For quilt appraiser Keely Fairchild, the opportunity to appraise more than a hundred quilts feels almost too good to be true. And then she learns the bad news: the quiltmaker was murdered and the police have no leads. Keely suspects that the quilts hold the key to the dead woman's death as well as to her life. While looking for answers in the quilts, Keely uncovers a variety of suspects, including the greedy heir, a smarmy used-car salesman, a feuding neighbor, and even a rival quiltmaker. As if this project weren't enough to complicate Keely's quiet life, she's also under a short deadline to find new meeting space for the quilters' guild and she's running out of time to decide whether to let charming local reporter Matt Viera into her life. Of course, those other problems may not matter if the quiltmaker's killer strikes again, this time to prevent Keely from finding the clues in the calico.