Hot Six (Stephanie Plum 6)

nks for the vote of confidence.”

“It's the way it is,” Ranger said.

“And another thing, Morelli wants you to call him. He's been watching somebody for a long time, and now you're involved with this somebody, and Morelli thinks you could be of some help to him.”

“Later,” Ranger said. And he hung up.

Fine. If that's the way he wants it, then that's just peachy fine.

I huffed off to the kitchen, got my gun out of the cookie jar, grabbed my shoulder bag, and stomped down the hall, down the stairs, through the lobby to the Buick. Joyce was parked in the lot, in the car with the crumpled bumper. She saw me come out of the building and gave me the finger. I gave it back to her and took off for Morelli's house. Joyce was following one car length behind. Okay by me. She could follow me all she wanted today. As far as I was concerned Ranger was on his own. I was taking myself out of the picture.

MORELLI AND BOB were sitting side by side on the couch, watching ESPN, when I came in. There was an empty Pino's Pizza box on the coffee table, an empty container of ice cream and a couple crushed beer cans.

“Lunch?” I asked.

“Bob was hungry. And don't worry, he didn't get any beer.” Morelli patted the seat next to him. “There's room for you, here.”

When Morelli was being a cop, his brown eyes were hard and assessing, his face was lean and angular, and the scar that sliced through his right eyebrow gave the correct impression that Morelli had never lived a cautious life. When he was feeling sexy, his brown eyes were molten chocolate, his mouth softened, and the scar gave the mistaken impression that he might need a teensy bit of mothering.

And right now, Morelli was feeling very sexy. And I was feeling very unsexy. In fact, I was feeling absolutely grumpy. I plopped myself down on the couch and scowled at the empty pizza box, remembering my lunch of olives.

Morelli slid his arm around my shoulders and nuzzled my neck. “Alone at last,” he said.

“I have something to tell you.”

Morelli went still.

“I sort of happened on a dead guy today.”

He slouched back on the couch. “I have a girlfriend who finds dead guys. Why me?”

“You sound like my mother.”

“I feel like your mother.”

“Well, don't,” I snapped. “I don't even like when my mother feels like my mother.”

“I suppose you want to tell me about this.”

“Hey, if you don't want to hear it, that's no problem. I can just call it in to the station.”

He sat up straighter. “You haven't called it in? Oh shit, let me guess: you broke into someone's house and stumbled onto a homicide.”

“Hannibal's house.”

Morelli was on his feet. “Hannibal's house?”

“But I didn't break in. His back door was open.”

“What the hell were you doing walking into Hannibal's house?” he yelled. “What were you thinking?”

I was on my feet, too, and I was yelling back. “I was doing my job.”

“Breaking and entering isn't your job.”

“I told you, it wasn't breaking. It was only entering.”

“Well, that makes all the difference. Who did you find dead?”