“Maggie, what are you doing?”
On the third pull, it finally groaned open.
She cringed.
It was fine. If her aunt heard, Ethan would take care of it.
She swung one leg over, then the other.
“Maggie.”
“Relax, I’ve done this a million times.” Sure, she’d been sixteen and fearless, but she’d lived to tell the story.
One deep breath, and she dropped the small distance to the back porch roof, the small thud making her flinch. But she didn’t have time to overthink anything.
She looked up at Polly and waved her friend down.
Polly’s eyes flared. “Are you crazy?”
“Come on,” Maggie whisper-yelled. “It’s a small drop.”
“Oh yeah, and the Grand Canyon is a crack in the sidewalk.” Then Polly groaned and swung her legs over. She knew this was the only way down. She scrunched her eyes, and a second later, she dropped.
“See, it wasn’t so bad,” Maggie whispered, tugging her friend up.
Polly rubbed her backside. “It wasn’t so good, either.”
“Please remember who got us into this situation.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the worst.”
They moved to the edge of the roof.
Polly glanced up. “What about the open window?”
“There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“She’ll know someone was in her house?”
“Right now, all I care about is getting out of here before she sees us and calls Ward.”
Ethan joggedup the steps to Lilith’s front door and rang the bell. Joel sat in his own car, behind Ethan’s. He wouldn’t come out yet.
What the hell was Maggie doing in her aunt’s house? Hell, what wasPollydoing in there?
Right now, that didn’t matter. He had to focus on getting her out.
When the door didn’t open, he banged on the wood. He was a second away from breaking the damn thing down when the door swung wide.
Lilith frowned. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”
“Hi, Lilith. I was wondering if you could step outside with me and discuss your ponderosa pine.”
Lilith glanced at the tall tree in her front yard. “Is something wrong with it?”
He stepped back, giving Lilith space to step onto her porch. Eventually, she huffed and stepped out of her house to follow him down to the tree.
“After the fire at the station, my team and I are doing property checks for potential fire hazards,” he said, pulling the words out of his ass.
