Hard Eight

head and closed my eyes. The doorbell kept ringing. “Go away,” I yelled. “Nobody’s home!” Now there was knocking. And more ringing. I threw the pillow off and heaved myself out of bed. I stomped to the door, wrenched it open, and glared out. “What?”

It was Kloughn. “It’s Saturday,” he said. “I brought doughnuts. I always have doughnuts on Saturday morning.” He looked more closely. “Did I wake you up? Boy, you don’t look all that good when you wake up, do you? No wonder you’re not married. Do you always sleep in sweats? How’d you get your hair to stick out like that?”

“How’d you like to have your nose broken a second time?” I asked. Kloughn pushed past me, into my apartment. “I saw the car in the parking lot. Did the police find it? Do you have my handcuffs?”

“I don’t have your handcuffs. And get out of my apartment. Go away.”

“You just need some coffee,” Kloughn said. “Where do you keep the filters? I’m always a cranky pants in the morning, too. And then I have my coffee, and I’m a new person.”

Why me? I thought.

Kloughn got the coffee out of the refrigerator and started the machine. “I didn’t know if bounty hunters worked on Saturday,” he said. “But I thought better safe than sorry. So here I am.”

I was speechless.

The front door was still open, and there was a rap on the doorjamb behind me. It was Morelli. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Kloughn said. “I just brought jelly doughnuts.”

Morelli gave me the once-over. “Frightening,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I had a bad night.”

“That’s what they tell me. I understand you were visited by a large bird. An owl?”

“So?”

“The owl do any damage?”

“Nothing worth mentioning.”

“I’m seeing more of you now than I did when we were living together,” Morelli said.

“You aren’t doing all this stuff just to have me stop around, are you?”

6

“OH JEEZ, I didn’t know you two used to live together,” Kloughn said. “Hey, I’m not trying to cut in on anything. We just work together, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“So, is this the guy you’re engaged to?” Kloughn asked.

A smile twitched at the corner of Morelli’s mouth. “You’re engaged?”

“Sort of,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Morelli reached into the bag and selected a doughnut. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Kloughn’s voice was apologetic. “She hasn’t had any coffee yet.”

Morelli took a bite of doughnut. “You think coffee will help?”

They both looked at me.

I pointed stiff-armed to the door. “Out.”