A/N: When I started this story, I chose to write it in J. Evanovich's annoyingly addictive style of action and dialogue (with snippets of self-reflection), where things happen to Stephanie in a hit-and-run fashion. In doing so, her relationship with Morelli needs to be played out before she truly realizes her happily ever after.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a review. I've gotten some good ideas for future chapters. Stay tuned to see your idea get incorporated.
Chapter 5
I woke up in Morelli's bed at 5:30 am and started putting on my workout clothes.
"Where are you going?" Morelli asked groggily. "You're never awake this early."
"Rangeman," I answered. "Self-defense lessons with Tank."
"Oh, boy," Morelli said. "I don't even know what to say to that." And he rolled over and fell back asleep.
Two and a half hours later, I was back at Morelli's house and was finished with my shower and getting dressed. I walked into the kitchen and found Morelli at the stove making an omelette just as the toast popped up in the toaster.
I sat down at the table and Morelli gave me a cup of coffee and a stack of files.
"This is what we know about the murdered cocaine dealers so far," he said.
I read through the files over breakfast. There were over two dozen drug dealers that were murdered. They were all Hispanic, originating from a variety of countries in the Caribbean, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. They were all males in their twenties or thirties, living in Trenton, Newark, or Camden. In other words, there was no connection at all between them other than the fact they were known cocaine dealers and were shot dead with armor-piercing bullets.
I looked up and found Morelli smiling at me.
"This is nice," he said. "I've never had a partner with benefits before."
I rolled my eyes. "Where do you want to start?" I asked, motioning to the files.
"I'm at a dead end," he said. "I've contacted everyone who knew the murder victims. No one knew who the drug dealers were working for, and everyone is scared that if they talk to the cops, they'll be the next chalk-line on the pavement."
"We can check out the apartments of Chase Mendez and Antonio Torres for clues," I said. "But first I have to go get that cocaine sample."
"Who has it?" Morelli asked.
"I can't tell you," I said. "It's my fault they have it in the first place."
"See you at the FBI building," Morelli said. "We have another meeting this morning."
I pulled up to Mooner and Dougie's empty lot and found the motor home parked at the curb. They were sitting on lawnchairs eating a bag of cheesies and watching a Gilligan's Island episode on TV.
"Yo dudette," Mooner called to me, "Did I miss my court date?"
"No," I said. "I was wondering if I could get back that cocaine I gave you."
"Whoa," Dougie said, "That white stuff was cocaine?"
Mooner started laughing, "That would explain a lot."
"Do you still have it?" I asked.
"Kinda," said Mooner. "Come with me into our abode."
I followed him into the motor home and found cupcakes everywhere. Dozens and dozens of pink- and blue-frosted vanilla and chocolate cupcakes were on every surface.
"We thought you had given us a bag of icing sugar and we had a birthday party coming up," explained Mooner. "So we thought, dude, we're in luck. So we made cupcakes and icing with the stuff you gave us. Except, the icing tasted gross, so we had to cut in a bunch of Duncan Hines frosting. And then we had too much icing, so we had to make more cupcakes."
"You turned the whole bag of cocaine into icing?" I asked.
"Affirmative," said Mooner.
"Can I have a cupcake?" I asked.
"Sure," said Mooner, "as you can see, we have lots."
I chose out a pink-frosted chocolate cupcake and drove to the FBI building.
I sat down next to Morelli in the conference room on the sixth floor and placed my cupcake on the table.
"Cupcake?" he asked.
"The icing is made of cocaine," I explained.
"You do realize the irony in this, right?" he said.
After the meeting, I drove to my parent's house. I had my cellphone turned off ever since last night when Carl Constanza started the rumor that Morelli and I were engaged. Family ties were strong in the Burg, and a daughter only had three major obligations: Arrive for dinner before six pm; be the first person to tell your parents you're engaged; and have children that the grandparents can dote on.
I'm no slouch when it comes to dinner, but I've failed miserably in the last two. I parked my black SUV at the curb and steeled myself to face my mother's wrath. My Grandma and Mother were waiting for me on the front porch.
"Is it true?" asked Grandma.
"Joe and I aren't engaged," I said.
"That's a relief," said my Mother. "I can only deal with one wedding at a time and your grandmother is being a bridezilla."
"Hey!" said Grandma.
"Well you are," said my Mother. She turned to me. "Did you want to come in for a sandwich?"
I left my parent's house after lunch feeling slightly let down from my Mother's reaction. I was expecting a lot more yelling. Grandma must be keeping her busy. I drove to the bonds office to see if there were any new skips. The second I walked in, Lula started yelling.
"What the hell?!" Lula exclaimed. She sauntered over to me and poked me hard in the chest. "I thought you and I were tight. I had to hear about you getting all engaged to the cop from Connie here."
Connie was standing with her hands on her hips. "And I only heard it from my cousin, who heard it from her brother-in-law, who heard it from his step-mother's niece."
"Morelli and I aren't engaged," I said.
"But I heard he bought you a ring," Connie continued, "And you're living with him."
"That's true, but we're not engaged," I explained. "I'm still thinking about it."
"That's smart," said Lula. "You shouldn't make a decision like that until you're done grieving over Ranger's death."
Was I still grieving? Would I ever not miss him? Would I have done things differently? Falling in love with Ranger was a long, slow burn. If I could do it again, I think I wouldn't hold back my feelings for him. His life was dangerous, but hell, so was mine. It was a crap excuse for two people scared of commitment. Two people who were previously married, but got burned. Two people who loved each other but didn't want to admit it. I guess I was still grieving, but carrying on.
"Earth to Steph," said Connie, waving her hand in front of my face.
"Any new skips?" I asked.
"Negative," said Connie. "Everyone is still scared of you. I'll call you if we get anything in."
I left the bonds office and got a hinky feeling that someone was following me again. I pulled my handgun out of my handbag and turned around quickly, pointing it at a short lady dressed in a black dress and scarf.
"Eeek!" It was Morelli's Grandma Bella. She was old-world Sicilian and hated me. She was rumored to have voodoo powers and had put "the eye" on me a few times over the years.
"Why are you following me?" I asked, putting away my gun.
"You bad girl!" She yelled at me. "How dare you point a gun at me!"
"You've shot at me before!" I yelled back.
"You deserved it!" She replied. "And now you're engaged and living with my favorite grandson Joey. I'll put the eye on you!"
I was getting really tired of this. "We're not engaged and you've already damned me to hell," I said. "There's nothing left!"
Grandma Bella thought about it a while. Then she squinted her eyes at me and spat at my feet. "Stay away from my Joey."
It was late afternoon when I met up with Morelli to look through Antonio Torres' apartment on Stark Street.
"I saw your Grandma Bella today," I told him.
"She didn't try to shoot you again, did she?" He winced.
"No, but I pulled a gun on her by accident," I confessed.
"Geez," Morelli said. He pulled out a pack of Rolaids and popped two into his mouth. "You give me acid reflux. When did you start carrying your gun?"
I shrugged.
We entered Torres' apartment. It was a bachelor pad consisting of a small kitchenette and one room containing a ratty bed, a couch, and a big screen LED TV. I looked around.
"The FBI have already been through here," said Morelli. "Most of Torres' personal effects have been taken and cataloged."
I finished my search and didn't find anything.
"Tomorrow we can drive to Newark to look at Cruise Mendez's place," said Morelli.
The next day, after my self-defense lessons with Tank, Morelli and I drove into Newark. We parked at the curb next to Mendez's apartment and took the stairs to the third floor. We entered apartment 320 and found a basic one bedroom unit.
"Karen and her team have already stripped the place," Morelli said. "Later today, the landlord is going to take all the furniture to the dump so he can rent it out again."
I looked around for clues. The kitchen cupboards were bare, and so was the fridge. The bed in the bedroom was missing the sheets, and the bedside tables and dressers were empty.
"Karen sure is thorough," I stated. "Her team took everything."
"I don't know what you expect to find," Morelli said, watching me.
I stood in the living room. Cruise knew he had a hit out on him for losing the bag of cocaine. He must have had a way of contacting the boss to explain it wasn't his fault. I thought about how he liked hiding things underneath benches.
"Help me flip this couch," I said to Morelli.
We heaved the brown sofa onto its back and bent down to look underneath it. I reached into a tear in the fabric and wrapped my hand around a small cellphone taped to the wood frame.
"Bingo," I said as I pulled it out.
The battery was still charged, so I flipped it open to look at the call log. The last call was on Sunday night, the day before he was gunned down.
"We should get this to Karen," said Morelli as he started walking towards the front door.
I pushed redial and put the phone up to my ear.
"What are you doing?" Morelli said. "That's evidence."
"Shh," I said. "I'm making a phone call."
After a few rings, someone picked up.
"Hello?" an encrypted voice said.
"Hi," I said, "I think I have the wrong number, who is this?"
"Who are you?" said the robotic voice.
"Stephanie," I said, hoping to get more information.
There was a pause and the line went dead. Damn.
I looked at Morelli who was speechless and going red in the face.
"The cocaine boss is using voice encryption," I said. "But I think it's a female."
We drove back to Trenton and dropped the phone off at the FBI building with the tech guys.
The next morning, we were sitting at the conference table on the 6th floor of the FBI building.
"I'm getting really tired of all these meetings," I said under my breath.
"At least they have good doughnuts," replied Morelli.
Karen walked in. She had her hair in a French braid and was wearing a red designer suit with pumps.
"Thanks to Stephanie, we have our first lead in months," Karen addressed the group. "The icing on the cupcake came back with the chemical signature for the Caribbean cocaine so now we can track what's on the street. The lab also found cannabis in the cake, but I'm assuming that's unlinked to this case." Karen looked at me.
"That's probably a good assumption," I said.
"And Morelli and Plum found a burner phone inside Cruise Mendez's apartment containing the phone number of the boss behind this whole operation," Karen continued. "Our tech guys are accessing the call records for that phone number and cross-referencing them to the murdered drug dealers. Results will be in later this week." She turned to me and smiled. "Good work."
Morelli and I went to Pino's for dinner, an Italian-American restaurant famous in the Burg for greasy food and large portions. It attracted a clientele of cops and hospital workers just getting off work, and loud Italian-American families. We sat down in a booth and ordered meatball subs and Cokes.
Morelli leaned back in his seat and smiled at me. "I can't believe you."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I've been working this case on and off for months," he explained, "and I haven't gotten anything more than doors slammed in my face. You've been on for a few days and have found a cocaine sample, discovered that the boss is a female, and created a phone list of everyone involved. It's uncanny."
I smiled and sipped my drink.
"I used to think it was luck," he continued, "but you're actually really good at this."
"That almost sounds like a compliment," I said.
We finished our meal and were walking out to our cars in the parking lot when I noticed a glob of marinara sauce on my pants. I bent down to wipe it off when a shot rang out and hit the brick wall behind where I was just standing. Morelli and I dropped to the ground behind a car and pulled our guns out.
A bunch of cops rushed out of Pino's with their guns drawn.
"Someone took a shot at Stephanie," Morelli explained. A few cops fanned out to search the area and another one called it in to the police station.
I looked at the brick wall. "If I didn't bend over, it would've hit me," I said.
"I take it back," Morelli said to me, "you are damn lucky."
In the past, I've learned that whenever people start shooting at me, I'm getting dangerously close to closing a case. Since I only had one outstanding skip, Isiah Malone, who was more into rape that shooting, I was guessing I'd pissed off someone related to the cocaine drug ring.