To the Nines (Stephanie Plum 9)

“This guy's turning out to be a real pain in the ass,” I said. “Now what's the bad news?”

“Grandma Bella's on her way over.”

“What?”

“She called just as you were coming down the street with Bob. She said she had another vision and she had to tell you.”

“You're kidding!”

“I'm not kidding.”

“Why didn't you tell her not to come? Why didn't you tell her I wasn't home?” All right, maybe I sounded a little whiney, but this was Grandma Bella we were expecting. And whiney was better than flat-?out hysteria, right?

“She's coming with a dish of my mother's manicotti. Have you ever tasted my mother's manicotti?”

“You sold me out for manicotti!”

Morelli grinned and kissed me on the forehead. “You can have some, too. And by the way, your hair is cute.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn't feeling cute. In fact, I'd decided I didn't like cute. Cute wasn't a word anyone would use to describe Morelli or Ranger. Cute implied a degree of helplessness. Kittens were cute.

A car stopped in front of the house and I took a deep breath. Calm down, I thought. Don't want to be rude. Don't want to let them sense fear. There was a knock at the door and Joe reached for the handle.

“Touch that handle and you die,” I said. “She's coming here to see me. I’ll let her in.”

The grin returned. “Woman in charge,” Morelli said.

I opened the door and smiled at the two women. “How nice to see you again,” I said. “Come in.”

“We can't stay,” Joe's mother said. “We're on our way to church. We just wanted to drop this manicotti off.”

I took the casserole and Grandma Bella fixed her scary eye on me.

“I had a vision,” Bella said.

I looked down at her and screwed my face into an expression that I hoped conveyed mild interest. “Really?”

“It was you. You were dead. Just like the last time. You went into the ground.”

“Uh-?hunh.”

“I saw you in the box.”

“Mahogany? The model with the scroll work?”

“Top of the line,” Bella said.

I turned to Joe. “Nice to know.”

“A comfort,” Joe said.

“So was there anything different about the vision this time?” I asked Bella.

“It was the same vision. But last time I forgot to tell you . . . you were old.”

“How old?”

“Real old.”