"Okay, so what decision did he make?" Milo pulled her hand closer as he guided her around a raised tree root that had buckled the sidewalk and created a potential tripping hazard.

"To buy police coverage from Sweet Briar." She glanced at the home Milo wanted as they passed by it once again, the wide front porch and large front windows beckoning to all who passed.

She felt his hand release hers as he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his eyes narrowed on hers in confusion. "Buy police coverage from Sweet Briar? Tori, you must have misunderstood. Ridge Cove can't buy those kinds of services and Sweet Briar most certainly can't sell them."

"But Stu said-"

Milo shrugged and shook his head, his hand finding hers in the dark once again. "I don't care what this guy said. It simply can't be done."

Chapter 19.

She was grateful for the distraction painting afforded. It gave her a way to escape the troubling thoughts that plagued her subconscious and left her tossing and turning throughout the night.

Finally, just before dawn, she'd given up trying to sleep and made her way over to the library where she could make optimal use of her time. Still, she found herself wading through the past few weeks in Sweet Briar-the people she'd met, the gossip she'd heard, the experiences she'd had, and the conflicting things she'd learned.

While some had attributed Tiffany's bizarre behavior during the final days of her life to drugs, others had dismissed the notion as absurd. While some were eager to see Tori for who she was, others seemed every bit as unwilling to consider her as something other than a murder suspect. While she'd thought she was building a solid friendship with Leona Elkin, Leona was simply humoring her, biding her time for something bigger. And in uniform.

Shaking her head, Tori forced herself to focus on Jennifer's stained glass castle windows as she applied a splash of red and a splash of yellow paint. The room was coming out better than she'd dreamed. Quinton's trees, which she'd used in several places throughout the room, enhanced the artwork of the other students. The varied colors and scenes drew the eye around the room, hinting at the many possibilities that could come from reading.

Yet she wasn't happy. Not the way she should be after realizing a dream she'd had since childhood. But how could she be with everything that was going on around her on a daily basis-not the least of which was Milo's contradictory statements regarding Stu's claims?

"Oh, Victoria, this is-this is wonderful." Rose Winters stepped into the room, Margaret Louise at her heels. "I had no idea you could-" Her voice trailed off as she set her glasses firmly onto the bridge of her nose and walked from mural to mural. "I had no idea you could make a room so . . . so wonderful. The children are going to love this, absolutely love this."

Tori inhaled sharply, letting the subsequent outtake of air clear her mind of the incessant thoughts that had nagged and pulled at her for hours. "You really like it?"

Rose wandered around the room as she attributed the correct book to each and every picture Tori had painted onto the wall. "How could I not? How could anyone not?"

Tori stole a glance at Margaret Louise, a name burning on the edge of her tongue that could contradict Rose's rhetorical question. The woman clasped her hands together, her head moving slowly from side to side.

"We tried your house first, but when you didn't answer we figured you'd be here. Working. Can you take a break?" Margaret Louise asked as she ventured into the room and stopped between Tori and the window she was painting. "For just a little while? Rose and I would like to talk to you."

"Sure, I guess." She dipped the brush in a cup of mineral spirits and wiped it with a paint-spattered cloth. "I take it you talked to Dixie?"

"We did." Margaret Louise looked around the room, her shoulders slumping. "No chairs?"

"Not yet. But by Saturday we'll have a colorful assortment of beanbag chairs to choose from." She knew her answer was bordering on ornery but she didn't care. Dixie Dunn had gotten too much blind support when it was anything but justified.

"There's a step stool right there, Margaret Louise, sit on that." Rose made one last turn around the room before finding a stable enough table to lean against. "I heard what Lulu found in the shed and I want you to know how sorry I am. You deserved better than we gave you when you first came."

Tori swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat that made it impossible to speak.

"I started to see Dixie's part at that second circle meeting. And it was impossible to miss at the board meeting. If it matters any, I was disgusted." Rose lowered her glasses a half inch and peered at Tori over the top rim. "And I let Dixie know that when we confronted her in her home yesterday."

It was a start. Tori leaned against an unpainted section of wall and waited for more details, her mouth untrusting of what her heart might blurt out.

"She denied it all-taking the sticks, stealing your lightbulbs, hiding the library's desk planner, all of it." Margaret Louise eyed the stool for a moment before looking over her shoulder at her lower half and shaking her head, opting instead to stand against a wall as Tori did. "She even went so far as to say you planned it to make her look bad."

Tori's gasp was cut short by Rose's hand. "We didn't let her get away with it, Victoria, you must know that."

"Good."

"Though, in the end, we realized she was telling the truth." Rose studied her from across the room, her eyes magnified to twice their size by the bifocals she wore.

Telling the truth?

They couldn't be serious.

"You're kidding, right?" she finally uttered. "She had my things in her shed. You heard what Lulu said."

"We heard what Lulu said," Margaret Louise stated.

"What she said? Oh . . . no." She flashed a look of understanding at the child's grandmother. "She seemed so sure she'd seen everything. Was she crushed to have you realize she was wrong?"

"She wasn't wrong," Rose said flatly. "Everything she saw was exactly where she saw it."

"Then I don't understan-wait. Tell me this isn't going to be swept under the carpet because Dixie's lived here her whole life." She looked from Rose to Margaret Louise and back again. "This town can't be that narrow-minded, can it?"

"We have eyes, Victoria. And we don't shut them from things simply because we don't want to see."

"But isn't that what you're doing, Rose? By taking her word for something that's as plain as the nose on my face?" She could hear the anger in her voice, knew it was getting out of control, yet it was hard to stop.

"Sometimes there's more to the story." Margaret Louise shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "An unexpected detail or twist that changes everythin'."

"You mean like just how far she was going to take this before waving the white flag?"

Rose ignored her flippant comment. "It took a while but I think Dixie will admit she's been overly hard on you. But she was hurt and angry at the way she was removed from her job."

"She'll admit that? Wow. I should feel so relieved."

"Victoria, just hear us out." Margaret Louise peeked her head into the hallway and then pulled it back in. "Is Nina here?"

"No, why?"

"Because this concerns her . . . or rather . . . her husband, Duwayne."

"No, this doesn't. I'm so tired of everyone handing Dixie Dunn a pass for her bad behavior. She was nothing short of nasty during the meeting the other night and-"

"And Leona called her on it," Margaret Louise interjected.

"True. But even at the circle meetings she's been more than a little unfriendly."

"And I've spoken with her about that as well," Rose said.

"And the things she stole? The way she has done her best to sabotage me since day one? Did you talk about those things?"

"We started to."

"What stopped you, Margaret Louise?" Tori willed herself to take several long, deep breaths, to find a way to settle her heart and her stomach.

"The shed isn't hers."

She stared at Margaret Louise and then Rose. "The shed isn't hers?"

"It's Nina's," Rose said softly.

"Nina's? It can't-wait. Did you say, Nina's?"

"Her property backs up to Dixie's with a stretch of woods in between. Lulu assumed the shed belonged to Dixie but it really belongs to Nina and-"

"Nina? Nina has been trying to sabotage me? But wh-" And at that moment, she knew. Nina had wanted her job. Nina had been forced to remain the assistant librarian so she, Tori, could take the lead. "Oh no . . . how could I have missed that?"

"You didn't." Rose linked her arms across her sweater-clad chest. "It wasn't Nina."

Were they trying to confuse her?

Exasperated she pushed her hand through her hair, exhaling loudly. "But you just said the shed was Nina's."

"Nina and Duwayne's," Margaret Louise corrected.

"Nina and-wait. You think her husband stole everything?"

"We did. And now we know."

She pinned Rose with a steady gaze. "You know?"

"We confronted that young man and he fell apart. Admitted the whole thing." Rose nodded at Margaret Louise to pick up the story.

"He didn't mean any harm, not in a malicious way. He just wanted Nina to shine." The heavyset woman tossed her hands in the air. "He said he knew it was wrong, felt it more strongly each time Nina came home bragging about you . . . but he couldn't stop. It just spiraled out of control."

I'll say it did.

"You need to do what you need to do, but he's sorry. And he's afraid Nina will leave him if she finds out."

Her heart twisted for just a moment before another possibility-too glaring to ignore-reared its head and brought the anger back again. "What if the mistakes he's made extend to . . . this-this cloud of suspicion I've been living under for the past few weeks?"

"They don't."

"How do you know, Rose?" she spat.

"Because I had Duwayne Morgan in my classroom all those years ago and he doesn't have it in him to hurt a flea."

"He hurt me."

"Psychologically, yes. Physically, no."

She'd been so sure-so hopeful the missing objects would lead to her being absolved from Tiffany Ann's murder. But if it wasn't Duwayne- "You've seen the outrage Dixie has shown me . . . what if that anger extends beyond mean-spirited barbs and threatening glares? What if all this scrutiny I've been under is her doing?"

Rose struggled to a stand from her spot against the table and slowly closed the distance between them, her hand grazing Margaret Louise's arm as she passed. "Dixie Dunn did not murder Tiffany Ann Gilbert."

"Did she say that?"

"No, Victoria, she didn't." Rose stopped a few feet from where Tori stood and stamped her sensibly clad foot. "Because we didn't ask."

"You-you didn't ask?"

"No. We didn't," said Margaret Louise. "We talked about it, even considered it, but . . . in the end . . . we decided it wasn't fair."

"Wasn't fair? Wasn't fair? That woman has been anything but fair to me from the moment we met." She could feel the stinging sensation building behind her eyes, could taste the bile that threatened to rise further up her throat.

"We see that now. We've admonished her for it. But murder? No, Victoria. Dixie is no more capable of murder than you or Duwayne Morgan are. For you to think otherwise-based on a few jealous little acts-is not much different than what that McGuire fellow is doing to you simply because you're new to Sweet Briar." Rose shot her hand out and gently squeezed Tori's wrist. "I believe in her innocence in Tiffany Ann's murder as strongly as I do in yours."

Suddenly deflated, Tori closed her eyes and leaned against the wall once again, Rose's arm still holding her wrist. "I thought maybe this was it. The answer that would make everything right again."

"Well this isn't it. Of that I'm sure." Rose stepped closer, her hand gently touching the side of Tori's face. "But Victoria, there is an answer. There has to be. Because you did not kill that girl. And neither did Dixie. Or Duwayne."

The sincerity in Rose's eyes, the mirror emotion in Margaret Louise's face buoyed Tori's spirits somewhat, lifted the cloud of hurt that had descended on her heart as she realized Dixie wasn't guilty either. No, she wasn't any further in the whodunit process, but she could cross one suspect off her own imaginary list. And another who'd never even entered her mind. Even if the lines were drawn with a measure of reluctance and a hefty dose of lingering anger.

"So what do I do? This keeping-my-eyes-and-ears-open stuff has done little in the way of getting me out from under Investigator McGuire's thumb."

"We keep looking. And we keep listening. And we keep searching. Tiffany Ann's killer is out there, somewhere ." Margaret Louise backed her way to the door, her gaze trained on Rose's. "But you can't let it consume you, Victoria. You need to relax, take some comfort in what you're creating right here in this room."

"If only it were that simple," Tori mumbled as Rose pushed a strand of hair behind her ear before heading in the direction in which Margaret Louise had just disappeared.

"Let us help you." Rose reached out for one of two parcels Margaret Louise held in her hands as she reappeared in the room.

"What are you two up to?" Tori asked, curiosity infusing a little much-needed energy into a voice that had grown bland and defeated.

"Take a look for yourself." Rose handed her package to Tori then crossed her bony arms across her frail body. "I hope you like it."

Slowly, Tori unwrapped the package, a dark green piece of fabric appearing in her hands. "What's this?"

"Robin Hood."

She felt her mouth gape open as she unfolded the perfectly costumed rendition of a boyhood classic. "Oh, Rose, it's perfect. The boys are going to love this."

The elderly woman beamed. "I'm glad."

"I've got something for you, too," Margaret Louise boasted as she held out the package she carried. "I know you'll like it."

Seconds and layers of paper later, a red dress with a matching cape and hood emerged in Tori's hands, the tears from earlier finally making their escape. "Oh, Margaret Louise, I've never seen a finer Red Riding Hood costume."