Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [75]
“Okay, we won’t involve Morelli,” I said. “We’ll do it without him. Where’s the money?”
“I hate Morelli,” Dom said. “I’ve always hated him. Rotten S.O.B. He’s not even bald.”
“Excuse me?”
“Bald! Go ahead, tell me you didn’t notice I’m going bald.”
Oh boy. He’d flipped out. Just like that. One minute normal, and the next minute rabid bald guy.
“Maybe you’re a little bald on the top,” I said, “but it’s not unattractive.”
“Is Morelli bald?”
“No.”
“Damn right he’s not bald,” Dom said. “He’s the golden boy. Has he got hair on his back? On his ass? Does he have hair on his knuckles? On his toes? No. He’s perfect. He’s got hair on his fucking head.”
I thought about Morelli. “Maybe a little on his ass,” I said. Hell, he was Italian. It was practically required for him to have hair on his ass.
We both paused for a moment, our attention caught by high-pitched whining.
“What’s that?” Dom asked.
The whining changed to yelps, and the realization hit us.
“Dogs,” Dom said.
The pack rounded the back corner of the house and raced toward us. Five Dobermans with “killer” written all over them.
“Run!” I yelled at Dom.
We had a large expanse of rolling lawn between us and the dogs, and an equally large expanse between us and the road. We took off, and I could hear Dom pounding after me, his breath wheezing through his teeth.
“Shoot ’em!” he was shouting at me. “Shoot the fuckers.”
I was running with Dom’s gun in my hand, and while a small corner of my panicked, terrified brain wanted to stop the beasts in their tracks, the rest of my brain was seeing them as Snoopy. No way could I shoot them. Probably if they caught us, they wouldn’t hurt us, I told myself. But just in case, I was running like hell.
We reached Dom’s car with the dogs at our heels. I scrambled onto the car and perched on the roof, and Dom kept running. He crossed the street and disappeared behind another huge mansion-type house. The dogs stayed with me, surrounding the car, barking and snarling.
Lula had been waiting in the Firebird all this time. She rolled out of the car, pointed her Glock skyward, and fired off a shot. The dogs gave one last yip, turned tail, and ran back to the house.
I climbed down from the Lexus, walked shaky-legged to the Firebird, and collapsed into the passenger seat.
“That was almost it,” I told Lula. “I thought for sure I was going to be dog food.”
“Where’d you get the gun?”
“I took it from Dom.”
I dropped the gun into my purse and sat back with my hand over my heart. “I’ve gotta join a gym,” I said. “I almost died back there.”
EIGHTEEN
IT WAS ALMOST eleven when Morelli dragged himself through the front door. I’d sent Mooner home. Gary was tucked away in his camper in the garage. Zook was in bed. Bob and I were on the couch pretending we were watching television when really we were just waiting for Morelli.
Morelli gave both of us a kiss on the top of the head and kept going into the kitchen. We followed after him and watched him knock back a beer. He dropped his jacket on the floor and threw his gun on the counter and belched.
“Beer,” he said by way of explanation.
“Tough day?”
“Unh.”
He took a tub of deli potato salad out of the refrigerator and forked some into his mouth.
“Did you get anything resolved?” I asked.
“It’s a process.” His gaze went to the small table. “What’s with the gun in the plastic bag?”
“Test it out to see if it matches either of the murder weapons.”
“Where’d you get it?”
I gave him the short version.
Morelli tossed the empty potato salad container into the trash. “Have you looked in the basement?”
“Yes. Big hole in the corner where the keys were supposedly buried. No keys.”
“Good riddance. Let’s go to bed.”
MORELLI WAS STILL in the kitchen when I got back from driving Zook to school. Morelli was showered and shaved and looked relatively civilized in a blue button-down shirt and jeans. He had his gun clipped to his belt, the phone cradled