'I didn't want you to miss anything.'
'Such as… oh God, give me a break. What time is it? It's still dark out.'
'There's this thing that happens when I wake up next to you,' Morelli said. 'It's very uncomfortable… in a good way.'
'What about the cake you promised?'
'It's baking.'
That was obvious.
'Can't you go back to sleep and pick this up in an hour or two?' I asked Morelli.
'I have to be at my desk in an hour or two. And my body doesn't work like that. Once the cake's in the oven, it keeps baking until it's done.'
'I'm tired. Maybe this is one of those times when you can have your cake and eat it too. You know, all by yourself.'
'Do you want to watch?'
'No! I want to sleep.'
Morelli nibbled on my neck, and his hand snaked around to my breast. 'Okay,' he said with his voice all soft and old-whiskey smooth. 'Go back to sleep. We'll do this some other time.'
I blew out a sigh. 'What kind of cake is it?' I asked. 'Coffee cake? Birthday cake?'
We were lying spoon fashion, and I could feel Morelli laughing behind me.
'It's a cannoli,' he said.
'Oh boy,' Lula said when I swung into the office. 'Only one thing puts that kind of smile on your face.'
'I had cake for breakfast.'
'Must have been damn good cake.'
Melvin Pickle was working at filing. 'I can't eat cake for breakfast,' he said. 'It's bad for my blood sugar level.'
'She didn't mean cake cake,' Lula said. 'That was one of them double entendre things. Boy you're awful slow on the pickup for a pervert.'
'Did you hear about Ranger?' I asked Connie and Lula.
'It came up on my news service this morning,' Connie said.
'What did the service say? Have they found him or his daughter?'
'No. It just said she was picked up after school by a man who met Ranger's description and not seen since. I tried paging him but he's not answering.'
I glanced out the front window. 'I see Carmen is back at the curb.'
'This just gets weirder and weirder,' Lula said. 'This is like Twilight Zone shit.'
Connie gave me a clipboard and then gave one to Lula. 'I don't have time to think about it this morning. We have people coming in for the BEA job. I cut the group of applicants in half by eliminating everyone with a criminal record,' she said. 'The rest have been divided into three groups. I'm calling those groups Best, Okay, and God Help Us. Hopefully we'll find someone before we get to God Help Us. The Best group is coming in this morning. We're going to give everyone a fifteen-minute interview, so this shouldn't take all day. I know you're anxious to go out there and round up some bad guys.'
'Yeah, I can't wait,' Lula said. 'I need to look like an idiot at least twice a day to keep myself humble.'
My clipboard had seven bios on it. Connie had run simple background checks on today's group and gotten the basics. First up was George Panko. He was scheduled for a nine o'clock interview. At nine-fifteen we ripped his sheet off the clipboard.
'Guess he changed his mind,' Lula said. 'Probably decided to get a good job… like feeding lions or cleaning kennel cages.'