She brought the phone up to her ear and started talking to herself. She propped the box of books on her knee as she leaned into the car, still pretending to talk. She shoved the books to the passenger side, and then it was time to go into her act. She waved her free arm, forced a scowl on her face, and stomped her foot a few times to make a point to the nonexistent listener on the other end of the phone and the people watching from inside her house. All the while she was pretending to be an irate woman. She did what every mother of a ten-year-old would do—she looked everywhere, but she was really looking at her front window to see if there was still movement. There was. Finally, she let loose with a wide bellow, tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, and slid into the driver’s seat with one fluid move. She slammed the powerful car into reverse.

She was safe in the car, all the doors locking automatically because the engine was still turned on, the motor purring like the salesman said it would, the sound of a contented cat.

Before she could change her mind, Lizzie buckled her seat belt, her eyes on the rearview mirror, then back to her front window. Once she was on the road, she headed back the way she’d come. The moment she hit the highway, she put the pedal to the metal and roared down the road. She knew enough about law enforcement that she was confident she could talk her way out of a speeding ticket.

Nine minutes later, Lizzie Fox could have been mistaken for a race car driver as she careened around the corner at ninety miles an hour to come to a screeching halt, tires burning and smoking as she bolted from the car screaming her head off. “There’s someone inside my house! I saw the shutters move. I didn’t get out of the car, I just backed up and tore out of there.”

The gang gathered around the shaken lawyer, mouthing all manner of reassuring words until Lizzie calmed down. Then she started to babble about clean pajamas for Cosmo and how she needed to call her son and that Cosmo wanted his favorite pillow. She would have kept it up, except Jack whistled sharply and put his hands up. “Enough already! Let’s get inside and talk, not out here in public.”

That was the moment Lizzie sagged, and Ted caught her and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “It would help if someone opened the door!” he yelled.

“It would also help if we had a key to open the door,” Espinosa yelled in return.

“Check her key ring,” Maggie said. “Ah, this must be it!” she said, waving an oversized key ring that jingled and jangled as Maggie tried to pry it from Lizzie’s clenched fist.