Shaking off her wild thoughts, she pulled out her phone as a distraction. After reading a few texts from her sisters, she sent off a group text summarizing what had happened over the course of the morning…although she minimized the whole explosion thing. They didn’t need to know how scared she’d been when she’d thought it was a regular grenade, or that she and John had come inches from being blasted into nothingness.

A buzz from her phone brought her mind back to the present, and she saw that Norah had texted.

Great news! I’ll be back at the house in a few minutes, and I’ll take a crack at it.

Felicity and Charlie each sent a short congratulatory text, and Cara stayed silent. Concern rose in Molly’s chest, but then she remembered that Cara had class until one. Cara, being Cara, would never even consider keeping her phone on—even on silent—during a class.

“Any news on the hunt for your mom?” John asked, pulling her attention away from her phone.

“Nothing solid yet, but they do have a few leads.” Charlie had been exasperatingly vague, as usual, but Felicity had filled in some of the blanks. “They’re pretty sure they’re on the right track.”

“Are they going to be gone again tonight?” he asked, his attempt to sound casual failing so miserably that it caught her attention…and her suspicion.

“Why?” she asked. “Did you enjoy sleeping in my bed that much?”

He coughed, sounding strangled. “I just wanted to make sure you had some backup, in case your house gets burglarized again.” He put an emphasis on the again, as if she wouldn’t remember that every Tom, Dick, and Stuart had tried to break in over the past few days.

“Cara and Norah will be there with me. Oh, and Warrant.” She glared at him when the dog’s name made John snort. “Warrant can be ferocious when he wants to be.” Although she tried to think of examples, all she could come up with was that he snored ferociously, and that wouldn’t deter anyone from breaking in.

“I’m sure he can.” From his soothing tone, John didn’t actually believe in Warrant’s watchdog abilities. Sure, the hairy boy did sleep pretty soundly, and he tended to see all visitors as potential petters and bringers of snacks, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have his moment of save-the-family glory. One day. Maybe.

Shaking off her thoughts, Molly refocused on the point of the discussion.

“Besides,” she said, “you’re forgetting about Cara and Norah. With this new project, Norah will be awake all night.”

“They slept through the last break-in,” he said.

“That was a testament to our slick and silent expulsion technique.” She wanted to bristle at his implied critique of her sisters, but he wasn’t wrong. Unless a loud noise woke them, they did tend to sleep deeply. “Besides, we’ll have a security system by tonight. If the alarm goes off, everybody—including the neighbors—will wake up.”

Despite her excellent logic, John didn’t look happy, grumbling to himself as he glared through the windshield like the oncoming cars were to blame.