It was a frigid day in February as Carol Bixby warmed herself in front of the fireplace in Aunt Penny’s old-fashioned living room. Sitting beside her were her cousins, Aunt Penny’s two other nieces. All of them stared silently at the Victorian brooch lying on a footstool, its central diamond gleaming in the fire’s red…

Detective Bixby picked her son up from school, waving him quickly into the car. “We just got an anonymous tip,” Carol Bixby said as she pulled away from the curb. “The Diamond Expo is going to be robbed today.” Jonah had been looking forward to going home to his usual after-school snack, but this was…

It was Saturday, and for Jonah that meant a visit to Crazy Kate. Every Saturday, his mother would put together a few bags of groceries and have Jonah and his friends deliver them to the old woman who lived in the shack across from the park. “At least once a week I know she gets…