Page 24 of In Her Sights
They trooped out onto the porch, the elderly boards groaning under their combined weight. Molly automatically added checking the porch floor to her endless to-do list before realizing that it might not even be her house in a few weeks. Quickly, she shook off the thought. They had a month—possibly more—to track down Jane and drag her to court. She couldn’t act as if losing their house was inevitable. She and her sisters were smart and resourceful enough to track down their mom. That was their business, for Pete’s sake.
A police squad car pulled up to the curb in front of her house, rescuing her from her thoughts. As two plainclothes officers got out of the vehicle, she had to bite back a groan. These were the same two who’d had the warrant to search her house—Bastien and… She couldn’t think of the younger one’s name. She was suddenly glad that they’d moved outside. Those two detectives had seen more than enough of the inside of her house. Why couldn’t it have been Garcia or even Lieutenant Botha who’d responded to the call? The two detectives were from Denver, in Langston because of the necklace, so why were they responding to a call that was only peripherally related to the theft?
The two cops’ expressions were guarded as they approached the porch. As Bastien took in the sight of John, all ripped muscles and ferocious expression, his hand drifted to rest on the butt of his Taser. Molly sensed, rather than saw, John stiffen, and she hurried to speak before something unnecessarily bad could happen.
“Hey, Detectives.” She tried to put some cheer into her voice, but she was fairly sure she failed. “Thanks for coming. This one”—she tipped her head toward Stuart and then switched to pointing, wanting to make sure it was clear that she was referring to him and not John—“just broke into our house.”
“A lot of these types of things keep happening to you,” the younger detective—Mill, she thought, finally remembering his name—said with the flat intonation that held a wealth of suspicion. “Your car’s stolen and now this. You might want to think about why that is.”
Molly rested her hands on her hips, counting in her head so she didn’t utter the tempting but unhelpful retort that immediately jumped to her lips. Instead she managed to ask politely, “Why are you here? Aren’t you with DPD?”
Mill gave her a sour twist of a smile. “We’re working out of Langston for the time being. When we heard this address, we offered to take the call. We’re helpful like that.”
Helpful. Right. Before she could come up with a tactful response, John shifted over, putting his body between her and Detective Mill as he thrust Stuart toward the cop.
“Here. I’ve been restraining him since he broke in, so he hasn’t had a chance to dump his lockpicking tools yet. You’ll want to search him before he does.” Even though John’s voice was polite, his words rang with a command that made Molly wince and brace for the detective’s reaction. In her experience, cops reacted badly to having people tell them how to do their jobs—at least, they did when she was the one making suggestions.
“I’ve got him,” Bastien said, escorting Stuart over to the squad car with a tight grip on his upper arm. Stuart immediately began speaking. Although Molly was too far away from the pair to make out what he was saying, she could see his arms waving dramatically, and she suspected that he’d come up with a new story in the time they’d been waiting for the cops to arrive.
Now that she had her irritation under control, Molly shifted over so that John was no longer blocking her view of Mill.
“So, what happened here…this time?” the detective asked. His slight emphasis on the last two words immediately topped off her annoyance levels again. She could feel John’s assessing gaze on her, but she ignored it. Whatever the reason for his newly protective manner, she couldn’t hide behind him while he dealt with all her problems.
“Stuart over there”—she jerked her chin toward him, noting that he was still gesticulating dramatically as he spoke to Bastien—“knocked on the front door about twenty minutes ago. When we didn’t immediately answer, he picked the dead bolt and walked inside. He said that he was in a class with Cara and dropping off some notes she’d asked for, but…” Molly gestured toward Cara in an unspoken invitation to finish her sentence.
“I don’t know him,” Cara said immediately. “I definitely never asked him for notes.”
Mill studied all of them, even though Felicity and Charlie had remained silent since the cops’ arrival. “Why do you think he picked the lock?” he finally asked. “Isn’t it more likely that the door was unlocked?”
Biting back the sarcastic response that wanted to escape, Molly said semicordially, “We watched the dead bolt turn.”
Making a skeptical sound that brought Molly’s restrained anger flaring to life, Mill eyed each of them again. She knew he was using silence to get them to talk from sheer discomfort, but she also knew it wouldn’t work on any of them. They used the same trick when they were trying to track down skips. Even Cara had questioned her share of cagey friends and relatives of people who’d jumped bail. If Norah had been there, she might have broken into awkward chatter, but she also might have stayed frozen and silent. It was hard to predict how she’d react in social situations.
Several minutes ticked by quietly before Mill spoke again. “Why would someone break into your house?”
“Isn’t that a question for Stuart?” Molly shot back, making the detective frown deeply.
“Why are you refusing to answer?”
“Oh, for God’s sake…” Charlie muttered, drawing Mill’s sharp attention.
“Were you going to add something?” he demanded, and Molly resisted rolling her eyes. Charlie didn’t bother holding back her scorn.
“Why would I bother, when you’ve already made up your mind?” Crossing her arms over her chest, Charlie leaned back against the doorframe. Normally, she tended to play up her innocent, girl-next-door look, using her dimples and wide Bambi eyes as a tool to get skips and sources to let down their guards and confide in her. Right now, however, her full lips were drawn into a tight frown, and her eyes were narrowed to slits. Molly knew just looking at her sister that she was pissed.
“Don’t act like you’re the innocent victims.” Mill’s lip was raised in a slight sneer as he gestured at all of them. “When you sleep with dogs and wake up with fleas, don’t blame me when you’re itching.”
Molly blinked, torn between fury and laughter. She tightened her jaw so that neither escaped. Mill must’ve had some self-preservation, because he was moving away from the porch toward the pair by the squad car. “Stay here,” he said, as if it weren’t their house and they hadn’t been the ones to call the police. Molly noticed that both the Villaneaus and Mr. P were on their porches now, watching the scene with a mixture of disdain and patronizing glee.
As they watched Mill join his partner and Stuart, John muttered something under his breath, the sound so low it came out as a rumbling growl.
Molly raised her eyebrows at him before turning back to the scene by the cop car. “Chill, papa bear,” she said absently, trying to read Mill’s lips as he spoke to Bastien.
At Charlie’s choked laugh and Felicity’s snort, Molly glanced over to see all of her sisters smirking at her. Even Cara looked to be fighting a smile.
“What?” she asked as her face got hot.
“Nothing.” Of course it was Charlie who said it, in a tone that made it obvious that nothing meant the very opposite. “Whatever sex games you like to play are between the two of you. I don’t want to know.”
