Page 4 of Turn the Tide
Chapter 2
“Uh…Molly?” Norah’s eyes were wide as she stared at her laptop screen, and her voice was apprehensive enough that Warrant, their giant shaggy dog, lifted his head from where it had been resting on Molly’s foot.
“Yes?” Molly prompted when Norah didn’t say anything but just continued to stare at whatever was on her screen in horror.
“Are you absolutely sure this is a skip you want to chase?” Norah asked as she finally dragged her gaze from the computer and looked at Molly over the kitchen table.
“Of course I don’t want to chase him. Just looking at his mug shot scares the snot out of me.” Leaning back in her chair, Molly tugged out the hair band holding her ponytail, releasing the heavy fall of dark hair to tumble down her back. She started twisting the straight, silky strands into a thick braid just to give her fingers something to do. “I don’t have much of a choice, though.”
Norah just blinked at her, waiting for her to continue.
“Cara gave her tuition money to Mom again.”
Comprehension lit Norah’s eyes even as she winced. “Isn’t there any other option? What if we bring in more skips that aren’t quite so”—her gaze flickered to her laptop again, and she made a face—“bloodthirsty?”
“Bloodthirsty?” Molly repeated, trying to sound amused even though she wanted to run to her bedroom and hide under the covers for the rest of the day. “Cameron Hall is not a pirate. He’s just a…”
“Armed robber?” Norah filled in the blank with more snap than she usually had.
“Yeah.” Giving up the attempt to lighten the mood, Molly slumped and played with the end of her braid. After a few seconds of mournful self-pity, she straightened. “There’s no other option. We’re still struggling to get enough jobs to pay the bills, and Cara needs that money soon, or she’ll have to skip a semester.” Molly worried that once Cara left school, even if it was only supposed to be temporary, she would never be able to go back. There’d always be another use for that tuition money, and Cara was too self-sacrificing to fight for her dream. It was up to Molly and her other sisters to make sure Cara’s future didn’t get trampled by everyone else—especially their mother.
“It’ll be fine. This guy isn’t the brightest.”
Norah clucked, and the sound made Molly grin, despite everything. Her little sister sounded so motherly sometimes. “Those are the most dangerous because they rely on brute force to get themselves out of situations.”
Her smile fading, Molly firmed her resolve. It would be too easy to let Norah talk her out of going after Hall. After all, Norah was just echoing what Molly’s common sense had been warning her repeatedly for the past few weeks. This guy wasn’t one of her usual low-level, nonviolent skips. He’d been willing to point a loaded gun at someone in order to get what he wanted. It was reckless and probably stupid for her to go after such a dangerous skip, but she’d considered all the possible solutions, and this was the best one. The only problem was that it was also the most potentially deadly.
Shaking off her own doubts that she was ready to take this step, Molly flattened her hands on the table and pushed to her feet, giving Norah a level look. “I’m doing this. Will you help me minimize the chance of my death and/or major injury?”
As Molly knew she would, Norah didn’t even pause before nodding. “Of course I’ll help. I just want to go on the record and say this is a really bad idea, and I wish you weren’t doing it.”
“Me too.” Molly sighed before moving to stand behind Norah. “Okay, what do I need to know about this guy?”
“He has an ex-wife in Denver, an on-again, off-again girlfriend here in Langston, and a couple of friends—one in Thornton and one in Aurora. I just sent the addresses to your phone.”
“At least he’s staying in the Denver area.” Molly didn’t want to involve any of her sisters, but she needed more eyes or she’d be doing surveillance for months. “See if Charlie or Felicity can take a couple of those. Tell them they’re just gathering information, though. If I hear about either of them trying to take this guy in by themselves, there’s going to be trouble.”
Norah raised her eyebrows. “But we’re supposed to just sit back while you take this guy in instead?”
“Yes. I’m the oldest, so I get to be hypocritical like that.” She patted her sister on the head when Norah frowned at her. “Which place looks the most likely?”
Although Norah grumbled under her breath, she tapped the girlfriend’s address.
“Perfect. That’s the closest.” Giving Norah a quick side hug, she said, “Thank you for researching.”
As Molly crouched to give Warrant a belly rub, Norah crossed her arms. “I really don’t think you should go after this guy.”
“Yeah, me neither, but sometimes life sucks that way.” Giving the dog a final pat, she straightened and headed for the door to the garage. “I promise I’ll keep you updated if anything exciting happens, but I’m sure I’m going to spend the day staring at an empty house.”
Ignoring more unhappy rumblings from Norah, Molly grabbed her bag and slipped into the garage. As much as she loved her sister, it was a relief to be alone. It was much easier to ignore her brain’s warnings when Norah wasn’t adding to the chorus.
The drive to Hall’s girlfriend’s place only took about ten minutes. The neighborhood was an older one, and the house was only slightly more run-down than its neighbors. The porch of the boxy two-story was leaning to one side, giving the whole place a lopsided feel. The tan paint had faded to a dirty beige, and the lawn was weedy and sunbaked.
Molly passed the house and kept driving, making an effort not to slow down in front of it and alert anyone of her interest. There wasn’t a park or a playground nearby, somewhere she could linger without arousing suspicion, but there were a number of older cars parked along the side of the road. She circled the block and then parked a few houses down in a spot that gave her a good view of the front of the house. After taking down all the license plates of the vehicles parked around her, as well as the SUV sitting in the driveway, she settled in for a long, boring wait.
Barely a minute passed before the front door swung open, and Molly snapped to attention. She was impressed by her timing. Usually, surveillance involved a whole lot of nothing, but she wasn’t going to complain about the excitement.
Still, she blinked with amazement as Hall stomped out. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, my dude,” she muttered, her eyes fixed on her target. “You skipped out on a huge bail. You should be holed up somewhere, hiding out. What the heck are you doing?”
