Quote: The brown-haired toddler clung to the gate and shook it with all her might, but the latch held firm. "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"
The slight figure on the sidewalk, little more than a child herself, scarcely checked her step. She wasn’t going back. No way! No more diapers, no more sticky messy feedings. No more crying all night. She gave herself a shake of relief and determination and strode off down the hill, the child’s wails propelling her toward the bus stop. Reaching into her duffel bag, she put on earphones and tuned in her private music, loud. When the bus arrived, she climbed aboard without a backward look.

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In this first MacLaren Yarbrough mystery, Mac flies to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit her brother Jake, who’s had a heart attack. Her first night there, exhausted and longing for bed, she is begged by a persistent church member to take Jake’s place just once at an inner city teen center.
At the center, down behind a decrepit sofa-bed, Mac discovers a library book containing thousands of dollars. Figuring she can return the book and money on her way back to the hospital, she takes the book to the library and identifies the borrower as Harriet Dawson, fifteen. But the library refuses to give out any address.
When Mac’s car is stolen from the library parking lot, she enlists the aid of a young librarian, Josheba Davidson, who has also been concerned for Harriet. But Mac and Josheba not only can’t find Harriet, they can’t find anybody who remembers the last time they saw her. Can a teenager disappear so completely in today’s world? .
This is the story of a child who did--and a woman determined to find out what happened to her.
This is the only plot I ever got in a dream. One night I dreamed I opened a filthy sofa-bed and found a book full of money. Whose money was it? Why did they leave it there? Once I got answers to those questions, I thought I had the third Sheila Travis novel. But it wouldn’t work. This was not a Sheila Travis story. Baffled, I shelved it for years only to discover when I first got to know MacLaren Yarbrough that this was her first case, waiting for me all that time.
The title was a gift, as well. While I was looking for both a character’s name and a title, I visited a hospital one day. On the cafeteria escalator a doctor below me turned to another and asked, "When did we lose Harriet?" Voila! If only it was always easy.
ABOUT MACLAREN YARBROUGH
Several years ago I was going to Waynesboro, Georgia, to give a seminar for the Chamber of Commerce Women in Business. My sister got wind of the trip and said, "You have to visit my college roommate’s mother while you’re there. She owns the hardware store."
Being southern, I was well aware of the importance of keeping in touch with one’s sister’s college roommate’s mother. When I dropped by the hardware store, I discovered a delightful energetic woman in the back office. As we chatted, a policeman came into the room.
"Excuse me a minute," she told me. "What do you have?" she asked him.
He mumbled something, she looked over a sheet of paper, and said, "Raise your right hand." She put him through what looked like some sort of initiation, then signed his paper and he left.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Oh, I’m a magistrate. He had a warrant for arrest I had to sign."
"Are you a lawyer?"
She laughed. "No, in Georgia you don’t have to be a lawyer to be a magistrate. The chief magistrate is elected, but the others are appointed. My husband used to be a magistrate, and when he died, they asked me to serve. I had to go for training, of course, but after all those years of going with him, I knew most of it anyway."
As we got better acquainted, I discovered that this incredible woman rises in the middle of the night to hold hearings at the county jail, knows a lot of the repeat offenders by name, and once rode in a sidecar to perform a wedding for local bikers. All this, and she’s past seventy.
I’d been thinking about starting a second mystery series, but hadn’t had a good idea for a detective. In Judge Mildred Palmer of Waynesboro, Georgia, I had found my woman.
I am frequently indebted to her for details about a Georgia magistrate’s routine and how cases are handled. The accuracies are hers, the errors all my own.
I am indebted to my mother-in-law for MacLaren’s name. When I asked her, "What’s your favorite name?" she replied at once, "MacLaren." Not until the first book came out did I realize she thought I wanted a surname. Fortunately, MacLaren Yarbrough likes the name she was christened.
And no, Hopemore isn’t Waynesboro, Sandersville, Louisville, or any of the other delightful county seats between I-20 and I-16. I needed to use my imagination somewhere in this series, so, like Faulkner, I created my own county.

Please do me a favor: If your public library doesn't have this book, would you ask them to get it for their shelves? An enthusiastic reader is the best endorsement. Thanks! LARGE PRINT EDITION AVAILABLE.