14 Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online Page A

green leaves, but
before I get down to business, I need an eclair.”
    “Me, too,” I said to Betty. “I need three.”
    “Three?” Lula said. “I'm the one with the wedding jitters, and
you're trumping me on eclairs. What's with that?”
    “I have Zook and Loretta jitters.”
    “That don't seem like three-eclair jitters to me,” Lula said.
“That's barely a single eclair. That might be a half a eclair.
Maybe I need more eclairs.” She looked over at Betty. “You might
want to put a couple more eclairs in that box.”
    Betty boxed up six eclairs and handed them over. “What kind of
cake are you thinking about?” Betty asked. “Chocolate, vanilla,
carrot cake, rum cake, chocolate chip, spice, banana? And then you
get to choose the filling between the layers. Lemon pudding,
chocolate mousse, whipped cream, coconut cream, tropical fruit
filling?”
    “I like all them cakes,” Lula said. “The part I want to talk
about is the bride and groom. The little people on top the cake
have to be right. Tank and me are darker than the little people you
got displayed. And we're more... full-bodied. You see what I'm
saying?”
    The door to the bakery opened and Morelli sauntered in, draped
an arm around my shoulders, and gave me a friendly kiss just above
my ear. “Saw your car parked at the curb,” he said. “Nice paint
job.”
    “Protects me from Moondog.”
    “One less thing for me to worry about,” Morelli
said.
    I took the box of eclairs and went outside to talk. I opened the
box and offered it to Morelli. “Hungry?”
    Morelli's eyes went beyond the box to my T-shirt and traveled
south. “Yeah,” he said.
    “Right now, I'm only offering eclairs.”
    Morelli blew out a sigh and took one. I did the same, and we
stood in the sun with our backs to the building and ate our
eclairs.
    “I had a disturbing conversation with Dominic Rizzi,” I said to
Morelli. “His contention is that not only did you steal his Aunt
Rose's house out from under him, but that you're Mario's
father.”
    “That's ridiculous,” Morelli said.
    “Dora claims he caught you in the act with Loretta in her
father's garage, and nine months later Mario was
born.”
    Morelli chewed slowly and thought about it.
    “I went through a lot of women back then. I don't remember all
of them.”
    “Seems to me you'd remember having sex with your
cousin.”
    “To begin with, Loretta's not exactly part of the family tree.
It's more like she's in the forest.”
    “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
    “I don't know. It's like we're forty-third cousins or
something.” He finished eating and took a paper napkin from me. “I
guess I have some vague recollection of a skirmish in the garage,
but I don't recall doing it with Loretta.”
    “Then who was in the garage with you?”
    “I don't know,” Morelli said. “It was dark.” He looked at the
eclair box. “Can I have another one?”
    “No.”
    “You're mad.”
    “Of course I'm mad. How could you have been so irresponsible?
God, you were such a... pig.”
    “That's not exactly a secret,” Morelli said. “Everyone knew I
was a pig. You knew I was a pig.”
    “There's more bad news,” I told him.
    “Terrific. What is it?”
    “Dominic has decided you should die, and he's going to kill
you.”
    “I need to have a talk with Loretta. And then I'll talk to Dom.
See if I can get him interested in solving his mental health
issues.” He gave me a kiss on my forehead. “Gotta go. Are you
working tonight?”
    “Yes. Brenda has a press conference this afternoon and dinner
with the mayor tonight.”
    “Will you be able to pick Zook up after school?”
    “If I can't, I'll get someone else to do it. And I'm going to
leave him with my parents this afternoon, if Loretta isn't bonded
out. Dom is too irrational about you. I don't want to make things
worse by putting his nephew in your house.” And what went unsaid
was that I was still spooked by the guy in the basement. Morelli's
house didn't