is, while I was in love with Morelli for all these years, I'd always known it was best if nothing came of it. Loving Morelli was like loving cheesecake. Hours of misery on the Stairmaster, working off ugly fat, in return for a moment of blissful consumption.
All right, maybe it wasn't as bad as all that. Morelli had matured. How much he'd matured I couldn't nail down. Truth is, I didn't know a lot about Morelli. What I knew was that I had a hard time trusting him. Past experience led me to believe blind faith in Morelli might not be a smart thing.
In fact, now that I thought about it, maybe love wasn't the right word. Maybe enamored was better. I was definitely enamored.
We rode in silence for most of the way home. Morelli had the golden oldies station on, and I was sitting on my hands so I wouldn't rip the knob off the radio.
"You look worried," Morelli said.
"I was thinking about the note the bartender gave to Eddie Kuntz. He said Kuntz read it and took off."
"And?"
"The other notes were all in code. Kuntz couldn't figure them out. That's why Sally was brought into it. Sally was always the only one who could read the notes."
Morelli cruised down his street and parked in front of his house. "I don't suppose you'd consider turning all this over to the police?"
And cut myself out of a recovery fee and leave the possibility open for Joyce to bring Maxine in? Fat chance. "Nope. I wouldn't consider it."
Lights were blinking off in the downstairs windows in Joe's neighborhood. Early to bed, early to rise meant you had a job that allowed you to make the mortgage payment every month. Blocks away cars hummed on Chambers, but there was no traffic on Joe's street.
"I had something else sort of odd happen tonight," I said. "I had a run-in with a woman at the bar."
Morelli unlocked his front door and flipped the light switch. "And?"
I gave Morelli the details of the conversation. "So what do you think?" I asked.
"I don't know what to think. Obviously it wasn't Terry."
"No. It wasn't Terry. There was something familiar about her, though. Like maybe I'd seen her someplace before. You know, like a nameless face in the supermarket."
"You think she firebombed your apartment?"
"I wouldn't write her off the list. You recognize any women going in or out?"
"No. Sorry."
Our eyes locked, and we both knew the doubt was there.
He tossed his keys on a sideboard, shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it across the lone wooden chair. He moved to the kitchen, where he checked his answering machine, unclipped his gun and his pager and laid them on the counter. "You need to pass that information about the woman on to the arson squad."
"Should I call tonight?"
Morelli closed the distance between us and took me in his arms. "Monday will be soon enough."
"Hmm," I said, in a less than encouraging voice.
"What hmm?"
"I'm not sure this is a good idea."
He kissed me lightly on the mouth. "This was never a good idea."
"Exactly. You see, this is exactly what I mean."
"Oh shit," Morelli said. "You're not going to make this all complicated, are you?"
My voice rose an octave. "Damn right I'm going to make this complicated. What do you think this is here anyway?"
"This is . . . satisfying mutual needs."
"A good fuck."
"Well, yeah."
I shoved him away. "Don't you ever need more than a good fuck?"
"Not right now! And what about you? You going to tell me you don't need it?"
"I have control over my needs."
"Yeah, right."
"I do!"
"That's why your nipples are hard."
I looked down at my dress. You could see the shape of my nipples behind the cotton fabric. "They've been like that all day. There's something wrong with them."
A smile twitched at the corners of Morelli's mouth. "You want me bad."
Damn skippy I wanted him. And that made me even more furious. Where were my principles? I wasn't sure I believed his answer about the woman who confronted me at the bar. I sensed a continuing relationship of some sort between him and Terry Gilman. And here I was with hard nipples! Ugh.
"I can do without you just fine," I said. "Don't call me. I'll call you."
"You won't last through the night."
Egotistical jerk. "Fifty bucks says I will."
"You want to bet on this?" He sounded incredulous.
"The first one to crack pays up."
Morelli's brows lowered and his eyes narrowed. "Fine. It won't be me, sweetheart."