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

Molly sat at her desk going over what she already knew.

Number one: No copies of Into the Wild were listed as checked out. And yet one was clearly missing. Same with Hatchet (only an audio copy was checked out) and Sternberg’s Wilderness Survival Handbook (2016 edition).

Number two: There was no reference to anything called the “Sunshine Kids” on the Internet that made sense in the context that the sheriff had used it.

Oh, there were plenty of cancer societies for children called Sunshine Kids. There were church groups, choirs, and dance troupes with the name.

But she highly doubted any church groups, kids with cancer, choirs, or dance troupes had broken into the new library and had a beer-and-cinnamon-whiskey-fueled pizza party.

So who exactly were these Sunshine Kids, and why did the sheriff hate them so much?

Because he did hate them. She could see the hatred for them burning in his disturbingly blue eyes.

Really, she ought to have been working—there were several large piles of books on the trolley by her desk that needed reshelving.

But she was having trouble concentrating on work when there was such a big, juicy mystery to solve.

That’s what she told herself, anyway: that it was the mystery of the baby she’d found, and her mother—because that poor girl she’d found in the new library had to be Baby Aphrodite’s mother—that was distracting her, and not the tall, blue-eyed sheriff, and the extremely frustrating way he had of not meeting her gaze . . . and then suddenly looking her straight in the eye, and making her feel as if he could see directly into her soul and knew every single one of her secrets.

Except that Molly didn’t have any secrets! Finding Baby Aphrodite had been the most interesting thing that had ever happened to her. She’d never broken the law in her life, with the exception of having smoked a little weed in college. But everyone did that—and marijuana was legal in Colorado, as well as plenty of other places now.

Maybe the sheriff’s ability to make her feel this way was because he was a cop. Cops were supposed to be good at looking at you and making you blurt out your guilt.

But Molly had nothing to feel guilty about—except possibly how much time she spent on Facebook and Instagram spying on her ex and his new bride-to-be. But she’d really gotten much better at that lately. Now she only went on social media when she needed to. In fact, she decided that the best use of her time would be to go on Facebook right now and look for references to the Sunshine Kids.

But she could find none, save for a link on Meschelle Davies’s page that led to a story from an online newspaper that was hidden behind a paywall. Molly would gladly have paid to see what it said, but the paper was now defunct, and none of the links worked.

Molly quickly realized she had no choice but to email Meschelle at The Gazette and ask her for the information.

She was surprised when her phone buzzed a few seconds later. It was a number she didn’t recognize.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” Meschelle said when Molly picked up, “if you’ll give me an exclusive interview about what happened at the new library this morning.”

Molly smiled. She admired Meschelle’s go-getter spirit, even if she didn’t always approve of the mainstream media. It sensationalized violence and barraged children with hypersexualized images of young women (and men, too) just when they were beginning to develop and understand themselves as sexual beings.

“You know I can’t do that,” Molly said. “The sheriff asked me not to.”

“Well, then, I guess you’re never going to find out what you want to know.”

“How about this,” Molly said, glancing at her watch. “I’ll take you to lunch anywhere you want to go, and give you an exclusive interview about finding Baby Aphrodite, in exchange for you telling me what I want to know.”

“Hmmm.” Meschelle seemed to consider this. “People do love an abandoned-baby story, so long as the kid’s okay. Lunch today?”

“Today.”

“Anywhere I want to go?”

“Anywhere you want to go.”

“You got a deal. Meet me at Cracked in half an hour.”

Molly swallowed. Cracked was one of the trendiest—and most expensive—restaurants on the island. It featured oysters and stone crab claws (when in season); thus the high prices.

“See you there,” Molly said, and hung up.

It didn’t take her long to wrangle coverage for her desk. Phyllis was at yoga—she never missed a Thursday—but Henry promised to watch over the children’s section so long as Molly was back before two thirty, when school let out and the troublemakers—meaning Elijah Trujos—began showing up.

One of the many reasons Molly loved Little Bridge was that everything (except the airport) was within walking distance, and so she’d been able to sell her car. She biked or walked everywhere, and was looking forward to the day when this would result in a noticeable change to her fitness. So far, it hadn’t, possibly because she’d gone from living at a mile above sea level to three feet above it, so she was actually exerting herself less on Little Bridge, despite exercising more. She still arrived at Cracked breathless and sweaty, most likely because of her stupid cardigan.

“Hi,” she said, sliding into the posh leather booth in which Meschelle was already seated. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No worries.” Meschelle slid a wineglass filled with a golden beverage, its sides frosted with condensation, toward her. “I went ahead and ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc. I assumed when you let me pick the restaurant that meant I also could order anything I wanted.”

“Fine.” Molly took a thirsty gulp. “Excellent choice.”

“Yeah, I know my way around a wine menu.” Meschelle played with the screen on her phone. “I already ordered a few appetizers for us as well. Is it okay if I record this?”

“Sure,” Molly said, widening her eyes as a server approached with an amply filled basket of flatbreads. “So who or what are the Sunshine Kids?”

“Whoa, slow down, sister. Me first. Why do you want to know so badly? Does it have anything to do with what happened today at the new library?”

Molly broke off a piece of one of the flatbreads. It was still warm from the oven and lightly covered in cheese and slivers of olive. Hmmmm. “I already said I can’t talk about what happened today. I promised the—”

“—sheriff, right.” Meschelle rolled her expressive dark eyes. Molly knew that Meschelle was of West African descent because she’d written about it before in the paper. Her skin was as smooth as silk and she wore her hair braided and piled on top of her head out of deference to the heat. She chose a piece of tomato-smeared flatbread from the basket. “Fine. Tell me about the baby.”

Molly gave what she considered a highly detailed but also touching account of how she’d found Baby Aphrodite. By the time she’d finished, the dozen oysters that Meschelle had ordered had arrived, and Meschelle had eaten four of them. She didn’t look very impressed by Molly’s story.

“What’s going on between you and the sheriff?” she asked.

“What?” Molly nearly choked on the oyster she was swallowing. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

“I mean you talk about him a lot. And then you agreed to pay for this lunch, all because you want to know about the Sunshine Kids.”

“What does my interest in the Sunshine Kids have to do with the sheriff?” Molly felt her cheeks beginning to warm. But that was probably because of the wine, and of course the cardigan.

Meschelle reached into her purse, which was a stylish rattan basket, from which hung dozens of brightly colored tassels. “Here, you can read the story I wrote about them last year for the alternative paper we used to have here. It went under due to people on this island having no interest in reading dissident viewpoints. The Gazette wouldn’t let me write about the Sunshine Kids because they didn’t want the tourists getting wind of them.”

Molly took the sheaf of papers Meschelle handed to her. “Why?” she asked breathlessly. “Are they dangerous?”

Meschelle shrugged. “Not particularly. Just annoying. Your sheriff sure seemed to think so. I interviewed him about them, and he called them, and I quote, ‘The most frustrating group of individuals I’ve ever dealt with in my entire career in law enforcement.’”

Molly flipped excitedly through the pages Meschelle had handed her, noting that there were several full-color photos of Sheriff John Hartwell in uniform squinting off into the distance. He looked handsome, but generally disapproving. It was an expression Molly recognized.

“Who are the Sunshine Kids, exactly?” she asked.

“What they sound like. A bunch of kids.” Meschelle dug into the bowl of mussels in white wine sauce that the server had just slid in front of them. “High school and college dropouts, mostly, from up north who come down for the winter to enjoy our warm weather here in Florida, the Sunshine State. They’ve fought with their family or gotten kicked out of school for whatever reason, and now they’re living on the road, usually in a big group.”

“Safety in numbers,” Molly murmured.

Meschelle gave her a stern look over the garlicky mussel she was lifting to her lips. “Now don’t go feeling sorry for them, Molly. That’s another reason the sheriff can’t stand them—none of them are suffering from mental illness or drug addiction, like so many of the homeless you see in your library.”

“Displaced persons,” Molly corrected her.

“What?”

“At the library we don’t call them homeless. We call them displaced persons.”

Meschelle rolled her eyes. “Whatever. These kids aren’t ‘displaced persons.’ I interviewed a bunch of them for my article, and they all had plenty of cash—including credit cards. They live the way they do by choice. They’re kids, remember. They think it’s romantic—like Jack Kerouac in On the Road. They think they’re sticking it to the man by not paying rent—only they’re not camping. Instead, they sponge off someone else’s electricity and Wi-Fi . . . and mortgage. Read my article, it’s all in there, especially about how much they worship their unofficial leader, Dylan someone.”

Molly flipped to another page and saw the photo of a handsome, dark-haired boy with a well-groomed goatee, a smattering of tattoos, and extremely large ear gauges. “Dylan Dakota?”

“That’s him. He thinks everyone should go back to living off the land, like the Native Americans. Only the Native Americans have disavowed him and the entire group for cultural misappropriation and implying that land is anyone’s for the taking, and presumably for always managing to crash in a place that has AC and running water, and then leaving it trashed.” Meschelle dipped a piece of flatbread into the broth of the mussels. “Last year Sheriff Hartwell caught Dakota and a bunch of other kids living in the old MTV house on Stork Key.”

“Where they filmed Spring Break-A-Thon?” Not that Molly would ever watch such a show—well, not more than a few episodes. But the teens in her old library had talked about the hit reality sensation nonstop.

“Yeah. Since the show moved on to filming elsewhere, the owners have been renting it out to tourists, but when it’s not booked, it just sits empty. So Dylan and his gang reasoned they were doing society a favor somehow by breaking in and living there themselves, and of course completely wrecking it. I could never quite understand the logic, but they basically did the same thing to that house that they did to your library.”

Molly shook her head. “Why weren’t they arrested?”

“They were. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. But because they’re wealthy, their parents hired fancy out-of-town lawyers, and they got off with fines—especially since they’re juveniles, except for Dakota. He’s a little older, but from some kind of superrich family up north. His lawyer managed to get the charges against him dropped entirely. I thought the sheriff was going to have a stroke.” Meschelle reached toward the silver ice bucket sitting in a stand at the end of their booth, pulled the wine bottle from it, and refilled Molly’s glass. “Girl, you are the easiest interview. You’ve basically confirmed that the sheriff thinks the Sunshine Kids are back, and that they’re the ones who trashed the new library.”

Molly nearly choked again, midgulp. “I didn’t!”

Meschelle laughed. “You did. But don’t worry, I’m gonna make out like I didn’t hear it from you. I have other sources I can squeeze. Some of those deputies on the sheriff’s staff are so dumb, they can be bought for a single beer over at the Mermaid. But because I feel bad about what a pushover you are, I’m not going to make you pay for this lunch. We’ll split it.”

This was a relief, because even though Molly was saving a lot by not having to pay rent, her salary did not stretch to cover two-hundred-dollar lunches. Still, she didn’t like being thought of as a pushover. She preferred to think of herself as curious. Isn’t that what led most librarians into the profession in the first place—their love of books and thirst for knowledge?

It was only as the two women were signing their checks that Molly heard someone call her name and looked up to see merry little Mrs. Tifton standing at the end of their booth, her dog, Daisy, in her arms.

“Molly! Meschelle! Oh, you don’t know how happy I am to see you two girls!”

Daisy gave an excited little bark. Only service dogs were allowed in Little Bridge restaurants, except when it came to Daisy. This was not because Mrs. Tifton was so rich or Daisy so well-behaved, but because her owner was so generous and well-liked.

“Hello, Mrs. Tifton,” Molly cried, a little perturbed that her missus came out sounding like mishuss. Perhaps she should not have split an entire bottle of wine with only one other person at lunch on a workday. “How are you?”

“Well, I’m fine, but it’s you two I’m worried about. How could you not have told me about that poor girl in the media room?” Mrs. Tifton was wearing a light warm-up jacket and leggings. It was clear she’d just come from yoga class. “I had to find out from the sheriff!”

Molly exchanged a guilty look with Meschelle.

“We’re so sorry, Mrs. Tifton,” Meschelle said. “We just thought it was better you didn’t know.”

“But Daisy was so great,” Molly volunteered, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “She stayed by that girl’s side and licked her back into consciousness.”

After she said it, Molly wished again that she hadn’t had quite so much wine, or had at least drunk more water. Was this something a dog owner wanted to hear?

Apparently it was, as Mrs. Tifton looked delighted, as did her dining partner—whom Molly only then recognized as her mentor and (now retired) boss, Phyllis. Phyllis was also dressed in yoga wear.

Inwardly, Molly wanted to die. Naturally her (ex-)boss was in the same yoga class, and apparently, she lunched regularly with the library’s most generous donor.

Mrs. Tifton gave the panting Daisy a squeeze and said, “Oh, Daisy! I always knew you were a very smart dog!” To Molly and Meschelle she said, “She is, you know. She’s very perceptive. When I’m feeling down, she crawls onto my lap and licks my face. So I’m not surprised she did the same to that girl. You’re just as brave, you know.” This was to Molly. “I understand you sat with her until the ambulance came. You simply must let me make it up to you.”

“Oh,” Molly said, laughing nervously. What was the delightfully eccentric widow going to do, offer her a cash reward? Not that Molly would mind, but as a public servant, she couldn’t possibly accept. “That’s quite all right, Mrs. Tifton, it’s part of my—”

“I know,” Mrs. Tifton interrupted, snapping her fingers. “You must come with me this weekend as my date to the Red Cross Ball.”

To Molly this was nearly as mortifying as being offered a cash reward. Not that she didn’t want to go to the ball—she did. She’d heard all about it from Joanne, who had never been (“It’s three hundred and fifty dollars a ticket!”) but knew people who had, and described it as “the most glamorous party on Little Bridge, black tie with an all-you-can-eat buffet that includes locally caught stone crab claws, champagne, and of course a chocolate fountain.”

It wasn’t that Molly wasn’t grateful. She simply didn’t want the widow to pay for her ticket. It wouldn’t be ethical.

“Oh, Molly,” Meschelle said, cutting Molly off before she could even draw breath to protest. “You have to go. It’s the best party of the year. I’m going, to cover it for the paper.”

Molly felt her resolve wavering.

“I already bought twelve tickets,” Mrs. Tifton said. “I’m taking the entire yoga class, aren’t I, Phyl?”

Phyllis—whom Molly would never in a thousand years consider calling Phyl—said, in her calm, throaty voice, “She is. We’re all going.”

“See?” Mrs. Tifton threw Molly a triumphant look. “You have to come. Especially since we have so much to celebrate.”

Molly was puzzled. “We do?” She didn’t see what there was to feel happy about. Their library had been vandalized, apparently by kids who were, according to Meschelle, unstoppable. What was so good about that?

“The girl!” Mrs. Tifton cried. “She’s in the ICU, but she should do just fine. I called the hospital, and they told me so.”

“Really?” Meschelle’s eyebrows were raised to their limits. “They usually only give information about patients to family members.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Tifton said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They know me there.”

Of course they do, Molly thought, wryly.

“And do you know what else they said?” Mrs. Tifton asked, and went on without waiting for a reply. “They said that she’s Baby Aphrodite’s mother!”

Molly wasn’t a bit surprised, given what she’d seen in the media room, but Meschelle snatched up her phone and quickly hit record.

“Really, Mrs. Tifton?” she asked. “May I quote you on that for an article I’m writing about the abandoned baby for the Gazette?”

“Why, yes, you may!” Mrs. Tifton cried. “You can say that Dorothy Tifton has it on good authority that the poor girl found in the children’s media room of the new library today is the mother of Baby Aphrodite.”

Molly was beginning to get a very bad feeling about all of this.

“Oh, Mrs. Tifton,” she said, sliding from her booth. “I don’t think that’s the kind of news we should be sharing right now. It might hamper the sheriff’s investigation.”

Mrs. Tifton instantly looked stricken. “Oh, dear! I wouldn’t want to do that.”

“It’s fine,” Meschelle said, giving Molly a dirty look. “It’s just the local paper, not the New York Times. I’ll tie it in to the story I interviewed you for, Molly—which, by the way, I’m going to need photos for.”

Molly froze. “Photos?”

“Yes. You know, of you by the bathroom stall where you found the baby, and all of that.”

Molly thought, fleetingly, of both how unflattering the florescent light in the girls’ bathroom was and how disapproving the sheriff was going to be when he found out about the story.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make you look good,” Meschelle said, only partly reading her mind. “I’ll send one of the staff photographers over to the library this afternoon. Okay?”

Molly knew she’d dug her own grave. There was nothing for her to do now but lie in it.