by Lucy Score
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t murder you right now,” Nick growled, yanking his headset off and hurling it on the console when Riley climbed in the van bubbling with excitement.
“It was him! Definitely him. Big, giant, glowing head that would look like an orb through a dirty peephole in the middle of the night. Same shoes as what I saw in the vision. He went out the back,” Riley said with entirely too much excitement for his liking. “Must have come in that way, too, because I didn’t notice him when—”
Nick grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her down in the chair he’d just vacated. Her eyes went wide like she couldn’t understand why he’d be anything less than thrilled with her. Well, he was going to tell her exactly why. He held up a finger and opened his mouth to let her have it. But those wide brown eyes had him shutting it and stepping away.
His gut had yet to unclench from when she had announced she was just going to pop into the office and search it. For a rule-following good girl, she didn’t listen worth shit.
“Uh-oh,” Brian said. “Nicky’s gonna blow.”
Josie climbed in and slid the van door closed. “Relax,” she ordered. “Everyone’s alive and well—minus our two dead bodies. Now we’ve got more info on our missing passenger and a face to go with the trigger finger. So unclench your sphincter, and let’s debrief.”
“You’re next on the murder list,” Nick snapped at her.
Josie stuck her tongue out at him and then slipped it into her husband’s mouth.
Maybe Blossom’s prediction was about to come true because he sure felt an aneurysm coming on. He was surrounded by idiots who didn’t seem to understand or care that Riley had ended up face-to-face with a murderer.
“You were supposed to get in and out. That was the plan,” he said, trying his best to wrestle his rage into submission.
Riley rolled her brown eyes at him. “I was supposed to find out who Betsy is. And now we’ve got enough to do a little creative internet stalking.”
“Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Quackenbush. Class of 2012. Voted ‘most likely to have peaked in high school.’ One year of college on record. Her credit is garbage. Social media is private except for Instagram,” Brian read off his screen.
“Looks like she and those boobs like to party,” Josie said, leaning over her husband’s shoulder.
“Last known address is 513 Oakleaf Unit 12, Camp Hill,” Brian said.
His team was oblivious to the fact that Nick was having some kind of stress-induced brain bleed.
“Well? What are we waiting for?” Riley asked. “Let’s go talk to her.”
“You’re not talking to anyone,” Nick snapped.
“She did good, Nicky. Chill out,” Josie said, unpacking the pepper spray and blade from her fanny pack to get at a stick of gum.
“She got lucky,” he retorted.
Riley scowled up at him. “No need to be a dick, Nick,” she said.
“You’re not trained for this. You shouldn’t be having conversations with trigger-happy murderers or working in places where you’re just as likely to get shot, stabbed, mugged, or abducted.”
“You’re overreacting,” she shot back.
“Overreacting? Me?” Nick scoffed. His cousin and Josie made it a point to not make eye contact with him, which meant he was embarrassing himself. But he couldn’t seem to stop.
Why the hell couldn’t she see that she mattered?
“He wasn’t going to kill me,” Riley argued.
“Why? Because you got so scared you walked into the men’s room?”
Her nostrils flared adorably, and Nick immediately squashed the affectionate feelings.
“No. Because he’s not a raging lunatic who gets pissed off and pulling triggers. He’s cold. Calculated.”
He threw his arms in the air. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. I just know,” she said, frustrated, “No Neck killed Dickie. But he didn’t do it because he was pissed off or evening a score. It was like crossing off a task on a to-do list.”
“Like a hired hit?” Josie suggested.
“Maybe,” Riley said.
“You could have gotten yourself killed,” Nick said, ignoring everything but his own helpless rage.
“You maybe wanna keep it down? We don’t want someone calling the 5-0 on a van full of screaming Scientologists,” Brian mentioned.
“You’re officially off the team, Thorn,” Nick announced.
Riley gasped, coming out of the chair and into his face. Her anger hit him like he’d just shoved his finger into a socket. “You sent me in there, you gigantic moron. Don’t take the fact that you’re developing real feelings for your fake fiancée out on me.”
“Feelings? Ha!” He scoffed as derisively as the lump in his throat would allow.
“Yeah. Feelings,” she said again, eyes narrowed. “You’re pissed off at yourself. And worried that you won’t be able to protect everyone. But you’re the one who needs protecting!”
“Get out of my head, Thorn! I didn’t invite you in,” he yelled.
“I’ll do you one better and get out of your van,” she said. She wrenched open the door and jumped out onto the sidewalk.
Silence descended on the remaining inhabitants of the van.
“Want me to go after her?” Josie offered.
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “No.”
“You know, boss,” Josie began. “I get that you’ve got issues around women who don’t want to be protected.”
Nick swung around and glared at her. They didn’t talk about it. It was their one rule.
Josie held up her hands. “For good reason. I’m just saying Riley’s not Beth.”
Brian inched closer in his wheelchair. “Regardless of the situation that we are never bringing up again, you just gave a woman you care about the boot in the middle of Harrisburg on a drunken holiday. What my wife is trying to say is you’re being a dumbass.”
“Fuck,” Nick hissed under his breath and climbed behind the wheel of the van.
“What did she mean ‘you’re the one who needs protecting’?” Brian asked, reaching for his seat belt.
“Nothing,” Nick said sullenly as he started the engine.
“She’s a psychic, right? Shouldn’t you maybe take her predictions seriously?” Josie said.
“It wasn’t her prediction,” he said, still watching Riley.
“Good, ’cause I’d miss you at family reunions,” Brian quipped.
“It was her mom’s,” Nick said.
He didn’t go after her. But he did drive behind her as she stalked down the sidewalk with her phone to her face.
“What? You never saw a van of Scientologists stalking a chick before?” Josie yelled out her window at some suspicious pedestrians.
When Riley came to a stop at a corner and stayed put, Nick swooped into a parking space. They sat in silence and waited.
“I could text her,” Brian offered.
“No,” he boomed. It was better this way. A clean break. She’d done enough. Just shy of putting herself in the line of fire.
“Okaaaaay then,” Brian said, unruffled. “I’ll just sit here and brainstorm how to ID a guy named Dun that none of us saw.”
“Good. Do that,” Nick snapped without taking his eyes off Riley. Anger and hurt radiated off her. Minutes later, a minivan pulled up, and Riley climbed in. Nick verified through binoculars that it was Gabe the Gargantuan driving. Riley stuck her arm out the window and flipped Nick the bird. His lips quirked.
Was it any wonder he was developing feelings—or whatever—for her?
In fact, when all this was over, when he’d bagged the killer and collected his fees, he was going to take Riley out on a date. A real one. He’d just have to figure out how to convince her.
“All right, team. Let’s hit the office and brainstorm how to find a guy without a picture or a name,” he said, marginally more cheerful now.
“Gee.
That sounds way better than the sex we were planning to have,” Josie groaned.
44
4:50 p.m., Saturday, July 4
“I can’t believe I basically hand him a murderer on a platter, and he can’t even say thank you,” Riley fumed in the passenger seat of Mrs. Penny’s minivan.
“Nicholas is a very stupid man,” Gabe said agreeably.
“I helped, repeatedly. And he acts like I was just skipping around, putting everyone in mortal danger,” she continued.
“We should throw bathroom tissue at his place of residence,” Gabe suggested.
“Huh?” Riley asked.
“Wander and her daughters invited Burt and myself to watch a movie with them last night after dinner. The main characters decorated a house with bathroom tissue. It looked like fun, and I promised your very small niece, Janet, that we could do it.”
As mad as she was, Gabe crushing on Wander and her house of estrogen was a tiny bit adorable.
“I hope you are not mad at me for dividing my attention,” he said gravely.
“Dividing your attention?”
“I am here to serve as your spiritual teacher,” he said. “Not to learn to sing songs with children. I feel as though I have let you down.”
“Gabe, you’re allowed to have a life outside of teaching me how to psychically solve murders and stuff.”
“You are my priority. I did not mean to frivolously pursue fun when I should have been providing you with spiritual support.”
“Uhh, I think you’re confusing me with my grandmother,” Riley guessed. Elanora Basil was a terrifying woman whose superpower, besides being a world-renowned medium, was how skillfully she wielded her disappointment. “You can teach me and still live a life.”
“I am honored that you would forgive me,” he said, relieved.
“Yeah. Um. Okay.”
“So how shall we exact our revenge on Nicholas?”
“Let’s beat him to the punch,” Riley mused.
“You would like me to punch him? It would be my greatest honor,” Gabe said happily.
“No. Well, yes. But no. How about you help me identify a murderer instead?” she suggested.
“Oh. All right,” he said, sounding just a little disappointed.
Because a crew of crime scene cleaners was busy erasing all biological traces of murder across the hall from her place, Riley and Gabe got to work in his room on the first floor. The only personal effects the man seemed to possess was a set of large weights, a yoga mat, and a meditation cushion. His bed was a sofa, immaculately made up with sheets and pillows. It looked like it was about two feet short of accommodating his frame.
The rest of the room was crammed with bric-a-brac that spilled over from the front parlor. A broken telescope was tucked in a corner behind a prehistoric-looking palm that had grown at least a foot since the last time she’d seen it.
Shelves were stuffed with books and a collection of… well, everything. There were two old typewriters, a St. Francis of Assisi statue that was missing one arm, and four dozen old film canisters. The furniture was a mismatched collection of yard sale chic and curbside pick-up.
“Welcome to my home,” Gabe said proudly.
“Thanks,” Riley said. “So, if I want to figure out who a living person is, how do I do that?”
The idea that she could beat Stupid Jerk-Face Nick in identifying No Neck Dun gave her a heightened sense of urgency.
“Please, sit,” Gabe said, gesturing toward the meditation cushion.
She sat eagerly and closed her eyes without being told.
“First we’ll spend half an hour calming your mind—”
“Half an hour?” She opened one eye. “Can’t we speed it up? This is kind of an emergency.”
“When you rush answers to your questions, you will leave with more questions.” He said it as if he was narrating a guided meditation.
She blew out an impatient breath. “Okay. Fine. We’ll do it your way. But I want it noted for future lessons that we need to figure out how not to take all damn day.”
“So noted,” he said.
She let him ramble soothingly about quiet minds and calm focus, waiting for him to get to the point. Somehow, in the middle of it, she let go of the grocery list she’d been composing and the “in your face” victory dance she was definitely going to hit Nick with.
Floating. Her body felt weightless and warm. Giddy with excitement, she realized she was back in the blue ether-y space. This was good. She was totally starting to get not terrible at this.
“You may ask your spirit guides to help lead you to the answers you seek.” Gabe’s voice sounded very far away.
“Okay, spirit guides. It’s me again, your friendly psychic Riley. I’m looking for a man.”
The first image that popped into her inner mind was that of Nick Santiago.
“No. Not that one. I’m looking for this guy.” She tried to project her memory of No Neck into the ether, but it was like trying to operate Netflix without a remote. “Shit, hang on,” she muttered.
“Do not force anything. Move peacefully within the flow,” Gabe advised distantly.
She took a frustrated breath, let it out. Bringing her mind back to the bar, she let herself see and hear and smell it. Wobbly tables, sticky floors, the smell of old smoke and spilled liquor. The thud of her heart as she walked toward the office, knowing that a monster was behind the door. Knowing she had to be the one to open the door.
Her breathing seemed louder to her ears. Surely he could hear her. Was he just waiting to lure her closer?
The knob was turning now. It was happening! But before Dun made his appearance, Riley was ripped out of the memory and was instead presented with Griffin Gentry in a red power tie, his mouth working with soundless self-importance. She couldn’t hear him, but she could feel the smugness that radiated from his pores.
His face kept blurring, the background sharpening. The stupid red tie expanded until it filled her vision. Red with black and gold stripes.
Shaking her head, she tried to dislodge her spotlight-whore of an ex from her brain.
“Ugh! Damn it,” she swore, tipping off the cushion and staring up at the ceiling.
“Are you all right?” Gabe asked, looming over her with concern. “You look very shiny and pale.”
She was sweating and felt like she either wanted to throw up or eat a breakfast sandwich.
Maybe both.
“I couldn’t get any answers,” she complained. “They just kept showing me my ex-husband. And Griffin’s a cheating, dirty-playing jackass, but he didn’t kill Dickie.”
“Perhaps this donkey man is involved,” he suggested. “The spirits don’t lie. But they do encode their messages.”
“What would a morning news anchor obsessed with spray tans and manicures have to do with a dirty old man who runs a gross bar?”
Gabe shrugged his massive shoulders. “That is for you to divine,” he said.
“Great,” she groaned, climbing to her feet. Her pits were uncomfortably sweaty, and she wondered if she’d remembered to put on deodorant that morning. “Thanks for the lesson and the ride,” she said. “I think I’m going to find Burt and take him for a walk. Maybe clear my head.”
“I believe Fred took him to the park to see if Burt would help him ‘score with the ladies.’ Do you know which game Fred is playing?”
“I can guess,” Riley said, distracted. Just great. She had a head full of nonsense. No dog to walk. And no answers to rub in Nick’s face.
Dejected, she opened Gabe’s door. And ran smack into Nick’s chest.
“What are you doing here?” she asked his pecs.
“Why are you all sweaty?” he shot back.
Clearly they were ecstatic to see each other.
Gabe appeared behind her. “I was engaging Riley in some exercise,” he said. For a man who probably didn’t know what a euphemism was, he’d just pissed off his rival with a good one. Nick’s eyes narrowed. There was no
hint of dimples.
Nick looked like he wanted to say several things.
“Move it, Santiago,” Riley said, stepping around him. “I have nothing to say to you.” She would have if her damn spirit guides had delivered a name and address instead of stupid Griffin Gentry.
He stepped in front of her. “I need to talk to you.” He made it sound like he really didn’t want to talk to her, and she got the teensiest psychic glimpse of Josie and Brian’s disapproving faces.
“They made you come here to apologize, didn’t they?” she asked, feeling a little smug.
He looked like he wanted to put his fist through plaster. That cheered her considerably.
“It was brought to my attention that without your abilities, we don’t have much of a chance of tracking this guy down.” It sounded like every word pained him.
“But you don’t agree?” she pressed.
“Oh, I agree,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I still don’t want you anywhere near this case.”
“Too. Late,” she said haughtily.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Will you please come to the office with me so we can talk?”
“Sure,” she said with feigned sweetness. “On one condition.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “What?”
“Tell me you need my help. Say the words, Nick. Say ‘I need your help, Riley.’”
His jaw clenched. Twice. Then he rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“You’re being an ass.”
“You are indeed being a donkey-man,” Gabe agreed helpfully.
“Go back to your protein shakes, Big and Tall,” Nick snarled.
“Say it, Nick,” she prompted.
He was silent for almost a full minute, and she knew his mind was running through all the possible ways he could figure this out without her.
“Fine. I need your help, Thorn.”
“Now, say you’re sorry for being mean to me when, if it had been anyone else on your team, you would have exploded with pride.”
“You’re not on my team,” he argued. “You haven’t been trained. You don’t carry a weapon. You don’t know how to defend yourself. This isn’t just fun and games to entertain you in the middle of your boring, safe life. And you don’t get to waltz into the danger zone.”
