Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum #24)(45)

“Bummer.”

“Yeah. How are you doing with Johnny Chucci?”

“I captured him, but he shot himself in the foot, so I left him with his mother.”

“Was he wearing his underpants on his head?”

“No.”

“Too bad. I bet that would be something to see.”

“I’m going to borrow Big Blue for a couple days.”

“Help yourself. The keys are in the car.”

I backed the Buick out of the garage and drove the short distance to Morelli’s house. I let myself in and found Morelli in front of the television with a bag of chips and a beer. Bob was on the couch next to him.

“This game sucks,” he said when he saw me. “Both teams suck.”

I sat down at the far end of the couch and helped myself to some chips. I gave a couple to Bob and ate the rest.

“I need to feed Ethel,” I said. “Want to ride shotgun?”

“Yeah. I live to feed Ethel.”

“As a special bonus, you could look in the woods for zombies.”

“Sorry. It’s my day off from zombies.”

I went to the kitchen and looked in his fridge. Half a leftover pepperoni pizza. Two boxes of frozen waffles in the freezer. A loaf of bread on the counter. I gathered them all up and put them in a grocery bag.

Morelli followed me. “What’s with the food in the bag?”

“It’s for Ethel. I’m out of rotisserie chicken money. I had some really great roadkill for her, but it exploded.”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“I appreciate that, because I don’t want to talk about it.”

? ? ?

We took Morelli’s car and drove down Diggery’s road in silence, scanning the cleared areas and surrounding woods. We wouldn’t admit to believing in zombies, but it was hard to dispute the presence of zombie-like things.

Morelli parked close to the double-wide, and I carefully entered and looked around. Ethel was coiled in the bedroom doorway.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Lunch.”

I dumped the food on the dining table and returned to Morelli.

“How was it in there?” he asked, as I climbed into the front seat.

“Nothing new. How was it out here?”

“Lonely. Would you like to get naked?”

“Here?”

“Yeah. It’s been a long time since we did it in a car.”

“We never did it in a car.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You must be thinking of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of women you did in a car.”

“We almost did it in a car.”

“Yes. Almost.”

He leaned across the gearshift and kissed me. His hand slid under my T-shirt and found my breast. His touch was warm and gentle. The first kiss was soft. The second kiss was pure passion. He unsnapped my bra, and his phone rang. We both froze. The phone kept ringing. Morelli yanked the phone out of his pocket and threw it out the window. The ringing stopped for a moment and then resumed.

“Probably you should answer it,” I said. “It sounds official.”

Morelli got out of the car and retrieved his phone. He had a short conversation and got back into the car.

“Well?” I asked.

“That was dispatch. Some woman claims she was chased out of her house by a zombie.”

“Is this for real? Are you sure you aren’t being punked?”

Morelli shrugged and rolled the engine over. “I’ll know when I get there. She’s on Surrey Street. That’s two blocks from the Morley Street cemetery . . . the epicenter of zombie activity.”

“I feel like I’m in a Ghostbusters movie.”

“Yeah, this is a ten on the weird-o-meter. I find myself feeling nostalgic for the good old days when I was sticking to blood-soaked floors, investigating gang killings.”

“After you talk to her, are you going to come home?”

“Yep.”

“And then?”

“And then I’m going to make you happy,” Morelli said.

“You’re going to give me a back rub?”

“I’m going to rub every square inch of you.”

Oh boy.

? ? ?

Morelli left me at his house and drove away. I didn’t expect him to return anytime soon. He’d interview the woman and then get stuck at the station doing paperwork. I went to the kitchen and got a soda out of the fridge. I turned and bumped into Diesel.

“Jeez Louise,” I said. “What the heck?”

“How’s it going?” Diesel asked.

When I found my voice, it was an octave higher than normal. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d stop in to say hello.”

“You can’t just pop into Morelli’s house.”

“Sure, I can. It’s easy. His locks are crap.” Diesel looked in the fridge. “There’s nothing to eat in here.”

“I gave the leftovers to Ethel.”

“The snake? How’s she doing?”

“She’s doing okay.”

Diesel looked in the cupboard and found a bag of pretzels. He helped himself to a beer and ate the pretzels.

“I like the pool table in the dining room,” he said. “Nice touch.”