I had the feeling he'd be a pretty nice boss.

  "How was the Tangerine, Veda?" Kristen asked as we set the boxes down. "Did you get to work with the hot bartender?"

  "That's what I asked!" Amari was delighted.

  "I did, and yes, he is indeed super hot." Why fight it?

  Kristen nodded in satisfaction. "Glad to hear you have good taste." A curvy young woman of Dominican descent, Kristen had hair of various shades of blue and turquoise, wide, bright eyes, and a beautiful smile. She was an artist who also had a second job at a tattoo parlor, and her arms were covered with an impressive selection of ink. "That makes it worth putting up with the old folks night." She shot a glance at her boss. "Oops. Sorry, Frank. No offense."

  He beamed at her. "None taken, although I'll have you know DJ Frisky Rascal can spin quite the sick beat."

  "You go to Tangerine?" I asked with some surprise.

  "Sometimes I do! I don't dance too much anymore, but it's fun to meet old friends and watch the youngsters get down and all that." He was obviously amused at my surprise. "I go to rock and pop concerts too, I'll have you know. I'm old, not dead, Veda."

  I wrinkled my nose at him playfully. "Of course not, I was just thinking about how I hope to be half as cool as you when I'm your age."

  "Unlikely," Frank said with a shrug, and Amari laughed.

  "Well, I mean, even if you weren't alive," Kristen said distractedly as she opened up her box and started to take out art markers as I moved over to help her, "it's not like that stops anyone around here. The undead tend to look pretty young and spry anyways, so that's not saying much."

  My hands stopped. "Wait, what?" I looked at my blue-haired coworker in confusion and thought she might be on drugs, but she appeared perfectly sober. "The dead look young around here? What does that mean?"

  Kristen's eyes widened and her mouth opened but nothing came out. Blushing, she looked down at her hands. Amari's gaze shot daggers.

  "Oh," Frank said smoothly, taking markers from Kristen and hustling her aside, "it's just a local thing, we call the students around finals time 'the walking dead' because they're all so stressed out. Just a silly Maywen joke. We have lots of those. We're weirdos."

  "Yes!" Kristen appeared nervous and embarrassed, but she had a big smile plastered on her face. "And we don't want to scare you since you're so normal."

  "Am I?" I told myself not to be disappointed; I was purposely dressing down these days, and trying to be just a normal, relaxed woman approaching thirty. What did I care that I wasn't cool and edgy any longer? I'd been stylish in LA, and look where that got me.

  Being bland as hell was better than almost becoming an international tabloid sensation.

  "Let's go back to training!" Amari said brightly, and Kristen and Frank scattered. He was changing the subject. "Come on. Let's take a gander at the sewing machines."

  The distraction worked; I had to admit I was taken by the shiny, barely loved machines on display. "I thought most stores had handed that over to the big box retailers," I explained, "or the sewing shops." I touched a sewing machine on display, trying not to show how much I missed my own machine.

  "Yeah, we're kinda odd like that," Amari admitted.

  "It's not a bad thing," I assured him. The rows of fabric sparkled in the sun, illuminated by the glass windows on three sides of the shop, and the rainbow of colors was beautiful and soothing. Damn, did I miss costuming.

  Frank came up behind us. "I actually had a sewing shop," he said with a small smile, touching a bolt of fabric fondly, "further out on the edge of town. I couldn't afford the rent any longer and sales had crashed after the big craft store opened down the street, but since sewing and fixing machines are passions of mine I didn't want to let it go completely."

  I was once again impressed with my boss's verisimilitude. "That's pretty amazing. Your fabric selection is wonderful."

  "Thank you!" He looked at me. "Do you sew, Veda?"

  I shrugged and turned away from all the pretty things. "A little bit, once upon a time, but not much anymore."

  "Well, you're welcome to use our display machines anytime if you'd like, and all fabric is half off for you, including the discount stuff." He leaned over conspiratorially. "And I have some remainders in the back, if at anytime you'd like to just play around and make something."

  God, he was so sweet I could cry. "Thanks, Frank. Maybe when I get used to my new schedule and settled in I'll take you up on that."

  "Excellent!" He was far happier than I thought he should be by learning that I could sew and might use his machines. "I'm teaching Kristen to sew; she's incredible at embroidery." She smiled proudly.

  That made me remember something—two things, actually. "Hey, speaking of clothing, a couple of questions for you guys. I had a weird night last night, coming home from Tangerine. Two really weird things happened."

  "Oh?" There it was again, the three of them exchanging glances, like they knew something I didn't, or shouldn't.

  "Well, do you guys have some sort of historical costuming society around here? I saw a guy in an amazing Victorian outfit last night, just hanging out and making out with a gorgeous redhead, and I was wondering why he'd be so kitted up in the middle of the week like that."

  Their gazes shifted, and Amari answered. "We have some funky organizations, you know, live-action role-playing groups and all that. He was probably coming from playing with his friends."

  Was everyone in Maywen utterly evasive? What the hell?

  "What was the other thing?" Frank asked encouragingly.

  I then told them the story of the hooded figures and the kidnapping, expecting the same sort of response, but to my surprise, I had their complete attention.

  Kristen looked at Frank, her eyes troubled. "Do you think this is linked to the disappearances?"

  "Disappearances?" I asked.

  Amari nodded, his expression solemn. "Two young men have disappeared in the last two weeks, both students, both in the middle of the night. The official story is they ran away, or went off on some drug bender somewhere, but their friends disagree. It's pretty upsetting."

  "Oh!" I said, chilled by the fact that what I saw might have been legitimate. "Don't the police care? I tried to tell them about it, and I was practically laughed off the phone."

  Frank sighed. "The police in Maywen are... interesting."

  "I can tell. Should I go to the station today, insist they look into it? I'm serious, guys. It looked like a real crime, and if this is a pattern..."

  "They're not likely to listen to you now if they didn't then," Amari said, his tone sympathetic. "They probably won't even consider it until enough people report him missing."

  "That's horrible!"

  Frank patted my shoulder. "It is, I know. Maywen's a nice town, but it does have its flaws."

  "There are flaws, and there's gross incompetence. I—" I was going to say I was going to the police station anyways, screw it if they wouldn't take me seriously, when a figure passing in front of the store windows made me stop and stare. "Hey! It's that guy!"

  There, striding down the street, was the same dark and deeply attractive man in the beautiful outfit I'd seen the night before, and he was even more impressive in the sunlight than he'd been in the lamplight. This time he was wearing a pair of gray slacks, a button-up sapphire shirt, and his black hair was brushed back from his face. He was also wearing sunglasses, and I admired the sharp lines of his downright regal profile.

  The three of them turned, and they looked shocked, and not in a good way. "You know him?" Kristen sounded both surprised and a bit scandalized.

  "No." What a weird reaction. "He was the guy wearing the outfit I was telling you about—you know, the Victorian velvet suit." I watched him walk across the street, noting how he must work out a lot. "You know, seeing him again is a relief; he had these crazy red contacts on, and the w
ay he was going all out on her neck was a bit odd." I grinned at them. "It's a relief to see him out in the daylight—now I know he's not a vampire!"

  Amari suddenly started coughing, and I swear Frank turned bright red. Okay, now I needed answers, because this conversation had gotten bizarre.

  Right then, however, the doors flew open and a gaggle of students came in, chatting and holding what appeared to be class lists in their hand. Kristen made a beeline for the register and I moved forward to offer help, hoping I knew the store enough to not make an utter ass of myself. As I did so, Frank stopped me.

  "Veda," he said urgently, "stay away from that man. He's not someone you want to get tangled up with."

  "Okay." I was very startled by his vehemence. "I wasn't planning to, but sure."

  He nodded and went to help a student who was looking for erasers, making me very curious what exactly was wrong with tall, dark, and handsome to the point that they acted like he was a literal bloodsucker. And when I was curious, I had a bad habit of sniffing things out, even when told not to or that it might get me in trouble. I was stupid like that.

  "Excuse me," a male voice said behind me. "Can you help me find a few things?"

  I turned to be faced with a stocky Asian kid with spiky hair, hoop earrings in each ear, and a dimpled smile. I nodded, pleased for the distraction.

  That pleasure dissipated as I led him around the store and noticed he kept looking at me in that searching, focused way that people did when they thought they recognized you.

  I swore internally and hoped fervently he didn't, keeping my head down and not meeting his gaze too often.

  Unfortunately, as I was showing him our inking pens, he spoke, his eyes wide and his voice excited. "I am so sorry, but are you Vida da Loca, the cosplayer?"

  With an intake of breath, I hastily looked around to make sure none of my coworkers could hear us. Luckily, they couldn't, and I wanted to keep it that way.