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the number in the ad. Again, the phone rang and rang. She wondered if the condo manager had arthritic knees, too.
    “Hello.” The voice was male, and sleepy.
    “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Daisy glanced at the clock over her desk; ten after nine. What kind of manager slept this late?
    “S’ all right.”
    “I’m calling about the rental listing—”
    “Sorry. The last one was rented yesterday.” The man hung up.
    Well, damn.
    Frustrated, she stared down at the newspaper. She was left with the house on Lassiter Avenue, the duplexcontaining the Farrises, and the mobile home on the bad side of town. The duplex was unthinkable.
    She couldn’t back down now, or she’d never be able to face herself in the mirror again. She had to see this through. Maybe the mobile home or the Lassiter Avenue house wouldn’t be
too
bad. She didn’t mind a run-down neighborhood, so long as it wasn’t dangerous, with drug dealers lurking on every corner and shots ringing out in the night.
    She was pretty sure if there had been any shots ringing out in Hillsboro, night or day, she’d have heard about it.
    The discreet little bell over the door rang as someone entered the library. Daisy got up and smoothed her skirt, not that the action would help its looks any. She was the only one working until noon, because they seldom had anyone in during the morning. Most of their traffic was in the afternoon, after school was out, though of course during the summer that pattern changed. The bulk of people still came in the afternoon, maybe because they were too busy doing other stuff during the relatively cool mornings. Kendra Owens came in at twelve and worked until the library closed at nine, plus Shannon Ivey worked part-time from five until nine, so Kendra was never alone there at night. The only one who was alone for any length of time was Daisy, but she figured the greater responsibility was hers.
    “Anyone here?” a deep voice boomed, before she could step out of her small office behind the checkout desk.
    Daisy took two hurried steps into view, a little outraged that anyone would shout in a library, even if there weren’t any other patrons present at the moment.Seeing who the newcomer was, she checked briefly, then said briskly, “Yes, of course. There’s no need to yell.”
    Chief of Police Jack Russo stood on the other side of the scarred, wooden checkout desk, looking impatient. Daisy knew him by sight, but had never spoken to him before, and she wished she wasn’t doing so now. Frankly, she didn’t think much of Mayor Nolan’s choice for chief. Something about him made her uneasy, but she didn’t know exactly what. Why couldn’t the mayor have chosen someone local, someone already on the force? Chief Russo was an outsider, and from what she’d seen in town meetings, he wasn’t averse to throwing his weight around. It was easy to dislike a bully.
    “I wouldn’t have yelled if anyone had been in sight,” he said tersely.
    “The door wouldn’t have been unlocked unless someone was here,” she replied just as tersely.
    Stalemate.
    Physically, Chief Russo was a good-looking man, if one liked jocks with thick necks and broad, sloping shoulders. She wasn’t silly enough to automatically assume anyone athletic was also stupid; still, Daisy had never cared for the type. There had to be something basically narcissistic about a man who worked out enough to maintain that sort of muscularity, didn’t there? She didn’t know how old he was; his face was unlined except for a few squint lines around his eyes, but his short-cut hair, while still mostly dark on top, was gray everywhere else. At any rate, he was too old to be devoting hours to lifting weights. Nor did she care for the cocky arrogance in his eyes, or the way his full lips always seemed to be on the verge of sneering. Who did he think he was, Elvis? Moreover, he was a Yankee—he had been a cop in either Chicago or NewYork, she had heard both—with a brusque,