I leaned up against the brick exterior of the bakery and squinted into the distance. Brenna and her mother continued up the sidewalk to the front entrance of the island resort and spa.

Did Brenna mean there were only two scarves in the entire world? Or like two on the island? That was a big difference. If only two existed, and she had one wrapped around her neck, the one belonging to her mother was in Melissa's hand. That meant the person with the missing scarf was the killer.

Brenna's mother.

Hadria.

The woman selling us a condo. But why?

I texted Broadrick in case he'd been holding out important information from me.

VONNIE: What do you know about the seller of the condo?

He returned my text quickly.

BROADRICK: Hadria? She likes cruises and hates electronics?

Hmm. Not much to go on, but that didn't mean he told me everything. Knowing the boys and their obsession with knowing everything, he probably had an inch-thick folder on her. But how did Hadria kill Melissa if she was on a cruise?

My brain hurt as I worked through the clues. I'd let it grow stale between cases because I thought I'd left this life behind. That and it was so freaking sunny. I rubbed at my eyes and shaded them with the back of my hand as my brain tried to thump out of my skull. Hadria and Brenna disappeared into the resort, and I still hadn't figured out how she could be the killer.

I had to prove she wasn't on that cruise.

But how?

I needed my murder board. And a cupcake. Since I had the cupcakes in the bag, I started off toward my room to find the rest of the supplies. If Hadria killed Melissa, she was going down for the crime.

Today.

A few minutes later, NB watched me as I opened and closed all the drawers in our resort room. They'd left us a small notepad beside the television, but not a single Post It Note in sight. I needed to stick notes to things way more than I needed tiny pieces of paper.

"Come on, NB," I said and grabbed his leash from the shoe pile. "Let's go."

He dove off the bed, his tail wagging as he met me at the door, ready to go. NB peed on three bushes as we speed walked to Barbie's condo. We didn't have time to waste on more than that, and as he stopped for a fourth sprinkle, I picked him up and finished the walk, carrying him.

Barbie opened on my second knock. "Who is on fire?"

"Us," I said and handed her the bag of cupcakes. "We're going to need those. Do you have Post-it Notes?"

She opened the door wider. Her white linen pants and periwinkle blue shirt looked perfect for island life. Also, that a light breeze might topple her over. "What?"

NB ran away from me when I set him down in her kitchen. I opened the closest drawer and rattled her silverware. "Post-it Notes. You know those sticky things that you write notes on."

Barbie watched me make the motion of sticking a note to a wall using only a hand and the air. "Yeah, but why would they be in the kitchen?"

"Barbie! I need a Post-it Note. There's no time to argue about placement." I opened another drawer.

She jumped and wandered to a room off her hallway. I checked another drawer, finding it stuffed with various-sized kitchen towels.

"Here," she said, dropping a bright pink stack of Post-its on her kitchen island.

I snatched it up. "Thank you!"

"They were in the bedroom," Barbie said, watching me peel off the top one and stick it in the top left corner of her kitchen island.

I pulled another note and lined it up a few inches away. "What?"

"The notes. We keep them in the spare room. Like regular people."

I stopped with my third Post-it half pulled from the stack. "Barbie, we've moved past that. Do you have a pen?"

"Yes." She watched me swoosh my hand in the air like I was writing.

She stayed silent as I raised my head and stared. "Can I use it?"

"The drawer behind you." She pointed past my shoulder, and I turned.

A pair of scissors flew out of the drawer as I jerked it open. I scattered the various items; a heavy metal flashlight, black tape measure, two rolls of thick packaging tape, and an assortment of instruction manuals for random kitchen appliances. Good to know they owned a waffle maker. Below the mess, I saw the smooth white barrel of a pen and snatched it, holding it in the air like a trophy.

I turned around and scribbled my first note on the Post-it in the top left corner. Barbie leaned over me to read my scribbles upside down. "I can use this. Right?"

"Sure," she said, placing her elbows in the empty space beside my growing lines of notes.

"Thanks, I work better with a murder board."

Barbie tapped the top of the counter. "Are we planning a murder?"

"No." I glanced up at her. "Solving one. I wouldn't put it all in writing if I planned to murder someone."

Did she think I'd be the world's worst criminal? Why not just make a how-to video?

Wait.

I stopped scribbling my third clue on the most recent note. "Are you friends with Hadria or her daughter?"

She crinkled up one side of her lips. "No."

"You're sure?" I covered up the first two clues. What if Barbie and Hadria were best friends? I didn't want her figuring out my plans to put her away for murder and then try to kill me to protect her friend.

Barbie shrugged, bringing the shoulders of her blue shirt to her ear. "Not really. Those two act snooty to everyone on the island, but I heard a rumor that Brenna had a knock-off Dooney last season."

The horror.

I finished writing my clues along the top portion of her counter. We had the second knitting needle, found at the scene of the crime. The scarf in Melissa's hand that apparently only had one matching print. The business card I'd found at the top of the closet. And a bunch of stories about Larken and Melissa's rivalry.

The business card wasn't a viable lead. I'd examined it and had come back empty-handed. Now that I knew the truth about Melissa and Larken-although I had Broadrick running the details to verify-I took her off as a suspect. To complete their road ending, I put large black Xs over those Post-it Notes.

"Larken and Melissa didn't hate one another?" Barbie asked as I finished my second X.

I shook my head. "Long story on that one."

"What does all this mean?" Barbie mumbled, as I laid out other sticky notes below the remaining clues.

I tapped the scarf note and followed the trail to the sticky with Brenna and her mother's names on it. "The business card and Larken are false leads. Trust me on that. But Melissa had a scarf in her hand when we found her body. Like she'd ripped it off someone." Probably while falling to the ground.

She watched as I moved to reenact the scene with a swoosh of my hand. We didn't know exactly what happened, but I probably came close. "I saw the same scarf wrapped around Brenna's neck just a few minutes ago. She told me there are only two, and her mother has the second-the one in Melissa's hand."

Well, it probably wasn't anymore since they were having a memorial service for her in a few days, but the point was the same.

"Are you sure they're the same?" Barbie asked with a raised eyebrow.

I waved her concern away. "Yes, definitely. Or ... well, close enough." I'd take my chances and let a court of law figure it out.

"And the knitting needle?" Barbie asked. She was so behind.

I smiled and tapped the note, stuck another one below it and wrote "bedroom dresser" on it. "We found a single knitting needle under the dresser in the condo. That means they were either there already, or the killer brought them to the scene. But who brings a set of knitting needles to a murder? If I had to bet money, I'd say they were already there."

No one planned a knitting murder, which meant Melissa's death was a crime of opportunity. The killer probably grabbed the closest thing and got lucky... or unlucky, depending on their intent. Either way, those needles were there.

Barbie's eyes lit up, and she made a small gasp. "Hadria knew how to knit. A few years ago, she started a group with the local ladies to make hats for the babies at the hospital on the mainland. They made so many the hospital actually asked them to stop."

"Ah-ha!" I pointed my pen at her in victory. "I just have to prove that Hadria wasn't on that cruise."