by Lucy Score
“Oh, boy,” Jasmine said.
“I think she might need that water,” Weber observed as Riley cackled on.
“That’s not a water laugh. That’s a tequila laugh,” Jasmine observed.
“Did you know that Riley’s engaged?” Blossom said from the sink.
17
4:17 p.m., Sunday, June 21
“Hi.” There was a deep baritone coming from the end of Riley’s bed when she woke from a much needed six-hour nap. After Detective Weber had decided not to arrest her. Yet.
A very tall, very muscled black man with a perfectly proportioned shaved head was attached to the voice.
He smiled.
Riley fell out of bed. “Oof!” Her body was indignant at the added abuse.
“Yoo-hoo, Gabe!” Lily tottered into the room wearing a shiny pink jogging suit. “I brought you some tea.”
“You are too kind. Thank you.” His voice boomed around the room.
“What the hell is going on here?” Riley demanded, climbing back to her feet and yanking the sling off her bad arm and preparing to fight. She looked around before remembering that her hockey stick/personal weapon was no longer in one piece.
“I am Gabe,” he said, flashing her that smile again, this time over the rim of a posey-ringed teacup.
He was built like a Mack truck, making the dainty teacup and saucer look doll-sized in his hands. She wasn’t picking up on dangerous murderer vibes, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking beneath the surface.
“Is this a dream or a vision?” Riley whispered, scrambling over the bed to get between the stranger and Lily.
“I very much like your very short pants,” Gabe said, politely admiring her peace sign underwear.
“Lily, you have got to stop letting people into the house,” Riley insisted, grabbing a pair of discarded shorts off the floor and dragging them on.
“I remember when my breasts were that perky,” Lily sighed, as she puttered around the room straightening up. “Don’t waste these years, Riley! You take those perky breasts, and you put them in that Hot Nick’s face every chance you get.”
Riley crossed her arms over her tank top. “You both need to go,” she insisted.
Lily looked disappointed and glanced longingly back at Gabe.
“I’d like to run into him naked and greased up.”
Upset and now considerably grossed out, Riley blocked out Lily’s dirty thoughts and guided her neighbor toward the door. “You can’t let strangers in the house anymore. We all need to be more careful.”
Lily left, muttering about young girls not appreciating the fine men crawling all over them.
Turning to face the intruder, Riley crossed her arms again. “I’m not interested in anything you’re selling.”
“I am not selling anything,” he said, beaming at her. “I have been sent to guide you.”
“That explains nothing,” she said. “Did you just wander in off the street? Are you here to rob me? Because, as you can see, I’ve got nothing worth stealing.”
“A minimalist lifestyle is something to aspire to.” He took another dainty sip of tea.
He looked way too happy, way too fit, and way too calm to be human.
If psychics were real, did that mean vampires and werewolves were real too?
“Are you a vampire?” she asked.
He chuckled magnanimously. “I am not. I am a guide. Your guide.”
“Gabe, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not making any sense.”
He put the cup and saucer down on the bed and rose to his full height. Riley wasn’t great at estimating, but he looked to be about eight feet tall.
“Your spiritual guide,” he announced, pressing his palms together at his chest.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you some kind of new age Jehovah’s Witness?”
She waited for his next round of magnanimous chuckles to subside. Apparently, this guy thought she was hilarious. “I am not,” he said finally.
“Yeah. Thanks. But I’m not buying. I’m not missing any religious figure that you’d love to tell me about, and I do not want to donate to fund a mission trip to a town that will have to rebuild whatever your well-meaning volunteers erected to feel good about themselves.”
Riley grabbed him by the arm. Her fingers didn’t even reach a third of the way around his biceps. But he still allowed her to lead him to the door.
“You have many bruises,” Gabe observed. “Are you aware of them?”
She was painfully aware of them.
“I am,” she said, giving him a push across the threshold.
“Are we going out?” he asked.
“You’re going out. I’m staying in.”
He stood there smiling, and she slammed the door in his face.
“I’ll just wait then,” he called cheerfully through the door.
Riley limped back to her bed. She debated going back to sleep, then realized that beneath all the aches and pains was a ravenous hunger that didn’t feel like being ignored. Also, she really needed to have that talk with her neighbors about letting strangers in the house.
She put on a bra and a clean t-shirt, thought about running a brush through her hair, then decided there was no point to it. She looked like she’d gone a round with a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robot and lost. And it wasn’t like she had a fake fiancé to impress. Nick Santiago would never show his sexy face around here again. Not after the whole psychic revelation. Not that she blamed him. In her experience, guys didn’t deal well with that kind of information. Griffin had never known. He’d only thought her family was “eccentric.”
Cautiously, she opened her door and peered into the hall. The yellow crime scene tape starkly crisscrossed Dickie’s door. But Spiritual Guide Gabe was nowhere to be found. Relieved, she hobbled to the stairs.
Three flights of stairs in her condition? Nope. She pushed the call button for the lift chair and, while she was waiting, brushed her teeth.
What felt like forty minutes later, she made it to the first floor. Someone was cooking something that smelled edible. Which ruled out her mother. Even after a lengthy explanation and lengthier apology, Blossom was not happy with her oldest daughter. Riley now had a long list of things she should have done differently. Starting with accepting herself and her gifts and then moving right on down the line to telling her mother everything the moment it happened.
She followed her nose back to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway.
Lily and Fred were parked at the table watching Mrs. Penny pepper Gabe with questions while acting as his sous chef. There was a pot of something sinful smelling simmering away. Next to it, Gabe was flipping grilled cheese sandwiches on a griddle.
Riley’s stomach growled audibly.
“What is it you do for a living, big fella?” Mrs. Penny asked. Her wrinkled hands arranged neatly sliced vegetables around a bowl of dip on a serving tray.
“I am a spiritual advisor,” he said, moving his attention to the pot.
“Like a priest?” Lily wanted to know. “Or do you still get to have sexual relations?”
“More like a teacher,” Gabe explained.
“What does a spiritual advisor teach?” Fred asked.
“Whatever it is the student needs to learn.”
Riley rolled her eyes and limped into the room.
“Your friend here is quite the cook,” Mrs. Penny said, gesturing wildly with a knife.
“He’s not my friend,” Riley argued, taking a step back in case the woman got too animated with her weapon hand.
Gabe looked hurt, and Riley felt as if she’d just kicked a puppy in the face. “I hope you will grow to think of me as such,” he said sadly.
“Riley Thorn, you hurt this handsome beefcake’s feelings,” Lily said. “Apologize to our new neighbor right now!”
“I’m sorry, Gabe—Whoa. Hang on. What?” Riley asked, slumping into a chair at the table.
“Gabe is staying with us now. I made up the second first
-floor parlor for you,” Lily said to him. “You can share the hall bathroom with Mr. Willicott.”
“Wait a minute. You’re letting him stay?” Riley sputtered. “He’s a stranger—no offense, Gabe—who shows up on the doorstep less than twenty-four hours after Dickie was murdered, and you move him in? How do we know he’s not the murderer?”
It was like age had taken their ability to practice self-preservation. Next, they’d be celebrating Hug an Axe Murderer Day.
“You’re all banged up and grumpy. No judgment,” Fred said, holding up his palms. “I’m an excellent judge of people. Gabe here is obviously no threat.”
Fred had once changed Ted Bundy’s tire in a grocery store parking lot.
“I must agree with this kind man,” Gabe said seriously. “I am very non-threatening.”
Riley gave up. Her battered body didn’t have the energy to argue with senseless goofballs.
“You will feel better once you have eaten,” he insisted.
He put a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich in front of her. She was so hungry she decided to ignore the possibility of the food being poisoned.
Fred, Lily, and Mrs. Penny dug into their food. Gabe sat down next to her with a glass of water. His chair let out a whimper as he settled his very large muscles on it.
“Aren’t you eating?” she asked around a big mouthful of melty goodness.
He gave her a benevolent smile. “I am in the midst of a fast.”
This guy was definitely not human. Or the food was definitely poisoned.
But hey, everyone had to go sometime. Might as well go with a belly full of melted cheddar.
“A fast what?” Lily piped up.
Fred took a noisy slurp of soup.
“I am not eating food,” Gabe explained. “I am ingesting water to cleanse my body of toxins so I can better serve in a physical and spiritual capacity.”
Mrs. Penny eyed him, a blob of tomato soup smearing one of the lenses of her glasses. “What do you bench? Three twenty-five? Three fifty?”
“Four hundred,” he said.
Fred’s sandwich fell out of his hand and hit the table with a squishy thwack. “Maybe I should start fasting?” he said.
Now the muscled stranger was going to start starving her neighbors. Riley threw her napkin down. “Okay. This is ridiculous. Front porch. Now,” she said to Gabe. She could lock him out of the house if need be, and there would be plenty of witnesses on Front Street.
“I would be delighted to speak in private,” he said, rising from his chair.
She picked up her soup and sandwich. “Great,” she said dryly. “Let’s go.”
Gabriel followed her to the front of the house like a happy puppy.
She was out of breath by the time they reached the front door. She really needed to start working out. Limping out on the porch, Riley dropped down on one of the wicker chairs and stuffed the grilled cheese into her face. “Why are you here?” she demanded with a full mouth.
“I was sent to guide you.” He took a sip of water and smacked his lips. “Ahh.”
“Guide me where?”
“In your spiritual development.”
“Listen, Gabe, I am not going to join your church or whatever. You can’t convert me. I’m unconvertible.” She tried the soup. Its deliciousness annoyed her.
“I am not here to convertible you. I was sent to help you develop your connection with your gifts.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she stopped chewing. “Sent by who? Whom? Whatever.”
“Your grandmother.”
Well, shit.
Her spoon clattered on the wooden planks beneath their feet.
“Allow me,” he said, picking it up for her. He handed it back to her. When their fingers brushed, she caught a glimpse of Elanora Basil’s stern, lined face. Her silver hair scraped back in her usual disciplined bun. The strands of onyx and amethyst she always wore for protection glittered around her neck. Riley could feel the woman’s disapproval radiating through the vision.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” she whispered hoarsely.
Gabe dipped his head and pressed his palms together. “Of course.”
“No, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that bowing thing,” she groaned.
She got up and gimped to the far end of the porch. Stuffing the last of her sandwich into her mouth, she dialed her mother’s number.
Blossom answered on the second ring.
“Riley, I love you and want you to know you’re very important to me. But I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“Mom, Grandmother sent me a man.”
“Yeah, well, your father got a spite cow,” her mother retorted. “I’ll call you later.”
“What’s a spite cow?” But Blossom had already hung up.
She dialed her sister next.
“Riley. How are you feeling? Do you want to borrow my healing candles and crystals?” Wander offered.
“There’s a large black man here by the name of Gabriel saying Grandmother sent him to be my spirit guide or teacher or whatever,” Riley explained.
Wander was silent for a beat. “That does sound like something she’d do.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Riley hissed.
“Whatever you do, don’t send him back. You do not want to piss off that woman,” Wander warned.
“I know.” Grandmother’s disapproval was scarier than ten haunted houses and a Halloween movie marathon. “But why now? She’s always left me alone before.”
With Wander, Grandmother had always demanded a full report on the efforts she was making to maintain and grow her gift—as if there was a lot you could do with a psychic schnoz. When it came to Riley, it was “How is your volleyball season?” or “Happy Birthday. Here are some socks with cats on them.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last thirty years trying not to have powers, and now you’re predicting murders?” Wander mused.
Wander was such a loving, open, Zen-like spirit, her snark always managed to sneak up and surprise Riley.
“By the way, Fred was in class this morning, and he said you’re dating a guy who pushed you down the stairs.” Wander was Fred’s favorite yoga instructor.
“We’re actually engaged,” Riley joked airily. Quickly, she filled her sister in on the fake boyfriend turned fake fiancé.
“Well, that explains Mom’s mood in class today.”
“Don’t worry,” Riley assured her. “After the whole ‘I’m a psychic’ revelation and spending half the night in the emergency department with me, I think my fake engagement is over.”
“Like Mom always says, if he can’t handle who you are, he doesn’t deserve you,” Wander said matter-of-factly.
“Speaking of Mom,” Riley said. “I called her, and she said something about a spite cow and hung up on me.”
“You know Mom and Dad. If there’s a way to make life weirder, they’ll find it. Now, do you want me to come over and help you with your spiritual guide?”
Riley glanced over her shoulder at Gabe, who was beaming rainbows at a butterfly that had landed on his finger.
She sighed. “No. I’ll figure it out.”
18
8:55 a.m., Wednesday, June 24
It had been a long-ass week, and it was only Wednesday morning.
Tired, grumpy, and annoyed with the world, Nick gave Brian and Josie a cursory grunt before shutting himself in his office. He wasn’t in the mood for another round of “Did you call her?” “Are you going to call her?”
Most of the hours since Sunday morning had been spent reminding himself of all the reasons why he should definitely not reach out to Riley Thorn.
He’d even gone so far as to write up a list of reasons why he should stay far, far away from her.
1. He liked her. A lot.
2. He felt protective of her. And that never went well.
3. He didn’t want to get snared in the “monogamy and marriage” tra
p. And Riley looked like the kind of girl who could distract a man into forgetting his own end game.
So instead of checking in on her like he wanted to, he was here. Pissed off with himself and everything else.
He turned on the local news for background noise and dug into the stack of files on his desk. His office looked like a paper avalanche was about to occur. While most of the world had moved beyond paper copies, process serving still placed an obnoxious amount of importance on originals. And Nick, being Nick, didn’t feel like his time was best spent alphabetizing shit. So it sat in great, precarious piles where it would live until either something catastrophic happened or he had no other choice but to take a week organizing just to see the carpet again.
The news story on the TV caught his attention. That idiot Griffin Gentry was describing the latest “gang activity” in the city. Grainy video surveillance showed a group of individuals dressed mostly in black wearing an amusing variety of masks leave a guy hog-tied in the middle of the pedestrian bridge between downtown Harrisburg and City Island.
Nick stared at the screen and wondered if Gentry was sitting on a phonebook to look as tall as his co-host.
In a voice a full octave below the one he spoke in, Gentry informed viewers that law enforcement had discovered that the victim was actually a pickpocket with a lengthy rap sheet. He had four outstanding warrants, not to mention three stolen wallets on him.
“Dumbass,” Nick muttered at the screen. Just looking at Gentry pissed him off all over again. He’d done a little digging on the guy, the results of which hadn’t improved his opinion of the man.
His desk phone buzzed, and it took him a moment to recognize the sound. Generally his door was open. If Brian or Josie needed something, they just yelled.
“Yeah? What?” He said after managing to stab the right button.
“You’ve got a potential client out here who wants to discuss a job,” Brian reported.
A distraction from paperwork and Thorn. Exactly what he needed. “Send them in,” Nick said. He glanced around, realizing he should have at least taken a minute to clean up. But the office door was already opening.