She scanned the description below the photo, and her lungs stopped working. “Twelve million?” she wheezed. “Mom stole a necklace worth twelve million dollars?”

From the sober faces of her sisters, it was obvious that Molly hadn’t read the price wrong. She let out a silent whistle as her stomach continued to try to eat itself. This was nothing like the lipstick Jane liked to sneak from the department-store makeup counter.

“She is in so much trouble.”

“So are we.” Cara’s voice was flat as she gestured around the dining room. It hadn’t gotten more than a cursory search, but other rooms of the house—especially Jane’s bedroom—were a tossed mess. Even the storage boxes in the garage had been dug through, and the contents had been strewn everywhere. At least they hadn’t dusted for prints again. The fingerprint powder that Sergeant Blake had left everywhere was a beast to clean up, Molly had found. “I take it the necklace wasn’t found on Mom when she was arrested?”

Molly held up her hands in an I don’t know gesture. “Sorry. I didn’t ask Carmondy that. Want me to call him back?” She really didn’t want to talk to him again so soon, mainly because their last conversation had put her severely off-balance in an unexpected way, and she’d had quite enough surprises for one day.

“Not yet,” Cara said, to Molly’s relief. “First, let’s figure out what we know—and what we can find out on our own. Then you can talk to John to fill in the blanks.”

“Okay.” Molly took great pains to hide her inward grimace. It appeared that her next call to John was just delayed slightly, not canceled as she’d hoped. As soon as the thought popped into her head, she mentally scolded herself. She and her sisters had an entire world of problems that were a thousand times worse than her uncertainty around this new version of John. If she had to call him for more answers—even if she had to ask him for help—she was going to put her pride in the closet and do exactly what was necessary.

After all, their mom had just jumped into a canyon of trouble…and Molly had to do her best to make sure that she and her sisters weren’t dragged into the abyss with her.

Chapter 6

Shoving open the dingy glass door to Barney Thompson’s bail-bond office, Molly very carefully hid any sign of disgust that wanted to creep into her expression. She didn’t even make a face when she felt something sticky adhere the door handle to her palm, and she was quite proud of herself for that.

After spending the morning chasing down leads on Jane’s case and getting nowhere, Molly hadn’t been able to put off the visit to Barney’s office any longer. She wasn’t happy to have to talk to him—in fact, she’d rather sleep in a bed full of cockroaches than waste a minute with Barney Thompson—but he’d written Jane’s bond, which meant he had information that Molly and her sisters didn’t. Reminding herself that it wouldn’t take long and then she could leave this hole-in-the-wall, she stepped into the reception area.