"Cherry Cherry Cocoa Puffs"
Joe Morelli dragged himself inside his house on Slater Street, kicked off his shoes, and massaged sixteen hours of tension from his neck. It was Tuesday. He could tell by the smell of pot roast and the sound of almost nothing.
He blew out a sigh and emptied his pockets into the small glass bowl on the table in the foyer. "Steph?"
"In the kitchen."
Joe padded through the house, careful not to trip over the throng of books, toys, and video game controllers scattered around, and took a beer from the fridge. On the other side of the room, Stephanie stood poring over a large, worn cookbook. She mumbled something about heavy cream, glanced down at the ceramic bowl in front of her, and made a face.
"Do I even want to know what that is?" Joe asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Dessert," she said. "At least, it was supposed to be." She poked at it a couple times with a wooden spoon. "I think I did it wrong."
"Maybe it doesn't taste as bad as it looks."
"Maybe."
Joe and Stephanie exchanged curious looks. She handed him the spoon, and he took a bite.
"Well?"
"It tastes like ass," Joe said. "Hand me a paper towel, will you? I'm afraid to swallow."
Stephanie rolled her eyes and tore a sheet off the roll, and passed it to Joe.
"That was disgusting," he said.
Stephanie gave a playful punch to the gut, and scraped the bowl into the trash.
Joe unscrewed his beer and leaned against the counter. "I assume you've heard by now," he said.
"About Ranger?" Joe took a pull from his beer and nodded. "Yeah, Lula called and told me the charges were dropped. Thanks for sticking your neck out on this one."
Joe shrugged. "It's my job, Cupcake."
Stephanie folded her arms over her chest. "That's too bad," she said. "Because if it had been a personal favor, I'd owe you one."
Joe set his beer on the counter and smiled at her. "Yeah," he said. "That's too bad." Then he closed the space between them, hooked a finger through the belt loop on her jeans, and pulled her to him. "I guess I'll have to find something else to add to your tab."
Stephanie's eyes flashed and her cheeks grew bright red. "You have something in mind?"
Joe leaned in and kissed her. He slid his hands under her T-shirt, and her body responded, pulling him closer. The oven timer dinged, and Stephanie broke away.
"Fuck."
"Nice to know we're on the same page." Joe looked at the clock on the stove. "How much time do we have?"
Stephanie let out a frustrated sound, and shook her head. "None. I have to pick Olivia up from gymnastics in half an hour, and it takes me twenty minutes to get there." She slipped past Joe and checked on the roast, and then set the timer for another half hour. "Matt will be home from soccer practice in a few minutes. Make sure he does his homework. I got a call from Mrs. Silva that he's not been turning in his spelling assignments. And there's no school tomorrow, so Andy and Craig are staying over tonight."
Joe rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Andy and Craig are staying over? Here? At our house?"
Stephanie fastened her bra and smoothed out the wrinkles on her shirt. "Is that a problem?"
Joe blew out a sigh. "No, not a problem."
"Good," Stephanie said. She shrugged into her windbreaker, and searched the pockets for her car keys. "I'll be back in an hour. Keep an eye on the pot roast. The last thing I need is another lecture from your mother about the possible side-effects of serving my family a dry roast."
#
"How was school?"
Matt rolled his eyes and shrugged.
"Your mother asked you a question," Joe said.
Matt chewed a piece of meat and swallowed. "S'okay," he said.
"That's it? Okay?"
"Yeah."
Joe turned to Olivia. She was six, two years younger than Matt, and took after her mother. Tonight she was dressed as a fairy, and in between feeding her pot roast to Bob under the table, she was busy having a rather peculiar conversation with herself.
"And there were monkeys and giraffes and alligators…"
"Olivia?" Joe asked. "Who are you talking to?"
Olivia stopped mid-sentence and scowled. "You scared her off!"
Joe turned to Stephanie for support.
"Scared who off?" Stephanie asked.
"Rachel," Olivia said. "She's my new friend. She's half rabbit and half goose and her daddy owns a shoe store." She turned back to Joe. "And she doesn't like you very much."
"Puh-lease," Matt said. "There's no such thing as a half rabbit, half goose."
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is to!"
"Is not! You're making things up. You're lying."
"Am not!"
"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Matt sang.
"I'm not lying!" Olivia wailed, pounding her fists on the table.
"Liar! Liar!"
Olivia's face puffed up, and she pursed her lips until they all but disappeared. Then she picked up her water glass and flung it at Matt. It bounced off his chest and landed with a crash on the floor.
"Mo-o-om!" Matt yelled, and Joe, not quite sure what to do next, looked down at his peas and tried to think about baseball. Bases. Homeruns. Scoring. Sex. Naked women. Naked Stephanie. Susannah Colicchio, freshman year, in the eraser room. Chalkdust. Fingerprints. The fingerprints on the car bomb had matched the fingerprints on the letter, but neither were in the database. Database. Homebase. Tag, you're it!
"Joe?" Stephanie asked, snapping him back to reality.
"Huh?"
"Are you okay?"
"Sure," he said, wiping water off his cheek with the back of his hand. "Never better."
Half an hour later, Matt and his friends were in the living room taking turns shooting things on his new video game console, Olivia was in her bedroom playing dolls with Rachel, and Stephanie was in the kitchen scraping the dishes and loading them into the dishwasher.
"Need a hand?" Joe asked.
"Nope," Stephanie said. "I've got it covered." She rinsed off a couple plates and placed them on the bottom rack. "You look beat. Maybe you should go upstairs and get some sleep."
"Any way you could rephrase that in the form of a sexual invitation?"
"Not tonight," Stephanie said. "I'm not feeling that great. And there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Let's hear it."
"I'm pregnant," Stephanie said. "But don't worry. I think it's Ranger's."
"You think it's…"
"Ranger's," Stephanie said. "He nailed me on the turnpike. I'm sure I told you about it."
Joe shook his head. "I think I would have remembered that."
Stephanie shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm going out for a while. We're doing a takedown at the button factory, and I want to get there early so I get a good seat."
Stephanie dried her hands on a dish towel, gave Joe a quick kiss, loaded up her bazooka, and moved toward the front door.
"Don't forget to sort the laundry," she said to Joe. "And there's a grocery list on the fridge if you have time."
"Steph, wait."
Stephanie rolled her eyes and adjusted her ammo belt. "I don't have time for this," she said. "Ranger's waiting. I've gotta go. We'll talk about this later, okay?"
And then she was gone.
Matt put down his controller and walked over to where Joe was standing.
"You're drooling, Morelli," he said.
"What?"
"Wake up."
Joe jerked awake. He was drenched in a cold sweat, and his head was pounding. He wiped his eyes and looked around his cubicle. Simon Spencer from the crime lab was standing next to his desk, looking down on him with an amused expression.
"You look like you just went down on a cheap hooker," Spencer said. "You eat at that Chinese place across the street again?"
Joe clutched at his stomach. "No," he said. "I had that nightmare again."
"The one about the pot roast?"
"Yeah."
"Here," Spencer said, tossing him a bottle of antacids. "You're gonna need these. The report on the bullet you dug out of Stephanie Plum's car came back. You were right. It was a match to Lazzo's gun."
Joe popped a couple tablets and washed them down with a drink of diet Coke. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Stephanie's cell.
"I didn't wake you up, did I?" he asked when she answered.
"No," Stephanie said. "Marisol's up with strep throat. Did you find anything?"
"Yeah," Joe said. "The bullet matched Lazzo's gun. We don't have him in custody yet, but—"
"Ranger, watch her. She keeps taking Elmo to the potty...What?"
"Steph?"
"Hold on," Stephanie said to Joe, and she covered the phone with her hand. "Because she doesn't pretend when she takes him to the potty. She throws him in and flushes, and then I have to pull him out...Stop laughing. That's not funny...No, it's not...Don't you babe me. Just watch her, okay? Thank you."
Stephanie uncovered the phone and turned her attention back to Joe. "Sorry about that," she said. "Tell me about Lazzo."
"He's at a warehouse on Frank Street. We've been watching him since he was bonded out. There shouldn't –"
"Ranger, you're supposed to be watching her!" Stephanie shouted. "I don't care about a break-in! Tank can wait! Just cut her off and grab Elmo! Grab Elmo! Grab Elmo! GRAB ELMO!"
There was a loud splash, followed by a flush, and finally a blood-curdling scream as Marisol watched Elmo get sucked down the hole.
"I'll have to call you back," Stephanie said into the phone.
And then she disconnected.
Joe dialed Terry. "You're not pregnant, are you?"
"Sure as hell hope not," Terry said. "Why?"
"No reason."
"When are you coming home?"
Joe shuffled some paperwork and checked his drawers to make sure they were locked. "I'm just finishing up," he said. "Go ahead and order some takeout, and I'll pick it up on the way home."
"Sounds good. What do you want?"
Joe thought for a minute. "Anything but pot roast."