“Like now.”

“Like now,” she agreed, although she grimaced at the sergeant’s bad timing. “This is too important to hand off to some random officer I don’t know.”

John made an absent sound of agreement, as if his brain was working just as hard as hers. Molly was glad to have him on her team. As annoying as he could be, he was also extremely clever, and she’d had to be at the very tip-top of her game in order to steal a skip out from under him. In fact, she’d wondered a time or two whether those thefts had been too easy. Shooting him a suspicious sideways glance, she ran the possibility through her mind.

“What?” he asked, already blinking guileless, heavily lashed eyes at her.

“Did you let me steal your skips?” she asked baldly. Not only did she want to know the answer, but the distraction from her current, more critical issues was a relief.

Those eyelashes dropped for a long moment before they rose again. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?”

Before she could respond, he waved a hand, dismissing all future arguments with the same gesture that her mom—and Molly, despite her best efforts—used. Apparently, it was contagious. “Anyway, let’s get back to talking about Zach. If you’re not going to the cops with this, how are you going to shut him down? He most likely has your car—if he hasn’t sold it—and he’s telling everyone and their mother that you have the necklace. That’s not good, unless you enjoyed our late-night visit with Sanders and Cord.”

“I did not enjoy it one bit.” Molly paused, considering her words. “Okay, so maybe I enjoyed it a little when you slashed their tires.”

“Yeah.” His smile was just nostalgic enough to be amusing. “That was nice, wasn’t it?”

“Very satisfying.” When his eyebrows did that funny waggle thing that they did, she wanted to kick herself for using the word satisfying while talking with John, of all people. With a great effort, she brushed off her embarrassment and pulled herself out of the conversational rabbit hole. “Back to Zach, I texted Fifi and Charlie this morning, letting them know about him. Mom’s mess is their deal, and Sonny Zarver is mine. Sonny is what we need to concentrate on.” As soon as the words escaped, she realized how easily the we had slipped out, as if their team of two was an actual unbreakable thing now.

“Right.” John still sounded concerned. “Sonny. Just for curiosity’s sake, when’s your sergeant friend getting back? Any update?”

“No,” she answered gloomily. “Her kid must still be down with that mutant strain of chicken pox.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It really is.”

“Okay!” As they turned the corner just a few blocks from Dutch’s, John clapped his hands together once and then dusted them off, as if physically removing any trace of disappointment. “The sisters are handling Zach. We’ll get my car, bring Sonny in, and make it back to your house in time to meet Desmond to get your security system installed.”