From the window, Jolene watched Midge climb out of her SUV and glance around as if looking for a charging dog. Or looking to see if anyone was watching her. She carried a wicker basket to Jolene’s front door and knocked.

Making sure that the murder story was carefully hidden in a bottom drawer and the house was neat enough for visitors, Jolene answered the door.

“Hello,” she greeted her guest warmly. She’d been warned about Midge Atkinson.

Midge’s husband, John, owned half the businesses in town and Midge spent the money from them, was the way Jolene had heard it. “No one crosses the Atkinsons,” one woman had whispered conspiratorially to her. “Midge likes to wield her power. I don’t think I have to tell you who wears the pants in that family.”

As a matter of fact, Midge was wearing pants today, a pair of purple ones with a matching large, garish print blouse. “I brought you a little something,” she said, slipping past Jolene and into the house without waiting to be asked.

As Jolene closed the door, she noticed Midge inspecting the place. Her visitor’s gaze fell on the table where Jolene had left the students’ short stories she still had to read.

“Here, let me take that,” Jolene said of the basket Midge was holding. She set it down on the table and quickly put the stories into her backpack, zipping it closed. “Please sit down. What can I get you to drink?”

“I can’t stay long,” Midge said as she took a seat near the fan in the window. “Something cool to drink would be nice though.”

“I have sun tea. Do you take sugar or lemon?”

“Lemon.”

Jolene went into the small kitchen and opened the refrigerator. As she took out the tea and a lemon, she heard the chair Midge had been sitting in squeak and turned in time to see Midge slip across the room to the table.

She filled two glasses and put a slice of lemon on the side of each before she returned to the living room. Midge was sitting at the table.

“That fan is too noisy,” Midge complained. “This is fine here.” She took the glass of tea and Jolene joined her at the table, trying not to look again in the direction of her now-open backpack.

She had zipped it closed, hadn’t she? But why would Midge open it? Only one person would know about the murder story—the author. And of course Jolene. And the student who was bringing it to her. And maybe the friend of the author.

Jolene groaned inwardly at the thought of how many people might know about the story.

“Aren’t you curious about what I brought you?” Midge asked, sounding perturbed. Perturbed because Jolene hadn’t thanked her yet? Or because she hadn’t found what she’d been looking for in Jolene’s backpack?