They trooped out onto the porch, the elderly boards groaning under their combined weight. Molly automatically added checking the porch floor to her endless to-do list before realizing that it might not even be her house in a few weeks. Quickly, she shook off the thought. They had a month—possibly more—to track down Jane and drag her to court. She couldn’t act as if losing their house was inevitable. She and her sisters were smart and resourceful enough to track down their mom. That was their business, for Pete’s sake.

A police squad car pulled up to the curb in front of her house, rescuing her from her thoughts. As two plainclothes officers got out of the vehicle, she had to bite back a groan. These were the same two who’d had the warrant to search her house—Bastien and… She couldn’t think of the younger one’s name. She was suddenly glad that they’d moved outside. Those two detectives had seen more than enough of the inside of her house. Why couldn’t it have been Garcia or even Lieutenant Botha who’d responded to the call? The two detectives were from Denver, in Langston because of the necklace, so why were they responding to a call that was only peripherally related to the theft?

The two cops’ expressions were guarded as they approached the porch. As Bastien took in the sight of John, all ripped muscles and ferocious expression, his hand drifted to rest on the butt of his Taser. Molly sensed, rather than saw, John stiffen, and she hurried to speak before something unnecessarily bad could happen.

“Hey, Detectives.” She tried to put some cheer into her voice, but she was fairly sure she failed. “Thanks for coming. This one”—she tipped her head toward Stuart and then switched to pointing, wanting to make sure it was clear that she was referring to him and not John—“just broke into our house.”

“A lot of these types of things keep happening to you,” the younger detective—Mill, she thought, finally remembering his name—said with the flat intonation that held a wealth of suspicion. “Your car’s stolen and now this. You might want to think about why that is.”

Molly rested her hands on her hips, counting in her head so she didn’t utter the tempting but unhelpful retort that immediately jumped to her lips. Instead she managed to ask politely, “Why are you here? Aren’t you with DPD?”

Mill gave her a sour twist of a smile. “We’re working out of Langston for the time being. When we heard this address, we offered to take the call. We’re helpful like that.”

Helpful. Right. Before she could come up with a tactful response, John shifted over, putting his body between her and Detective Mill as he thrust Stuart toward the cop.

“Here. I’ve been restraining him since he broke in, so he hasn’t had a chance to dump his lockpicking tools yet. You’ll want to search him before he does.” Even though John’s voice was polite, his words rang with a command that made Molly wince and brace for the detective’s reaction. In her experience, cops reacted badly to having people tell them how to do their jobs—at least, they did when she was the one making suggestions.