His grumpiness was actually sort of funny. “Admit it. You’re just in love with my bed and want to sleep there every night,” she teased.

The look he shot her was so filled with unexpected heat that her toes literally curled in her boots. His attention returned to the road, and she took a few moments to get her breathing back under control. She barely resisted fanning her face. “My bed’s nicer,” he finally said, and the mention of his bed made the molten heat inside her fire up again.

Stop it, she commanded her libido. That was an innocent comment, and you’re being ridiculous. Her self-directed lecture didn’t help. Clearing her throat, she decided a change of subject was in order. “Did you find anything in the other two rooms?”

“The one on the end was a sewing room and a bust, but I grabbed this from Tick’s room.” He pulled a small notepad from one of his many pockets and handed it to her.

She flipped through it. “Tick’s not a bad doodler,” she said, admiring a sketch of a spider in the corner of one page. Most of the pages had simple drawings or patterns, although there were a few notes interspersed throughout the notepad. One was a to-do list, including “tell Mom to buy Cheetos,” but there were some others that had more potential, like a phone number and a scribbled local address. “Nice work, Carmondy.”

“Thanks,” he said as he pulled up in front of her house. “But the real find is that phone.”

“We’ll see if Norah can pull anything off it.” She was trying to tone down her anticipation, in case the cell was a dud with no usable information. “Should I feel bad that Mother Tick is going to think Sonny’s a weirdo who took off all her electrical outlet plates?”

John snorted. “With all the bad things he’s done, Sonny Zarver deserves that and so much more.”

“True.” If all went well, Sonny would be headed back to jail soon, and Molly kind of liked the idea of being a force for karma.

As they headed toward the front door, she looked around for strange vehicles parked on the street, but it was empty. Somehow, that didn’t reassure her. Instead, it felt like people could be hiding in any shadow. She usually loved having the national forest so close, wrapping the west side of their neighborhood like a cozy natural blanket, but now the deep reach of towering trees made her feel uneasy. Whole legions of criminals could be tucked back in the trees, just waiting for their opportunity, and she wouldn’t be able to bring them all down with just her Taser and her rudimentary knowledge of self-defense.

With a shiver, she hurried into the house.

“You okay?” John asked as he followed her inside.

She hesitated, debating whether she should share her completely illogical fears with him. Before she could say anything, a huge white ball of fur came galumphing toward them. “Hey, Warrant,” she said, bending over to greet him. “What brought on this show of love?”