Carly came to stand with her. Her eyes swept over the page Marcelline held open. She had only known Carly a handful of days, but would swear the kid was taller than when she’d first found her. Growth spurt, in both height and art appreciation. Expanding in every dimension. Concentration was cute on her face, but also formidable. Carly could turn off the kid in her like a tap. Then she ran just pure can-do.

“Oh, wow! Yeah. We have that one at home—wait. Ha! No. It’s not the same. Wow, that’s weird. It looks so much like it. What is it?”

“Landscape with the Good Samaritan, by Rembrandt.”

“Huh. I wonder if he did the one we have at home? I mean, not the one, of course. It’s not fancy. It’s just something my mom likes. It was John’s, I think. But that’s funny. It looks a lot like that one.”

“Do you like it?”

Carly grinned and shrugged. “I still like the screaming one better.”

“Fair enough.” Marcelline smiled back, false and genuine both. Carly was adorable, and the Flinck had been mistaken for a Rembrandt landscape for centuries. It was the reason Isabella Stewart Gardner bought it in the first place, and possibly the reason the thieves had bothered with it at all.

The painting was at Carly’s house.

But Carly could not, would not, get hurt in this.

In the parking lot, as Marcelline unlocked her car, the girls moved past her, cheerfully lugging all the art supplies the few blocks back home. Each day after their time in the library, Marcelline had wanted to offer them a ride, wondered if they thought it was strange that she didn’t. They’d never mentioned it or looked put out. They didn’t again today.

But the risk. Marcelline couldn’t run into Jonathan by accident. She was too close already. The town wasn’t a tight knot, but it was still only a few miles in all directions. The chance of just bumping into him wasn’t zero. She’d played the scenario through, rehearsed what she might do if he’d shown up for some reason at the library. A big public place had its advantages. But getting caught on his street or idling in his driveway while his stepdaughter collected her things—no.

Ada was pulled off course by a woman walking a dog in front of the book drop.

Carly lingered and asked, “Is everything okay?”

This throwaway line was something people said more as filler than real inquiry. Like How are you?, your response was supposed to be Everything’s great. But not this time. Carly was asking the actual question.

“Absolutely,” Marcelline said.

“I just wanted to say thanks, in case we didn’t get to do this again.”

“We’ll get to do this again.”