“Carmondy? What are you doing here?” she demanded, resisting the urge to tug her sleep shorts down to cover a little more thigh. The hem of her tank top barely reached her hips, so that wasn’t much help. She now regretted her decision to stomp downstairs in her pajamas, and it irritated her that John could make her so self-conscious. With an effort, she kept her fingers away from her shorts and straightened her shoulders, even when she caught his gaze flicking down her bare legs ever so quickly before he focused on the phone in her hand.

“Your cell works, then?” he asked, the sarcastic edge to his words doubling her annoyance. Why was he peeved with her, when he was the one who’d shown up at her house at a completely unreasonable hour, pounding on the door just after she’d managed to fall asleep? To add insult to injury, Warrant was leaning against his legs, staring up at him with a look of complete hero-worship in his eyes. The way Carmondy was absently rubbing Warrant’s ears made things even worse, since it was hard to be aggravated when he was making her dog so happy.

“Did you come over here and wake up the entire house just to ask that?”

“I wanted to tell you over the phone, but you never called or texted back.” His voice rose in volume, still well below a shout, but it made Molly blink in surprise. Even when they’d sniped at each other, he’d always seemed secretly amused. She’d never heard him sound so irritated.

“You texted me?” She glanced down at the screen even as she realized that the texts from the unknown number—the ones she assumed were from her mom using a friend’s phone—must’ve been John. It made sense, now that she thought about it. The terse texts were much too short, drama-light, and passive-aggression-free to have been from Jane. “How’d you get my number?”

His sigh rumbled out of him in a heavy gust. Apparently, he was all about the drama. “Finding people is sort of what I do for a living. The question should be…why don’t you have my number?”

“Why would I have your number?” His offended expression almost made her laugh, but then she remembered how he’d just woken her up. “Carmondy. Why are you here?”

“What’s going on?” Charlie somehow made the entire question a yawn as she shuffled down the last few steps. Behind her, Norah looked equally sleep-rumpled but was alert enough to look wary. Molly barely had a chance to wonder where Felicity was when her youngest sister jogged down the stairs, looking ridiculously wide awake—and avidly curious.

“I don’t know yet,” Molly answered. “Carmondy’s too busy bitching about my refusal to figure out his locker combination so I could leave him notes after algebra.”

There was a moment of silence as her sisters blinked at her.

“What?” Charlie finally asked.

Raising her hand to brush away her sisters’ confusion, Molly remembered her vow from the night before and dropped her arm to her side. Just to make sure she wouldn’t make any Jane-like gestures unconsciously, she grabbed her right hand in her left and held on tight. “Never mind. Carmondy’s about to tell us all why he’s here, banging on the door and waking innocent, hardworking bounty hunters.” She gave him her best stern glare. “This better not just be you stepping up your recruiting game, because this is not the way to change my answer.”