“So what do you want for dessert?” Rose asked. “Pie?”

“I want a chocolate doughnut,” Michelle said, making up her mind immediately. “Why don’t you have one too, Hannah? Unless you don’t want chocolate, of course.”

“Bite your tongue!” Hannah said with a laugh. “I always want chocolate.”

Rose nodded. “Almost everybody who comes in here needs a little chocolate. It seems to just set people up for the day. I know that because I always have to order four times more chocolate doughnuts than I do of any other kind.”

It was eleven in the morning and Hannah stood in the kitchen at The Cookie Jar, mixing up yet another batch of cookies. It seemed everyone in Lake Eden wanted to listen to Lisa’s story of how they had driven through the terrible summer storm, and Hannah had hit and killed the stranger no one in town or the surrounding towns seemed to know.

Today something new had been added to Lisa’s story and everyone had turned out to hear what it was. Hannah had listened to Lisa talk about the injuries Doc Knight had described from the fight the man had been in with an unknown assailant, and how the assailant’s ring had slipped off and could be the very same high school or college ring the stranger had been wearing.

Lisa was just coming to the part about the blackberry stain on the stranger’s white shirt when Hannah popped more pans of cookies in the oven. She set the timer, poured herself another cup of coffee, and tried not to listen. Unfortunately, trying not to listen was a bit like trying not to jiggle a sore tooth. The more the tooth loosened, the more you jiggled. Hannah found herself listening with rapt attention as Lisa described the blackberry stain on the man’s expensive white shirt.

“Blackberries?” Hannah heard a shocked voice say. “Are you sure it was a blackberry stain?”

“Yes, we’re sure,” Lisa said. “Doc Knight tested the stain in the hospital lab.”

“Well, Winnie Henderson’s the only one who raises blackberries around here,” someone said. “Maybe he raided her blackberry patch, or ate a piece of her blackberry pie. I know she made some for her grandson’s birthday party. I took my boy there and I had a piece myself.”

Hannah thunked the side of her head with her hand. Of course! Winnie had told her on Friday morning that she had to bake another blackberry pie because one of hers had been stolen.

The stove timer dinged and Hannah went to take the cookies out of the oven. She’d just placed the last sheet of cookies on the baker’s rack when there was a knock at the back door.

Hannah hurried to open the door. Perhaps it was Norman, on break from the dental clinic. But when she pulled open the door, she saw her mother standing there.