Page 16 of No Offense

“Eventually, after they’ve been processed.”

“Does ‘processed’ mean dusting them for fingerprints?” She sounded excited. She was craning her neck to look back at his techs, even as he was steering her toward the stairs.

“Uh... maybe.”

That brought her head sharply back around. “What doyou mean, ‘maybe’? Those books were stolen. And whoever stole them is probably the person who left Baby Aphrodite in my library. You should see if any of those prints match the ones left on that box we found her in.”

That halted him in his tracks. “Baby Aphrodite?”

“Yes, didn’t I tell you? I renamed the baby Aphrodite last night on Facebook. I had to. Do you know that people were calling her Baby Garbage Sacks?”

“Yes, well, I was made aware of that—”

Her hands went to her hips. “Then why didn’t you do anything about it? It’s unconscionable to call an innocent baby Garbage Sacks! And you’re in the perfect position of authority to put a stop to such nonsense.”

“Well,” he said, taken aback. “It’s not really the sheriff’s job to—”

“Set an example for the people of your town? I think it is. Especially when they’re doing things like that.” She waved a hand in the direction of the vandalized media room. “That is simply amoral.”

“Hey, now hold on a second.”Unconscionable?Amoral? He wasn’t going to let her stand there and bark SAT words at him like he was one of her patrons. “This wasn’t done by locals.”

Her dark eyes widened. “How do you know?”

“Because I don’t recognize that graffiti. And I don’t recognize that girl. So most likely what we’ve got here is nothing but a bunch of Sunshine Kids—”

“Sunshine kids? What are sunshine kids?”

Damn. So much for getting out of this without doing anything foolish.

“Never mind. Thanks for all your help. If we have any further questions, someone will be in touch. Let me walk you out.”

He held out his hand to escort her down the stairs.

This was yet another mistake. She glanced at his hand, then at the stairs. She was wearing heels, but they were of a sensible height (of course). She didn’t need his help and was miffed not only at the offer, but at his not sharing more information about the crime.

“Thanks, but I can see myself out,” she said, before beginning to descend the steps on her own. “I’ll let you know if I run across any more crimes I can help you solve.”

Then she was gone.

Great. Just great. He’d blown it again. Of course.

Chapter Seven

Molly

Molly sat at her desk going over what she already knew.

Number one: No copies ofInto the Wildwere listed as checked out. And yet one was clearly missing. Same withHatchet(only an audio copy was checked out) and Sternberg’sWilderness Survival Handbook(2016 edition).

Number two: There was no reference to anything called the “Sunshine Kids” on the Internet that made sense in the context that the sheriff had used it.

Oh, there were plenty of cancer societies for children called Sunshine Kids. There were church groups, choirs, and dance troupes with the name.

But she highly doubted any church groups, kids with cancer, choirs, or dance troupes had broken into the new library and had a beer-and-cinnamon-whiskey-fueled pizza party.

So who exactly were these Sunshine Kids, and why did the sheriff hate them so much?

Because he did hate them. She could see the hatred for them burning in his disturbingly blue eyes.