“He thinks Cookie here got him shot four years ago,” Mr. Contreras put in, “when it was his own darn fault for not listening to her to begin with. Good thing, if you ask me, ’cause it made him—”

“It’s never a good thing to get shot.” I couldn’t bear to hear Mr. Contreras celebrate Conrad’s and my breakup, especially not in front of Morrell. “And maybe I should have had that bullet instead of him. Anyway, Marcena will charm him out of his bad mood.”

“Probably will,” my Job’s comforter agreed. “She’s perky enough for a whole squad of cheerleaders.”

Morrell laughed. “She’s a prizewinning journalist—I don’t think she’d appreciate being compared to a cheerleader.”

“But she is full of zip,” I murmured, “and she knows how to home in on everyone’s wavelength.”

“Except yours,” Morrell said.

“But I’m a pepperpot, not a cheerleader.”

He pulled me closer. “I like pepper better than cheers, okay?”

“Yeah, but, cookie, you could learn something from her,” Mr. Contreras said, his brown eyes full of concern. “Look how she got Conrad Rawlings eating out of her hand, after he’d been threatening you.”

I stiffened but didn’t say anything; the old man had been so supportive all day it would be mean to turn on him, and, anyway, it would just prove his point. I looked up to see Morrell grinning at me, as if reading my mind. I punched him in the ribs, but settled back against his shoulder.

Finally, after fidgeting around the living room for several minutes, my neighbor announced he was taking the dogs out. “You two ain’t fit for anything but sleep right now,” he said, then turned brick red at the innuendo.

“Don’t worry; sleep is all I’m fit for.” I thanked him for all his help during the day. “Especially the spaghetti—a real corpse reviver.”

“Clara’s old meatball recipe,” he beamed.

It took another ten minutes for him to finish his strictures on Conrad, his advice for my recovery, his promise to intercept Marcena so she wouldn’t wake us when she came back.

“That’s right,” I said. “You two figure out a strategy for the Arlington track that’ll set you up for the rest of your life. Morrell and I will design a strategy for healing our torn-up bodies.”

We did pretty well sleep the clock around, at least in shifts. I got up briefly to talk to Marcena, who came up the stairs, despite Mr. Contreras’s efforts to hold her at bay, so she could fetch Morrell. Morrell hobbled out in his jeans to say he’d stay with me until I could drive him home myself.