He didn't flinch, but he schooled his face into one of nonchalance. "Oh, I don't."

I didn't believe a word of it. He knew Spencer. And on a first name basis. Although, now that I thought about it, did Spencer even have a last name? Wait. Was Spencer his last name? I'd have to research it later.

Regardless, I was onto Tony B. He said "the guys," like they were all best friends who hung out at the local pizza place-Buddy's-after work.

He just checked all the suspicious boxes.

"Do you have a piece of paper?" I asked, not risking a check of the glove box I'd worked so hard to close.

"No."

I glanced around the truck, trying to miss any more random guns he'd hidden in the space. In the pocket attached to his driver's side door, he'd shoved a bunch of what looked like old receipts.

"Can I use one of those?" I asked, pointing toward the door. It looked like he'd literally shoved them in there. The tops were poking out in a mishmash of a mess.

He glanced at where my finger pointed. "My takeout receipts?"

"Yeah, they'll work." I wasn't picky.

Tony grabbed one from the top without looking, and three others fell to the floor under his feet. He grumbled but passed it over.

"Here, watch the road for me," he said as he took his attention off the road to reach over and grab the loose receipts and shove them into his collection. "I need these for taxes."

The truck veered to the right, and I grabbed the steering wheel to position us back on the road before our tires dropped from the pavement.

Once he was back at the wheel, I used the pen from my coat pocket and rewrote my to-do list, adding "Investigate 'the guys'" at the bottom underneath "return the cat," "solve the murder," and "figure out what Anderson is up to."

I'd just finished creating my masterpiece when Tony slowed the truck and turned down a long, unmaintained driveway. It was basically a two-track that no one bothered to plow out through the winter. The pieces of the road that had been driven on the most were solid ice.

We were ten minutes outside of Pelican Bay but far enough away from the city that tall pine trees lined the road and surrounded a small cabin with chipped paint on the brown wood siding. A small porch circled the place and Tony parked right by the front steps.

"Did you bring me here to kill me?" I joked. From the snow piled on the roof and the closed blinds, the place seemed deserted.

He laughed. "No. If I wanted to kill someone, I'd do it on a boat and drop the body in international waters."

My hand hesitated on the door handle. "Wow, you've put a lot of thought into this plan of yours."

I'd done the same and come to a similar conclusion, but I didn't admit it so willingly to people I'd just driven into the woods.

Tony shrugged. "Dumb criminals get caught, and I wouldn't be a dumb criminal with no escape plan."

"Right." I got out of the truck once he'd shut his door behind him. I figured he probably wouldn't kill me here and then take me out into the ocean in February. The waters were hella choppy this time of year. It would draw suspicion.

The sun beat against the snow, but the air had a deep chill to it. If things didn't warm up soon, we were in for a chilly summer. I definitely had to find time for a Florida road trip.

Tony stopped in front of the door without knocking. "Okay, do your thing."

"What thing?" Did he want me to knock?

I knocked.

Tony closed his eyes and shook his head. "I need you to get me into this place. Didn't you tell me once that you can pick any lock?"

Oh, that thing.

"Yeah, sure, but it would have been good if you'd told me that in the text. What if I didn't bring my lock picks with me?"

His lips parted in understanding.

It was too cold to leave the poor guy in suspense any longer. "You're lucky I always carry them on me."

I reached into my pockets and pulled out the wad of Kleenex. I had nowhere to put it, so I motioned for Tony to open his hands. Next came the stun gun I'd found earlier, a packet of chewing gum I hadn't decided if I liked-too minty-my pen, a coupon for ten percent off at the diner, two treats for NB, and my favorite lip balm.

His hands were overflowing with my necessities, but I finally reached the small black case that held my lock stuff. Katy gifted it to me after my first unofficial mission as her protegee.

My hands were cold and shaky, so it took me a full four minutes to get the door open, but when the lock popped, I stepped to the side to let Tony go in first. If they were planning to shoot at us, he made a bigger target.

He unceremoniously dumped my precious items into my hands and then watched as I struggled to shove everything pack in the proper place. My pockets were a mess.

"Done?" he asked.

I clapped my empty hands together. "I guess."

Tony turned the knob and walked in without a second of hesitation.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, walking in behind him with my muscles coiled and ready to run.

Except I didn't need to worry because the place really was empty. Totally empty. Not a single dirty dish in the sink or even a piece of furniture. Someone had even recently vacuumed the carpets. I walked into the kitchen area that had a strong odor of cleaner.

"We're here to look around," he said as he opened the cabinet doors under the sink.

Weird. "Okay."

I walked onto the nice carpet in the living room and looked around. Literally.

Tony walked past me to the hallway, where I presumed, they had at least one bedroom. The place definitely had a cabin feel to it with wood paneling on one wall, but it looked big for just a holiday rental. Plus, no lake was attached to it like most of them.

"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked when he returned from the bedroom. Papers? Stolen money? Drugs?

"Oh," his head shot up as he noticed me. "Nothing. I'm thinking of renting it, but the agent couldn't get me in until Friday."

What? He used my powers for... his schedule. It was... it was... it was so something I'd do.

I laughed. "I like your style."

Tony spent a few more minutes tapping on the windows, and then we walked out together and he relocked the door. It didn't have one of those boxes with keys in it like rentals normally had. And no sign on the front yard announced the place for rent or sale, but it was empty inside and he hadn't covered up his fingerprints. Was he lying?

Naw. Not Tony.

"Are you thinking of sticking around in Maine?" I asked as we both got into his truck.

Tony started it before he answered and then turned around in the yard. He shrugged. "I like the place, and there is a disproportionate number of bail jumpers."

He had our town pegged there. "Just don't take a job with Ridge."

"No," he said and crinkled his nose. "I'm a lone wolf."

He checked his phone and typed out a quick message before turning out of the driveway heading toward Clearwater. "Let's go to that diner in Clearwater. They have a good milkshake. Can you get me the address?"

"Sure,"

I texted it to him, but Tony just waved his hand toward me when his phone rang. "Just let me see it on your phone."

That seemed like an invasion of privacy, but I handed it over to him with his text message pulled up.

"What the fuck is that?" he said, and the truck swerved.

"What?" My gaze frantically searched the roadway. Had a werewolf run out into the road? Did we have an axe-wielding serial killer chasing after us?

Tony righted the truck. "Why the hell is my name in your phone as Tony Balonie?"

I laughed. "Oh that. It's how I remember you."

"My name is Antonio, and that is not my last name. It's not even how you spell bologna."

"Yeah, I know, but this way rhymes better."

Tony opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but then he closed it and shook his head.

**

Two hours later, after a lively conversation at the diner about the best way to subdue a man, we were on our way to Pelican Bay. Tony drove past the wooden pelican that welcomed us to town and turned toward my apartment.

The conversation had grown serious since leaving the diner, and I didn't approve of the new direction. "I'm fully aware of what I'm doing, Tony."

"Don't abuse the whole Tony thing," he said with a frown. He'd just recently given me permission to call him Tony, and I'd never give it up. "I'm just saying that you need to stop stringing that poor man along."

I scoffed. No one had ever called Broadrick "that poor man." "I'm not stringing him along. He dumped me. I'm deciding if he's worth a second shot."

Tony, no... Antonio-I'd recently, as in just then-returned to calling him Antonio. Guys named Tony were nice and didn't stick up for your exes.

"He seems nice."

"He wrote me a Dear Vonnie letter in an email." Why did no one understand the significance of that? It was only one step higher than a break up text.

Antonio shrugged as he came to a stop outside the front of my apartment home. "War makes men do weird things."

Whatever.

We parted ways, and I turned to give him a wave right before I opened the outside door to the home, but he'd already turned around in a space. His window rolled down, and he waved his hand out the window as I slipped inside.

The home was quiet as I walked to the basement. No one doing any last-minute Monday-evening laundry. It gave me too much time to think on the journey down the basement steps, and I hoped Broadrick wanted to watch some television to get my mind off what Antonio said about me stringing Broadrick along.

I opened the door to my place and stopped before walking in. My heart sank as I blinked to guarantee I hadn't lost my mind.

Two steps into the space and nothing changed.

My apartment was empty. Absolutely, completely empty. They'd taken everything. Well, everything except the cat litter box, which the robbers left in the middle of the living room floor. Spencer walked out from the bedroom where the door was open, giving me a view of the space where my bed used to be. Who stole a bed?

"Who would rob me and leave the cat?"