Hard Eight

to Morelli’s house.

“Stick a fork in me,” I said to Morelli, “I’m done.”

Morelli closed and locked his front door and turned the lights off. “Maybe you should consider taking a less dangerous job, like human cannonball or crash test dummy.”

“You were worried about me.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said, gathering me into him. “I was worried about you.” He held me close and rested his cheek on my head.

“I haven’t got any jammies with me,” I said to Morelli. His lips skimmed my ear.

“Cupcake, you’re not going to need any.”

**********************

I WOKE UP in Morelli’s bed with my arm burning like mad and my upper lip swollen. Morelli had me tucked in next to him. And Bob was on the other side of me. The alarm was buzzing on the clock beside the bed. Morelli reached out and knocked the clock off the nightstand.

“Gonna be one of those days,” he said.

He rolled out of bed and a half hour later he was dressed and in the kitchen. He was wearing running shoes and jeans and a T-shirt. He stood at the counter while he had coffee and toast. “Costanza called while you were in the bathroom,” he said, sipping his coffee, watching me over the rim of his mug. “One of the patrols found Eddie Abruzzi about an hour ago. He was in his car, in the farmer’s market parking lot. Looks like he killed himself.”

I stared at Morelli blank-faced. Not able to believe what I just heard.

“He left a note,” Morelli said. “It said he was depressed over some business deals.”

There was a long silence between us.

“It wasn’t a suicide, was it?” I phrased it as a question, when it was actually a statement.

“I’m a cop,” Morelli said. “If I thought it was anything other than a suicide I’d have to look into it.”

Ranger killed Abruzzi. I knew it as sure as I was standing there. Morelli knew it, too.

“Wow,” I said softly.

Morelli looked at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded yes.

He drank the last of his coffee, and he put the mug in the sink. He pulled me in tight against him and he kissed me.

I said wow again. More feeling this time. Morelli really knew how to kiss. He took his gun from the kitchen counter and holstered it at his waist. “I’ll take the Ducati today and leave you the truck. And when I get off work we should talk.”

“Oh boy. More talk. That never gets us anywhere.”

“Okay, maybe we shouldn’t talk. Maybe we should just have sweaty sex.”

Finally, a sport I could enjoy.