Fearless Fourteen

by Janet Evanovich

  “Most people would leave a message on Brenda's cell phone.”

  “I'm not most people.”

  No kidding.

  “And she keeps changing her number,” Gary said.

  “Because she doesn't want you bothering her?”

  “She's very brave. And she doesn't want to impose.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be delusional?”

  “That's what the psychiatrist said, but I think he's wrong. There's an evil flying pizza out there, and it's got Brenda's name on it.”

  “I'm assuming your car is still parked on the street.”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm going to take you to your car, and then you're going to go home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is home?”

  “Morelli's garage,” Gary said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have a little camper that I tow behind my car. I parked it in Morelli's garage yesterday, and it's still there.”

  “Does Morelli know this?”

  “I don't think it ever came up.”

  We located his car, he followed me to Morelli's house, and we both parked at the curb. I got out and looked at his white Taurus.

  “I thought this was a rental,” I said to him. “No one buys a white Taurus.”

  “It matches my hair,” Gary said. “And it's my zodiac sign.”

  It made as much sense as anything else in my life. “Have you had dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Prowl through the fridge and make yourself a sandwich. If you're lucky, there's still some birthday cake left.”

  “Whose birthday?” he asked.

  “Ken's.”

  I brought him into the house, and he settled in with Zook and Mooner, so he could lurk. Morelli was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.

  “I brought Gary back here,” I told him. “He's helping out with the wood elves.”

  “That's a comfort.”

  “Yeah, I knew you'd be excited. I had Ranger run a check on Stanley Zero. I have the printout upstairs. One of us should take a look at him.”

  Stephanie Plum 14 - Fearless Forteen

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The phone rang at two in the morning. Morelli came awake first, a bare arm reaching across me to get at the bedside phone. Not the first time he'd gotten a call in the middle of the night.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  There was a short conversation, and Morelli hung up and flopped back onto his side of the bed.

  “You're not going to believe this,” he said. “On second thought, it makes perfect sense. That was your friend and mine, supercop Carl Costanza. He's working a shift with Big Dog, and they got a report that there were lights in the cemetery. Turns out it was a bunch of people who all got the idea to dig up Rose. One of them was your Grandma Mazur.”

  “Is she in jail?”

  “No. Everyone ran away when Carl and Big Dog drove up, but your grandmother recognized Carl and told him she needed a ride home.”

  “Omigod.”

  “Yeah. Carl said they're bringing her here. She didn't want to get dropped off at your parents' house in a police car because people would talk.”

  I rolled out of bed, scuffed through the clothes on the floor, and found what I needed.

  Zook was in the hall when I opened Morelli's bedroom door. “I heard the call,” he said. “Was it about my mom?”

  “No. It was about my grandmother. She's having a friend drop her off here, and then I'm going to give her a ride home.”

  Zook smiled. “I bet she did something bad and she's afraid your mother will ground her.”

  “Close enough,” I said.

  I padded downstairs in the dark and looked out the front window. No police car yet. I walked through the house to the kitchen to get a bottle of water and checked on the yard. No one digging, but there was a bar of light under Morelli's garage door. Gary was still up. Or maybe Gary was afraid of the dark. Lucky for Gary there was electric in the garage. Unfortunate for Morelli, since he was paying the bill.

  I returned to the living room, and Morelli joined me.

  “You didn't have to get up,” I said to him.

  “No way was I going to miss this.”

  We saw headlights glide to a stop in front of the house, and we went out to say hello to Carl and Big Dog.

  “Here she is,” Big Dog said to me, opening the door for Grandma. “Maybe your mother should put a bell around her neck.”

  He looked at Grandma and shook his finger. “No more sneaking out at night. It's dangerous.”

  “Thanks for the ride,” Grandma said. She looked in the car at Carl. “My regards to your mother.”

  Carl smiled and nodded.

  “Thanks,” I said to Carl and Big Dog. “I really appreciate this.”

  “We would have hauled her in, but it was too embarrassing,” Big Dog said. “She was the only one we could catch.”

  Morelli waved them off, and I buckled Grandma into the SUV.

  “Where's your shovel?” I asked her.

  “I didn't have one. I was just supervising. I went to Elmer Rhiner's viewing and Marion Barker was there with Bitty Kuleza. And Marion said she heard Rose was always saying how she was gonna take her fortune to the grave. And one thing led to another, and it ended up that we thought it would be a good idea to dig Rose up and take a look. So Bitty gave me a ride, and we met Marion and her two grandsons at the cemetery. Her grandsons are real big guys, and they were doing the digging.”

  “That's crazy!”

  “Yeah. I don't know what it is about that money, but it's just got ahold of me. It's a beaut of a mystery.”

  Morelli drove the short distance and parked in front of my parents' house. We watched Grandma sneak in, and we waited a couple minutes to make sure she didn't sneak back out.

  “You should snap me up,” Morelli said. “Not many men would marry you after meeting your grandmother. You're lucky to have me.”

  I looked over at him. “Is that a proposal?”

  There was total silence for a couple beats. “I'm not sure. It just popped out.”

  “Let me know when you're sure.”

  “Would you say yes?” Morelli asked.

  “I'm not sure.”

  “I bet I could convince you it would be a good thing,” Morelli said. “How about taking a look at my assets?”

  Oh good grief.

  It took us about twenty minutes in the alley behind the bonds office to appreciate his assets. When we finally returned to his house, all the lights were blazing and two squad cars were angle-parked at his curb. Morelli slid to a stop, and we hit the sidewalk at a run.

  “What's going on?” he said to the cop at the door.

  “Your houseguest heard someone break in and called 911.”

  Zook was standing in the hall, hanging on to Bob's collar. “Right after you left, I heard someone at the back door,” Zook said. “Bob heard them, too, and he started barking, and he never barks if it's someone he knows, so I grabbed Bob and brought him into my room, and then I locked my door and called 911. I put all my lights off and looked out the window at the backyard, and just before the first police car showed up, I saw two men run out of the house and across the yard.”

  “What did they look like?” Morelli asked.

  “I don't know. Just average. I couldn't see. It was real dark. But one of them had a shovel.”

  “You have forced entry on the back door,” one of the cops said to Morelli.

  “And the basement door was open. Other than that, everything seems okay.”

  After everyone left, Morelli walked through the house, checking windows and doors. He searched the basement, the closets, all nooks and crannies and under the beds.

  “Tomorrow we get the alarm system up and running,” he said.

  Morelli took his cereal bowl and coffee mug to the sink. “I'm going to take a look at Stanley Zero this morning. Do you have any plans?”

 
; “I'm doing laundry.”

  “That's pretty exciting.”

  “I'm washing sheets,” I told him.

  Morelli slid an arm around me and kissed my neck. “I love when you talk about sheets.”

  Now, here's the thing I like about Morelli. There's a lot of variety to his sexiness. He can be hot, he can be funny, he can be loving, he can be short on time and hungry. This morning, he was playful.

  “Would you like to know what I'm going to do to you tonight when you slide between those sheets?” I asked him.

  The depth of his eyes instantly changed, and he left playful behind. “Yeah,” he said. “I'd like to know.”

  “You have to wait.”

  “I'm not good at waiting.”

  “No kidding!”

  Morelli broke out in a wide grin. “Have I just been insulted?”

  “Only a little. Did you get the background report on Zero? I left it on your desk.”

  “Got it. Thanks. Keep your eyes open here.”

  “You betcha.”

  Ten minutes after Morelli left, Zook shuffled down the stairs and into the kitchen. He helped himself to a bagel and took it into the living room.

  Moments later, Gary was at the back door. “I thought I smelled coffee.”

  I pointed to the coffeepot. “Help yourself.”

  He looked at the bag of bagels sitting on the counter.

  “Would you like a bagel?” I asked him.

  “Yeah! That would be great.”

  Morelli was going to have to find the nine million and take a cut just to pay his electric and food bills.

  Sunday mornings are quiet in the Burg and surrounding communities. The women go to church, and the men take the Sunday paper and sit on the can. I've never understood the attraction of sitting on a toilet, pants at your ankles, newspaper in hand. I could think of a million better places to read the paper.

  And yet this is a firmly adhered-to Sunday ritual for Burg husbands. My father couldn't imagine a Sunday morning without this quality bathroom experience.

  Unmarried men seem to be exempt.

  After Morelli's car left his neighborhood, there was no more street traffic.

  No dogs were walked. No kids on skateboards. Just Sunday morning quiet. And that's why it was twice as startling when the brick sailed through Morelli's living room window.

  Zook and Gary were on the couch, deep into the world of Minionfire, I was walking through the living room, on my way to collect the laundry, and the glass shattered. We all jumped and there was a collective gasp of surprise.

  Jelly's apartment explosion and fire were still fresh in my mind. I looked at the brick, which had a small box attached, and my first thought was bomb. I rushed over, picked the brick up, and threw it back outside via the broken window.

  Gary and Zook were frozen on the couch, eyes huge, mouths open. I went to the front door and looked out. The brick was just sitting there on Morelli's postage-stamp lawn. The box attached to the brick looked small to be a bomb, but heck, what do I know? I watched it for a couple minutes and cautiously crept out to take a closer look. I was standing there, looking at the brick, when Mooner strolled up and stood next to me.

  “Whoa,” Mooner said. “That's a brick.”

  “Yep.”

  He bent down to see it better. “It's got a box attached to it.”

  And before I could stop him, he picked it up and shook it to see if the box rattled.

  “It's got the dude's name on it,” Mooner said.

  I craned my neck and read the writing on the box. Joe MORELLI.

  “What's it doing sitting here in the yard?” Mooner wanted to know. “There's no mail delivery today. It's a Sunday. Even I know that.”

  “Someone tossed it through Morelli's window.”

  “Get the heck out,” Mooner said. “Was the window open?”

  “No,” I told him.

  “Get the heck out,” he said.

  The box was held to the brick with electrician's tape. I took the box upstairs, set it on Morelli's desk, and called Morelli.

  “How's it going?” I asked him.

  “Not good. I got a call from dispatch. Two gang killings in the projects. I'm on my way there now. I don't know when I'll get home. Sometimes these things take time to sort out. What's up with you?”

  “Someone pitched a brick through your living room window. And attached to the brick was a box with your name on it.”

  “Is this for real?”

  “Yep.”

  “Put the brick and the box in the garage. Don't leave it in the house. Better to blow up the garage than the house.”

  “Do you think it's a bomb?”

  “I think it doesn't hurt to be careful. I'll deal with it when I'm done here,”

  Morelli said. “And I'll call Mooch and get him to replace the glass. And I'll make arrangements to have an alarm system installed.”

  I disconnected and stared at the box. I was faced with a dilemma. Gary was living in the garage. I didn't want to explode Gary. No big deal, I thought.

  Just ask Gary to pull his camper out of the garage.

  The doorbell chimed, the door opened and closed, and I heard Lula ask for me.

  “I'm upstairs,” I yelled at her. “Come on up.”

  Lula was dressed down. Running shoes, black stretch yoga pants, and a black stretch T-shirt that looked like it was going to burst at the seams.

  “What's the occasion?” I asked her.

  “I went to try some wedding gowns yesterday, and it was a depressing experience. First off, they only had itty-bitty sizes for those skinny bitches. Like us big and beautiful women don't get married? And then they said they were gonna have to charge extra on account of they were gonna have to order so much material. What the heck is that about? It's not like I'm getting a circus tent. So anyway, I decided I'd join a gym. I figure with the money I save on less material, I could pay for the membership.”

  “That's a terrific idea. I should do something like that. What gym did you join?”

  “I didn't exactly join a gym yet. I just got the clothes.”

  “It's a start,” I said to Lula.

  “Damn right,” Lula said. “What's this package with Morelli's name on it? And why's it on a brick?”

  “Someone pitched it through his living room window just now.”

  “Get the heck out. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Morelli wants me to put it in the garage for safe keeping until he gets home later today.”

  “I don't think that's a good idea.” Lula picked the box up and tested its weight. “It could be something important that requires immediate attention. I think you should open this sucker.”

  “It could be a bomb.”

  “Okay then, let Gary open it.”

  I did an eye roll.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Lula said. “He's always saying how he knows things. Let's see if he knows it's a bomb. Anyway, it don't look like a bomb.”

  “It's all wrapped up. How could you tell?”

  “Well, if it was a bomb, it would be a little one.”

  I heard Bob jump off the bed and head down the stairs.

  “I need to get the glass cleaned up before Bob steps in it,” I told Lula. “Put the box down and look up some gyms in the phone book and we'll check some out.”

  Five minutes later, I walked back into Morelli's office and found Lula unwrapping the box.

  “It's not a bomb,” Lula said. “There's a note in here and something all wrapped up.” She handed me the note.

  “That was addressed to Morelli,” I said to her.

  “Yeah, but I didn't want him to get hisself all blown up. Besides, I kicked the box around some and nothing happened, so I figured it was safe.”

  I unfolded the piece of paper and read the printed message.

  I KNOW YOU HAVE THE MONEY. GIVE ME THE MONEY AND I'LL GIVE YOU LORETTA. JUST