Janet Evanovich - Hot Six

I put the cookie jar on the table and gave my mother a cup of tea. I sat opposite her and helped myself to a cookie. Chocolate chip. Very healthy, since she'd put some chopped walnuts in, and walnuts are filled with protein, right?

The front door banged open and closed, and Grandma stormed into the kitchen. "I did it! I passed my driver's test!"

My mother made the sign of the cross and put the wet towel back on her head.

"How come your arm's all puffy under your shirt?" Grandma asked me.

"I'm wearing a bandage. I got shot today."

Grandma's eyes opened wide. "Cool!" She pulled a chair out and joined us at the table. "How did it happen? Who shot you?"

Before I could answer, the phone rang. It was Marge Dembowski reporting that her daughter Debbie, who's a nurse at the hospital, called to say I was shot. Then Julia Kruselli called to say her son, Richard, who's a cop, just gave her the scoop on Homer Ramos.

I moved from the kitchen to the living room and fell asleep in front of the television. Morelli was there when I woke up, the house reeked of stuffed cabbage cooking on the stovetop, and my arm ached.

Morelli had a new jacket for me, one without a bullet hole in it. "Time to go home," he said, gingerly slipping my arm into the jacket.

"I am home."

"I mean my home."

Morelli's home. That would be nice. Rex and Bob would be there. Even better, Morelli would be there.

My mother put a big bag on the coffee table in front of us. "There's some stuffed cabbage and a fresh loaf of bread and some cookies."

Morelli took the bag. "I love stuffed cabbage," he said.

My mother looked pleased.

"Do you really like stuffed cabbage?" I asked him when we were in the car.

"I like anything I don't have to cook myself."

"How'd it go with Homer Ramos?"

"Better than our wildest dreams. The man is a worm. He ratted on everyone . Alexander Ramos should have killed him at birth. And as a bonus, we picked up Habib and Mitchell and told them they were being charged with kidnapping, and they gave us Arturo Stolle."

"You've had a busy afternoon."

"I've had a very good day. Except for you getting shot."

"Who killed Macaroni?"

"Homer. Stolle sent Macaroni over to get the Porsche. Guess he figured it'd pay off part of the debt. Homer caught him in the car and shot him. Then Homer panicked and ran out of the house."

"Forgetting to put the alarm on?"

Morelli grinned. "Yeah. Homer had gotten into the habit of sampling the wares he carried for Stolle, and he wasn't too with the program. He'd get stoned and go out for munchies and forget to set the alarm. Ranger was able to break in. Macaroni broke in. You broke in. I don't think Hannibal realized the extent of the problem. He thought Homer was sitting tight in the town house."

"But Homer was a wreck."

"Yep. Homer was truly a wreck. After he shot Macaroni, he really freaked. In his drugged-out, deranged state I guess he thought he could hide himself better than Hannibal could, so he went back to the house to get his stash. Only his stash wasn't there."

"And all that time Hannibal had his men out, scouring the state, trying to find Homer."

"Sort of gratifying to know they were scrambling around, looking for the little jerk," Morelli said.

"So what about the stash?" I asked. "Anybody have any idea what happened to the gym bag filled with money?" Anybody besides me, that is.

"One of life's great mysteries," Morelli said. "The prevailing theory is that Homer hid it while in a drug-induced haze and forgot where he put it."

"That sounds logical," I said. "I bet that's it." What the hell, why not let Dougie and Mooner enjoy the money? If it was confiscated it would only go to the federal government, and God only knew what they'd do with it.

Morelli parked in front of his row house on Slater Street and helped me out. He opened his front door, and Bob jumped out and smiled at me.

"He's happy to see me," I told Morelli. And the fact that I was holding a bag filled with stuffed cabbage didn't hurt, either. Not that it mattered. Bob gave a terrific welcome.

Morelli had put Rex's aquarium on his kitchen counter. I tapped on the side and there was movement under a pile of bedding. Rex stuck his head out, twitched his whiskers, and blinked his black bead eyes at me.

"Hey, Rex!" I said. "How's it going?"

The whisker twitching stopped for a microsecond, and then Rex retreated under the bedding. It might not seem like much to the casual observer, but in terms of hamsters, that was a terrific welcome, too.

Morelli cracked open a couple beers and set two plates on his small kitchen table. We divided the cabbage rolls between Morelli and Bob and me and dug in. Halfway through my second cabbage roll I noticed Morelli wasn't eating.

"Not hungry?" I asked.

Morelli sent me a tight smile. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too."

"How's your arm?"

"It's okay."

He took my hand and kissed my fingertip. "I hope this conversation counts as foreplay, because I'm feeling a real lack of self-control."

Fine by me. I wasn't seeing much value in self-control at all at the moment.

He took the fork out of my hand. "How bad do you want those cabbage rolls?"

"I don't even like cabbage rolls."

He pulled me out of my chair and kissed me.

The doorbell rang, and we both jumped apart.

"Shit!" Morelli said. "Now what? It's always something! Grandmothers and murderers and pagers going off. I can't take it anymore." He stormed off to the front of the house and wrenched the door open.

It was his grandma Bella. She was a little lady, dressed in Old Country black. Her white hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck, her face was free of makeup, her thin lips were pressed tight together. Joe's mother stood to the side, larger than Bella, no less scary.

"Well?" Bella said.

Joe looked at her. "Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to invite us in?"

"No."

Bella stiffened. "If you weren't my favorite grandson I'd put the eye on you."

Joe's mother stepped forward. "We can't stay long. We're on our way to Marjorie Soleri's baby shower. We just stopped by with a casserole for you. I know you don't cook."

I came to Joe's side and took the casserole from his mother. "It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Morelli. And nice to see you, too, Grandma Bella. The casserole smells terrific."

"What's going on here?" Bella said. "You two aren't living in sin again, are you?"

"I'm trying," Morelli said. "I'm just not having any luck."

Bella jumped up and smacked Joe on the head. "Shame on you."

"Maybe I should take this into the kitchen," I said, backing away. "And then I should be running along. I wasn't staying long, either. I just dropped in to say hello." Last thing I needed was for Bella to put the eye on me .

Joe grabbed me by my good arm. "You're not going anywhere."

Bella squinted at me, and I flinched. I could feel Joe dig in beside me.

"Stephanie's staying here tonight," he said. "Get used to it."

Bella and Mrs. Morelli sucked in a breath and pressed their lips tight together.

Mrs. Morelli tipped her chin up a half-inch and gave Joe a piercing glare. "Are you going to marry this woman?"

"Yeah, for crying out loud, I'm going to marry her," Joe said. "The sooner, the better."

"Married!" Bella said, clasping her hands together. "My Joseph, getting married." She kissed both of us.

"Wait a minute," I said. "You never asked me to marry you. You're the one who doesn't want to get married."

"I changed my mind," Morelli said. "I want to get married. Hell, I want to get married tonight."

"You just want to have sex," I said.

"Are you kidding? I can't even remember sex. I don't even know if I can still do it."