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“No idea. No book’s been dropped off in the back donation box.”

“Oh, sorry. I put it by the front door. I didn’t realize there was a donation box in the back.”

Trina’s spa-aided arched eyebrows rose with artful skepticism.

“It was dark. I was in a hurry,” Jessica admitted. “And I did forget the donation box in the back,” she defended. “The front was quicker.”

Because she was a superstitious scaredy cat.

“There was no book in the front either,” Trina said.

“But I left it here. Perhaps if I just checked,” Jessica said, unable to believe the book could just vaporize. Belmont was a small, safe town. The thought of someone else out and about and stealing a donation was unthinkable, and she didn’t want to try to think about Chloe’s response if she had to confess she’d ditched the book.

“It’s for Chloe,” Jessica reminded her, wondering if she’d somehow irritated Trina back in the day as well. It seemed like the book was not the only thing trying to haunt her.

Don’t be paranoid. And the book is not out to get you.

She was the problem this go-round. “Look, Trina, I’m sorry.” For what she didn’t know, but apologies never hurt. “I made a mistake. Of course I’ll buy it back.”

“I’d expect nothing less of you, Jessica Maye,” Trina said, and Jessica curled her toes in her Sam Edelman Bianka slingback black pumps. “But there was no book in the front of the store or in the back donation bin.”

“It was a book of old recipes. It looked like a journal. There was a title that was embossed and painted or maybe dyed that said…”

“Jessica Maye, I do not like what you are insinuating. I have a lot of work to do today to help Miss Millie. I do not have the book, and I do not have the time you seem so eager to waste, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“I’m not insinuating anything,” Jessica said miserably, catching the door handle that Trina attempted to close. “I need the book. I don’t want to disappoint Chloe.”

“Then you shouldn’t have donated it.”

Jessica clung to her patience. “I apologize for taking your time, Trina—I do. Perhaps if you just let me look through any of the donations from the back I could…”

But Trina narrowed her eyes, and Jessica knew this bird wasn’t going to fly.

“I could help you organize everything that was donated this weekend,” she suggested recklessly.

“Don’t you have your city job?”

The resentment oozed like molasses. But why? Trina had had her opportunities. She’d attended UNC Chapel Hill and had chosen to come back to Belmont after college. Married her high school sweetheart and popped out three kids before she hit thirty. Trina was often lauded by Jessica’s mother as living a righteous life of purpose.

“Trina, please, I really need the book back.”

“I’ll let you know if it comes in or I hear anything.”

Inspiration struck. “Do you know who dropped anything off today before hours? Maybe they saw the book and took it as a lark.”

“No idea. People drop off all sorts of things overnight—usually items they know we don’t want to take. We are not the city landfill.”

As the donations helped the hospital and Trina’s father-in-law was the medical director and her husband an orthopedic surgeon, it made sense that she volunteered here, but perhaps she didn’t really want to. Perhaps like Jessica, she was starting to feel stymied by the choices she’d made before she realized they were truly choices with long-term ramifications.

“Do you have cameras?”

“Do you think you’ve been cast as an amateur sleuth in a streaming mystery show?” Trina rolled her eyes. “These are donations, and we often donate things we don’t think we can sell, so if someone helps themselves, it’s less work for our very shoestring staff of volunteers.”

Point taken.

“Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to it,” Jessica said stiffly before she signed herself up for a guilt-induced recurrent volunteer shift because now, she technically had the time.

Don’t think about it.