by Lucy Score
“Do you wish for me to punch him in the face now?” Gabe offered hopefully.
“This isn’t even about me, is it?” Riley asked, searching Nick’s face. “This is about you and Beth.”
“It’s about you taking stupid and unnecessary risks,” he challenged.
“Nice apology, assface.” Riley started for the stairs. Nick Santiago could take a long walk off of the Walnut Street Bridge as far as she was concerned.
He grabbed her arm and held her in place. She could feel the frustration in his grip. “Fine!” he said. “I’m sorry for being a dick.”
She quit trying to pull away. There was something just beneath the surface. Something like panic and fear.
“Okay. Let’s go. But I’m driving separately so I don’t have to call for another ride when you piss me off again.”
“I am happy to give you all the rides you wish,” Gabe called.
“Thanks, Gabe. I appreciate you,” Riley said.
“And I am humbled by your appreciation. You are a wonderful human being.”
“Oh, bite me, hairless Sasquatch,” Nick growled.
45
5:55 p.m., Saturday, July 4
Nick’s mood stayed shitty on the drive back to the office. He tailed Riley’s Jeep, never letting her out of his sight. He couldn’t shake the bad feeling in his gut. Something was about to go down, and he was man enough to be scared shitless that it was going to go down around her.
His brain helpfully ran through all the possibilities. What if this Dun guy recognized Riley somehow from the mansion? What if he’d been casing the place before the murder? He’d have seen her coming and going.
And she’d just walked right up to him and started a conversation.
Did she have any idea how much damage someone could inflict in the minute it would have taken him to get to her? Brian had grabbed him as he’d tried to get out of the van to drag her ass out of there. Then Josie had wrestled him back into his chair.
Nick really needed to start lifting heavier weights.
They’d made him sit and listen. They’d trusted her to handle herself. But his reaction hadn’t been about trust. It was experience. If the bad guy was bad enough, nothing would stop him. Nick knew this.
But Riley wasn’t Beth. She was tougher. Smarter. Older. But she still needed protection. And he was fucking terrified that he couldn’t give it to her.
Her Jeep swung into a spot across the street from his office. He parked behind her, not willing to let her out of his sight for the amount of time it would take him to park around back.
She ignored him as he jogged to catch up to her. She pushed through the office door two steps ahead of him.
“Let’s get this party started,” Josie said. She had her feet propped up on the empty desk and was filing her nails.
“Thanks for forgiving my thick-headed cousin,” Brian said cheerfully from his workstation.
“I didn’t,” Riley said, shooting Nick a look. “But I’m here to help if I can.”
“While you were doing your apology tour,” Brian said to Nick. “Jos swung by Betsy’s place.”
“She hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning. She just got back two days ago from a spa day courtesy of her—” Josie whipped out a notebook, consulted it. “Snookums. Guy meeting the description of Dead Rob has been seen around the complex. I may have accidentally picked the lock and had a look around. Place was messy, but it wasn’t tossed. No phone. No purse. Her toothbrush was missing. There was some bloody gauze and bandage wrappers in the bathroom trash. Looks like she might have figured out she was in trouble, patched herself up, and went into hiding.”
“So we’ve got no Betsy. And a guy with no picture, no name besides Dun, who our friendly neighborhood psychic fingered for the kill,” Nick summarized. “Have any other visions since then?”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Riley said, looking a little guilty.
He turned away from her and flopped down in one of the vinyl armchairs. It was uncomfortable and ugly, and he had the urge to pick it up and throw it through the window. His temper had been legendary in his teens and early twenties. Being a cop had evened him out. Then not being a cop and being his own boss had smoothed out the remaining rough edges. But every once in a while, things flared to the surface.
“Let’s start from the top,” Brian suggested. “Riley, can you give us a description of the guy?”
She took the second chair and pointedly turned away from Nick.
“Okay. So he’s not very tall. He’s bald. Shiny, shaved head. Big shoulders. No neck whatsoever. Kind of looks like a brawler.”
Nick noticed Josie’s gaze fix thoughtfully on Riley’s face.
“He definitely works out. And pretty hard-core, too.”
“Sounds like the guy you saw coming out of the back office when you were there,” Brian mused to Nick.
He’d forgotten. Rage had clouded his mind and his instincts. Calling it up from the memory banks, he played it through. “Yeah.” He nodded. “Big, short guy. Crazy eyebrows.”
Josie’s feet hit the floor. “Looks constipated? Wears fancy sneakers?”
Now Riley was leaning forward. “Yeah! With a red lightning stripe on them.”
“I think I know our guy,” Josie announced smugly.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Nick said, anticipation rising and pushing away the dredges of anger, fear.
“Nope. Gym rat at a place I used to go until we moved over here. Duncan something.”
“Now, we’re talking,” Brian said, turning back to his monitors, fingers flying over the keys. “Was he a selfie guy? Sounds like a selfie guy. He could have tagged himself or checked-in at the gym.”
Josie got up to look over her husband’s shoulders. “I remember him preening in the mirror, but I don’t remember any ‘welcome to the gun show’ selfies or ‘watch me lift’ footage.”
“Footage.” Riley said it quietly, but Nick still heard her. She had a funny look on her face. Her nose twitched twice as she pulled her phone out of her bag.
He had too much energy to sit, so he paced and thought while his team worked.
Why would a no-necked gym rat take out a skinny, crappy bar owner that he obviously knew? Was it a woman? Gambling? Drugs? Money?
He turned it over again. Returning to what Thorn had said in the van. Cold. Like an item on a to-do list. Like a… job.
“Duncan Gulliver,” Riley said quietly. Her face was pale. Those heavily lidded eyes were open wide. She held out her phone to Nick, and he took it.
“Holy shit!” Brian said gleefully as he keyed in the last name. “Did you just psychically come up with that? Because that’s fucking cool.”
Josie ruffled his hair affectionately. “Don’t make it weird, babe.”
It was a video on the screen from the Channel 50 News Facebook page. An interview between asswipe Griffin Gentry and Harrisburg Mayor Nolan Flemming. Griffin Gentry was fiddling with his too-fancy red power tie.
“Look at the thirty-second mark,” Riley told him.
Nick fast-forwarded. “Well, fuck me.”
“Oh, shit,” Josie said.
At the same time, Brian announced, “We’ve got a problem, Nicky.”
Nick looked up at Riley, who managed to look both scared and excited. In the B-roll of the interview, Flemming was doing a ribbon-cutting for a new restaurant on Second Street. At his right was Mr. No Neck himself shoved in a suit and looking constipated.
“Duncan Gulliver, communications director for Mayor Flemming.”
“What the hell does a communications director do?” Josie asked.
“Apparently they pull triggers,” Nick speculated.
“Are you saying it’s possible that Duncan of Clan No Neck is a hired gun for the mayor of Harrisburg?” Brian asked.
“Get me everything you can on Gulliver and Flemming,” Nick said.
“You know none of this is admissible,” Riley reminded him. “You can’t just go to the
cops with nothing but a psychic’s word. I’ve already burned my credibility to the ground with them by warning them and then telling them I didn’t see anything.”
“You would have burned it even worse by telling them you saw a shiny orb go into your neighbor’s apartment,” Nick argued.
“She’s got a point, Nicky,” Josie agreed.
But he was already shaking his head. “We just have to work backwards. We’ve got our hired gun and a potential bloodthirsty bastard who did the hiring. Now we work our way back and find a connection that’ll stand up in a court.” He stopped his travels across the carpet. “Bet you twenty bucks Flemming is the silent partner. That’s our connection.” He felt it in his gut. Now, all he needed to do was prove it.
“Let me see if I can get my hands on the liquor license paperwork,” Brian said.
“We need Betsy,” Riley said to Nick.
He nodded, in agreement for once.
“By all accounts, she’s not the sharpest crayon in the box. She wouldn’t have gone far. Maybe she’s hiding out at a friend’s place?” she suggested.
“Our murderous mayor’s making an appearance at some swank shindig at the casino tonight,” Josie said, reading over Brian’s shoulder.
“Hold that thought,” Nick said, handing Riley’s phone back.
It was time to step on some toes.
Nick pulled out his own phone and brought up the contact.
“Nicky. I can only assume you’re calling because you’ve cleared my name.”
“I’m working on it, Fat Tony. I need a favor.”
46
7:05 p.m., Saturday, July 4
“Ha! Look at the boss,” Josie said, angling her phone to show Riley.
Nick was dressed in a suit, looking dapper as hell and maybe just a little pissed off about it. He looked really good.
“Mmm.” Riley remained noncommittal. She was still mad at him. But at least he hadn’t stupidly tried to forbid her from taking part in the search. They’d split up, guys to the casino to scope out the mayor and the girls—plus Gabe—to track down Nature Girl Betsy.
“I still can’t believe he gets to go to a party while we play hide and seek all over the East and West Shores for Boobs McGee,” Josie complained.
There was a knock on her window, and Josie opened the door before slipping into the back. Gabe hefted his muscly bulk into the passenger seat and triumphantly held up a bag. “I have returned with sustenance.”
“Stakeout snacks,” Josie said, making grabby hands for the bag.
“Good job, Gabe,” Riley said. “If we get lucky and find Betsy, I’ll take you for ice cream tomorrow.”
“That would be most wonderful,” he said happily.
They divvied up the burgers and fries. Riley produced the list of addresses Brian had compiled of all Betsy’s known associates. “Okay, where do we start? Whose door do we knock on first?” she asked.
“We gotta be careful about who we talk to,” Josie said, her mouth full of fries. “Someone might tip her off that we’re looking for her.”
Gabe ate his cheeseburger in three bites. Riley wondered how much trouble she was going to get in with her grandmother for introducing Gabe “The Bod” to junk food.
“Let’s start with a drive-by of her parents’ house,” Riley suggested. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
An hour and a half later, they still hadn’t gotten lucky, and everyone—except Gabe—was cranky.
They’d scoped out the parents’ neat and tidy ranch house in Shiremanstown, but given the neighborhood, it was impossible for a Jeep crammed with people to remain inconspicuous on the street. After a few passes, they’d moved on to the sister’s apartment in Mechanicsburg. There was a parking lot for them to stake out. But Josie was already bored and buzzed the apartment from the intercom.
“No answer,” she reported, climbing into the back seat again. “This is lame.”
A boring stakeout was still ten times more exciting than what Riley did for a living. And there was something humming in the back of her head. An anticipation of something yet to come.
“Let’s start on the friends’ places,” she suggested. If Riley were in trouble, she’d go to Jasmine before she went to her parents.
They made a pitstop at a gas station for pee breaks and snacks and then worked their way through the short list of Betsy’s girlfriends. It was getting too late to ring doorbells, so they settled for drive-bys, looking for big, blond hair and boobs.
“Bingo,” Josie said, pointing at the next house on their list. 423 Springs Road was a crappy little ranch house on a big, weedy lot. Judging from the thump of music and the dozens of cars lining the street, the occupants were having a party. A loud one.
“Let’s go mingle,” Josie announced. “Cover story. We’re Betsy’s BFFs, and we got worried when she didn’t show up for work today.”
“Good enough for me,” Riley said.
Together, they headed up the walk to the front door. When no one answered the bell, they let themselves in. The living room had a dark green linoleum floor that peeled up at the corners. The furniture screamed “broke college student.” The couch was covered in a dirty slipcover. There were two chairs. One was a papasan with a stained beige cushion, the other a pink inflatable armchair.
The paneled walls—more green—were covered in movie posters hung with thumbtacks.
A shirtless guy wearing a necktie around his forehead and blue paint on his bare chest jogged through the living room whooping. He was followed by a very short, very drunk girl whose shirt was on backwards. She was wearing one shoe.
“Gimmie back my Red Bull and vodka, Jared,” she whined.
“Oh, to be young and dumb again,” Riley sighed.
“Let’s go scare the shit out of these kids,” Josie said.
“Let’s not. Blend in, stick to the story,” Riley advised.
“Party pooper.” Josie pouted.
They walked into the kitchen and out the back door to where the action seemed to be. The lawn had a wicked slant to it, but that hadn’t stopped the partiers from setting up beer pong tables and wading pools with water levels that listed dangerously downhill. The fence had seen better days but still served its purpose by corralling fifty young drunk people.
“Let’s get in and out before they burn down the house with fireworks,” Riley suggested.
They split up, dividing and conquering. Riley grabbed the first smiley drunk girl she passed and asked if Betsy was there.
“Who’s Bessie?” she slurred under the pirate hat that sat askew on her head.
“Betsy Quackenbush.”
“Dunno. Want a Jell-O shot?”
“No thanks. Whose party is this?” Riley asked.
Smiley Drunk spun around, sloshing beer out of her cup in a wide arc. “Um, see that girl with the hair?”
She was pointing at a volleyball court with a sagging net. No one was on it.
“Which girl with what hair?” Riley tried again.
The drunk closed one eye and adjusted her point. “That one. With the brownish hair and the polar bear.”
There indeed was a brunette clutching a polar bear pool float.
“Great. Thanks. What’s her name?”
“Whose name?” she asked, turning back and dousing Riley with beer.
“Never mind.”
Riley picked her way through the revelers and up to the polar bear girl.
“Hi,” she said. “Is Betsy here?”
The brunette screwed up her nose. She cocked her head so far to the right, Riley had to grab her before she tipped over.
“Gravity sucks,” she sang.
“Yeah. Sucks. Do you know Betsy?”
“Sure! We’re practically besties!”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Nope! She was supposed to be here. But she was all like ‘I’m a lame loser and can’t come to your awesome party tonight.’”
“You talked to her today?” Riley pressed, her pulse
ratcheting up a notch.
“No talk. Text.” Snagging her cup in her teeth, the girl dug through the pockets of her obscenely short cut-offs before producing a phone. It took her three tries to get the code right. “See?”
She shoved the phone in Riley’s face, narrowly missing her retinas.
Riley took the phone.
Betsy: I can’t come tonight. Something bad happened. I have to go away for a while.
Sharlene: You suck. Hate you.
Betsy: I’m serious, Shar. Shit went down, and I think I’m in trouble.
Sharlene: You’re dead to me. Unless you show up tonight. Bring ice.
Sharlene’s concern for her friend was underwhelming.
“Do you know where she would have gone?” Riley asked Sharlene.
“Nooooooope,” she sang, then burped. “Don’t care.” She twirled off and added a pool noodle to her collection of floaties, leaving Riley holding her phone.
With nothing to lose, Riley hit the call button.
It rang a few times before going to a generic voicemail. Well, at least they had Betsy’s number now. Riley plugged it into her own phone before putting Sharlene’s down on top of a can of warm beer and going in search of her friends.
Gabe was fending off the advances of three girls who looked barely legal. Josie looked like she was threatening the life of the blue-chested boy.
She rescued her team, and they regrouped at the Jeep.
“I learned that blue chest guy deals prescription ADD meds on the side,” Josie announced.
“I learned that young, intoxicated women are a danger to themselves,” Gabe said, climbing into the back seat.
“I got Betsy’s phone number and a text she sent her friend saying ‘shit went down and she has to disappear for a while.’”
