On to Chapter 8, I hope you're still with me. Thanks again for your reviews, you guys are so kind!
Spoilers: If you hadn't read the books, you wouldn't be here, but you won't be spoiled either way, I blame it all on the gin
Rating: PG13 for language, it's adult language
Disclaimer: I made the whole thing up, I own none of JE's characters, and I'll probably give them back good as new
Out Of my Mind
Chapter 8
While the plan was to soak under the shower until I got pruney, I realized quickly that I had left all my newly purchased toiletries in the bedroom. With Joe. Clearly outside of my reach at the moment. So I just lathered, rinsed and repeated and let the stream massage my head until my headache toned down somewhat.
Of course now, I was faced with a new dilemma: my dirty clothes were in a pile on the bathroom floor; I really didn't want to wear the sweaty and blood stained t-shirt another minute.
The bath towel covered me somewhat, but not enough to prance around in front of Joe Morelli, hotness incarnate!
I towel dried my hair and combed it with my fingers, hitched the towel up as high as possible and cracked the door open.
"Uhm, Joe?" I called through the crack.
No answer.
"Detective Morelli?"
When I still didn't get an answer, I risked a peek.
Joe was not in my room.
I was relieved to be spared the embarrassment, but disappointed that he had just left, as I quickly gathered up my stuff and hid in the bathroom once more.
Originally, I hadn't been quite sure if the motel came with maid service, but clearly, someone had straightened up my room while I had been gone. The bed was made and the bedspread was neatly covering it, assorted items had been picked up and placed on the table.
I felt a lot better when I exited the bathroom, fresh clothes, styled hair and only a mild headache remaining.
Praising the 'always prepared'-tote in my purse, I put some ointment and band-aids on the bigger cuts I could find. All bleeding had stopped and I hoped there wouldn't be any scarring.
I had just plopped down on the bed and grabbed the remote when there was a knock on the door.
I wanted to jump up and open it, but then I froze.
What if the car that had hit me had followed me here and the driver was now knocking to finish up the job?
Although I had tried to tell myself it had been an accident, I wasn't very convincing.
"Lindsay? It's Joe." Came a muffled voice through the door.
I let out a sigh of relief and got up to open, when Joe let himself in.
He was balancing a pizza box and a six-pack of beer in one hand and I noticed he had changed out of his dress shirt into a black t-shirt that was tucked into his blue jeans.
Truly a sight for sore eyes.
"Sorry I didn't lock the door when I left, I couldn't find the key." He smiled apologetically as he crossed the room and put the pizza carton and the beer on the table.
"I brought dinner." He added needlessly.
I wasn't really hungry, but I appreciated the gesture immensely.
"I thought you had left." God, I hope that hadn't sounded too needy.
"Nah. I just had to call in your description of the car, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll take it to a local repair shop. And I thought you'd be hungry."
My turn to say something, I realized, but I couldn't come up with anything appropriate. Or at all, for that matter.
Morelli took the remote out of my hand and that startled me out of my immobility. I hadn't even noticed I was still standing where I had stopped when the door opened.
He flicked on the TV, and changed it to a basketball game.
I grabbed a slice of pizza and the beer Morelli offered and sat down in one of the chairs.
"Feel better?" He asked, taking in my appearance.
I nodded, thankful that my full mouth excused me of a verbal answer, since I didn't trust my voice as his eyes traveled up and down my body.
We ate in silence, me focusing on the task of chewing and swallowing, Joe alternating his attention between the pizza and the ballgame.
After his second piece of pizza, he took his beer and settled back in his chair.
"So, Lindsay Taylor…" I didn't quite like the way he had said 'my' name.
"Wanna tell me about yourself?"
His voice was calm, but his look had intensified.
"What would you like to know?" when in doubt, always answer a question with a question.
"Well, for starters, I checked with Boston, and they had never heard of you."
Uh-oh. I had lied to a cop. The cuffs would be next, and then I'd spend my one allowed phone call on my mother, frantically trying to come up with a reason why she'd have to bail me out.
I cleared my throat.
"You checked up on me?" Great, I was buying some time!
He chuckled.
"Well, I ran your plates, but I didn't think you were Jeffrey Nagel."
I knew it! He had memorized my plates the night before!
"So I called Boston PD, just to see if Lindsay Taylor regularly delivered FTAs to them. Turns out she doesn't."
He had talked about me in the third person, I could almost hear my cell door slam shut.
"I, uhm, don't work in Boston proper."
That was true, but no other precinct in the commonwealth of Massachusetts would give him any other information than the one in Boston.
Joe seemed to consider my reply.
"How did you get my number?"
Damn. That one was harder. I was going to confess that I 'worked' under a different name and was ready to spin that thread further, I hadn't yet come up with a good fib for why I had called him.
What was there to say? 'Your voicemail'?
Wait, half a mo', that could be an out!
"I…asked to speak to someone in homicide and they…connected me to your voicemail." Now, if I could only get myself to meet his eyes, that would almost sound plausible. Maybe.
I forced my eyes up.
Joe had a 'Hmmm' expression. I considered it a point for me, since he didn't shake his head and laugh or take out his cuffs.
I took a long pull from my beer.
"Let's say I believe you…"
Yes, let's! Please? I looked at him expectantly.
"You stumble upon a homicide, a guy you were planning to take down for failure to appear, but whom you had never met before…"
All true so far, really.
"Then of all the phone calls you could have made, you call the one cop who had a professional relationship with Moreno, me."
Well, yeah, but I didn't know that last part until Joe had told me. Should I bring that up?
Uncharacteristically, I decided to let him finish.
"So my one lead to the Senor gets dead and less than a day later, someone tries to run you off the road and takes off."
There was this Senor again.
Technically, they succeeded, they had run me off the road, but I wasn't going to stop his train of thought.
I realized Joe was waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
My hand gripped the beer bottle a little tighter to keep it from fidgeting.
"I didn't know you knew Moreno until you told me last night." I said, hoping my voice sounded steadier than I felt.
"And I still don't know anyone named Senor, no matter how much you or Ranger bring him up."
"Ranger?"
Uh-oh.
I didn't know if it was good that he focused on something else or bad because I had enraged him.
"He was in the parking lot this morning, when you dropped me off. He thought I knew this Senor guy and worked for him."
Joe scoffed at that.
"Either he was pulling your leg or he doesn't know the Senor very well. You're not his type, Sugar."
Sugar? Not quite Cupcake, but getting closer. I hid my smile behind the bottle as I took another sip.
"Blonde?" I asked.
"Female."
Oh. OK, I thought. So Joe wouldn't assume I was working for the Senor, either because this guy was a chauvinistic pig or was gay. Hopefully.
"No, I don't think you work for him."
Phew. Was he reading my mind or had I looked that panicked?
"Lord help me, I'm beginning to think you got yourself into more of a mess than you intended."
Now there was an angle. Me, helpless victim. Just your regular bounty hunter, out for a stroll, discovering a murder.
I liked it.
"Mess?" I managed. There was the mind block again. Maybe Joe just thought I was too dense to pull off anything illegal.
"If we assume that the accident was no accident, it would appear that someone is trying to scare you. Or worse."
I wanted to say 'Worse?', but I was able to stop myself just in time. No need to become a complete idiot.
He seemed to relax a little in his chair. Or maybe I had just misinterpreted his former stance.
"Who would know I was the one who found Moreno?" I asked, saying the first thing that came to my mind. Usually, that gets me into trouble, but it seemed like a logical question.
Morelli looked like he hadn't considered that and frowned.
"Only someone who was watching the building could have seen me leave it after the cops had arrived." I felt the need to add that, in case Joe would think I was considering him to be the one.
"Unless…"
"Shit!"
"What?" What had I said?
He raked his hands through his hair and lowered his head.
"No, nothing. Let's go with your theory and assume someone was watching."
"You think it was someone inside!"
That was it, wasn't it? He didn't know if someone from his team had talked, at least he couldn't rule it out! Damn, I was good.
Joe sighed and opened two more bottles to replace our empty ones.
"I'm not sure." He finally said.
See? I knew it! Well, in the sense that I had no clue, but I was a good guesser.
I took a long pull from my bottle and glanced at the label. Yuengling. Sweet! The man had taste.
"I meant I am not sure what your role is in all this."
Uh-huh, sure, nice try. I'm on to something here, and you're mad you didn't think of it yourself, Buster.
I decided to keep that thought to myself though.
"You show up out of nowhere. You call me, you get me engaged, but then you seem to be a target."
It seemed like he was thinking out loud. I was pretty proud of myself for not revealing that, for a second, I had to think about how he had meant 'engaged'. I only ever used that word in another context, my bad.
"You're trying to decide if you can trust me."
Not a question, a statement based on a hunch.
"Yeah." He admitted. "You don't really fit into any of the drawers I want to put you in."
He really did need to stop using metaphors that could send my imagination on a rampage, and quickly. The alcohol had started to loosen me up.
"I'm not really a one-drawer kind of girl." I was shocked to realize I had said it out loud.
Was I imagining his eyes getting softer or was he really starting to see me under a different light?
"I'm beginning to learn that." He said, his voice softer than before.
That's all it took to make me blush, and he smiled.
Gosh, he had a dreamy smile! I wasn't even sure what we had been talking about anymore.
Joe seemed to enjoy my uncomfortableness.
When he took a sip from his beer, I noticed his left hand for the first time. No ring.
Normally, it's the first thing I check on a guy (OK, maybe after his eyes or his ass), but I had been too flustered before.
And now that the conversation had shifted, I suddenly became a lot more aware of the fact that we were all alone in the room, with the bed a foot away.
I didn't think that was the direction Joe's thoughts were taking, but I was nervous just the same.
I almost jumped when his cell phone chirped, and I noticed Joe didn't fare much better.
Saved by the ring.
"Excuse me." We both said at the same time, me to take a time out in the bathroom, he to answer the call.
"Yeah." I heard him say, just before I closed the bathroom door to lean against it.
Unfortunately, I had never taken any yoga or Zen classes, I had no cheat sheet to cleanse my mind quickly and lower my heart rate.
I took a few deep breaths and forced myself to think.
Not that I was a virgin or anything, but I wasn't an expert on sexual tension either.
It was entirely possible that Morelli was playing along for entirely different reasons.
I knew first hand that, just because you were attracted to someone, it didn't mean that they were attracted back.
So the only possible way to go was to play it cool, appear neutral.
I wished I had my gun belt to give me confidence, but I had taken it off when I got into my car, and it had been the furthest thing from my mind when I had gotten dressed.
Morelli's voice carried over to me, but it was too low to make out the words.
I decided to wait until he was off the phone and busied myself with washing my hands.
He was finishing his beer when I got back into the room.
"I have to go." He announced.
"We'll continue this later, I'll be back tonight."
I wasn't sure how to react, my inner fangirl screamed and my inner self gasped.
"OK." Was what I finally said, and that earned me a smile before he turned to leave.
Now I really understood the term 'I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave.', his ass really was among the finest I had ever laid eyes on.
Unfortunately, he turned just as he had opened the door and caught my stare.
His expression was unreadable, but it was in the vicinity of a smirk.
"Lock the door behind me." He suggested, and then he was gone.
I fell into the chair with a moan, hoping he had missed my tomato-red cheeks.
