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tone.
    The librarian took in a breath and then blew it out slowly. She glanced above Rose’s head and saw the older woman from the magazine section standing at the front desk. She raised her chin in her direction and then moved around Rose.
    â€œYou need to return to the desk. I will not answer your questions in this hallway.” And she jerked her head up and down and headed toward the side door to the office.
    She held open the door while Rose walked through. Then she closed the door behind them. Rose hurried through the other door and around the desk. She glanced over and saw the woman who had been reading the magazines waiting for assistance. It was clear to Rose that the librarian was not going to be helpful to her. In fact, Rose thought that the librarian could possibly even make things worse, so she returned to the table where she had been working.
    She checked everything again. She retraced all of her steps, thinking that maybe she had put the bracelet in her pants pocket and that it had dropped out when she went to see the stranger the librarian had been talking to.
    She walked through the stacks, searching to see if there was anyone new in the library who might have entered when she wasn’t watching. She stood behind the computers and watched the two boys who were playing games and who seemed not at all interested in the woman staring at them.
    She went around to the children’s section, deciding finally that there was nothing odd about the woman reading to her child. And the older woman, who had gathered her things and was standing at the front desk talking to the librarian, seemed completely harmless.
    Rose noticed that both of the women had turned and were watching her as she rambled about, trying to figure out what had happened to the bracelet. They turned around and began to whisper to each other, but Rose didn’t care if they were talking about her. All she could think about was the piece of jewelry that she had taken and that had now been taken from her.
    She headed to her place at the table and sat down. She leaned forward in the chair, searching again under the table and around where she had been sitting. She lifted the books from the desk, shuffled the papers. There was still nothing. She glanced around the library again, this time studying the rear entry, which was straight down the aisle from where she was sitting. The leaves of a plant next to the door were swaying from side to side, as if the door had only recently been opened and closed.
    Rose watched the plant until it stopped moving, and when she sat back, her arms hanging at her sides, she reached into the pocket of her jacket again and wrapped her fingers around the bracelet. She understood as she held it in her hand that in the short time she had run around the library trying to recover the jewelry, it had been returned.

EIGHT
    â€œWell, what do you mean it was stolen?” Ms. Lou Ellen was staring at the bracelet the younger woman had placed on her kitchen table. She poured Rose a cup of tea and sat down across from her. Her new companion, the three-legged dog, lay at her feet under the table.
    â€œIt was gone,” Rose replied. She had left the library and driven straight to Shady Grove. Mary was in the office, working on reservations, so Rose had stopped at Ms. Lou Ellen’s to talk to her. She was, after all, the only one who knew that Rose had taken the jewelry.
    â€œBut dear, it’s right here,” she said calmly.
    â€œI know. That’s what’s so weird. He stole it and then he returned it.” She sounded exasperated.
    â€œWho, dear?” The older woman sipped from her cup of tea.
    â€œThe tall, dark stranger,” Rose replied. “The same one I saw at the sheriff’s office. He followed me to the library and he sneaked in and stole the bracelet, and then he put it back in my pocket.”
    Ms. Lou Ellen leaned in toward her friend. “Are you getting enough rest?” she