Page 15 of In Her Sights
There was a pause, and Molly wondered if John was just as startled by her call as she’d been by his. She almost immediately dismissed the notion, since she was pretty sure John Carmondy wasn’t taken off guard by anything. He could be neck-deep in swamp water with piranhas chewing on one leg and an alligator chomping on the other, and he’d still be as cool and calm as could be, cracking jokes and looking hot in a mud- and blood-smeared way.
Focus, she told herself sharply.
“I don’t know if she’s actually guilty,” he started, and Molly rolled her eyes. Of course Jane was guilty of whatever bad thing she was accused of doing. Molly couldn’t remember one time that her mom had been falsely accused. “But she was arrested for burglary and theft.”
“Okay,” Molly said slowly, processing the information. All four of her sisters were watching her with a silent, steady intensity, as if they were trying to hear the other side of the call, but Molly wasn’t about to put the phone on speaker. That would pretty much guarantee embarrassment on her part, since she’d never had a conversation with John that didn’t involve him teasing her about something. Even though he was unusually serious at the moment, she knew it was just a matter of time before he said something to make her squirm. Her sisters did not need any more ammunition when it came to giving her a hard time about him.
She forced her brain to focus again, but it was difficult. The hellish day had taken all of her energy, plus whatever she had in reserve. Her thoughts were spinning around uselessly, replaying all the worst parts of the past twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, her stomach twisted with the knowledge that what Jane had done was really, really bad.
Although it was true that burglary was on the more serious end of her mom’s usual crimes, that didn’t seem to explain the search warrant. Jane had incredibly quick and sticky fingers, and she’d been charged with theft before…many times. The attitude of the cops who’d just finished searching their house had been unusually serious and intense, though, and Molly could feel the difference between all of Jane’s earlier criminal exploits and this one. Whatever their mom had done, it was big.
“What did she steal?”
“What was she accused of stealing, do you mean?” John asked.
Molly frowned, unable to read his tone. Was he scolding her for not believing in her mom or warning her to keep up the pretense that Jane was innocent? Either way, she didn’t have time to try to parse the undercurrents of every word. “Sure. Let’s go with that. What was she accused of stealing?”
There it was again, that strange pause. John Carmondy was not normally hesitant. In fact, he was usually as not-hesitant as a person could possibly be. It was bizarre.
“Jewelry,” he finally said, which told her almost nothing but raised another thousand questions in her mind.
“Why are you being weird?” she burst out, not wanting to hear one more cautious, carefully worded answer from him. Her world was already topsy-turvy, and she didn’t need John acting strangely on top of everything else. He was always so rocklike, so confident and steady. No matter that she often found it annoying—she needed that John now.
“I’m not being weird,” he huffed, amusement threaded beneath his outrage, and she relaxed. That was more like the John Carmondy she knew and…didn’t really love. She was reassured by this small return to normal, though.
“Yes, you are.” She flipped her free hand impatiently. “Just tell me. What did Mom steal—besides my car? How big of a mess are my sisters and I in? We need to know, and your wishy-washy answers aren’t helping.”
Although he made a sound of protest when she called him wishy-washy, he didn’t waste time contradicting her, for which she was grateful.
“She was arrested for breaking into Simone Pichet’s hotel room and stealing a very valuable necklace.”
“Thank you.” Her words were sincere, since it was so nice having even that small bit of information. Moving the phone away from her mouth, she spoke to her sisters. “She stole Simone Pichet’s necklace.”
“Simone Pichet…isn’t she that famous sculptor?” Felicity asked, and Molly gave a short nod. Even she knew of Simone Pichet’s work, and Molly was fairly clueless when it came to art.
Norah immediately began tapping her laptop keys, and Molly felt a moment of gratitude that computers and electronic devices hadn’t been listed in the search warrant. One of the detectives had tried to take Norah’s laptop, but Cara had stopped him. If all of their computers and phones had been taken, everything would’ve been so much harder.
“Allegedly.” John stressed the word, and Molly put the phone back to her ear. “She allegedly stole Simone Pichet’s necklace.”
“Knock it off, Carmondy. She stole it. She has never been falsely accused. Not once in her life. I stopped giving her the benefit of the doubt when I was eight, and I don’t need you trying to make me feel guilty. All I need from you is information.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He trailed off. When he spoke again, his voice was brisk and businesslike. “She pled innocent during her first advisement this afternoon.”
That new bit of information made Molly’s belly lurch with a whole new type of dread. “She had her first advisement hearing? Did the judge set bail?”
This time when he paused before speaking, she wanted to jump through the phone to rip the words out of him. “Yes. Five hundred.”
She blinked. “Five hundred? That’s it?”
“Thousand,” he clarified, and she froze in place. “Five hundred thousand.”
Molly’s lips were numb, but she somehow managed to ask, “Did she make bond?”
“Yes.” John didn’t sound happy.
A horrible thought occurred to her, making her stomach twist painfully. “Did you—”
“No!” There was no hesitation before his answer this time. “I wouldn’t do that. How could you think that I’d…?” He took a harsh, audible breath and then went quiet for a moment before speaking again, more calmly this time, although a hard edge remained to his voice. “It was Barney.”
