I checked my phone messages. Three in all. The first was from Joe. “Hey, Cupcake.” That was it. That was the whole message. The second was from Ranger. “Yo.” Ranger made Joe look like a chatterbox.

Well, sure, but I don't bring God into it. I think shower massage might have been invented by the devil. God invented the missionary position.

And the closest I've come to an out-of-body experience was when Joe Morelli took his mouth to me fourteen years ago, behind the eclair case.

Life is about survival of the fittest, and Jersey is producing the master race.

I was driving by, doing a security check... and I smelled leg of lamb." Morelli

I was on my back, looking up at Morelli through cobwebs, and my first thought was that the 7-Eleven victim had exacted revenge on me, and I’d been stun gunned. The cobwebs cleared, and I discounted stun gunning. “What happened?” I asked Morelli. “You fainted.” “That’s ridiculous.” “I agree, but if someone sent me a dead woman I might faint, too.” He was down on one knee, bending over me. “Are you ready to get up?” “I need a moment.” “Don’t take too long. People will think I’m proposing.

I rushed us out of your parents' house because I didn't think I could manage two hours at the dinner table with everyone focused on Joe Loosey's joystick sitting in the refrigerator next to the applesauce.