He breezed by her outstretched hands and wrapped himself around John’s legs, his tail wagging enthusiastically. Narrowing her eyes, Molly straightened and glared at the dog thief. John didn’t even notice her glare—he was too busy petting Warrant.

“How’s my sweetie pie?” John cooed, massaging the dog’s ears in a way that made Warrant groan in ecstasy. “Who’s the best boy? You. Yes, you are.”

Rolling her eyes, Molly walked away from the lovefest to find Norah in the kitchen.

Norah’s face lit with anticipation. “Do you have it?”

“Right here.” Molly pulled it out eagerly, her sister’s excitement at the find feeding her own. She held it out, and as Norah reached for it, the phone vibrated.

They both jerked back, and the phone started to fall. Molly reached out, trying to keep it from hitting the floor. Her fingers just touched the plastic case, bobbling the phone several times before her fingers closed securely around it. As the cell vibrated again, she moved to answer, but then remembered that she didn’t sound anything like Sonny Zarver—at least she assumed she didn’t. She’d never heard him speak before.

“Carmondy!” she called, dashing for the living room. At her call, John jerked up, his face falling into the stern, danger’s-here lines that she’d only seen on him a few times before—and all over the last few days. She chucked the phone at him, and he caught it automatically. “Answer! Pretend to be Sonny.”

To his credit, he didn’t waste any time asking her to elaborate. Instead, he answered the phone immediately. “Yeah?” he said gruffly. After a pause, he said, “It’s me. Sonny.” As Molly rushed to pull up the recording app on her own phone, she hoped that, unlike her, he actually knew what Sonny sounded like. Once she had it going, she held it up to show John, who immediately switched to speaker mode.

“…sound strange,” a male voice was saying.

John cleared his throat but kept his rough intonation when he spoke again. “Just woke up.”

Holding her breath, Molly glanced at Warrant, hoping he wouldn’t choose this of all times for a rare bark.

“It’s almost noon. Glad one of us is able to sleep.” The sarcastic voice on the other end of the call sounded familiar to Molly, but she couldn’t place the person. Filing it away in the back of her mind to think about later, she concentrated on what he was saying. “Are you taking tonight’s deal seriously? This could make us or break us, so if you’re just blowing it off…”

“I’m taking it seriously,” John said. “I’ve been sick, that’s all.”

“Sick or using again?”

“Sick.” John flashed a look at Molly, who was still trying to keep her breathing as quiet as possible. Norah was frozen in the kitchen entrance, looking as if she was just as petrified to make a noise. “I’m clean. You know that, so quit bitching at me and tell me what I need to know for tonight.”