All characters named in this story were created by Janet Evanovich, except the rookie cops and the teen gang members and Jacob Stanton (the House Monster), created by AutumnDreaming for this story.

All of Morelli's cop experiences in this story have been creatively adapted from the experiences of Ralph L. Dettweiler, former Sergeant of South Carolina Sheriff's Department, found at

Additional inspiration was gleaned from Charles Martin's novel Chasing Fireflies.

Steph's POV

When we walked out of the hospital room, I was surprised to see Mickey Maglio from the violent crimes unit sitting in the chair instead of Barna. Mickey and Morelli exchanged cop greetings. I turned to go back down the hall the way we had come, but Morelli went the other way, so Lula and I had to double back. Actually, Lula got sidetracked by the snack machine.

Morelli stopped in front of another room at the end of the hall, looking in the glass window of the dimly lit room. I peeked over his shoulder at Benny Gaspick lying in a hospital bed with tubes and wires sticking out of him. He was still breathing on a respirator and the sound of it sucking and clicking in time with the rise and fall of his chest just about made me sick.

"He looks really bad," I whispered, although I doubt he could hear me. He was surely heavily sedated. Just looking at him made me wish I was.

Morelli let out an ironic little laugh. "Funny," he said. "I thought he was looking great." I squeezed his arm and he pressed my hand with his. "He's going to make it, Cupcake." It was more a wish than a statement of fact, and we both knew it. Gaspick was a long way from well.

"You'll get the guys who did this," I said.

"We'll get them," he said, wrapping an arm around me.

Morelli dropped Lula at the office. Connie had offered to drive Lula home if she actually did some of work she was being paid for. Morelli and I headed back to his office at the cop shop.

While Morelli was drawing up the necessary paperwork for the arraignment, I was assigned the task of thumbing through a stack of photocopies Morelli had made that were stuffed into a cardboard filing box. They were the daily reports for the four cops who had been shot.

Most of the paperwork consisted of repetitious reports made on traffic accidents, speeding tickets, and other assorted Trentonian faux-pas such as public urination and whacking off in the Multiplex. As I filed that one back I felt a little guilty. I hadn't thought about Melvin Pickle in ages. I wondered how the little pervert was doing. He was one of the few FTA's I'd actually brought in on my own.

As I scanned the police reports, I was running through the facts in my mind. Item one. The first cop killed was Richard Kruselli, Julia Kruselli's son. She was yet another Burg gossip that often called my mother to tell on me whenever she heard a rumor about me, regardless of whether I was guilty or not. I didn't know Richard. He was quite a bit older than Morelli and me.

A few days later, William Roice was killed. Then Bob Grossman. Bob had once done a surveillance job for Morelli, but I guess they were more acquaintances than friends. Still, I knew this one had upset Morelli more than the others. I think he really identified with Grossman.

The first three were all killed with 9mm rounds.

Then it got weirder with Little J. and Benny Gaspick. Little J was shot with a .22 and Gaspick with an AR-15 semi-auto firing .223 Remington's.

It stood to reason that if there was a link between these guys, it was established prior to the killings. I put the reports in date order, ignoring who the reporting officer was. Then I started looking for any repeats. I didn't come up with anything, and my eyes were getting heavier and heavier.

Morelli finished his reports and stood to stretch and I pushed the box away. Morelli offered me a hand and pulled me up from the floor where I had been sitting. We walked out to the reception desk. Andy Diller was on. He gave us a smile as we both sniffed out coffee and doughnuts like a couple old pros.

We each made a couple calls on our cell phones. I called my mother to tell her I wouldn't be able to make dinner. I hadn't promised anything, but in light of recent events, it was smart to cover my bases. Morelli called Bell asked him to join him in the morning before the arraignment.

When we had both exhausted our small talk, we went back into Morelli's office and shut the door.

"Okay," he said, pulling one chair up to the side of his desk for me to sit near him. "Let's see if we have a picture developing here." He had a piece of paper on the desk and was drawing a few circles and lines. "We have four cops shot with intent to kill." He wrote their names in four circles at the top of the page.

Then he made two boxes at the bottom of the page where he listed Varela and Pavia in one box and Joe and Lucas in the other.

"Okay," I said, catching on. "Let's connect the dots. Stanton, the House Monster, is Lucas' and Joe's connection to the drugs and guns and money, right?"

"Right," Morelli said, writing Stanton's name in a box above Lucas and Joe. "And he's storing weapons for Lionel Boone." He wrote Boone's name in a box above Stanton.

"Okay, we know that Stinky is working for Boone, now, right?"

"That's the story I've heard, but it's hard to say. They used to be rivals." Joe made a box to the left and just a little lower than Boone for Sanders.

"And they were both aligned with Jamal Alou, but he's no longer in the picture."

"But he was, so we need to put him on our list," Morelli said, putting a big X through the box with Alou's name in it, sandwiched between Boone and Sanders.

"Okay, so, where does Little J fit into all this?" Morelli wondered out loud.

"Little J's friends told you it was Varela."

"They didn't have proof," Morelli said. "From where I'm standing, it could just as easily have been Stanton's boys. Without a murder weapon or eye witnesses, I'm stuck."

"You'd need a confession," I realized.

"Yep, pretty much…or a witness who hasn't come forward yet."

"Like Lino Pavia?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said, scratching his stubble.

Morelli wrote Little J's name in a box off to the side, just under Gaspick, and put a question mark by it.

We both stared at the paper for a while. My mind was a complete blank, and I wished I was in bed in my favorite thinking position, which usually appeared to be very similar to my napping position. Morelli seemed to be having the same thought. He yawned and pulled his chair back.

"Time to call it a night, Cupcake."

"We're getting somewhere, right?"

"Yeah," he said, not sounding terribly reassuring.

He dropped me off at my apartment, coming up to check it out before leaving. He looked under the bed, in the closets, and was making an even more thorough search than the night before, if that was possible.

"What are you looking for?" I asked, getting irritated.

"I don't know," he said suspiciously, "but I'll know when I find it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said hotly. I didn't need Morelli playing the jealous boyfriend again. If he thought I was harboring Ranger in my apartment, he was sorely mistaken.

Morelli was tired, and he didn't want to fight.

"Steph, when I look at you…" He blew out a long sigh. "How can I make you understand?" He took a step back from me and hooked his fingers in his back pockets and stared at the ceiling, silently asking God for help to find the right words. "When I close my eyes, I can still see you, just six years old, running up to me in my driveway. Your hair was short for the first time, and so curly, because you'd gotten gum in your hair and your mom had to cut it."

I smiled a little, remembering.

"To me, you'll always be small and trusting and running up to me…looking up to me, and expecting me to take care of you."

"You've never taken care of me, Joe!" I laughed at the thought. "You took advantage of me then. You took advantage of me in high school, and now and again you still manage to take advantage of me when the mood strikes you. Other times you don't call me for months on end. How can you call that taking care of me?"

He pursed his lips together in a quick, regretful smile. "I never hurt you, Steph. Did I?"

"Physically, no, but emotionally…YES!" He had hurt me big time.

He leaned back against the kitchen counter top. He knew I was right. Our history was a pile of dusty rubble.

"I just keep seeing you running up to me, Steph. Why? If I'm so awful for you, why do you keep coming back? What do you want from me?"

"I don't know, Joe!" I threw up her hands. "Maybe I just want you to be sorry!"

"I am sorry," he said, reaching out and grabbing my arms and pulling me a little closer. "Oh, baby, I am sorry. And I'm not. I wouldn't trade a single one of my memories of you for anything."

"You wrote my name on bathroom walls! You kissed and then you told everything! You made a fool of me, you embarrassed me. I just wanted to die," I sobbed. "And then, you didn't even call me."

"I thought we were through all this? Huh? That was a long time ago?"

"It was still you, Joe. You were insecure then, and you're still insecure now. And I don't know what I can do or say to make things more secure for you. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do. You're never going to completely trust me. This is as good as it gets!"

"If you hate me so much, what's this?" He asked, pulling me close and tracing a finger down the wet trail of a tear that had just run down my cheek.

"Why am I never enough for you?" I asked, breathlessly, looking up into eyes.

"You think you're not enough for me?"

"I wasn't before," I croaked in a hoarse whisper.

"I was eight and eighteen before," he said, trying not to laugh. "I had no concept of 'us'. There was only 'me' in those days. And even then, I saw you, and I wanted you. But I've grown up, and everything's different now. And you're more than enough." I pulled her close and pressed my lips to her cheek and whispered in her ear. "You're more than enough, and you're all I need."

To be continued…