Page 26 of No Offense

Now she understood how idiotic she must seem to him. As idiotic as Elijah—Lord love him—seemed to her now, declaring that he was going to help catch the High School Thief.

Of course, Elijah was only a child, and Molly was a full-grown woman with a master’s degree. And of course she had seen every single episode ofForensic Filesand read just about every mystery that existed, both children’s and adult, except the truly gory ones, because who needed that in their life?

But still.

She’d never stopped to consider that the sheriff might actually be concerned about her stepping into danger, as she was for Elijah. Was that why he had stopped by on the flimsy pretext of getting his daughter a library card (andsome how-to-dance books and DVDs, which he hadn’t really needed)? To check up on her?

If so, how cringeworthy. A part of her wanted to go home and never show her face in town again.

Another part of her, of course, wanted to solve the crime and show the sheriff just how wrong he was about her.

“Elijah,” she said in her most serious tone, “leave the crime solving to the professionals. You work on what you’re best at.”

Elijah was still sulking. The encounter with Katie Hartwell seemed to have really thrown him. Molly had never seen him like this. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

Henry laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder. “Comedy, man. You’re the funniest guy I know.”

Elijah lifted his head, looking slightly less disconsolate. “You mean that?”

“Yeah, man,” Henry said. “That cookie porn you did the other day was comedy gold.”

Elijah cracked a smile. “Itwaspretty good. I should do it again, only, you know, at home, and film it, and put it up on YouTube.”

“Totally,” Henry said. “Get some subscribers.”

“And advertisers,” Elijah said. “What I need is a brand.”

Satisfied that her favorite patron had been warned off any attempts at amateur crime solving, Molly went back to her own desk, telling herself that she would do the same. No more looking into the Sunshine Kids, no more combing social media for possible updates on the case. She was going to be a good, law-abiding citizen from now on and stayout of the sheriff’s business. In fact, she was going to avoid him completely. The sheriff was dead to her. She was never even going to glance his way again.

This resolve lasted until Saturday night when she attended the Red Cross Ball and saw how mouthwateringly good Sheriff John Hartwell looked in his dress uniform.

Chapter Ten

John

As John dressed for the Red Cross Ball—an annual Little Bridge tradition that had gone on for as long as he could remember—he was surprised to realize that things were looking up.

His dress uniform fit, for one thing. The dry cleaner really had delivered the wrong trousers, an error he’d been too preoccupied to notice himself.

Even better, the tech crew had found the fingerprints of Lawrence Beckwith III, aka Dylan Dakota, all over one of the pizza boxes and several of the beer bottles found in the media room of the new library. Nothing had been discovered yet on any of the CCTV footage—Beckwith and his crew somehow always managed to figure out where any security cameras were hidden and stay far away from them—or from the DNA swabs, but that, at least, would show up eventually. On television crime shows, of course,DNA results always came back within hours. In reality, it took weeks or often months before they got answers.

John always sent swabs anyway, hoping for a miracle.

That wasn’t all, though. Murray, showing unusual initiative, had combed through the garbage he’d been tasked with testing and found a driver’s license that someone—John was willing to bet it was Larry—had thrown in one of the construction dumpsters outside the new library. The photo on the driver’s license looked identical to the girl Molly Montgomery had found on the library floor—the girl whom the hospital was able to confirm was the mother of the baby Molly Montgomery had found as well.

Her physician would not allow him to interview her, though, as the girl—Tabitha Brighton, of New Canaan, Connecticut—was still in the ICU, recovering from having given birth in a construction zone.

“And those party kids hardly lifted a finger to help her!” Dr. Nguyen, the island’s ob-gyn, was outraged. “Aside from cutting the cord, and who knows what they used to do that.”

John knew better than to argue with Dr. Nguyen, who’d delivered Katie.

But John didn’t need to interview Tabitha—not yet, anyway—to proceed on her case. He had most of the information he needed about her from her driver’s license, including her name, age—eighteen, sonota minor—and home address. He spent most of the morning before the ball on the phone, attempting to gather the rest.

Ever mindful of what Molly had said to him the first time they’d met—that it was possible the baby’s mother hadn’tabandoned her child, that someone else was responsible for placing it in the restroom (something he thought even more likely now that he knew Beckwith was involved)—John called the girl’s parents.

It was true that she was no longer a minor and, because of the HIPAA Security Rule, neither the hospital nor law enforcement could contact her next of kin without her consent (unless, of course, she died, and then the coroner or police—if it was homicide—would make that notification).

So what he was doing wasn’t entirely by the book.