Disclaimer: Janet Evanovich owns everyone, except Will Tusen and Peter Atolo (who'll show up in a bit) and I'm not all that excited about owning them, either.

Thanks everyone who reviewed. I love getting reviews :) I'm going to try to update once a day, unless, of course, I can't...then I won't update once a day. (Wow...let's see if I can be any more obvious)

Oh! And also, if anyone can tell me what AU means, I may very well love you forever. Or at least, for a while. Cause I've seen it a lot and, in my unknowledgeableness (wow...that's a long word. I'm pretty sure it's fake, too) I haven't a clue what it means. So...yeah. Tell me, por favor:)

Chapter 3

I woke up and felt rather sick. I groaned. I suppose eating an entire tub of ice cream last night hadn't been the best idea. I went into the bathroom and threw up, then went back into by bedroom. That's when I noticed the note.

On my pillow, right next to a beautiful red rose, was a note. I walked to it and picked it up. It said "Good morning, gorgeous." That was it. No signature. The note was on the back of a picture, so I flipped it over and examined the picture. It was taken two days ago, on the distraction job. I was about to go into the bar, and I'd looked back over my shoulder at Ranger.

I guessed there were three possibilities. It could be Morelli. However, I didn't think he'd do this right after I broke his nose (ok, so I didn't know for sure that I'd broken his nose, but hey, a girl can hope, right?). Also, it seemed unlikely that he'd follow me on a distraction and watch and not say anything about it. Especially if he waited and saw me kiss Ranger. Option 2: Ranger. The problem with this it that, he was who-knows-where, and I definitely couldn't imagine him giving Tank the order to write me this note and leave it, along with a rose, on my pillow. I had to smile as I imagined the scene. It was sort of amusing. The smile left, however, as I considered Option 3: a psycho stalker. Not that psycho stalkers were a new thing for me. Really, I might even be immune to them by now. Here I am, considering the fact that a stalker just broke into my house and left me this little note, but I'm not all that worried. Neither the note nor the rose seem dangerous to my health.

So, having decided that they were from a stalker who was, as of yet, not a threat, I put the rose in the trash and kept the note, in case it was a psycho and I needed to show it to someone later. I put the note in my kitchen drawer and then pushed it out of my mind.

I got dressed, gave Rex a grape, and then went out to my car. I pulled out of the lot and got some doughnuts, then went to the office. Lula and Connie both looked up as I came in and set the doughnuts on Connie's desk. I took a doughnut for myself and, looking at their smiles, marveled at the fact that they somehow managed to look sympathetic, proud, and satisfied all at once.

"I hear you broke Supercop's nose." Lula's voice was like her expression, except without the sympathy and with more happiness. I take it she approved of my reaction to discovering Morelli and Terri.

I smiled, but it felt forced. "I'm glad. I hoped I'd broken it, but I hadn't been sure." I decided not to pretend I was happy. After all, I wasn't. "The scumbag was doing it on the dining room table. It's always the dining room table! At least it wasn't Joyce this time. If it had been, I swear, I'd have gone home and gotten my gun. In fact, I'm thinking shooting Joe isn't too bad of an idea." Truthfully, I'd worn my gun today solely for that purpose. I was pretty sure it wasn't loaded, but I could still point it at him if I saw him. Not that he'd be fooled, probably. I could just throw the gun at him if he got close enough, but that seemed childish. And quite possibly, he'd dodge it. Maybe I'd just run him over if I saw him. I'm rather surprised I didn't do it last night. Apparently, I said all this out loud, because Lula nodded and Connie told me that if I didn't run him over, she could have him killed.

Now that I'd vented about how much men sucked, I was a lot happier, so I cheerfully thanked Connie and then got my folders from her and went out to my car. I was happier, but not happy, of course. So, if I saw Morelli, I would still probably shoot him, despite my improved mood. Just in case, I checked my gun and was disappointed to see that it was unloaded. Way to ruin my mood.

My first two apprehensions went smoothly (one of them was Mooner, so that one is easily explained), but my third skip obviously wasn't in the mood to go to the police station.

I announced who I was and he slammed the door and ran out the back. Because he'd left it unlocked, I re-opened the door, ran through his house, and took off after him. He'd gotten a good lead on me, and he was fast, so I couldn't get close enough to tackle him. His back yard had a fish pond in it and 'ornamental' bushes and rocks around it. As he was trying to swerve to avoid the pond, he stumbled on a small rock. Not enough to fall, but enough that I caught up and tackled him. And of course, because it's me and this sort of thing always happens, we landed in the pond. The water was freezing and…very wet. I was surprised, but I still managed to whip out my cuffs and cuff his hands behind his back. Then I climbed out of the pond, pulled him out, and looked down at myself.

Excellent. My shirt, which, conveniently, was white, was drenched, plastered to my body, and pretty much see through. I grabbed as much of my shirt as I could without pulling it off, and smashed it in my fists, wringing it out. Then I wrung out my hair as best as possible, pulled my skip to his feet, and trudged wetly, my shoes making little 'squoosh' sounds with each step, towards my car.

I pushed the skip into the back seat, got into the front, and pulled a sweatshirt from under the seat, pulling it on over my wet shirt. Then, I drove to the police station, got my skip back out of the car, and went inside.

I was hoping that I wouldn't see Morelli, because if I did, I couldn't very well run over him if my car was outside and I was inside. I waited as the desk clerk wrote my body receipt, then hurried outside. I spotted Morelli's truck and concluded that most of the cops must be out to lunch, because only one car was parked next to his truck. I considered trying to do some damage to his truck, but I was pretty sure that vandalizing private property while standing in the police station parking lot wasn't the best plan of action.

I decided to ignore Morelli's truck, and I turned towards my car. I opened the door and almost sat down, but then I noticed a note taped to my steering wheel. "Step back" is all it said, and, on my dashboard, there was another red rose. It took me about a second to figure out why I was being told to step back. I'd never seen one before (although I'd seen the effects many times) but even I could recognize a bomb when I saw it. Instead of stepping back, though, I quickly grabbed it, turned and threw it in a random direction, as far from my car as possible.

Or rather, at the moment, I'd thought it was a random direction. But, as I saw the bomb land in the bed of Morelli's truck, I'm not going to say I wasn't slightly satisfied. I had barely had time to register all this (the bomb, me throwing it, it landing in Morelli's truck) before it exploded, sending Morelli's truck and the unfortunate car parked next to it to Car Heaven.

As the shockwave hit me, I stumbled back and hit my car, but didn't fall. I stood there, staring at the flaming, smoking remains of the two cars, with a feeling of mixed happiness and worry. Happiness because I'd just bombed Morelli's car and couldn't (I was pretty sure) get in trouble for it. Worry because, not only was there the chance that I might get in trouble for it, but also, someone had just tried to blow up my car.

As can be expected, at the sound of the explosion, cops poured out of the station. The look on Morelli's face, combined with the fact that a large portion of his face was covered with a bruise I knew I'd given him, made me laugh. First it was just a chuckle, and then, as the situation sunk in (the situation being this: he was always lecturing me because my cars exploded, but the last two cars that had exploded in my presence had been his), I started cracking up. I had to lean against my car for support, and I registered dimly that all the police were now staring at me, not at the two ex-cars.

Morelli's expression changed from shock and dismay to fury. He stalked towards me and pointed a finger in my face. "You blew up my truck!"

I tried to pull myself together, but I was still laughing so hard I was crying. I'd been trying to think of some way to damage his car without getting in trouble, and now I'd not only damaged it, I'd blown it up. Finally, I managed calm down, though I was still grinning. I wiped the tears off my face and smiled sweetly at him. "It wasn't my fault."

He looked like he was considering homicide, but I didn't give him a chance to respond, I just got in my car and pulled out, leaving the lot.

My good mood lasted until I got home and decided to take a shower. I went into the bathroom, undressed, and then opened the shower curtain. Tied to the showerhead, and hanging down to eye level, were two things. A red rose, like the other two, and a note. This time, the note was on the back of a picture. The picture was right after I'd gotten out of the pond this afternoon. My shirt was see-through and clinging, my hair was curling wetly around my face, and my expression was one of disgust.

I'm not sure what freaked me out more. The picture, which suggested quite strongly that I had a devoted stalker, or the note, which proved it. "Take a nice, relaxing shower. You've had a hard day. Interesting use of my present in the parking lot."

I stared at the word 'present'. If whoever this was considered a bomb a good present, they definitely weren't getting an invitation to my next birthday present. Of course, I was sort of glad I'd gotten the bomb, because it had turned out well, but I didn't want any more. Also, it had only been about ten minutes between me blowing up Joe's car and finding this note. That meant that my stalker must have either watched me in the parking lot, then sped through town and written this note and put it up, or there were multiple stalkers working together. Either prospect wasn't that great.

I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around myself, then went to my bedroom window and threw out the rose. I saved the note in case I needed to show them to someone later on. I went back into the bathroom, closed the door, and looked around. I saw no evidence of secret cameras (although, I guess that's the point), so I took a fast shower then went to bed. I'd deal with my stalker in the morning.