Evan Rowe was running errands around Snohomish last Friday. When she got home she realized something was missing.
Her engagement ring had somehow disappeared. Engaged barely six weeks, she worried her marriage was doomed.
"My heart sunk," said Rowe. "So many things went through my mind, like this was a bad sign for our marriage!"
Rowe methodically retraced her steps. She went back to the Great Clips where her son had his hair cut.
"The two ladies who were working that night came out," she said. "They helped search the bushes."
She combed through the parking lot.
"I even went to the point where I got under people's tires with my flashlight and felt around," Rowe said.
She returned to the Fred Meyer where she had done her shopping.
Rowe searched for three days and found nothing.
"I lost hope at that point," she said. "I was in the depths of despair."
In one last act of desperation Rowe's fiancee, Peter Fawcett, printed up some fliers, stopped one more time into that Fred Meyer and then headed home.
"He leans over and says, 'Here I printed out these fliers for you. Tomorrow we can go post them around town.' Then he sticks his finger in my face and says, 'Oh, by the way, put this on and don't ever lose it again! I just about fell off the couch," Rowe said.
Someone, somehow found that ring and turned it in to Fred Meyer.
Rowe thinks it must've slipped off her finger and out of her pocket when she was putting on hand lotion.
The ring is especially significant to Rowe because she was proposed to on her birthday, which is also the anniversary of her dad's death. It was an effort by her fiancee to turn a sad day into a happy one.
"For nine years that day has meant sadness to me. Peter wanted to bring some happiness back to that day, so that was the reason for the engagement on that day," said Evan.
At this point, no one knows who returned the ring. Rowe hopes to one day find that person to say thank you and invite him or her to the wedding.
"People don't find money, especially jewelry and return it," she said. "Who does that? A good, honest person, that's who."
