Excerpt from Rust & Stardust by T Greenwood, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She found baby clothes and baby bottles, cloth diapers and bibs. Her sister, Susan, was having a baby soon. Sally could hardly wait to meet her little niece or nephew. She wondered if she might find something here for the baby, some trinket or stuffed toy. But thinking of her sister made her think of her mother, and the peach pit returned. Her mother with her sorrow and her pain. Usually, Sally had made it her job to not cause her any grief. She tried not to think about how all of this would hurt her mama.

Shaking the thought out of her head, she walked quickly toward the stationery aisle and studied the pens and pencils. Again, probably too easy. But then, as she ran her hands over the fat pink erasers, she got an idea. At the five-cent display was a stack of black marble composition notebooks. Something she could use later. She liked to write stories, or maybe the club would need a secretary to take minutes at their meetings. She had beautiful handwriting. Everyone said so.

She quickly peered around. The man at the end of the lunch counter was pushing a dollar bill across with his check, tipping his hat to the waitress. The girls were still giggling and swinging their legs. Vivi smiled at Sally again and nodded.

Sally glanced back at the display of notebooks, picked one up, and touched the smooth surface with her thumb. She thought about blades, about the girls inviting her into their sisterhood. How they would let her press her thumb against theirs, their blood mingling, bonding them to each other. Blood sisters. She shivered at the thought of the slice that would splice them together forever.

Before she could give it another thought, she slipped the notebook inside her cardigan sweater and, crossing her arms, hurried toward the front of the store. There. She had done it. She felt giddy, light. She could hardly wait to get outside the store and show the girls. She headed toward the lunch counter where Vivi and the others were finishing their Cokes; they looked up at her as she neared. But just as she began to make her way to the front door, the man who had been eating the bowl of soup stood up and stepped in front of her.

"Slow down there, sweetheart," he said. She kept her head lowered and nodded. But as she tried to pass, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm. When she looked up, he was staring at her, a serious expression on his face. His eyes were nearly colorless, the blue of the thin milk her mother made from a powdered mix. He was wearing a faded fedora, which partially obscured his long, thin face.

"I'm sorry, miss, but you're going to need to come with me."

"What?" she asked.

"I saw what you just did."

"I'm sorry … I didn't mean…," she stuttered, pulling the composition book out from her sweater, pushing it toward him. "I was gonna pay, I didn't plan … I just forgot…"

"Oh, I see," he said, grabbing the notebook from her. "You didn't plan on stealing it, eh? You also probably didn't plan on running into somebody from the FBI, either. You know what that is, miss?"

FBI? Of course she'd heard of the FBI. They were like the police, only more important. They had something to do with the president, didn't they? Or maybe she was just thinking of FDR? The one before President Truman?

"Yes, sir?" Her heart hammered in her chest; she held her breath.

"Well, I'm an FBI agent, and you, little miss, are under arrest."

With the man still clutching her arm, Sally scanned the lunch counter, looking for the girls, for Vivi, the nice one, to help her explain. It was all just a dare. An initiation. She hadn't meant any harm. But the girls were gone. And there weren't even any other customers milling about the store anymore. Where had everyone gone? She was alone now with this man and his long cigarette-stained fingers digging into the soft, pale mohair of her sweater.

Excerpted from Rust & Stardust by T Greenwood. Copyright © 2018 by T Greenwood. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.