Tabitha’s task for the day had been Internet research, which had felt odd to assign to her since I was the librarian in the group. But since she didn’t have a full-time job, it only made sense.

“Turns out our Emily was influential in the display-fixture industry,” Tabitha said.

“The what?”

“You heard me. Every shelving unit in every store has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the display-fixture industry. Emily apparently developed a type of universal unit that let stores adapt fixtures multiple ways.”

“Sounds . . . interesting?”

Tabitha laughed. “For some people, I’m sure. But I don’t see how any of that could lead to murder. And I didn’t find anything that connected Emily to Brown.”

“Except for the bicycles,” I said.

There was a long silence that ended when Tabitha gently said, “You know what you need to do.”

I did. But what I didn’t know was if I could actually do it.

*   *   *

The rain, wind, and gray skies of the past two days blew out in time for Friday to turn clear and almost summer warm. At noon, I looked at the bike club’s Facebook page and saw that Terry had rescheduled Wednesday night’s ride for that evening and all were welcome.

After examining my current level of fortitude, I texted Tabitha my intention to go, and in return received a thumbs-up emoji and a tiny moving GIF of a bike-racing crash on cobblestones.

“With friends like this . . .” I sighed and resigned myself to my fate.

A few hours later I was out in the fresh air with a dozen other bicyclists, doing my best to keep up.

“Aren’t we lucky?” Rosalind, on the bike next to me, gave a peal of laughter so infectious that, if I’d been able, I would have laughed out loud, too. As it was, I eked out a smile and said, “Looks like,” though what I heard through my pants was more like “Ook. Ike.”

I’d taken Rosalind for a fifteen-year-old on the previous ride, but I’d learned in the parking lot tonight that she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman going to North Central Michigan College in Petoskey. While Rosalind had listened to me describe my job driving Chilson’s bookmobile with marginal interest, when I said my aunt taught woodshop at the college, her demeanor changed completely.

“Mrs. Pixley is your aunt? I mean, Mrs. Bingham? She’s super great, isn’t she?” Rosalind had beamed. “You’re so lucky to be related to her.”

I knew I’d been exceedingly lucky in the aunt lottery, but I wasn’t so sure about the luck of getting in one more evening bike club ride.

“After tonight,” Rosalind now said, downshifting to compensate for an increased incline that was doing its best to kill me, “we’ll be riding weekends only. Not enough light in the day to get in any decent mileage.”