Page 59 of No Offense

So when the sheriff admitted he was wrong and she was right, what could Molly do but invite him inside?

“So I know it’s not much,” Molly said, rushing in ahead of him to switch off the TV so that he wouldn’t see what she’d been watching—a marathon ofForensic Files. “But it suits me perfectly fine for now.”

John took two steps inside, said, “Oh, I’m sure it’s—” then froze, looking around the hotel room with the same horrified expression Molly imagined he might have worn while viewing a particularly gruesome crime scene for the first time.

Confused, Molly swept her gaze over the room, trying to see what was so upsetting him. True, the room was small. But it was a hotel room! It wasn’t supposed to be huge.

And true, she had been forced to cram over thirty years’ worth of possessions and belongings into the tiny space, excluding the things she’d left at home with her motherand in storage until she could find a more permanent living situation, like all her furniture and most of her cooking utensils and of course all of her winter clothes.

In fact, the only things she’d brought with her to Little Bridge, besides her summer clothes, were—

“Books,” John said in a slightly stunned tone, looking around the tiny space in wonder. “You have so many... books.”

“Oh.” Molly followed his gaze and realized that if she looked at it from his point of view, the number of books she’d brought with her from Colorado might seem excessive. Because hotel rooms came with few bookshelves, her books were piled up all along the walls until they reached almost to the ceiling, stacked in every imaginable nook and cranny, including around the bed and—though John didn’t know this yet—in the bathroom.

Was this particularly odd, though? Molly didn’t think so.

“I know it might seem like a lot,” she said, taking the pie to the kitchenette—where she’d stacked her cookbooks and of course cooking-related mystery novels, though she’d left some room for food preparation. “But I couldn’t leave my books in storage until I found an apartment. What if I thought of something I’d read and needed to reread it?”

Behind her, John was wandering around, looking at the titles of all the books. “You have something against e-books?”

“Oh, no, they’re fine. Lots of people like them, I know. But I love the smell of real books, you know? And the feel of paper, turning the pages over in my hands. Drink?”

He looked up from her piles of science fiction, startled. “Excuse me?”

“I was wondering if you wanted something to drink with the pie. I’ve got everything here.” She opened her mini fridge to show him. “Beer, wine, soda, hard stuff—or I can make coffee, tea—”

“Oh, no, thanks.” He seemed fixated on the books. “Don’t you work in a library? Couldn’t you check out whatever you wanted whenever you needed to—for free?”

“Of course. But these aremybooks. I’ve had some of them since I was kid. They’re like friends, you know? I’ve never gone anywhere without them. Oh, watch the Miss Marples!”

He looked down just as his foot was about to hit a pile of books that seemed to be supporting another pile of books under one end of the coffee table. “The what?”

“Miss Marple.” Now that Molly had cut two large slices of key lime pie, she hurried over to give him one. “You must know Miss Marple. She’s one of Agatha Christie’s most famous amateur sleuths.”

John accepted the pie and sat down on the couch, which was thankfully devoid of books, although there were piles of them on either side. “I don’t really read mysteries.”

“Oh, I guess you wouldn’t.” Molly snuggled onto the couch cushion beside him. “Why would you? You live them. I bet you never watchLaw and OrderorCSIor anything like that, either, do you?”

He shook his head. “Those shows—they never get anything right. Do you know how long it takes in real life to get the results back on a DNA sample?”

Molly laughed. She couldn’t help it. He was so funny, but didn’t know it. “I can imagine reading mysteries would be a kind of busman’s holiday for you. What do you read, then?”

He took a bite of pie. “Biographies, mostly.”

Molly gave him a nonjudgmental smile. She didn’t care what people read, as long as they read something, anything—well, aside from books about how to make bombs or other weapons that hurt people.

“What kind of biographies?” She wondered what he looked like beneath that uniform and how long it was going to be before she got him out of it.

“Historical figures, mainly,” he said. He was really going to town on his piece of pie—which was no wonder, because it was delicious. But Molly wondered if his mindless eating was also partly due to nerves. “Athletes.”

“Which one is your favorite?”

“My favorite biography?”

“Yes.”

He gave his answer some thought. “Your boss—well, not really anymore, because she’s retired, but you said she kind of hired you as her replacement—Mrs. Robinette?”