Silence.

“Joe?”

“This is the sort of thing Ranger usually takes.”

“He has a problem with the state of Nevada.”

“Okay, let me rerun this,” Morelli said. “You went home to pack and you found more snuff photos. Then you drove to the airport and waited until you were boarded before calling me so it was impossible for me to bring you back to Trenton.”

“Yup. That’s about it.”

The conversation deteriorated pretty quickly after that, so I said good-bye and shut my phone off.

The plane filled and the usual announcements were made. No Tank. I was feeling a little worried without my bodyguard. I had Connie and Lula with me. I liked Connie and Lula, but I suspected they were more liability than asset.

The flight attendants closed the doors and the plane began taxiing. Lula was singing with her headset on and her eyes shut. Connie was talking to the woman next to her.

All right, calm down, I told myself. Probably flying to Vegas was safer than staying in Trenton. Tank would get the next plane and everything would be fine. If I’d stayed with Tank I wouldn’t be on the plane. I would have had to call Morelli and he would have insisted I return to Trenton.

Minutes after taking off it was announced that no food or beverages would be served. “What about peanuts?” Lula yelled out. “Don’t we even get any freakin’ peanuts?” Lula turned to me. “I want to get off this plane. I’m hungry and I’m uncomfortable. And look at the seat in front of me. It’s all ripped. How am I supposed to have confidence when they can’t even keep their seats sewed up? I bet some terrorist was practicing on that seat.”

I put my finger to my eye.

“You getting that nervous eye twitch back?” Lula asked. “It’s from this plane, isn’t it? I feel nervous, too. I’m just a bundle of nerves.”

“It’s from you,” I said. “Put your headset back on and listen to your music.”

An hour into the flight Lula was fidgeting again. “I smell coffee,” she said. “I bet they’re gonna give us coffee. Probably they feel bad about treating us like a bunch of cows and they’re gonna hand out coffee.” She sniffed the air. “Hey, I smell real food. I smell something cooking.” She hung over the armrest and looked up the aisle at the front of the plane. “It’s not first class,” she said. “I can see into first class and they’re not getting any food, either.”

Now I was smelling it. Definitely coffee. And maybe a tomato sauce and pasta dish. And cookies baking!

“It’s like there’s ghosts up there,” Lula said. “I haven’t seen a flight attendant walk down the aisle since we took off. It’s like they vanished and their ghosts are cooking. I’m dying here. I’m starving. I’m getting weak.”

Connie looked over. “What’s going on?”

“I smell coffee,” Lula said. “I must be hallucinating from hunger.”