Lindsey did not sleep that night. Not a big surprise, she supposed. It seemed like every memory she’d ever had of Jack converged in her head in a cheesy montage just to torture her. She remembered him helping her learn to ride a bike and beating up a bully who was picking on her. He’d gotten a fat lip for his effort, but as he told their parents with the beginnings of his future swagger, “You should see the other guy.”

She remembered him showing her the shortcut through the woods that led to a convenience store on the main road where they emptied their piggy banks on candy and made themselves sick. Together they discovered the best climbing trees, made the best skateboard ramp, and when they were older, he taught her how to drive a stick shift by parking the car at the bottom of a hill and making her drive up it.

Jack was a free spirit, the last of the rogues, with a brilliant brain for business and a weakness for the ladies. He’d knocked around the globe, circling it at least six times, and always coming home with exotic tales and strange gifts.

Lindsey rested on her side, looking at the enamel lotus charm that hung on the wall beside her bed. Jack had sent it to her from Tibet right after she had moved to Briar Creek to start her life anew. It was supposed to symbolize good fortune, like the lotus flower, which rises out of the mud to bloom, he had explained in his note. She thought about her life in Briar Creek. She didn’t know if the enamel lotus blossom was responsible, but she had definitely found happiness here in her new life.

Heathcliff let out a yawn from his blanket at the foot of the bed. She nudged him with her foot, and he grumbled under his breath even as he rolled over so she could rub his belly. Heathcliff preferred to sleep in on chilly mornings and frequently stayed in bed while she went and made her coffee. Usually, only the sound of the front door opening, which signaled outside time, got him moving.

“You are a slug,” Lindsey said as she pushed back her covers and shoved her feet into her slippers.

Heathcliff growled something unintelligible, and Lindsey suspected it was a good thing he couldn’t talk. She had a feeling she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, especially as she suspected that he could be a bit of a sassy pants.

Once the morning routine was finished, which included a long walk for Heathcliff, Lindsey tried to muster the energy to get ready for work. Today was her day to go in a bit later, as she would close the library in the evening.

She glanced out her living room window to try and get an idea of what to wear. She noted it was another flannel day outside. She always thought of gray days as flannel days partly because she wanted to burrow in her flannel jammies and not go out and partly because it looked like a big sheet of gray flannel was blanketing her world.

Her third-story apartment overlooked the bay, and she could see the outline of the islands dotting the landscape, or rather the waterscape, all the way to the horizon. There was no sign of a big yacht, however, which depressed her to no end.

For the millionth time, she wondered where Jack was, whether he was safe, and how he had gotten involved with a married woman with a psychotic husband. She was just turning to freshen her coffee when her cell phone rang. She snatched it off the table where it sat in its charger.

The display showed a library number. She frowned. Not Jack then.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Lindsey,” Beth said. “You have to get down here right now.”

“Why? What’s happening?” Lindsey asked.

“Detective Trimble is here and he’s asking for you,” she said. She sounded like she was whispering.

Lindsey wasn’t surprised. Beth had gotten up close and personal with the state investigator, and Lindsey was pretty sure she had some emotional scars from the encounter.

“What does he want?” Lindsey asked. “Did he say?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. In fact, as soon as he came in, I hid under my desk. That’s where I’m calling you from,” Beth said.

“Wait, you’re under your desk?” Lindsey asked.

“It seemed best,” Beth said. “Ann Marie is chatting with him at the circulation desk. She’s using her best dimples and everything.”

“Good plan,” Lindsey said.

Ann Marie, their part-time clerk, was the mother of two precocious young boys who were notorious in Briar Creek for their shenanigans, like the time they decided to have a snack at their old preschool in the Lutheran church, disregarding the fact that the church was closed and the kitchen locked up.

The church alarm could be heard throughout the small town, and Ann Marie had left the library at a run, knowing as only a mother does that her two were somehow responsible. She found them sitting in the church kitchen munching on animal crackers. They’d had to make a formal apology to the pastor and do a week of chores around the preschool in repentance. Needless to say, Ann Marie had been using her dimples to charm irate neighbors, teachers and law enforcement officials since the boys had been born.

“Tell Ann Marie to tell him I’ll be right there,” Lindsey said. “And please don’t mention anything else.”

“Got it,” Beth said. “You don’t have to worry about me. My lips are sealed with superglue, no, Gorilla Glue. You can’t pry that stuff loose even with a banana, I tell you.”

“Uh-huh.” Lindsey hung up and flew into her bedroom as if she’d been shot out of a canon.

*   *   *

“Detective Trimble,” Lindsey said as she extended her hand in greeting to the man in the sharp navy suit. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too, Ms. Norris,” he said. His grip was firm and warm. “I wish it was under a better circumstance.”

“Me, too,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“Chief Plewicki called us in to help investigate her John Doe,” he said. “Since her resources are limited, she was hoping the state police might give her a few more avenues of inquiry and identification.”

Lindsey nodded as if this all made sense, which it did except that she was concerned that her brother was connected to this mess and that the police might already know this and be looking for him as well.

Detective Trimble pushed the gold-rimmed glasses up on his nose and studied her. He hadn’t changed much since she’d met him a year and a half ago. He still had the same precisely cut short black hair, same glasses and impeccable suit and the same intelligent gaze. Just as before, she felt as if he knew more than he was saying. It was very unnerving.

“So I’m assuming you want to reinterview me and see the scene of the crime?” she asked. She was pleased that she sounded so matter of fact.

“If it’s no trouble,” he said.

“None at all,” Lindsey assured him. Meanwhile in her head, she kept saying, Just the facts. Surely, she couldn’t blow it if she kept to the facts.

“If you’ll follow me,” she said.

She led him down the hallway to the cordoned-off room. The door had been kept locked to keep away the curious. Lindsey opened the door and they both stepped under the yellow crime scene tape and into the room.

“Now what happened the day that you found the body?” Trimble asked.

Lindsey told him the same information she’d given Chief Plewicki. She had a spasm of guilt for omitting the part about finding Jack, but she couldn’t risk it. Not knowing whom Jack was running from, she didn’t feel like she could mention him at all and risk drawing attention to him, which, according to the strange woman who had taken him, might get him killed.

Trimble asked many of the same questions that Emma had asked. He walked around the room while he listened to her answers. He clarified points about how the body had been positioned when it was found and about the open window.

Lindsey tried to look like she thought she would if she didn’t know anything else. It was hard to make her features blank, however, when she knew more than she was telling and she’d gotten no sleep last night.

When Trimble finally seemed satisfied with the information, she turned to go. Relief welled up inside her, and she felt like she was stepping off the hangman’s platform in a stay of execution granted just in the nick of time.

“Oh, there’s one more thing, Lindsey,” Trimble said. “One thing that doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Yes?” Lindsey felt a prickle of unease tingle the back of her neck.

“You said that it was too cold in here to have your craft club meeting—”

“Crafternoon,” she corrected him. She didn’t mean to be picky but a crafternoon was a book discussion, a craft and a shared meal, which made it so much more than a craft meeting.

“Pardon me,” he said, “crafternoon meeting.” He said the words as if trying them out. He lifted his eyebrows as if it wasn’t so bad and then he continued, “So why would the window be open?”

“Beg pardon?” Lindsey asked as her heart knocked around in her chest, probably trying to dodge the surge of panic that was rocketing through her and would undoubtedly cause her heart to seize up in a paralyzed knot of anxiety.

“Why was the window open?” he asked. “It seems to me if you’d found the room too cold earlier, you would have shut and latched it, correct?”

Lindsey didn’t know what to say. Was this it? Was the open window like the single hair or clothing fiber found on a murdered corpse that identifies the killer? Her throat went dry. She mentally begged for a rescue, in any form, even if it was Ms. Cole arriving to chew her out for something ridiculous.

She glanced at the door. Trimble raised his eyebrows as if he knew she was considering a run for it.

“Uh . . . well . . . I don’t remem—” she began when a male’s voice, an unhappy male’s voice, interrupted her.

“What’s this I hear about you and that salty dog dancing at the Blue Anchor last night?” Robbie Vine asked as he ducked under the crime scene tape and stepped into the room. “I thought we had an agreement.”