Everything is the matter, Molly wanted to say. But she didn’t want to burden her mentor and friend with her problems, especially since they weren’t at all work-related.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, instead. “I just have a headache.” This part wasn’t a lie. She’d been feeling a headache coming on since asking the sheriff to leave last night. “And I didn’t sleep well.”

  This wasn’t a lie, either.

  “Why don’t you take the day off?” Phyllis leaned forward and patted Molly kindly on the knee, the only part of her she could reach from her low perch.

  “I couldn’t possibly. We have so much to do. The staff meeting—the move—”

  “All of that will be here when you get back. We did get along here before you came, you know.”

  This was true.

  She glanced at her desk phone, remembering what John had said to her the night before about Tabitha. You don’t know anything about her.

  Maybe she needed to remedy that.

  “Well . . . I could just take the morning off,” Molly said, reaching inside her desk drawer for her purse. “I could come back later this afternoon.”

  “If you’re feeling better,” Phyllis said.

  Molly had already leaped to her feet. “If I’m feeling better, of course. Thank you, Phyllis.”

  “The Complete Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Phyllis called after her, as Molly was hurrying away.

  This froze Molly in her tracks. Slowly, she turned around. “I’m sorry, Phyllis. What did you say?”

  “The Complete Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Phyllis repeated. “That’s what I’d bring for the girl to read. She’s a new mother, so—assuming she’s keeping the baby—won’t have a lot of time to read. But she might be able to snatch a poem here and there. And Maya Angelou hits the spot for just about everyone.”

  Molly, feeling a little ashamed for not having thought of this herself, nodded. “Of course. And I should bring something for her to read to the baby. It’s never too early to start reading to a child.” Then she smiled at the older woman. “How did you know I was heading to the hospital?”

  “Oh, my dear.” Phyllis shook her head as she pushed herself from the tiny chair. “You are more Harry Potter than Proust—not precisely difficult to read.”

  Molly wasn’t certain if she should feel insulted or flattered by this, but chose to feel flattered.

  She had to take a ride-share service to the hospital because it was too far away to walk or bicycle to. She half expected to be turned away when she asked for Tabitha Brighton’s room—she wasn’t family, after all—but the kindly volunteer at the information desk looked up the room number and gave it to Molly after asking who she was and carefully checking her ID. Apparently Molly was on some kind of list of approved visitors—or rather, was neither Dylan Dakota nor a member of the press, so was allowed to roam the halls of the hospital freely.

  She found Tabitha’s second-floor room with ease and was about to enter without knocking (since the door was wide open) when she saw that Tabitha was nursing. An RN stood beside her, looking down on Baby Aphrodite’s little dark head and murmuring, “There. There, see? You’ve got it. I told you that you’d get it.”

  Molly paused on the threshold, pleased to see both mother and baby looking so well, especially considering the condition they’d been in the last time she saw them.

  Now they each had a rosy flush to their cheeks, and Tabitha was smiling, her eyes bright. Molly couldn’t see the baby’s eyes because her head was turned away from her, but she supposed they’d be as shiny as her mother’s.

  Feeling like an interloper, she raised her hand and knocked softly on the doorjamb. When both Tabitha and the nurse looked up in surprise, having been completely absorbed in their task, Molly said, softly, “Hello. Sorry to interrupt. It’s just me, Molly Montgomery, the children’s librarian? I hope you don’t mind, but I got your message and I thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing. I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

  Tabitha’s face changed as Molly revealed who she was. Of course she hadn’t recognized her—how could she? She didn’t remember that dreadful time in the library—or hopefully didn’t—so she’d been regarding Molly distrustfully. But now she relaxed.

  “Oh, hi,” Tabitha said. “I thought you were the social worker for a second. They’ve been threatening to send her up here all day.”

  Molly was a little confused—what was so wrong with social workers? But then the nurse said, “Now, then, Tabitha, we only want to make sure you and your baby have bonded, and that you have somewhere safe to go when you get discharged.”

  “Of course we’ve bonded,” Tabitha said in a gently scoffing tone. “Look at us!”

  It was true that Baby Aphrodite was snuggled very close to her mother, and seemed to have a voracious appetite. Molly could hear the hungry little slurping sounds from where she was standing in the doorway.

  “So,” she said, hesitating to come into the room since she hadn’t exactly been invited, “you’re keeping her?”

  Tabitha looked shocked. “Of course I’m keeping her! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  Molly felt like this response was invitation enough to enter the room. She did so, placing her purse and tote bag on the floor and taking a seat in the visitor’s chair, which was beside the girl’s hospital bed.

  “Well, only because someone left her in my library,” Molly said. “Have you figured out yet who might have done that?”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Well, the cops keep saying it was my boyfriend. But I know he’d never do anything like that.”

  “Hmmm,” Molly replied, noncommittally. “Well, the police can be wrong.”

  “Right? I mean, why would my boyfriend do that to his own baby?”

  “Because men can suck,” said the nurse, whose nametag read Cecile.

  “Not my boyfriend.” Tabitha’s voice was firm. “He’s going to come pick us up, and we’re going to live on a boat and sail around the world and homeschool Cosette.”

  “Is that what you’ve named her?” Molly asked, reaching up to touch one of the baby’s tiny pink toes. She couldn’t help it. The little foot was dangling out from beneath the baby’s blanket just a few inches away, looking so soft and sweet and innocent that Molly had to touch it. “Cosette?”

  “Yes.” Tabitha had the dreamy look that all women got while nursing, Molly’s sister included. But Tabitha’s was especially pronounced, because she was a teenager thinking about the boy she loved. “From Les Misérables. That’s my favorite book. Cosette knows tremendous hardship, but she’s a survivor, not a victim. I want my daughter to be just like her.”

  “Not including the hardship, I hope.”

  “Of course not!” Tabitha looked at Molly like she was crazy.

  “Well, she’s so young, I doubt she’ll remember the rough start she got in life. I’m sure you and your boyfriend will give your daughter a wonderful upbringing. Has he called you?” Molly couldn’t believe she was sitting there, gently interrogating the new mother while she was nursing. What was wrong with her? “I suppose you’re getting discharged soon.”

  “Well, no.” Tabitha looked ever so slightly troubled. “But I mean, he’s busy.”

  “Sure he is,” said Cecile in a flat voice.

  “No, really, he is. He’s getting the boat. We talked about this. He said it would take a few days to get a good one.”

  “You mean steal one,” said Cecile.

  “It’s not stealing,” Tabitha insisted. “It’s wrong to own property or people.”

  Molly exchanged a glance with the nurse, who was adjusting Tabitha’s IV. The nurse suppressed a smile and turned away. It was clear she’d heard Tabitha express similar sentiments.

  Suddenly Molly understood why John had insisted that Tabitha was “bananas.”

  But Molly had a different opinion. Tabitha wasn’t mentally ill. She was simply young . . . young, naive, and in love.

  “Well, of course it’s wrong to own people,” Molly said carefully. “But you might feel differently if someone took something that belonged to you—if it was your boat, for instance.”

  “Not if they really needed it,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. “I’d give anyone anything I had that they really needed. I’m happy to share all that I have with those who have less.”

  “Yes, but what if what they took was Cosette?”

  Tabitha’s arms tightened protectively around her daughter. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that someone took your baby away from you. You weren’t okay with that, were you?”

  “Of course not! But I’m talking about material things, not babies.”

  “You said it wasn’t okay to own people.”

  “I don’t own Cosette. She’s my daughter. I’d never let anyone take her away.”

  Molly nodded. “Okay. I was just checking. Here, I brought something for you.” She rose and reached into her tote bag and pulled out the books, then handed both to Tabitha.

  Tabitha gave the book of poetry only a fleeting glance, but she gasped at the picture book. “The Snowy Day! Oh my God, I used to have this book when I was a kid. It was my favorite. How did you know?”

  “Everyone had that book when they were a kid,” Molly said. “It’s everyone’s favorite. It’s our most checked out book in the library, even though it’s never snowed once in Little Bridge. I think that’s why the kids here like it so much. I thought you might like to start reading it to Cosette.”

  “Oh, I will.” When she was smiling, as she was now, Tabitha was a very attractive girl. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Montgomery!”

  It was on this scene—a rosy-cheeked Tabitha flipping through the pages of her favorite picture book as she nursed her newborn daughter, Molly and the nurse standing beside her bed—that a well-dressed man and woman walked in a few seconds later, wheeling suitcases behind them, bringing with them the unmistakable scent of air travel and money.

  “Tabby?” the woman said, in disbelief, nearly dropping her suitcase.

  Tabitha looked up from the book, and her jaw dropped in shock. “Mom? Dad?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  John

  “The phones have been ringing off the hook” were the words with which Marguerite greeted John as he stepped into the office. “Everyone—and I mean everyone—on this island has seen Dylan Dakota.”

  “His name is Larry Beckwith.”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “Great.”

  John couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired. He felt weary down to his bones. All he wanted to do was crawl back into his bed, pull the covers up over his head, and sleep for eight hours. Maybe ten.

  But unfortunately he couldn’t, because he had a criminal to catch.

  Dylan Dakota had been seen at Frank’s Food Emporium buying beer.

  Dylan Dakota had been seen at Ron’s Place drinking rum.

  Dylan Dakota had been seen at an art gallery opening Thursday night admiring a watercolor by Bree Beckham and had even asked its price, though in the end he hadn’t bought it.

  Dylan Dakota had been seen near the bight admiring city planner Randy Jamison’s yacht, and a few people had even thought he might try to steal it, but by the time deputies arrived, he was gone.

  Dylan Dakota had been everywhere and seen by everyone, and yet no one seemed to know where he was right now.

  John sat at his desk and rubbed his face. He wondered what he’d done to deserve a thorn like Larry Beckwith in his side. He wondered what he could do to get Molly Montgomery to like him again and to put Larry Beckwith in jail forever. He wondered if he was too old to quit law enforcement and go pitch for the Miami Marlins.

  Marguerite knocked on his office door then opened it without waiting for him to say “Come in.”

  “Chief, I’ve got Dorothy Tifton on the phone, the lady whose house got robbed?”

  John regarded her wearily. “I know who she is, Marguerite.”

  “Well, she says she has to talk to you, and you only. I told her you were busy, even though it doesn’t look to me like you are, actually. But she said it was important. I bet it’s something about her insurance. What do you want me to do?”

  John waved a hand. “Put her through.”

  “Right, Chief. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look like crap, Chief.”

  “Why, thank you, Marguerite. That is so kind of you.”

  “Just letting you know, Chief.”

  Marguerite closed the door on her way out. The call from Mrs. Tifton came through a few seconds later.

  “Hello, ma’am,” John said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible and knowing he was failing. “What can I do for you this fine morning?”

  “Sheriff.” Mrs. Tifton’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “I want you to know, I’ve got him.”

  “I’m sorry,” John said. “I can barely hear you, Mrs. Tifton. Can you speak a little louder?”

  “No, I can’t. Because I’m on the tail of that animal who broke into my house, and if I speak any louder, he might notice me.”

  This caused John to sit up a little straighter in his chair. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tifton. Did you say—are you—are you with Dylan Dakota right now?”

  “If you mean the High School Thief, that’s right,” the old woman whispered. “Only that’s not the name he told me. He told me to call him Larry.”

  John was so excited that he stood up behind his desk. Stood up and threw his stapler as hard as he could at his office door. The stapler broke the glass in the center of his doorframe, on which the words Sheriff John Hartwell had been written. Now, thanks to the stapler, there was only a gaping hole—a gaping hole soon filled by the face of Marguerite Ruiz, wearing an incredulous expression and mouthing the words What the hell?

  John pointed at the phone receiver he was holding to his ear. We have him, he mouthed. Aloud, he said, “So where are you, Mrs. Tifton?”

  “I’m at 24 Hour Fitness,” Mrs. Tifton whispered. “I don’t normally work out here, but I might change gyms, because they were very nice just now about letting me bring my dog in—you met my dog, didn’t you, Sheriff? My dog, Daisy?”

  “I did meet your dog,” John said, while scrawling 24 Hour Fitness on a pad near his phone and holding it up for Marguerite to see. She nodded, then spoke quietly into her shoulder radio. “Your dog, Daisy, is lovely.”

  “She is, isn’t she? Anyway, I was walking Daisy this morning, like I usually do, and thought I’d stop by the Cuban coffee place, because they make the best café con leches, don’t you think?”

  “Of course.” On the pad, John wrote, NO SIRENS. DO NOT SPOOK HIM and showed it to Marguerite. She nodded and again spoke quietly into her shoulder radio.

  “Well, I was there ordering my coffee, and who do I see but this boy, also ordering coffee, and he starts petting my dog—everyone loves to pet my dog because she’s just so cute, if I do say so myself. And I think to myself, ‘Well, this boy looks just like the boy from the photo in the paper this morning.’ Only he’s wearing a baseball hat, maybe as a disguise, but I think, ‘Well, that’s not a very good disguise, because you can still see all the tattoos and the ear thingies.’ And do you know what, Sheriff? I could smell him. And this boy smelled exactly like the hooded shirt you all found at my house! Not only that, but do you know what he said to me?”

  “I do not,” John said.

  “He notices me looking at him and he says, ‘I bet you’re thinking I’m that guy from the paper today.’ Well, I couldn’t have been more shocked, because that’s exactly what I was thinking! And I said to him, ‘As a matter of fact, I do. You know that boy robbed me and also vandalized my library.’ And he laughed and said, ‘Oh, that was your library? I thought it was the people’s library.’ And I said, ‘It is, but I’m the person who donated all the money to renovate it.’ And he said, ‘Well, thank you for that. We need more libraries in this world. I’m sorry my friends and I did that to your library. But you know it technically belongs to the people, and we’re the people, so we have the right to do what we want.’ And so of course I said, ‘Young man, respectfully, I disagree.’”

  John could feel himself beginning to sweat, even though he kept the air-conditioning at the sheriff’s department—as opposed to his home—at a strict seventy degrees. He was clutching the phone so tightly, he thought it might break in his hand.

  “And he has the nerve to smile at me and say, ‘Well, you’re not going to turn me in, are you?’ And do you know, Sheriff, I was so scared—I mean, he scared me! Something in that smile! And his eyes—like he was dead inside. So I said, ‘Of course not. You’re kind to dogs, so how bad can you be?’ Because he was standing right there! Petting my dog! He could have broken little Daisy’s neck! What else could I do?”

  “You did exactly the right thing, Mrs. Tifton,” John said into the phone. Covering the mouthpiece, he said to Marguerite, “How many?”

  “We’ve got one car in the area, two on the way. The one in the area should be there any second.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Martinez.”

  “Good.” To Mrs. Tifton, he said, “So how did you end up at the gym, ma’am?”

  “Well, I figured I should follow him, see where he’s staying.” John almost rolled his eyes. No wonder the widow and Molly Montgomery got along so well. The two of them had both read way too many detective novels. “And it turns out, it’s the gym.”

  Of course. Of course it was. Beckwith could rent a locker for his stuff, have all the hot showers and clean towels and soap he needed, get in a good workout, and probably even sleep there in some dark space if there was no one else around—and if the night staff was female or gay, he could charm them into letting him stay, depending on how susceptible they were to his charms—all for only twenty dollars a day. It was so much cheaper than a hotel room and so much more convenient than crashing in some vacant house or building.

  John could have kicked himself for not having thought of it before.

  “And you’re sure he’s there now, Mrs. Tifton?”