Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,36

me.

"You hung up on me," he said. "Don't ever hang up on me."

His voice was quiet, but as always the authority was unmistakable. He was wearing black dress slacks, a long-sleeved lightweight black sweater pushed up on his forearms, and expensive black loafers. His hair was cut very short. I was used to seeing him in SWAT dress with long hair, and I hadn't immediately recognized him. I guess that was the point.

"Are you in disguise?" I asked.

He watched me without answering. "What's in the bag?"

"An emergency cinnamon bun. What are you doing here?"

"I thought we might make a deal. How bad do you want DeChooch?"

Oh boy. "What did you have in mind?"

"You find DeChooch. If you need help bringing him in you call me. If I succeed in the capture, you spend a night with me."

My heart stopped beating. Ranger and I had been playing this game for a while now, but it had never been articulated in quite this way.

"I'm sort of engaged to Morelli," I said.

Ranger smiled.

Shit.

There was the sound of a key being inserted in my front door lock and the door swung open. Morelli strode in and he and Ranger nodded to each other.

"Game over?" I asked Morelli.

Morelli gave me a death look. "The game's over and the baby-sitting is over. And I don't ever want to see this guy again."

"Where is he?"

Morelli turned and looked. No Mooner. "Christ," Morelli said. He went back to the hall and yanked Mooner into the room by Mooner's jacket collar, the Trenton PD equivalent to a mother cat dragging a demented offspring by the scruff of his neck.

"Dude," Mooner said.

Ranger stood and passed me a card with a name and address written on it. "The owner of the white Cadillac," he said. He slipped into a black leather jacket and left. Mr. Sociable.

Morelli deposited Mooner in a chair in front of the television, pointed his finger at him, and told him to stay.

I raised my eyebrows at Morelli.

"It works with Bob," Morelli said. He put the television on and motioned me into the bedroom. "We need to talk."

There was a time when the idea of being in a bedroom with Morelli scared the hell out of me. Now mostly it makes my nipples get hard.

"What's up?" I said, closing the door.

"Mooner tells me you picked out a wedding gown today."

I closed my eyes and flopped back onto the bed. "I did! I let myself get sucked into it." I groaned. "My mother and grandmother showed up and next thing I was trying on gowns at Tina's."

"You'd tell me if we were getting married, wouldn't you? I mean, you wouldn't just appear on my doorstep in the gown one day and say we were due at the church in an hour."

I sat up and narrowed my eyes at him. "No need to get snippy about it."

"Men don't get snippy," Morelli said. "Men get pissed. Women get snippy."

I jumped up from the bed. "That's so typical of you to make a sexist remark!"

"Lighten up," Morelli said. "I'm Italian. I'm supposed to make sexist remarks."

"This is not going to work."

"Cupcake, you'd better figure this out before your mother gets her Visa bill for that dress."

"Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to get married?"

"Sure. Let's get married now." He reached behind him and locked the bedroom door. "Take your clothes off."

"What?"

Morelli pushed me down and leaned over me. "Marriage is a state of mind."

"Not in my family."

He picked up my shirt and looked under it.

"Hold it! Wait a minute!" I said. "I can't do this with Mooner in the next room!"

"Mooner's watching television."

His hand cupped my pubic bone, he did something magical with his index finger, my eyes glazed over, and some drool trickled out of the corner of my mouth. "The door's locked, right?"

"Right," Morelli said. He had my pants down to my knees.

"Maybe you should check."

"Check on what?"

"On Mooner. Make sure he's not listening at the door."

"I don't care if he's listening at the door."

"I care."

Morelli sighed and rolled off me. "I should have fallen in love with Joyce Barnhardt. She would have invited Mooner in to watch." He opened the door a crack and looked out. He opened it wider. "Oh shit," he said.

I was on my feet with my pants up. "What? What?"

Morelli was out of the room, moving through the house, opening and closing doors. "Mooner's gone."

"How could he be gone?"

Morelli stopped and faced me. "Do we care?"

"Yes!"

Another sigh. "We were only in