No Offense: A Novel (Little Bridge Island Book 2)

Molly had a hard time sleeping that night. It wasn’t because she was in a strange bed—Mrs. Tifton’s guest room was one of the most luxurious Molly had ever stayed in, with its own en suite bathroom, wide-screen television, and sheets the widow said she’d picked up on a trip to Egypt, the thread count dizzyingly high and soft as cashmere.

Molly wasn’t worried about the High School Thief’s return, either. She knew the alarm was on and that it was unlikely the thief would come back, especially while there was a law enforcement officer sitting in a sheriff’s cruiser right outside the house.

It was that law enforcement officer who was keeping her awake, and the memory of his lips on hers—not to mention those lean, hard hands on her body.

Her attraction to him surprised her. She wasn’t even sure she liked him. Except . . . well, she liked the way he’d donated the money he’d won to Baby Aphrodite. And she liked how willing he was to learn that dance for his daughter. And of course she liked how good he looked in his uniform. And how very, very good his body felt against hers in that uniform.

Okay. She liked him. A lot.

She thought about slipping out of bed and creeping downstairs to visit him in the cruiser. When she peeked through the curtains of her guest-room windows, she could see him sitting behind the wheel of the parked car, bathed in the streetlight, sipping coffee, and evidently listening to something on the radio, since he was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. What was he listening to? she wondered. She of course listened to true crime podcasts, but she highly doubted that’s what law enforcement officers listened to. You didn’t tap your fingers to a podcast.

She was dying to find out—and not just about what he was listening to, either. She could come up with some excuse about why she had go down and see him—bring him a refill, maybe, or a book to read from Mrs. Tifton’s vast romance library—and get an answer to all her many questions, most of which were about what lay beneath that dress uniform.

But that felt wrong. He’d know she was only coming out there for one thing, and he’d be exactly right. She didn’t want to seem thirsty, as Elijah would call it, even though she was.

Besides, creeping out of the house to quench her thirst wouldn’t be right, especially with Mrs. Tifton sleeping down the hall, depending on her for protection (not to mention the fact that she might wake Daisy, Mrs. Tifton’s dog, who was alert to the slightest movement). Molly was an adult, not one of the teenagers in the books she loaned out every day. She decided she wasn’t going to act like one.

And John had assured her during the ride back to Mrs. Tifton’s that they were going to get together for a proper date—for some reason he seemed fixated on taking her for a “steak dinner”—soon. Just as soon as they could coordinate their schedules. Which, John had kept saying, wasn’t going to be that difficult.

“Unless you have a lot on your plate right now.” He’d looked—and sounded—sweetly nervous as he gripped the steering wheel. “I just have to get through Boat Safety Day. But then I’m free.”

“And learning ‘Single Ladies’ for the Snappettes,” Molly hadn’t been able to resist gently teasing him. “And solving a few crimes.”

“Well, uh, sure, those things, too.” He’d thrown her a surprisingly shy smile. “But then it’s the two of us at Island Steak House. They make the best rib eye you’ve ever tasted. You like steak, don’t you? You’re not vegan or anything, are you?”

“I am not. I like steak.” She didn’t want to point out to him that she came from a state that was known for having some of the best beef in the country. She thought it was cute that he seemed to have forgotten that. “I try not to eat it every day, but—”

“No, no. Same here. I mean, they say it’s not that great for you, or the environment. But a little every now and then for a special occasion is okay.”

Molly hadn’t been able to keep from smiling at the fact that he considered the two of them going out for a meal together a special occasion. In fact, she felt as if she’d been doing nothing but smiling since they’d kissed. Her cheek muscles were beginning to feel a little sore.

But he was just so sweet, in a gruff, manly sort of way. So she agreed to join him for a steak dinner at some as-yet-to-be determined date in the future.

And instead of sneaking out to visit him in his cruiser, she climbed into her soft-as-feathers bed, leaving it only once to peek out at him, wondering if he was thinking about her, too. She finally managed to fall asleep by watching a baking show on Mrs. Tifton’s giant guest-room television.

She didn’t wake until close to eight, when she heard Daisy’s excited barking, and Mrs. Tifton shushing her—she was taking the dog out for her first walk of the day and didn’t want to disturb Molly.

But Molly was already up and rushing to the window, only to find that John had disappeared, probably to return to his own home and get some sleep. Or at least that’s where she hoped he’d gone. When did sheriffs sleep, when crimes were committed twenty-four hours a day? This wasn’t something she’d ever bothered asking herself, but now she couldn’t help wondering. It didn’t seem fair. Poor John. No wonder he was so grumpy most of the time.

Of course, the fact that she was at the library a few hours later, as she’d been nearly every day since she’d arrived on Little Bridge, was different. The library was closed at night. She wasn’t there because people were committing crimes, but because they needed her to help find books or information they were looking for.

And, of course, in the case of Sunday Story Time, they needed her to set up the puppet theater and train table, and make sure none of the dads spilled the coffee they’d brought into the building. Food and drink as well as pets were allowed in the Little Bridge Public Library (mainly because it was impossible to stop people from bringing them in), but that didn’t mean they didn’t make messes, which Molly and her colleagues then had to clean up.

It was as Molly was busy sopping up one such spill by a particularly incompetent dad (who seemed to have added bourbon to his coffee and was lamely murmuring, “I’m sorry, Miss Molly”) that Elijah appeared and said, “Hey. Miss Molly, look what I’ve got.”

Molly wasn’t exactly in the mood for any of Elijah’s shenanigans, especially since she herself hadn’t gotten much sleep, the guests at checkout at the hotel that morning had been particularly unruly, and the volunteer puppeteer was late.

But she still had a bit of a flutter in her heart because of what had happened the night before with the sheriff. Nothing could really be all that bad when a man who was that kind and that good-looking and that talented with his hands—and lips—was interested in her. The world had a slightly rosier tinge to it this morning, so even Elijah’s antics and the coffee and bourbon spilled all over Six-Dinner Sid couldn’t bother her too much.

Until she turned to see what Elijah had in his hands.

“It’s a Leica,” Elijah said, proudly showing off his new camera. “Now I can start filming my acts. I mean, I could do that before, on my phone, but this is classier. I thought I could pick up some photography assignments, you know, with the school paper. Maybe shoot headshots for the Snappettes, or whatever.”

Molly felt as if her blood had run cold. She forgot not only her tiredness but also the warm, happy feeling that she’d been hugging to herself all morning. She certainly wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Where did you get that?” she heard herself asking Elijah, through suddenly numb lips.

He looked down at the camera. “What, this? My dad left it in a box of stuff when he moved out. I know it’s kind of old, but you’re the one who’s always telling me I need to get more involved in stuff. One of those kids in It turned into like the town historian or something. I know you loaned It to me because of the comedian character, but that other guy was kind of cool and I was thinking maybe I could—”

“Give me that,” Molly said, and snatched the camera from him.

“Hey!” Elijah looked shocked. “What are you doing?”

Molly examined the camera. Just like the one that had been stolen from Mrs. Tifton’s house the night before, it was pocket-sized and also digital. It looked very old—and very expensive.

Molly reached out, seized Elijah by the arm—noting he was wearing a black hoodie, but that meant nothing, didn’t it? Tons of kids his age wore them, even on a tropical island—and steered him toward her desk, even though rule number one of being a librarian was that you never, ever touched a patron unless they were in immediate danger or in need of medical assistance.

But Elijah was in danger, and also in need of immediate assistance . . . just not the medical kind.

“Hey, Miss Molly,” Elijah said, allowing himself to be dragged. He looked more amused than indignant. “What gives?”

Molly pushed him into the child-sized chair beside her desk. “Where did you get this camera?” she asked him again, perhaps a little too intensely.

“Whoa,” he said. “I told you. It was my—”

“Your dad’s, I know, you said that. Does he still have the receipt? Can you prove he bought it?”

“How should I know? Probably not. He bought it, like, a million years ago. What’s wrong with you, Miss Molly?”

Molly wondered herself. John had assured her last night that there was no way the High School Thief was in high school. He’d all but sworn he knew who the culprit was and that an arrest was imminent.

But here was Elijah, carrying a used, older Leica like the one stolen from Mrs. Tifton’s home, and smelling—there was no way around it—like the men’s fragrance section of a department store. He reeked.

He did not, however, smell of cigarettes. So that was one small mercy.

“Where were you last night around eleven o’clock?” she demanded.

“Where was I? Where I always am when I’m not here or at school—at home, playing Call of Duty.”

“Can you prove it?”

“What’s all this with having to prove it?” he asked. “What’s going on, Miss Molly?”

Molly sat down behind her desk, feeling suddenly tired and defeated. Not even the memory of the sheriff’s kiss or the hopeful promise of their steak dinner could buoy her spirits.

“The High School Thief struck again last night, Elijah,” she said. She probably wasn’t supposed to be sharing this information, but it would be public soon enough. Meschelle Davies would see to that. “He robbed Mrs. Tifton—you know, the lady who donated the money to build the new library? And one of the things he took was her dead husband’s old Leica camera. It was one just like this.”

Elijah looked down at the camera in Molly’s hand, not understanding. “So? What does that have to do with me?”

“Elijah, you were literally in here the other day bragging that you were the High School Thief.”

“Oh my God, Miss Molly.” He started to laugh. “Don’t tell me that you believed all that!”

Molly glared at him as he clutched his stomach, doubled over in laughter. “It isn’t funny, Elijah,” she said. “There are people in this town—people who work in law enforcement—who might, given the preponderance of evidence, come to think of you as a suspect.”

“Preponderance of evidence!” Elijah was laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes. “Oh, Miss Molly!”

Now Molly was genuinely irritated. Some of the mothers—and even some of the fathers—were beginning to glance over at them in curiosity. Even worse, Phyllis Robinette—the woman responsible for Molly’s good fortune in finding this job in the first place—was volunteering over at the main desk (as she did most days, when she didn’t have yoga) and had noticed the commotion. She frowned at them.

“Cut it out, Elijah,” Molly whispered urgently. “It isn’t that funny.”

“But it is,” he said, wiping away his tears. “The fact that you’d believe I was the High School Thief. Oh, Miss Molly. You really are one of my favorite people ever.”

Molly had had about all that she could take. She set down the camera and reached for her telephone. Elijah continued to laugh. “Wait,” he said, chuckling. “Who are you calling? I know it’s not the po-po. Not Henry again. Please don’t say Henry.”

“No.” Molly didn’t have to consult her directory to dial. She knew the number by heart. “I’m calling your mother.”

All the humor drained from Elijah’s face. Most of the color did, as well. “Oh, Miss Molly,” he whispered. “No.”