Free 11 Eleven On Top by Janet Evanovich

wheel, the wheel jerked hard to the left, and we cut across oncoming traffic. The Porsche jumped the curb, plowed through a stack of black plastic garbage bags, and crashed through the plate glass window of a small delicatessen that was closed for the night.
    The front airbags inflated with a bang, and I was momentarily stunned. I fought my way through the bag, somehow got the door open, and rolled out onto the deli floor. I was on my hands and knees in the dark, and it was wet under my hand. Blood, I thought. Get outside and get help.
    A leg came into my field of vision. Black cargo pants, black boots. Hands under my armpits, lifting me to my feet. And then I was face-to-face with Ranger.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    “I must be bleeding. The floor was wet and sticky.”
    He looked at my hand. “I don't see any blood on you.” He put my hand to his mouth and touched his tongue to my palm, giving me a rush that went from my toes to the roots of my hair. “Dill,” he said. He looked beyond me, to the crumpled hood of the Porsche.
    “You crashed into the counter and smashed the pickle barrel.”
    “I'm sorry about your Porsche.”
    “I can replace the Porsche. I can't replace you. You need to be more careful.”
    “I was just sitting in your car!”
    “Babe, you're a magnet for disaster.”
    Tank had the carjacker in cuffs. He shoved him across the floor to the door, the carjacker slid in the pickle juice and went down to one knee, and I heard Tank's boot connect with solid body. “Accident,” Tank said. “Didn't see you down there in the dark.” And then he yanked the carjacker to his feet and threw him into a wall. “Another accident,” Tank said, grabbing the carjacker, jerking him to his feet again.
    Ranger cut his eyes to Tank. “Stop playing with him.”
    Tank grinned at Ranger and dragged the carjacker out to the SUV.
    We followed Tank out, and Ranger looked at me under the streetlight. “You're a mess,” he said, picking noodles and wilted lettuce out of my hair. “You're covered in garbage again.”
    “We hit the bags on the curb on the way into the store. And I guess we dragged some of it with us. I probably rolled in it when I fell out of the car.”
    A smile hung at the corners of Rangers mouth. “I can always count on you to brighten my day.”
    A shiny black Ford truck angled to a stop in front of us, and one of Ranger's men got out and handed Ranger the keys. I could see a police car turn onto Stark, two blocks away.
    “Tank and Hal and Woody can take care of this,” Ranger said. “We can leave.”
    “You have a guy named Woody?”
    Ranger opened the passenger-side door to the truck for me. “Do you want me to explain it?”
    “Not necessary.”
    I was in the Saturn, parked next to Kan Klean. It was Sunday. It was the start of a new day, it was one minute to seven, and Morelli was on my cell.
    “I'm in your lot,” he said. “I stopped by to take you to work. Where are you? And where's your car?”
    “I'm at Kan Klean. I drove.”
    “What happened to the boot?”
    “I don't know. It disappeared.”
    There was a full sixty seconds of silence while I knew Morelli was doing deep breathing, working at not getting nuts. I looked at my watch, and my stomach clenched.
    Mama Macaroni appeared at car side and stuck her face in my open window, her monster mole just inches from my face, her demon eyes narrowed, her thin lips drawn tight against her dentures.
    “What you doing out here?” Mama yelled. “You think we pay for talking on the phone? We got work to do. You kids... you think you get money for doing nothing.”
    “Jesus,” Morelli said. “What the hell is that?”
    “Mama Macaroni.”
    “She has a voice like fingernails on a chalkboard.”
    I NEEDED A pill really bad. It was noon and I had a fireball behind my right eye and Mama Macaroni screeching into my left ear.
    “The pink tag's for dry cleaning and the green tag's for laundry,” Mama shrieked at me. “You mixing