When a priceless antique is stolen, murder unravels the peaceful seaside town of Haven Harbor, Maine. . . Angie Curtis and her fellow Mainely Needlepointers know how to enjoy their holidays. But nothing grabs their attention like tying up loose threads. So when Mary Clough drops in on the group's Fourth of July supper with a question about an antique needlepoint she's discovered in her family attic, Angie and her ravelers are happy to look into the matter. Angie's best guess is that the mystery piece may have been stitched by Mary, Queen of Scots, famous not just for losing her head, but also for her needlepointing. If Angie's right, the piece would be extremely valuable. For safekeeping, Angie turns the piece over to her family lawyer, who places it in a safe in her office. But when the lawyer is found dead with the safe open and ransacked, the real mystery begins. . . 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 and Gone By Lea Wait KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. Copyright © 2016 Lea Wait All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61773-008-5 CHAPTER 1 The world, my dear Mary, is full of deceit And friendships a jewell we seldome can meet How strange does it seem that in searching around The source of content is so rare to be found. — Poem stitched by thirteen-year-old Lucy Ripley, Hartford, Connecticut, 1802 The simple folded leather packet looked old. Old, cracked, and very out of place, as it lay innocently on the bright red Fourth of July tablecloth. A mystery from the past had interrupted my first Haven Harbor dinner party. Before I'd seen that packet and its contents I'd been feeling high on more than the Pouilly-FuissÃ(c) recommended by the owner of Haven Harbor's local wine and gourmet treats store. (Buying beer? No problem. Wine? That's a whole different world.) I'd gotten up the courage to invite Sarah Byrne, Dave Percy, and Ruth Hopkins, the three other Mainely Needlepointers who were going to be alone on the holiday, to join me to celebrate the official start of the tourist season, and my first Maine Fourth of July in ten years. (Ob Winslow and Katie Titicomb were celebrating with family.) I figured all three of my guests would be understanding if my salmon was a little dry or my peas undercooked. But until the packet arrived, everything had been perfect. I'd pulled it off. My guests had made appropriate compliments and serious dents in the baked salmon, fresh green peas, and hot potato salad that made up my close-to-traditional New England Fourth of July menu. And I'd only had to interrupt Gram's Quebec honeymoon twice to ask for cooking advice and counsel. As I looked around the table I couldn't help smiling. Two months ago I hadn't known these people. Today I counted them friends as well as colleagues. Gram had brought us together. She'd gathered an eclectic and talented group of Mainers to do custom needlepoint for her business, and as the new director of Mainely Needlepoint I was reaping the benefits of her choices. Not only could everyone in the business do needlepoint, but they'd all brought their own personalities and talents to their work. Anyone meeting us for the first time would never guess that middle- aged Dave, navy retiree and now high school biology teacher, also had an extensive garden of poisonous plants. Or that Sarah, whose pink-and- blue-striped white hair and Aussie accent made her noticeable in a small Maine town, was also a member of the staid Maine Antiques Dealers Association. Or that Ruth Hopkins, a sweet little old lady whose arthritis forced her to depend on her pink wheeling walker, wrote erotica. And me, Angie Curtis. The most ordinary of the lot. As long as you understood that "ordinary" included ten years working for a private investigator in Arizona. I knew how to use the gun I now kept hidden under Gram's winter gloves and scarves in the front hall. I was also the youngest of the group — twenty-seven — a born Mainer, and a native of Haven Harbor. Most unusual in this crowd, I was just beginning to learn needlepoint. I was also learning what it was like to live alone. Gram's wedding to Reverend Tom last weekend had been pronounced "a smashing success" by Sarah, and as soon as Gram returned from her honeymoon, she'd be moving to the rectory. True, I'd lived alone (nearly all of the time, anyway) in my Arizona apartment, but being alone in two rooms was different from being alone in a large creaking house built over two hundred years ago. But I'd grown up here, as my mother and grandmother a