Rolling my eyes, I bent down for the bright yellow duck. Yellow . . .

“There’s one more suspect.” I told her about the bicyclist Lindy had mentioned.

“All right,” Tabitha said briskly. “If there’s a Saturday ride, you’ll go out with the bike club and cautiously but cleverly find out what there is to learn about our friend Warren and the rider of the yellow bike. You’ll be fine. You’re young and slim and fit and an exhilarating ride is just the ticket.”

Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one who was going to have to tackle hills that would turn into mountains the second I started to climb the buggers. And she wasn’t the one who was going to wake up Sunday morning with legs so sore that getting up from a chair would be a struggle. Sure, the last time I’d gone out I hadn’t been very sore, but I was certain that wasn’t going to last.

“But it’s only Monday night,” she was saying, “so there are four days for investigating between then and now. Do you have any suggestions?”

And, as it turned out, I did.

*   *   *

Just before noon the next day, I was at my desk working on capital requests for the next year’s library budget (“No time like the present,” Graydon had said with an over-the-top cheery attitude; my instinctive facial expression had been so negative that I’d been very glad he’d called and not asked in person) when my phone pinged with a text message.

Tabitha: She’s moving. Destination looks like Fat Boys.

Minnie (while grabbing her coat): Be at the corner in five.

My suggestion from the night before had been something about which I now felt a trifle guilty. I’d suggested following Ariella in order to talk to her again, but I didn’t have time to do any of the following and it would have to be my fellow investigator.

When I caught up with Tabitha half a block away from Fat Boys, she was bouncing on her toes, her energy level so high I could almost see sparks shooting out of her skin. Clearly, my guilt that I was asking too much from her was misplaced.

Ever since the two of us had started this venture, I’d wondered if she’d missed her calling, that she should have gone into law enforcement, that she and her husband would have made an amazing team. But looking at her now, I recognized something—this was how I looked when I was deep in Research Librarian Mode. And I suddenly had the complete conviction that during her career of legislative research, when her writing was moving fast and furious, she’d looked just like she did now.

“Ariella just sat down,” Tabitha said. “She’s by herself. I think a window of opportunity is presenting itself.”