Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door

by Lucy Score

  Josie gave a low whistle. “Nice work, newbie.”

  “It would be nicer if we knew where she disappeared to. She didn’t pick up when I called her from her friend’s phone.”

  Josie tried from her own phone and got the same voicemail. “I’ll text the hubs and see if there’s any way to get a fix on her phone.”

  While Josie texted, Riley drummed her fingers on the wheel in frustration. “How do we find a girl who doesn’t want to be found?” she asked.

  “Perhaps you should try searching for her in a different way,” Gabe said obliquely.

  She chewed on her lip. She’d thought that her mystical spirit guides had turned up bupkis on No Neck when in fact they’d been trying to push her toward the video of Griffin’s interview. She just hadn’t listened closely enough.

  Maybe she could get a read on where Betsy was hiding. She grabbed her bag and rifled through it, triumphantly producing the baggie. “Aha!”

  “You want to do manis right now?” Josie asked, eyeing the fake fingernail.

  “Nope. I’m asking my spirit guides where she is.”

  “That was my next guess,” Josie said.

  “I am very proud in this moment,” Gabe announced.

  “Everyone be quiet,” Riley insisted. She closed her eyes and focused on her breath while holding the nail between her finger and thumb. She didn’t know if it was the urgency of the situation or the fact that she really wanted to prove herself useful to Nick. Whatever the reason, she dropped into the blue state fast enough that it made her dizzy.

  “What’s she doing?” she heard Josie hiss.

  Gabe shushed her.

  “Okay, spiritual people. Me again. I need to find Betsy Quackenbush,” Riley informed her guides.

  “Are they going to like give her an address?” Josie wanted to know.

  “I do not know how they will reveal their truths,” Gabe said.

  Riley blocked out her audience and focused on the nothingness that surrounded her.

  Something was coming out of the fog, solidifying into a blurry picture. She reached out, slapping blindly at Josie.

  “Yo, watch the boob grabbing,” Josie complained.

  “Paper. Pen,” Riley told her, snapping her fingers without opening her eyes.

  The vision was coming in clearer now.

  “Ah, shit. Okay, hang on.” After a few seconds of what sounded like wild pawing through the glove compartment, Josie pressed pen and fast food napkin into Riley’s hand.

  “I’m seeing a house,” Riley said slowly. “I think. Front porch. A circle? What the hell is that? A pizza?” She moved the pen over the napkin, hoping she was sketching her vision and not writing all over her leg. “Shit. It’s fading.”

  “Did you get any house numbers on the pizza?” Josie asked when Riley blinked her eyes open.

  Riley looked at the scrap paper. The sketch kinda sorta resembled a box with a circle divided into fours. There were no numbers.

  “No. Damn it. Just a weird pizza.”

  “Perhaps this beautiful drawing will link to one of the other addresses on the list,” Gabe suggested, peering over her shoulder.

  “Not a bad idea, big guy,” Josie said, slapping his gigantic bicep with enthusiasm. “We’ll just pull up Google Maps, drop into Street View, and see if any of these buildings make pizza.” She secured her tongue between her teeth and went to work on the remaining addresses.

  “Why can’t they just give me an exact location?” Riley complained.

  “Because they do not speak the same language as you,” Gabe said patiently.

  “Well, things would be a hell of a lot easier if they spoke my language or if they gave me a translator.”

  “You are your own translator,” he explained. “They use symbols that will mean something to you.”

  Hence Griffin’s douchey tie, Riley realized.

  “Those spirit guides are some sneaky-ass geniuses,” Josie said gleefully. She held up the phone so they could see the screen.

  It was a stately Victorian painted midnight blue with purple trim. The porch wrapped around the side. On the second floor just above the porch roofline was a circular window divided into fours.

  “Holy crap,” Riley breathed. “It worked!” For the first time in her life, this whole psychic thing didn’t seem so annoying.

  “Let’s go catch us a witness,” Josie said.

  Josie stabbed the doorbell of 604 Market Street. Behind her on the porch, Riley shifted her weight from side to side. Behind her, Gabe studied a hanging basket that was at his eye-level.

  The door opened, and a woman who coasted in just under five feet tall glared at the strangers on her porch.

  “Is this one of those ‘distract me at the front door so one of your slimeball friends can break in the back door and steal my prescription medicines’?” Betsy’s great-aunt Fanny demanded. She was wearing a bathrobe and curlers in her hair.

  “Can I keep her?” Josie whispered in delight.

  “We have no interest in violating your back door, venerable elder,” Gabe promised.

  Riley elbowed Josie out of the way. “We’re sorry to bother you so late, ma’am. We’re looking for your niece Betsy.”

  “Betsy? Ha! That girl is probably off handing out BJs at some sex party.” The curlers trembled on top of her head.

  “So she’s not here?” Riley pressed.

  “I haven’t seen that girl since last Thanksgiving. She brought a bottle of Diet 7UP and half a bag of stale Twizzlers as her contribution if that tells you anything about her. What do you want with her anyway? She owe you money?”

  A thump sounded from the second floor directly above the door.

  “Do you live here alone?” Riley asked. She wasn’t picking up on any untruth to Great-Aunt Fanny’s statement. But it was a huge house. It was possible that Great-Aunt Fanny didn’t know she had a roommate.

  “Achoo!” The sneeze echoed down to them through an air vent in the foyer ceiling.

  “Bless you,” they all said to each other.

  “Oh, don’t mind that,” Fanny said with a dismissive wave of her gnarled hand. “This place is old. Haunted. Ghosts come and go. Leave sandwich fixins’ and dirty dishes in the kitchen. Make a guest room bed look like someone’s been sleeping in it. Couple of years ago, I’d swear there was a ghost party going on in the attic almost every weekend. I called an exorcist, but nothing worked. Then one day, poof! All the ghosts were gone. Matter of fact, last night was the first time I’ve heard any ghostly activity in a long time.”

  “Perhaps you could offer to connect with the spirits,” Gabe suggested eagerly to Riley.

  “A door-to-door exorcist?” Fanny asked. “Well, ain’t this my lucky day?”

  “I don’t think we’re going to need an exorcist or a medium,” Riley guessed.

  Josie held up her phone and dialed.

  A familiar tune echoed tinnily down to them from upstairs, followed by a frantic “Oh! Shit!”

  “Ghosts don’t usually have cellphones with Nicki Minaj ringtones, ma’am,” Josie pointed out.

  “Betsy, come on down. It’s Riley from the bar,” Riley called over the elderly woman’s head. “We just want to talk to you.”

  “Betsy Quackenbush, is that you?” Great-Aunt Fanny screeched. “You get your scrawny ass down here right this instant.”

  Riley breathed a sigh of relief when a barefoot, bandaged Betsy slunk down the staircase.

  “What in the devil happened to you?” Fanny demanded, turning to face her niece. “You didn’t get beat up by that MMA fighter’s girlfriend again, did you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Betsy said miserably. She had a bandage on her forehead and one on her right arm just above the wrist.

  She also had only nine long yellow and black checkered fingernails.

  “Betsy, we know about Rod, and we know you were in the car with him,” Riley said gently.

  Her blue eyes widened. “I don’t know anything about anything. I didn�
�t have anything to do with the blackmail or the wreck.”

  Riley and Josie exchanged a look.

  “Who said anything about blackmail?” Josie asked.

  “We need to talk,” Riley said.

  47

  9:20 p.m., Saturday, July 4

  This was exactly the kind of shindig Nick avoided whenever possible. The Hills Casino & Race Track squatted on fifty acres of what had been farmland just northeast of Harrisburg. Downstairs, chain-smoking old ladies in cat sweaters worked the slots. Upstairs, men and women in slick clothes mingled and made small talk, trying to out-wealth everyone else.

  Nick would rather be at a backyard BBQ in shorts with a beer in his hand than duded up in a suit, trying not to burp out loud. His feet already hurt, and he was sweating through the damn shirt under his jacket.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the well-lit horse track. Servers in white shirts and black ties circulated with trays of drinks and useless finger foods that a guy would have to eat four trays of just to take the edge off his hunger.

  The dignified music came from a bored looking DJ in the corner.

  “Can you hear me?” Nick muttered under his breath as he brought his beer to his mouth.

  “Crackly and not very clear, but yeah,” his cousin said in the earpiece. “Cell service is shit in there. Is that like the third Tony Bennett song since you’ve been there?”

  “This place is like a giant tomb,” Nick agreed. He flashed a reflexive grin at the woman who wandered by and gave him the eyes.

  He was wired. A conversation recorded without consent or a warrant would never hold up in a Pennsylvania court. But that was for the DA to worry about later. All Nick had to do was connect the dots for the cops, get the bad guy off the street, and collect his fees. If he got the mayor to say anything, it would be a starting point for the cops to work backward from.

  “So what’s the story? You just gonna walk up to Mayor McMurder and ask if he’s had anybody whacked recently?”

  Nick had had eyes on the mayor and the mayor’s muscle-bound henchman a couple of times so far. The relief he felt knowing that Riley was miles away from the bad guys and that they’d have to get through him to get to her was intense.

  “I’m an investigator. His name came up in connection with a case I’m working on. I just have a few questions seeing as how his name is on the Nature Girls’ liquor license right next to Dickie’s,” Nick said.

  “Don’t get yourself killed,” Brian sighed.

  Nick’s thoughts returned to Blossom’s tarot cards. But he shrugged it off. Tonight didn’t feel like the night he was going to die.

  He spotted a woman making her way toward him through the crowd.

  “Hang on. Incoming,” he said quietly.

  “Nick Santiago,” she said, holding out her hand. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Jasmine Patel.”

  “Riley’s best friend. Sure,” he said. “I recognize you from Riley’s Facebook picture.”

  “And I recognize you from the intensive online stalking I did when my BFF mentioned you the first time,” Jasmine said crisply. She wore a sleeveless red dress that stopped several inches above her knees. It looked way more comfortable than his stupid suit. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Is Riley with you?” she asked.

  “Riley’s running some errands for me tonight,” he said evasively.

  Her dark eyes sharpened. “You’re either here with someone else and cheating on my very best friend in the world, or you’re working. And for both our sakes, you better hope that you’re working.”

  Nick swallowed hard. “Definitely working.”

  Her smile was deadly. “Good.”

  “You do know that Riley and I aren’t actually together though, right?” he said.

  “Hmm. I know that’s what you both say,” she said, liberating a glass of champagne from a server’s tray.

  “Ha! Busted!” Brian crowed in his ear. “You like a girl!”

  “I’m not much of a relationship guy,” Nick told Jasmine.

  “Well, you better turn into one before you let her get away. Riley Thorn is one of a kind,” she warned him.

  He thought about her facing down a hired hitman alone. “Yeah. She’s definitely that.”

  “Let me give you a few Riley hacks,” she said. “In case you come to your senses and decide to lock her down.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “She needs the kind of man who will support her. Not like ‘sugar daddy’ support her. But someone who will help her spread her wings. A guy who will break her out of the boring safety cocoon she’s crocheted herself into. She needs the kind of man who will help her be herself, not expect her to play fan club president while he runs off and has a good time.”

  Nick cringed inwardly.

  “So what she’s saying is you shouldn’t have doubted her abilities, shamed her, and kicked her off your team,” Brian mused in his ear.

  “I’m not here having a good time,” Nick told Jasmine. “I’m here to get answers to questions.”

  “And what’s Riley doing tonight? Buying you groceries? Scanning your receipts?”

  She was doing something she couldn’t possibly get hurt doing.

  “Look, I’m dying to break her out of that good-girl bubble, but not at the expense of her safety. And just because I don’t want to see her get hurt doesn’t mean I don’t respect her,” Nick snapped.

  She cocked her head and studied him coolly, then grinned. “Okay. You passed the best friend test.”

  His shoulders dropped away from his ears. “You’re terrifying,” he confided.

  “And don’t you forget it,” she said brightly. “Now, who are we spying on?”

  “Nicky, I’ve got a window.” Fat Tony barreled into their conversation.

  “Hi, Fat Tony,” Jasmine said with affection. “Window for what?”

  “Hi, sweetheart. How the hell are you? Thanks again for helping with my mother-in-law’s estate,” Fat Tony said, giving her a noisy kiss on the cheek.

  “Fat Tony’s introducing me to the mayor,” Nick explained.

  “Ooh! Can I come? He’s super cute,” Jasmine said.

  “No. He’s not,” Nick argued. Were all women happy to hurl themselves headfirst into danger? It was fucking exhausting.

  “Nicky, didn’t anyone ever tell you not to argue with a beautiful woman?” Fat Tony chided, linking arms with Jasmine.

  “Listen to Fat Tony, Santiago,” she said.

  “This is a clusterfuck,” Nick muttered as he followed them across the room to the windows overlooking the track where three men were deep in conversation. Two of those men were most definitely criminals.

  “Nolan,” Fat Tony said to the man in the impeccable blue suit. “I want you to meet my friend, Nick Santiago. Nicky, this is Mayor Flemming.”

  Nolan Flemming was an okay-looking guy, if Nick was pinned down for an opinion. He had wavy blond hair and a tan that made him look a little bit like a displaced surfer. His nose was perfectly straight, his teeth were perfectly white. And his face was a canvas for the perfect political smile. Interested but distant.

  “Great to meet you, Nick,” he said.

  “Likewise,” Nick said, shaking the man’s cool, smooth hand.

  Fat Tony introduced Jasmine, and as expected, Flemming’s demeanor warmed for the beautiful constituent.

  No one introduced Duncan Gulliver.

  The conversation restarted, and Nick observed. On the surface, Flemming said and did all the right things. But there was that buzz just beneath the surface. Nick had interviewed his fair share of murderers and bad guys. Most of them got caught up in circumstances or bad environments. But it was the vacant, charming ones you had to watch for.

  And he was watching very closely, which meant he noticed the quick flare of temper when someone accidentally knocked into Flemming from behind. The cool, flat look that met the woman’s apology.

  Nick’s warning system came online and alerting him to a low-level
threat.

  Jasmine didn’t seem to notice. She was laughing and tossing her hair and doing all the little things women do when they’re sizing up a potential mate. Riley was right. Her best friend had terrible taste in men.

  Duncan had the personality of a robot. He stayed on the outskirts of the circle and made no attempt to join in the conversation. He looked like Nick felt, as if he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  Nick leaned in to Fat Tony. “I’m going to need you to get her out of here before the mayor takes too much of a liking to her,” he said, tilting his head toward Jasmine.

  Fat Tony gave a subtle nod. A few minutes later, the man whisked Jasmine away to his wife so they could “girl talk” about estate planning an endowment for a clinic in the city.

  Nick was weighing his options for how to proceed when a familiar and unwelcome face joined the conversation.

  “Mayor Flemming. Great to see you again,” Griffin Gentry bubbled enthusiastically.

  His handshake was like the rest of him. Too eager.

  Gentry’s fiancée, Riley’s replacement, glittered on his arm in a white, sequined dress that was doing its best to contain her ripe upper half. Her silver-blonde hair was done in thick rope-like waves, and she’d either played tonsil hockey with a vacuum nozzle or gotten a few syringes of fillers in her pink, shiny lips.

  Nick shuddered. That was not the kind of woman who would pull on a ball cap after a long night of sweaty, acrobatic sex and say yes to greasy diner food. Bella Goodshine was the kind that would spend two and a half hours getting ready to be seen at the gym and then take selfies the entire time.

  “Griffin.” Flemming’s tone was indulgent. “Do you know Nick Santiago?”

  “I don’t think I—” Gentry’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, bumping into Bella.

  “Hey!” she squeaked.

  “Oh, I think you remember,” Nick said, flashing him a hard grin.

  Griffin giggled nervously. A high-pitched sound incongruous with his “for the cameras” voice.

  “You’ve met?” Flemming asked.

  “It’s a small world,” Nick said, hoping he’d leave it at that. Gentry was a moron, but he knew enough about Riley to be dangerous in this situation.