The corner of Delia’s mouth lifted. “That’s right. The cruise. Have you heard from her at all?”
Somehow—and I still wasn’t sure how—my curmudgeonly aunt Marjie had been talked into going on a Caribbean cruise by her boyfriend, Johnny Braxton. I fully expected to get a call any day now that one of them had pushed the other overboard.
To say they had an unusual relationship was putting it mildly.
“No,” I said, “but I’ve been keeping an eye on news reports.”
Delia laughed and I took a moment to enjoy the sound of it. She didn’t laugh often.
“Well, they’re both missing out, because you’re going to look gorgeous in this dress.” With a flourish, she pulled the ball gown from the garment bag. Turned out she knew someone who created period costumes and was willing to lend me a gown that made me look like I’d stepped back in time to the Civil War era. Delia had picked up the dress for me earlier today.
Blinking, I tried to take in all its beauty. Made of ivory silk moiré, it had delicate off-the-shoulder cap sleeves, a cinched waist, a gently pleated skirt, and the most beautiful gold floral appliqué along the hemline.
“It’s too pretty to wear,” I said.
Delia eyed it. “It could pass as a wedding gown, should you and Dylan get the urge to run off and elope again.”
“Been there, done that,” I repeated, laughing.
Smiling, she said, “Yeah, but think of how much it would upset Patricia.”
There was that . . . but still. Dylan and I were in a good place in our relationship. We didn’t need to go ruining it by bringing up marriage. Again.
“Speaking of which,” Delia said, pointing a finger at me. “If you get blood on the dress, you own it. And it costs a pretty penny.”
“Blood?” My voice rose. “Who said anything about blood?”
Apparently worried by my tone of voice, Roly popped her light gray head out of the box and looked at me. I smiled at her, and seemingly appeased, she ducked back down. Poly continued to bop poor Boo on the head.
Running a finger along a cap sleeve, Delia said, “If you’re going to be there, and Patricia’s going to be there, a risk of bleeding is not out of the question.”
Despite trying to keep her tone light, I heard an undercurrent of a warning in her voice. I said, “I call dibs on no bloodshed tonight, okay? Patricia and I are trying to be civil.”
Pulling her hand back from the dress, she frowned. “You can call dibs all you want, but there will be bloodshed tonight.”
Suddenly a large knot of worry formed in my stomach. “You had a dream, didn’t you?” It came out as more an accusation than a question. Delia’s dreams were akin to a crystal ball of doom. They foretold of bad things to come.
With a spark in her eyes, she bit a nail and said, “I might have seen something.”
“Like?”
In one long drawn-out breath, as though she was offering up the winning theory in a game of Clue, she said, “Patricia Davis Jackson with a bloody silver candlestick in her hand bending over a body.”
“My body?” I asked, eyes wide. I mean, dang, I knew Patricia hated me, but whacking me with a candlestick was taking our feud a bit far.
“Not yours,” Delia shook her head. “Not this time at least.”
That didn’t make me feel better.
“Then who?” I needed to tell Dylan about this. He knew Delia and took her warnings seriously, and as an investigator for the Darling County Sheriff’s office, he would want to step in before his mama did something that got her locked up.
If I was being completely honest, I had to admit that as much as I didn’t like the woman, I didn’t want to see Patricia go to prison, either.
Much.
“I’m not sure,” Delia said. “It was dark, and Patricia’s big blue dress blocked a lot of the scene, but the person had brown hair, and there was blood pooling near the head. All I can tell you for certain is that it was nine thirty.”
“How do you know that?”
Tucking a strand of pale blond hair behind her ear, she said, “There was a grandfather clock next to Patricia. Can you believe she’d hit someone with a candlestick?”
Yes, yes I could.
“Maybe it was an act of self-defense,” Delia went on. “Or temporary insanity.”
Maybe. Maybe not. There was a side to Patricia Davis Jackson few knew—a dark, dangerous side. I bit my thumbnail.
“Or,” Delia reasoned with a gentle shrug, “maybe my dream was just a dream and the only drama tonight will be how all fired up you get from people stepping on your dress’s train.”
In the six months I’d come to know Delia, not once had a portentous dream turned out to be just a dream. I supposed there was a first for everything, but I’d let Dylan know all the same.