At least he’d said he’d been heading home. Maybe he’d lied. Cons did lie.

Why hadn’t he called for a lawyer? Maybe that just bothered her because Ed Bancroft hadn’t done it, either. An awful lot of guys these days were going down without a fight, Molly thought.

Why hadn’t anyone noted the discrepancy in the direction Danny had been traveling? Where had he really been heading home from—especially since he had presumably just left his condo after dropping the cash?

The Mercado compound was right off Mission Creek Road, she thought, between the convenience store and the location where Danny had been picked up. If Danny had been driving home from there, he would have been traveling in the correct direction.

Molly got back into bed and set the file carefully on her bedside table. Well, well, well, she thought as she turned her light off. Another smelly fish in the desert.

“I’ve figured it out. You were framed.”

Danny barely heard her. He was too transfixed by what he found when he came downstairs from his apartment and set foot in the gym on Wednesday afternoon.

First of all, there was an open library book on the floor in the middle of the court. The regular kids were standing back a way and watching Molly skeptically. Some of the newcomers had returned, as well. Four or five of them were lined up on the side of the court next to Bobby.

“What the hell are you doing?” Danny demanded.

“Playing basketball.”

“You’re not playing basketball. You’re bouncing around on your toes and occasionally looking down at that book. What’s that book?”

“You were framed. Either you’re too stupid to realize it or too stupid to care.”

“I cared.”

“You didn’t do anything about it.”

“I want to talk about basketball.”

“Well, I don’t.” She stopped bouncing and faced him, planting her hands on her hips.

Those hips, Danny thought. What he could see of them today left his mouth dry. She wore spandex leggings. There was a great deal of rolled-down sock at her ankles and…she wore new high tops. She also wore a black sports bra, and he liked it a whole lot better than Cia’s.

Every sweet curve of her was outlined in nice, tight black.

“You can’t learn basketball from a book,” he said stubbornly, trying to keep his mind off the way she looked. “That book is about basketball, isn’t it? Some sort of in-ten-easy-lessons kind of thing? Basketball for dummies?”

“It’s very informative.” Molly sniffed. “And I can learn anything from reading. For instance, I learned a great deal from reading your crime file.”

“You read my file? I told you to stop digging up dirt on me! Damn it, stop bouncing!” She was jiggling in place. Oh, yeah, she definitely jiggled.

“I just warmed up. I want to stay that way.” She thrust her chin toward him. “Warming up is important. The book says so. I want to stay loose.”

“You’re loose as a goose. And you don’t need to be. This is my basketball team.”

“Are you guys talking about his record or our game?” Cia called out from behind Molly.

“We’re talking about his record,” Molly said.

“We’re talking about her bouncing,” Danny said.

“Oh, man, I want to up my ante,” said Fisk.

Danny stalked over to the library book and snatched it up off the floor. “This is a joke.”

“Why didn’t you defend yourself when they brought you in for questioning?” she countered. “Why didn’t you call a lawyer?”

“It wouldn’t have done me a damned bit of good. Get off my court.”

“No. Not until you explain.” She grabbed the book back from his hand.

“What’s it to you?”

“Maybe I just want leverage to use against you.”

If it meant he could part ways with that spandex, then Danny thought it might be worth it. He couldn’t look at her like this. Couldn’t. She was a cop. “Come with me,” he said shortly.

“Where?”

“To Ron’s office.”

“Why?”

“Stop with the questions for once, will you? Follow me. You want to talk? Fine. We’ll do it in private.” He was damned if he was going to give the kids more of a show.

He was halfway across the court before he sensed rather than saw her fall into step behind him. He stalked angrily through the vestibule and waited by the office door. When she passed through it, he slammed it shut behind her and went to the other side of the desk to keep space between them.

“We have a serious power struggle going on here,” he said.

Molly leaned her back against the door. “I was here first.”

“You’re not going to get rid of me. I don’t care how many times you tow my car. Regardless of my parole terms, it was my decision to be here.”

Somewhere along the line, she had started to realize that, and it made Molly feel small.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said again, sitting in Ron’s chair. He laced his fingers behind his head. The muscles in his upper arms flexed. Molly felt her throat go a little tight. “They’re my kids,” she said finally.

“Well, now they’re mine, too.”

Okay, so he had bought half of them gym shoes. “Let’s just say I accept that…since I have no choice. What’s your point?”

“We had an opposite-ends-of-the-gym agreement. This did not include you bringing library books onto center court.”

She tossed the book on Ron’s desk. The cover said Learning The Basics of Basketball, pretty much as he had expected.

“Maybe I’m willing to concede that you have a point about getting these kids on school teams,” she said. “A weak point, but a point just the same.”

That surprised him. He didn’t want her to be open-minded. He especially didn’t want her to be open-minded for the sake of the kids. It made him like her too much. “Then let me handle it. I know basketball. You don’t. There are other areas where you can help.”

“Such as?”

Damn it, he thought. Double damn it. She had both her hands wrapped around the doorknob at her back. It made her breasts thrust toward him. “I’m thinking.”

“That might be a stretch for someone who allowed the police to frame him.”

“Shut it off, Molly. You know nothing about that.”

“I’m trying to.”

“To what? Shut your mouth down? Yeah, I can see where that might be difficult.”

“I’m trying to figure out why anyone would let themselves go to jail without a fight.”

“It’s none of your business!” he shouted. She had a way of seriously getting to him. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “All right, let’s calm down here.”

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“Yeah, well, you are unless I decide to move in on your space. You get pretty shaken up whenever I get too close.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

But he saw it happen again, that flush come to her skin. Today there was a lot more skin. There was all that pretty freckled expanse over the top of her sports bra and a stretch of midriff between the bottom of that and the top of her spandex leggings. She had a truly fantastic body.

He couldn’t think like this. She was a cop.

Danny decided that he had gone too long without a woman. That was his problem. He made a mental note to remedy that little problem this very night.

He cleared his throat. “We…uh…need money. We need uniforms. We need the other cities to agree to play against us.”

It took Molly a moment to bring her mind back to sports. Her heart was still thumping. She did not want to be affected by him this way—Mr. Mobster, Mr. Ex-Con. But, oh, there was something about him.

“What are you suggesting?” She rubbed goose bumps off her skin absently.

“That if you want to help, come in here tomorrow and get on the phone.” Get rid of the spandex, he thought. It would also keep her out of his gym, out of his sight…off his mind.

“I might be willing to do that.”

“You’d do anything to help these kids.” It came out before he’d thought it through. And he knew he was right.

“Okay.” She scraped curls off her forehead. “That takes care of your team. What about the fact that the cops framed you for armed robbery? Who really put that money in your condo?”