Angie's first auction may turn out to be her last—when she bids on a coat of arms that someone would literally kill to possess . . .   Tagging along to an estate sale with her fellow Needlepointer, antiques shop owner Sarah Byrne, Angie Curtis impulsively bids on a tattered embroidery of a coat of arms. When she gets her prize back home to Haven Harbor, she discovers a document from 1757 behind the framed needlework—a claim for a child from a foundling hospital. Intrigued, Angie is determined to find the common thread between the child and the coat of arms.   Accepting her reporter friend Clem Walker's invitation to talk about her find on the local TV news, Angie makes an appeal to anyone who might have information. Instead, both women receive death threats. When Clem is found shot to death in a parking lot, Angie fears her own life may be in jeopardy. She has to unravel this historical mystery—or she may be the next one going, going . . . gone . . . Lea Wait lives on the coast of Maine. A fourth generation antique dealer, and author of the Agatha-nominated Shadows Antique Print mystery series, she loves all things antiques and Maine, and she’s learning to do needlepoint. She also writes historical novels for young people set in (where else?) nineteenth-century Maine. Lea adopted her four daughters when she was single; she’s now the grandmother of eight, and married to artist Bob Thomas. Find her at Facebook, Goodreads, and at www.leawait.com Thread Herrings By Lea Wait KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. Copyright © 2018 Lea Wait All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4967-1671-2 CHAPTER 1 "Happy the maid who circling years improve Her God the object of her warmest love Whose cheerful hours in pleasant moments The book the needle and the pen divide." — Stitched, with three alphabets, in 1794 by Lucy Davis, age thirteen, in Ipswich, Massachusetts. "This is an adventure?" I grumbled, still half asleep, as I maneuvered my sweatered-parkaed-and-booted self into the passenger seat of the faded red van Sarah Byrne used for her antiques business. "The sun isn't even up. I couldn't read the thermometer outside my kitchen window clearly because it was covered with snow, but the temperature is somewhere near zero." Sarah laughed. "Good morning, Angie! Aren't you the born Mainer who likes to take early morning walks?" "Not in the dark. Not in a deep freeze. So ... not in February." I managed to fasten my seatbelt after lengthening it to fit over all my cold weather attire. "And definitely not without coffee." I'd managed to get myself out from under my quilts and feed Trixi, my six-month-old black kitten, but I hadn't had time to make coffee. "When I lived in Arizona I missed Maine winters and hated the heat. I'd forgotten about frozen noses and toes." I looked out at the dark world. "Although once the sun comes up all that snow and sparkling ice will be beautiful." "'It sifts from Leaden Sieves — / It powders all the Wood. / It fills with Alabaster Wool / The Wrinkles of the Road —'" said Sarah. "Emily Dickinson quotation, right?" I wasn't even wide-awake yet, and Sarah was already spouting lines from her favorite poet. "Emily always has something relevant to say," she said, smiling at me. "Don't worry. Coffee is doable. We'll stop at the Dunkin' Donuts up on Route 1. You'll have plenty of time to wake up before we get to Augusta." "The auction doesn't start until nine o'clock," I complained. "Why did we have to leave at five-thirty?" "The preview opens at seven, and it takes more than ninety minutes to get to Augusta," she reminded me. "You and Patrick went to Portland yesterday to check out art galleries, so we couldn't go to the preview then. We have to get to the auction house in time to register and claim seats and check out the lots being auctioned. Sales are always `as is, where is.' Auctioneers sometimes miss details, and no auctioneer knows about all antiques. You can't totally depend on his or her word for anything during the sale." "No returns?" "Definitely not," said Sarah. "That's why we have to decide ahead of time what we want to bid on, and how much we're willing to spend on each item. It's easy to get carried away and spend too much if you haven't planned ahead." "And you do this once or twice a week." I shook my head incredulously, hoping the motion would help keep my eyes open. "This time of year I pick up inventory for next summer. Summer's when antique collectors and people furnishing their homes in `authentic' period styles invade Maine with full wallets and open credit cards. I only open my shop `by appointment or chance' in January and February." I hadn't known anything about antiques (other than those I'd grown up with in my early nineteenth-century home) until I'd met Sarah. Some of her antiques were fascinating, and some strange. But she made a living from her shop, From Here and There, so she knew what she was doing. Months ago I'd said it might be fun to attend an aucti