Page 67 of No Offense

“Fine! I just have a meeting. I’ll see you later!”

Molly felt guilty for rushing off like that, leaving Joanne to deal with breakfast service alone (though Joanne’s husband, Carl, usually showed up to help later, after taking his sugar levels). But she simply couldn’t face the scrutiny of the Filmores, especially with Katie Hartwell’s photo staring up at her—the photo she’d insisted John give toThe Gazette.

She understood why he’d done it. His desire to catch the High School Thief was almost pathological.

But what she couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t had Meschelle crop out Katie or blur her face. Though she had to admit, not doing so made the image much more startling. It was bound to get a good deal of attention....

This suspicion was proved true when she arrived at the library (late, of course) and found the staff there poring overThe Gazette.

“Oh my God,” Henry said when she walked in. “Did you see this photo on the front page of today’s paper? Isn’t this that girl who was in here the other day with her dad, the sheriff?”

“Yes,” she said, with a tight smile. “That’s Katie Hartwell.”

Molly regretted that she hadn’t called in sick for the day. She’d thought about saying that she had food poisoning or a migraine—anything not to have to face talking about John or anything, really, to do with what had happened over the weekend.

But now she really, really regretted it.

“This photo is so creepy!” Henry declared.Creepyappeared to be the word of choice to describe the picture that Elijah had snapped of Katie and the High School Thief. “I feel like I’ve seen this guy somewhere before, but I can’t think of where.”

“Well,” Molly said, as she went to put her purse away. “If you do, you should contact the Sheriff’s Department immediately.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “But I feel like if I had seen someone that grotesque-looking, I would totally remember where.”

“I don’t think he’s actually grotesque,” Phyllis said in her calm voice. “I think he merely appears that way because of the ominousness with which he’s looming in the dark behind the girl. Perhaps, in another setting, he would appear more normal.”

Henry shook his head, still staring down at the photo. “No. No, I’ve definitely seen him before. But where?”

“Maybe around the new library. We know he’s been hanging out there.”

Molly picked up the phone at her desk and checked her voice mail while simultaneously scrolling through the emails on her desktop computer. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find—something from the sheriff, perhaps?

But he had her personal cell. If he’d wanted to get in touch with her, he’d have called or texted that number.

He hadn’t, of course. She’d already checked her phone a million times. Why would he bother to contact her whenshe’d made it so clear she wanted nothing more to do with him?

There was one unusual message on her office voice mail, however. Molly stopped scrolling through her many emails when she heard it. A female voice, hesitant and oddly weak, said, “Hello, Miss Montgomery? Hi, this is, um, Tabitha Brighton. I’m the, um, person you found in the library? Anyway, they tell me you’re the one who saved me and, um, my baby. I just wanted to call and say, um... thank you. Thank you very much for what you did.”

There was a long pause, during which it sounded like the girl was holding back a sob. And then Tabitha said, “That’s all. Just thank you.”

Molly was so surprised—and moved—that she held on to the receiver for a second or two longer than necessary after Tabitha hung up, staring at her cluttered desktop, her eyes too watery with tears to see anything.

“Are you all right?”

The voice startled her, even though it was gentle. Molly turned to see Phyllis Robinette beside her, holding a cup of tea.

“Oh, yes.” Molly hung up the phone and hastily wiped her eyes. “That was Tabitha Brighton, the mother of Baby Aphrodite, thanking me for helping her. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never cry... except of course at the end of books.”

“Well, you’ve had a rough few days.” Phyllis sank into thechair beside Molly’s desk. She was such a small woman that she easily fit into it. “I was going to say that you don’t look very well. Your color is off. Is something the matter?”

Everything is the matter,Molly wanted to say. But she didn’t want to burden her mentor and friend with her problems, especially since they weren’t at all work-related.

“I’m fine,” she lied, instead. “I just have a headache.” This part wasn’t a lie. She’d been feeling a headache coming on since asking the sheriff to leave last night. “And I didn’t sleep well.”

This wasn’t a lie, either.

“Why don’t you take the day off?” Phyllis leaned forward and patted Molly kindly on the knee, the only part of her she could reach from her low perch.

“I couldn’t possibly. We have so much to do. The staff meeting—the move—”