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“Let me show you something.” From her pocket Holly takes the earring and holds it out to them in the palm of her hand. The way their eyes widen tells her all she needs to know.

“Bonnie’s!” Edie says, and touches it with the tip of her finger. Holly allows this; she knew as soon as she saw it that the earring wasn’t big enough to hope for a fingerprint, including Bonnie Rae’s. “Where was it?”

“In some bushes close to where her bike was found. By itself it means nothing. It’s a clip-on and might have just fallen off.”

“You really should talk to Lakeisha,” Margaret says. “She’ll be back on Monday.”

“I’ll do that,” Holly says, but she doesn’t think she’ll have to wait until Monday.

4

The library parking lot is almost dead empty and Holly had no trouble getting a shady spot, but the interior of her car is still plenty warm. She gets the AC cranking and calls Bonnie’s mom. Penny doesn’t even bother to say hello, just asks if Holly has found out anything. She sounds both eager and afraid. Holly thinks of that Volvo plastered with Bonnie Rae’s smiling pictures and wishes she had better news.

“I’m going to send you a photo of an earring I picked up near where your daughter’s bike was found. It’s been ID’d as Bonnie’s by two women who work with her at the Reynolds, but I want to be sure.”

“Send me the picture! Please!”

“I will, ASAP. While I’ve got you, do you by any chance have Bonnie’s credit card info?”

“Yes. A week or so after she went missing, I went to her apartment and looked at her last two Visa bills. It was that police detective’s suggestion. Visa is the only card she has. I thought the bills might tell me something, I don’t know what, but there was nothing that stood out. A pair of shoes, two pairs of jeans from Amazon, groceries, some meals she ordered in from DoorDash, pizza from Domino’s… that kind of thing.”

“What about her phone? Does she pay for that with her Visa?”

“Yes. Her carrier’s Verizon, same as mine.”

To Holly, it’s the credit card that matters most. “Text me the number on her card, please. Include the expiration date. Also her cell number.”

Penny says she will. Holly takes a photo of the earring and sends it off. When Penny calls back two minutes later, she’s sobbing. Holly calms her as best she can. Eventually Penny gets hold of herself, but Holly knows the woman is starting down a dark road. One that Holly herself has already traveled a bit further. Bonnie Rae might still be alive, but the chances are growing that she’s not.

Holly sits with her hands in her lap and cool air from the driver’s side vents blowing her fringe around. She needs to think, but the first thing that comes to her is a joke opening: A new millionaire walks into a bar, and…

And what? It’s a joke with no punchline. Which is somehow fitting. She pushes it away and thinks about the case. Why would Bonnie leave her bike on what’s probably the most deserted stretch of Red Bank Avenue? Answer: she wouldn’t. Why would she leave the note but take her bike helmet? Answer: she wouldn’t.

“Leave the gun, take the cannoli,” she murmurs—a line from her favorite gangster movie.

Did someone grab her? Leap out and grab her? If so, then…

She calls Marvin Brown, introduces herself, tells him who she is and what she’s doing, then asks about the bike—did it look damaged in any way? Brown tells her it looked fine, not a scratch on it. She thanks him, ends the call, and puts her thinking cap back on.

No one leaped out and knocked Bonnie off the bike. The concrete in front of the former Bill’s Automotive and Small Engine Repair is so full of cracks and frost heaves it’s probably beyond repair. Marvin Brown will have to do a repave job if he really intends to do business there. If the bike had landed on that rough surface, it almost certainly would have been banged up. She’ll have to check to be sure, but for the time being she’ll take Brown’s word. He works with vehicles for a living, after all, and isn’t that what a bicycle is, when you get right down to it?

The daughter of a liar walks into a bar. Check that, the daughter of a liar and a thief walks into a bar. She leaves the gun but takes the cannoli.

“Stop it,” Holly mutters. “The bike looked good, stay with that. Why does the bike look good?”

It seems to her that the answer is as plain as the blue eyes she sees in her rearview mirror. Because Bonnie stopped there. Stopped and got off. Why stop if she didn’t mean to head downtown to one of those fly-by-night, we-take-cash bus lines? Because she saw someone she knew? Because someone needed help? Or was pretending to need help?

Bill Hodges still sometimes speaks to her, and he does so now. If you go any farther out on that limb, Holly, it’s going to break off.

His voice is right, so she backs up… but not all the way. The bike’s pristine condition suggests Bonnie Rae stopped of her own accord. Whether that was because she actually meant to leave it there or for some other reason is still an open question.

But again: why leave the bike and take the helmet?

Her phone bings with a text. It’s Bonnie’s Visa info and her phone account. Holly can’t sit still anymore. She gets out of her car, calls Pete Huntley, and begins pacing around the library parking lot, sticking to the shady areas as much as she can. That sun is still like a hammer—oough.

The first thing Pete says is, “You took the case after all. Jesus, Holly, after your mother…” He starts coughing.

“Pete, are you all right?”