“And after that?”

A tiny thread of guilt jabbed into her. “Are you sure you want to be involved in this whole mess?” She waved her arms, broadly indicating the house and everything that went along with it—her sisters and mom and Sonny Zarver and Barney and all the less-than-stellar characters who clung like leeches to the latter three.

“Are you kidding?” Dimple on full display, he mirrored her stance, leaning against the wall across from her. “Explosions? Tracking skips through abandoned warehouses? Exploring the underbelly of Langston society? This is why I became a bounty hunter.”

Rolling her eyes, she decided she believed just about a quarter of his enthusiasm. After all, he could’ve found all that chasing his own skips and not had to deal with all of the nonsense that was part of Pax Bail Recovery at the moment. “Fine. It’s your funeral.” She paused. “Hopefully not literally.”

“It’s so sweet that you don’t want me to die.”

“That changes moment to moment,” she said honestly. Instead of looking offended, John just laughed. Of course he found that funny.

They decided to walk to Dutch’s. It was far enough that Molly left Warrant at home, knowing that John would end up having to carry the dog over his shoulders like a shepherd with a huge, fluffy sheep. As Molly and John passed the burglar’s disabled SUV, a flatbed tow truck pulled up in front of it. She couldn’t hold back a smile. Either Sanders and Cord had called for help bright and early that morning, or Mr. P couldn’t stand having the vehicle sitting at his curb for even an hour or two in daylight. She was almost certain it was the latter.

Molly hummed quietly as they turned the corner at the end of her street, glad that Sanders and Cord had to deal with the headache of retrieving their car from the impound lot and weirdly happy to be walking. Even though she’d never admit it to Felicity, she missed starting the day with a sister-run boot-camp torture session. Without it, she felt lazy and slow, like she still had one foot in bed. The walk to the bar woke her up, knocking the sleepiness out of her and kicking her brain into gear.

“What are you going to do about Zach Fridley?” John asked.

A little startled at his apparent mind-reading skills, Molly met his gaze and then lifted one shoulder, more in indecision than apathy. “I’m torn. Since Sergeant Blake is out, I don’t think just turning over his name to Detectives Hostile and Hostile-er is going to do anything unless I hand over a mountain of evidence against him at the same time.” Although she didn’t say it, even if she did have that evidence, she didn’t trust those two cops enough to turn it over to them.

“Isn’t there someone else you could deal with?”

Mentally paging through the cops at Langston’s small department, she shook her head. “None that I know well enough to trust. Mostly I deal with the sheriff’s department, since they run the jail. The only time I deal with Langston PD is when Mom does something squirrelly or if I need information and Blake isn’t available.”