I picked up the grocery list, folded it once, and tucked it into my coat pocket next to my car keys.

Neither of them followed me down the hall to the front closet.

By a quarter to nine, I had pulled my sedan into the little parking lot behind Rose’s neighborhood hair salon on Marion Street.

The blue neon sign in the front window was already glowing through the damp air.

Rose unlocked the glass door when I knocked, her broad face settling into a look of quiet assessment the moment my wool cap came off.

She didn’t gasp, and she didn’t ask who had been holding the clippers.