Page 49 of No Offense

“Elijah, who is that man?” she asked, showing him the photo.

Elijah squinted at the screen. “What man?”

“The man standing outside in the yard, looking in from behind the sliding glass doors.”

Elijah squinted some more. “Oh, wow. I never noticed that before. You’re right, there is a man out there.” He scrolled through a couple more photos as Molly looked on. “He’s in a few of them. Ugh, what a creeper. He’s just standing out there looking at us.”

“So you don’t know that man?” Molly asked carefully. “He wasn’t a guest last night?”

“What?” Elijah’s eyes were still glued to the camera’s display screen. “No! It was just me and the girls. Sharmaine’s parents weren’t even home. They were at some party, or something. Ew, look at him here. He must have known we couldn’t see him because of how dark it was outside and how bright it was inside. But he’s giving us the peace sign anyway!”

Elijah showed her the photo. It was true. The man—awhite man about Elijah’s same size, but ten or so years older, and with a well-groomed goatee—stood in the darkened glass behind the three Snappettes mugging for the camera, two fingers of one hand raised to give the peace sign, a smirk on his face.

He was dressed in dark jeans and a black sweatshirt—a black hooded sweatshirt, the hoodie pulled up just enough to cover his hair but not his large ear gauges or vine neck tattoos.

And certainly not enough to keep Molly’s chills from increasing tenfold. She knew they were looking at a photo of the High School Thief... and also that the High School Thief was Dylan Dakota. There’d been a picture of him in one of the articles Meschelle Davies had shown her.

“Elijah,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice her wildly beating heart. “Where does Sharmaine live?”

Elijah told her an address she knew well. It was only a block or two from Mrs. Tifton’s house. While she and John had been kissing on Jasmine Key, Dylan Dakota—aka the High School Thief—had been creeping through the backyard of the house in which sweet, cheerful Katie had been having a sleepover, spying on her as she playfully posed for photos with her friends.

“Could you text me copies of these photos?” Molly asked, trying to keep calm. If she felt this freaked out, she could only imagine how John was going to feel when he saw how close his daughter had come to the most wanted man in Little Bridge without even being aware of it. “I need to send them to someone.”

Elijah shook his head. “No, I can’t. This is a camera, not a phone. I can’t send photos from it.”

“Oh, right.” How could she have forgotten? “Well, how could you get copies of these photos to me to show someone?”

“Well, I’d have to go home and download them onto my mom’s laptop—it’s a special memory card, see, that only fits into really old computers. There used to be a cable, but it got lost. Then I guess I could either email them to you, and then you could email them to the person, or I could print them out and bring copies over to you. I invested in some really nice—”

Molly thought her brain was going to melt. “Listen, Elijah,” she said, her fingers curling around the camera. “Why don’t you just give it to me, and I’ll—”

“Excuse me.”

Molly looked up to see the father who’d previously brought the bourbon and coffee into the library looming over her desk. She gave him a tight smile. Of course. Of course someone was interrupting her right now during this crucial conversation. She worked at a service desk. She was there to help people with their book-related problems, not solve crimes. “Yes, may I help you?”

“I just wanted to say sorry again about the book.” The dad looked shamefaced over what had happened. “If you want me to pay for the damage, I’d be happy to.”

Molly glanced atSix-Dinner Sid, which was sitting, sodden and sticky, on her desk. “Okay,” she said. “Great! That will be twenty-five dollars.”

The man looked shocked. “Twenty-five dollars! For a kid’s book? You have to be kidding me.”

“Well, it’s a hardcover picture book.” Molly was impatient to be rid of him so she could get back to her conversation with Elijah. “In full color, and also a library edition with special binding. So actually, twenty-five dollars is a bargain. They’re really—”

“Used!”The father stooped to scoop up his child, who was standing with one finger up her nose and another in her mouth. “I’m not paying twenty-five dollars to replace ausedbook! That should come out of all the money we taxpayers shell out for this place. Come on, Juniper. We’re never coming back here again!”

Then he stormed off, not seeming to care that everyone could see the pint bottle of bourbon he had tucked into his back pocket.

Molly sighed and turned back to Elijah.

“I need to borrow this,” she said, taking the camera from him. “I have to show these photos to someone right away, and I don’t have time to wait for you to go home and print them out or email them. I’ll give it back just as soon as I can.”

“Sure, no problem.” Elijah didn’t seem to be paying attention. “Wow, Miss Molly, does that kind of thing happen to you a lot?”

“What kind of thing?” Molly was busy scrolling through her phone for John’s number, which she’d thankfully added to her contacts list the first day she’d met him and he’d given her his card.

“People like that guy,” Elijah said, “being so rude.”

“All the time.” Molly found John’s number and began writing him a text.