Page 9 of In Her Sights
There were a few other texts from a different number, but Molly assumed Jane had switched to a friend’s phone.
Molly, call me.
Call me. It’s important.
“Molly.” Cara’s voice pulled her attention off the screen. When Molly glanced up, her gaze fell on the man hulking behind Cara, and she almost dropped her phone.
“Carmondy? What are you doing here?” she demanded, resisting the urge to tug her sleep shorts down to cover a little more thigh. The hem of her tank top barely reached her hips, so that wasn’t much help. She now regretted her decision to stomp downstairs in her pajamas, and it irritated her that John could make her so self-conscious. With an effort, she kept her fingers away from her shorts and straightened her shoulders, even when she caught his gaze flicking down her bare legs ever so quickly before he focused on the phone in her hand.
“Your cell works, then?” he asked, the sarcastic edge to his words doubling her annoyance. Why was he peeved with her, when he was the one who’d shown up at her house at a completely unreasonable hour, pounding on the door just after she’d managed to fall asleep? To add insult to injury, Warrant was leaning against his legs, staring up at him with a look of complete hero-worship in his eyes. The way Carmondy was absently rubbing Warrant’s ears made things even worse, since it was hard to be aggravated when he was making her dog so happy.
“Did you come over here and wake up the entire house just to ask that?”
“I wanted to tell you over the phone, but you never called or texted back.” His voice rose in volume, still well below a shout, but it made Molly blink in surprise. Even when they’d sniped at each other, he’d always seemed secretly amused. She’d never heard him sound so irritated.
“You texted me?” She glanced down at the screen even as she realized that the texts from the unknown number—the ones she assumed were from her mom using a friend’s phone—must’ve been John. It made sense, now that she thought about it. The terse texts were much too short, drama-light, and passive-aggression-free to have been from Jane. “How’d you get my number?”
His sigh rumbled out of him in a heavy gust. Apparently, he was all about the drama. “Finding people is sort of what I do for a living. The question should be…why don’t you have my number?”
“Why would I have your number?” His offended expression almost made her laugh, but then she remembered how he’d just woken her up. “Carmondy. Why are you here?”
“What’s going on?” Charlie somehow made the entire question a yawn as she shuffled down the last few steps. Behind her, Norah looked equally sleep-rumpled but was alert enough to look wary. Molly barely had a chance to wonder where Felicity was when her youngest sister jogged down the stairs, looking ridiculously wide awake—and avidly curious.
“I don’t know yet,” Molly answered. “Carmondy’s too busy bitching about my refusal to figure out his locker combination so I could leave him notes after algebra.”
There was a moment of silence as her sisters blinked at her.
“What?” Charlie finally asked.
Raising her hand to brush away her sisters’ confusion, Molly remembered her vow from the night before and dropped her arm to her side. Just to make sure she wouldn’t make any Jane-like gestures unconsciously, she grabbed her right hand in her left and held on tight. “Never mind. Carmondy’s about to tell us all why he’s here, banging on the door and waking innocent, hardworking bounty hunters.” She gave him her best stern glare. “This better not just be you stepping up your recruiting game, because this is not the way to change my answer.”
“Recruiting?” Felicity muttered. “Yeah, right.”
Although Molly was tempted to make her sister explain exactly what she meant by that, she kept her mouth closed, knowing that it’d be too easy to get off track again, stealing even more of her precious sleep time. If she could get John out of the house in the next few minutes, she could get maybe an hour of sleep before she had to get up for good. With that motivation, she turned to John with an expectant look.
His gaze flicked over her sisters before returning to Molly. His hand left Warrant’s head, and the Great Pyrenees gave him a disappointed look before trundling toward the dog door leading to the backyard. Watching Molly closely, John finally answered. “Your mom’s in jail.”
There was an instant chorus of groans. “Again?” Charlie sounded exactly how Molly felt—disappointed but not surprised in the least. Jane had gone to jail more often than she’d attended any of their school events, and they had all grown up knowing the ins and outs of the entire criminal process, from arrest to court. That was one reason Molly had chosen to start a bail recovery business. Since they knew all of the players involved already, it had been easy to step into the industry.
“No wonder she was blowing up my phone last night.” Although she was pretty sure what the answer would be, she had to ask. “How’d you find out?”
“She texted me when she couldn’t get ahold of you.” He gave her phone another condemnatory glance. “Even your mom knows my number.”
He sounded so uncharacteristically pouty that Molly couldn’t hold back an eye roll. Normally, she’d try to be a little bit more polite, even with John Carmondy, but she was tired and it was early and she didn’t really care if he saw her mocking him. “If I save your number in my phone, will you leave now?”
He looked startled. “That’s it? Don’t you want to know which jail?”
“Not really.” She moved toward him, hoping to herd him out the door, but he didn’t move, which meant that they were now standing uncomfortably close. John seemed even bigger than usual, which made sense, since his broad chest was only inches from her nose. If only he didn’t smell so stupidly good, like leather and falling leaves and… Was that bubble gum? Only he could make the slight whiff of sugar and strawberries seem attractive.
If it had been anyone else, she would’ve backed up a step or two to reestablish her personal space, but this was John Carmondy, and she didn’t want to give up any ground to him. Even though she knew she was being irrationally stubborn, she couldn’t seem to help it. John brought out the teenager in her.
Cocking his head to the side, he looked down at her with a quizzical gaze. “Aren’t you going to call her lawyer?”
“She likes to represent herself.” That wasn’t quite true, but Molly really didn’t want to explain how her mom had fired or alienated every lawyer in Langston and the greater Denver area—possibly in all of Colorado. Jane was stuck with either using a public defender—who had an enormous grudge against her—or defending herself in court.
Still hopeful she might be able to get a little bit of sleep that morning, Molly plastered on the fakest of fake smiles. “Thanks for letting us know. It was very…helpful of you.” He didn’t move, and it got harder for her to hold her attempt at a polite expression. “We don’t want to keep you from your very early morning activities, so thanks again.” Still, he didn’t shift toward the door, and she seriously debated giving him a firm shove. The only reason she resisted was because she doubted it would have any effect. It was almost impossible to force a mountain into motion if he didn’t want to go anywhere.
The silence dragged out, and even her sisters—who usually wouldn’t stop talking long enough for her to hear herself think—didn’t say a word. The awkward tension reached a painful intensity, but Molly refused to say one more thing. This was all on John now.
