Page 27 of In Her Sights
Charlie scowled. “You can’t go after Sonny Zarver on your own.”
Before Molly could assure her sister that she’d be fine, John spoke. “She won’t. I’ll be with her.”
“You will?” Startled, Molly turned to stare at John, but he was still wearing his serious—and expressionless—face, so she couldn’t interpret what he was thinking.
“Yes.”
Despite her inability to read his expression, she studied him for several moments. Even though she had no idea why he’d inserted himself into their lives and was offering to assist her in running down a skip he’d tried very hard to keep her away from, help was help, and she wasn’t about to turn down his offer. “Okay,” she finally said, deciding to ponder his motivation later when their lives were back on track. “John’s with me, then. Are we all good?” She eyed her sisters, and they all made affirmative sounds or gestures. Only Cara looked torn, her lips pressed together as if she was holding back a torrent of words.
“Something wrong, Cara?” Molly asked.
“Should I drop out of school?” The words tumbled out too quickly, one on top of the other, as Cara refused to meet Molly’s gaze. “Just for this semester, I mean. We just started, and I know you could use more help with trying to find Mom and Sonny and all the other jobs we need to take to keep our heads above water. I shouldn’t be going to classes when all of you are working so hard to keep this house.”
“No.” Molly put as much force behind the word as she could. “You’ve already put off school too long, thanks to Mom taking your tuition money and you helping get the business going. You’re not dropping out. Mom’s not taking anything else away from us, not if I can help it.”
From the way Warrant slunk under the table and Cara’s eyes went wide, Molly realized that she must’ve looked and sounded rather ferocious. She took a breath to try to get her heart to stop pounding so hard.
“I mean it, Cara.” Although her voice was calmer, it was no less resolute, and she could see that her other sisters agreed with her. “No more delays. You just have three semesters left and then student teaching. If you get off track now because of Mom’s nonsense, you might never finish.”
“Molly’s right,” Charlie said as Felicity and Norah nodded in agreement. “You need to stick this out. Otherwise, you’re going to be eighty and still working as a bounty hunter and hating it just as much then as you do now.”
“I don’t hate it.” Despite her words, Cara’s tone was half-hearted, and Molly raised an eyebrow at her.
“You so hate it.”
“As long as I don’t have to tackle anyone, or get spit on, or sworn at, or hit on, or talk to mean people, then it’s fine.”
Charlie snorted a laugh. “That’s pretty much my usual day.”
“I like the research part,” Cara protested, even though she was halfway to laughing as well. “Especially if it’s just on the internet. Especially if it’s internet research while I’m sitting on the patio at the coffee shop, drinking a cappuccino with Warrant sleeping under the table.” Warrant shifted at the sound of his name before resettling flat on his side.
Norah gave a small smile. “That’s my favorite part, too.”
“Okay.” Molly blew up her cheeks like a balloon and let her breath out with an audible puff. When John made an amused sound, she inwardly cringed at how goofily unattractive the face she’d just made must’ve looked, and then she immediately scolded herself for worrying whether John found her attractive when their world was currently imploding. “Now that we know that Cara’s staying in school and everyone has their assignments, let’s get to work.”
Norah tentatively raised her hand.
Blinking at her sister, Molly resisted the urge to say something sarcastic and just said, “Yes?” instead.
“What about the jobs we were already working on before the…Mom thing happened?”
Molly grimaced. “Try to stay on them as much as possible, but finding Mom and getting her back here in time for her hearing are paramount. Sorry. It’s going to be really busy and will almost definitely suck for a while, but we’ll get through this.”
Her sisters made unenthusiastic grumbles of agreement—although whether they agreed that they’d get through it or that things would suck was unclear—and Molly stood, her gaze finding John. He’d been quiet and stoic through most of the meeting, and his serious manner set her off-balance. She was used to a joking and devilishly teasing John, not this giant, somber statue leaning against her dining room wall.
“Ready for this?” she asked him.
His mouth twitched at the corner, just a tiny movement but enough to make him seem more like the John Carmondy she knew. “If I say no, will that change anything?”
“Not really.”
“I figured.” This time, his smile was more of a grimace. “Let’s go find Zarver, then.”
Chapter 10
Finding Sonny Zarver was easier said than done. Molly tapped at her phone screen as she thought, trying to come up with the best plan. She realized that Norah and Cara had spoiled her with their research skills, always handing Molly a file filled with leads and background information for each skip she was tracking. She hadn’t started from square zero in over a year.
