Page 176 of The Lost and Found Girl

Dahlia shrugged. “Don’t you think sometimes you can look at something at a different time and see...something completely new?”

A strange expression crossed Ruby’s face. “Yeah, I... I guess that’s true.”

“What?”

“I’ve been feeling that way all day. I’m on these streets, and I know them so well. But I keep noticing things I never did before. Like the way people avoid Dana. I feel like Iknewit, but I never really...felt it like I did today.”

“So maybe it’s the perfect time to revisit things.”

“Maybe,” Ruby said. “Yeah, okay. I think...yeah.”

“Not exactly an enthusiastic buy-in, but I’ll take it.”

Dahlia had often felt out of place in this bright, shiny town, but she’d always felt connected to it too. It was hard to explain. How much she cared about the history, and how compelled she felt to dig into the secrets that were here.

After all, she was part of one of them. And she had the best resource right in front of her.

Now she had a mission. And when Dahlia McKee had a mission, she was never deterred.

7

Highwaymen Afoot in Pear Blossom

BY JOHN HARDY

1918—A traveler from out of town was ambushed by highwaymen on Sentinel Bridge. It is believed to be connected to a string of such robberies happening up and down the coast. It is not believed the citizens of Pear Blossom are in any current danger, as the general method of these marauders has been to rob once, then move on to new territory where the law is not actively seeking them.

RUBY

Ruby was bone-tired by the end of the day. She’d spent the whole day with Hazel and Riley, and she had exhausted her bag of Cool Aunt Tricks. She had myriad fun clothes for dress-up and was pretty good at various dance challenges from the internet.

She loved Riley and Hazel. But when it came to being there for Lydia...she had sort of expected her sister to actually spend some time with her. But Lydia had been out on the farm all day, butting heads with Chase, most likely, and Ruby had been on kid duty, until they’d all gone to dinner at their parents.

It was hideously embarrassing to realize how much of her Save Lydia Mission was about her own feelings, and even worse to realize... That realizing it didn’t change the way she felt.

Now she was finally back at the cottage with the newspapers Dahlia had promised.

And she was... Ugh.

She was trepidatious. And she was never that. It irritated her.

Ruby settled back into the cottage and stacked the newspapers beside her bed by the window, shivering slightly as she looked out into the darkness.Hecould be out there and she wouldn’t know it.

“Good lord,” she muttered, getting up and drawing the curtains.

She’d lived in cities full of strangers where there was almost certainly a criminal somewhere on the same street. A predator of some sort. And yet there was something intimate about knowing who the person was. About knowing what he might’ve done. About being here and feeling in danger. In this place that had always been a haven for her. For her specifically. Because hadn’t Sentinel Bridge shielded her? And hadn’t the people here taken her in and loved her?

Or maybe she just had an overactive imagination, and she was applying all sorts of special meaning to the situation that simply didn’t exist.

She pulled out the newspaper article that had appeared the day after she’d been found.

Baby Found on Sentinel Bridge

A newborn baby girl was found on Sentinel Bridge on the evening of December 23. Marianne, Lydia and Dahlia McKee were walking home from choir practice when they happened upon the bundle...

It was an article that Ruby had read before. One that her mother had cut out and tucked away in her baby book. Her blanket from that day and the necklace that had been placed with her were wrapped up in the same keepsake box.

She looked at the rest of the paper. There were ads for various sales. A story about puppies for Christmas and a bit of national news.