NOVEL 04 YT

Harleen is 71, and for thirty-five years she was the registrar of a small Ohio history museum, the woman who could prove where every object was. When her son's family moved in "for one year," she got his wife, Krista, a job at the museum on her word. Then three objects vanished from drawer fourteen. The night before Harleen's early flight to her sister's 75th birthday, the brass knob on her bedroom door turned at midnight. She kept her eyes closed and listened as Krista unzipped her carry-on, slipped something heavy into the inner pocket, and whispered into the phone: "It's in her carry-on. Tip off airport security at six." Harleen didn't scream. She put on her white cotton gloves, and before sunrise she did something nobody in her family had planned for.