More groaning from around the table.

"I see white carnations."

"Don't worry about it, honey," Morelli whispered in my ear. "There are always white carnations."

"This woman who died," I asked Grandma Bella. "Is she a blonde?"

Grandma Bella opened her eyes and looked at me. "She has curly brown hair," Bella said. "Shoulder length."

My hair. Good thing I was too drunk to care.

"That's the vision," Bella said. "I'm tired now. I need to lay down."

Bella always got tired after a vision.

We watched her leave the table and go upstairs.

"Good riddance," Mary Elizabeth said. "She's such a downer."

And we all made the sign of the cross and had dessert.

Morelli poured me into his truck and drove me back to his house where he dragged me out of the truck and propped me against the passenger side door. "If you're going to throw up, it'd be good if you could do it out here," he said. "It's supposed to rain. It'll wash away."

I thought about that for a moment and decided I wasn't going to throw up. I took a step and went down to one knee. "Oops," I said. "The curb's in my way."

Morelli hauled me up, slung me over his shoulder, and carried me into the house and up the stairs. I flopped onto Morelli's bed and put one foot on the floor to stop the whirlies. "Wanna have sex?" I asked.

Morelli grinned. "I think I'll take a rain check on that one.

I'm still worried you're going to be sick. Do you want me to help you get undressed?"

"No. But it'd be good if you could make the room stand still."

I was awake but I was afraid to open my eyes. I suspected hell was lurking just beyond my eyelids. My brain didn't fit in my head and the little devil guys were poking hot sticks in my eyeballs.

I cracked an eye and squinted up at Morelli. "Help," I whispered.

Morelli had a coffee cup in his hand. "You really tied one on last night."

"Did I make an idiot of myself?"

"Honey, you were at a dinner party with my family. On your best day you couldn't even compete in the idiot contest."

"Your mother isn't an idiot."

"My mother likes you."

"Really?" I eased myself into a sitting position, put both hands to my head, and applied pressure in an attempt to prevent my brain from exploding. "I'm never doing this again. Never. I'm done drinking. Okay, maybe a beer once in a while, but that's it!"

"I went out and got the cure," Morelli said. "I have to leave for work, but I want to make sure you're okay first."

I opened my other eye. I sniffed the air. "The cure? Really?"

"Downstairs," Morelli said. "I left them in the kitchen. Do you want me to bring them up?"

Not necessary. I was on my feet. I was moving. Slowly. I was at the stairs. One step at a time. I was going to make it. I put my hands over my eyes to keep my eyeballs from falling out of my head while I worked the stairs. Then I was on firm floor. I inched forward. I was in the kitchen. I squinted into the red haze and I saw it. It was sitting on the little wooden kitchen table. A large bag of McDonalds French fries and a large Coke.

I carefully eased myself onto a kitchen chair and took my first fry. "Ahhhh," I said.

Morelli was slouched in the chair opposite me, finishing his coffee. "Feeling better?"

I sipped some Coke and I ate more fries. "Much better."

"Are you ready for ketchup?"

"Definitely."

Morelli got the ketchup out of the fridge and dumped some on a plate for me. I mushed some fries in the ketchup and tested them out.

"I think the brain swelling is going down," I said to Morelli. "The pounding has stopped."

"Always a good sign," Morelli said. He rinsed his cup and set it in the dish drain. "I'm out of here. I have to get the computer to the lab." He kissed me on the top of my head. "Be careful. Tank's outside, doing his thing. Try not to lose him."

"I owe you," I said.

"Yeah, I know. I already have plans."

And he was gone.

Bob was patiently sitting beside me, waiting for his share. I fed him a couple fries, finished up the rest, and drank the Coke. I gave a big burp and felt pretty decent.

I took a shower and got dressed in a short denim skirt white sneakers, and a white T-shirt. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, applied some lipstick and a single swipe of mascara and I was ready for the day.

I put a call in to Lula and got her at a truck stop.

"I'm fine," she said. "Me and Boo are having breakfast. We're making real good time. We're traveling straight along Route Forty all the way. This here's real interesting. I never drove through anything like this before. This is cowboys and Indians country."

I hung up, dropped a raisin and a small chunk of cheese into Rex's cage, gave Bob a hug, and told everybody I'd be back. I locked up after myself and waved to Tank. Tank gave me a nod back.

I drove the short distance to my parents' house and parked in the driveway. My grandmother was at the door, waiting for me, responding to some mysterious instinct embedded in Burg women ... an early warning signal that a daughter or granddaughter was approaching.

"That big guy is following you again," Grandma said, opening the door to me.

"Tank."

"Yeah. I wouldn't mind spending some time with him. You think he could go for an older woman?"

Young women, old women, barnyard animals. "Hard to say with Tank."

"Your mothers at the store and the girls are off playing somewhere," Grandma said. "Valerie's in the kitchen eating us out of house and home."

"How's she doing?"

"Looks like she's going to explode."

I went in and took a chair across from Valerie. She was picking at a bowl of macaroni and chicken salad, not showing much enthusiasm for it.

'"What's up?" I asked.

"I dunno. I'm not hungry. I think I'm in a slump. My life is same old, same old."

"You're having a baby. That's pretty exciting."

Valerie looked down at her stomach. "Yeah." She gently rubbed the baby bulge. "I'm excited about that. It's just that everything else is so unsettled. I'm living here with Mom and Dad and Gram. After the baby there'll be four of us in that one small bedroom. I feel like I'm swallowed up and there's no more Valerie. I was always perfect. I was the epitome of well-being and mental health. Remember how I was serene? Saint Valerie? And I adapted when I moved to California. I went from serene to perky. I was cute," Valerie said. "I was really cute. I made birthday cakes and pork tenderloins. I bought my jerk-off husband a grill. I had my teeth bleached."

"Your teeth look great, Val."

"I'm confused."

"About Albert?"

Valerie rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. "Do you think he's boring?"

"He's too funny to be boring. He's like a puppy Sort of floppy and goofy and wanting to be liked." He could be a little annoying, but that's different from boring, right?

"I feel like I need a hero. I feel like I need to be rescued."

"That's because you weigh four hundred pounds and you can't get out of a chair by yourself. After you have the baby you'll feel different." Okay, so I was being a big fat hypocrite again. I felt the same way as Val. I wanted to be rescued, too. I was tired of being brave and semi-competent. Difference was, I refused to say it aloud. I suspected it was a basic instinct, but it felt wrong somehow. For starters, it felt like a terrible burden to dump on a man.

"Do you think Albert is at all heroic?" Valerie asked me.

"He doesn't look like a hero, but he gave you a job when you needed one and he's stood by you. I guess that's sort of heroic. And I think he'd run into a burning building to save you." Whether he'd get her out of the building is another issue. Probably they'd both die a horrible death. "I think you're doing the right thing by not getting married, Val. I like Albert, but you don't want to marry him just because Mom's in favor of it, or because you need a second income. You should be in love and you should be sure he's the right man for you and the girls."

"Sometimes it's hard to tell what's love and what's only indigestion," Valerie said.

I left Valerie with the macaroni salad and drove to the office.

Connie looked around her computer screen at me when I walked in.

"Well?" I asked. "Are you married?"

"No. It turned out to be a joke photo. I caught the ten o'clock out of Vegas."

"And the room damage?"

"It all went on Vinnie's credit card. Vinnie almost popped a vein when he heard. But then the reporters started showing up and Vinnie was distracted. The room bill got pushed on a back burner. You saved Vinnie's ass. You even made him look good. The visa bond worked. The guy fled. We found him."

"Actually, the Vegas cops found Singh."

"Not when Vinnie tells it. Vinnie's made some improvements on the story. So we all still have our jobs. Vinnie's not going to be selling used cars in Scottsdale. Everybody's happy."

Everybody except me. I was being stalked by a lunatic. And it was possible that I was indirectly responsible for causing three murders.

"Now that Singh is off the books, I've got a backlog of skips," Connie said. "What would you like . . . first-time rapist, repeat domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, or possession?"

"What's the possession?"

"Kilo of heroin."

"Whoa! That's a biggy. That's Ranger's. How about the deadly weapon."

"Butchy Salazar and Ryan Mott got into a fight over Candace Lalor. And Butchy ran over Ryan with his Jeep Cherokee. Three times."

"Butchy was drunk?"

"Yep."

"Give me Butchy." Sometimes a drunk is an easy catch if you can get him in the morning.

I took the papers from Connie. I didn't need a photo. I knew Butchy. Went to school with him. Didn't like him back then. Wasn't real crazy about him now.

"I'll give you the rapist, too. It's his first time around. Maybe he just forgot to show for court. I tried calling, but all I get is a machine."

"Have you tried his work number?"

"He's unemployed. Got fired when he got arrested."

I looked around. "It feels strange not to have Lula here."

"Quiet," Connie said.

"Empty."

"Glorious," Vinnie yelled from his inner office. "Freaking glorious."

I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and I headed out. Tank was standing guard on the sidewalk, in front of my car.

"I have a couple FTAs," I said to Tank. "One's in the Burg and one's in Hamilton Township. I have to stop at my apartment first to get some clean clothes and stuff."

"It might be easier if we took one car for the busts," Tank said.

I agreed. "Do you want to drive or ride shotgun?"

Tank's eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. Shocked that I would even consider driving. Tank only rode shotgun to Ranger.

"It's the twenty-first century," I told Tank. "Women drive."

"Only in my bed," Tank said. "Never in my car."