Chapter 23
23
3:19 p.m. Saturday, November 2
“ G o potty in the yard right now,” Riley ordered when they returned home and exited Jasmine’s car.
Burt looked up at her with soulful doggy eyes and a muzzle saturated in a red wine reduction.
“Don’t give me that look. You ate an entire roast. I don’t want your rear end anywhere near the furniture when that bill comes due,” she insisted.
With a grumble, Burt trotted off into the trees, taking his two new four-legged friends—who hadn’t stopped yapping the entire car ride—with him.
“Nicky is going to flip when he finds out you stole two more dogs,” Josie predicted before shoving a saltine in her mouth.
“I didn’t steal them. I temporarily took possession of them so we could return them to their rightful owner,” Riley said. “And I didn’t steal Burt either. I liberated him and then he refused to get out of my car.”
“Besides, Nick’s not allowed to flip out over anything for a while. He incurred a hell of a lot of relationship debt tracking down Kellen’s sister, Beth,” Jasmine said as they crunched through the fallen leaves.
The cops were gone, leaving behind tire ruts, crime scene tape, and trampled landscaping.
Riley wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think we do that score-keeping thing.”
“Seriously? How else do you know who’s winning?” Jasmine asked.
“I’m starting to get why you’re so hot and yet so single,” Josie observed.
Mrs. Penny’s minivan rolled into the driveway with Lil Nas X blasting from the open windows. The van came to an abrupt stop, and the purple-haired problem causer and her confused compadre exited the vehicle, each holding greasy fast-food bags.
“I thought I told you to come straight home,” Riley said.
“Can’t expect us to narrowly avoid death and not stop for a midafternoon snack,” Mrs. Penny said.
“Let’s maybe keep it down about the whole ‘narrowly avoiding death’ thing,” Riley suggested. She wanted Nick to trust her in the field, and kicking off her debut performance by confronting a crazed, drunken maniac with a rifle wasn’t exactly the A-plus she’d been going for.
“Are you asking me to keep something from my business partner?” Mrs. Penny demanded, looking stern behind her thick glasses.
“You always keep things from Nick,” Riley pointed out.
“Only for dramatic flair purposes. It’s all about timing, see?”
Riley wasn’t given any time to see anything because Mrs. Penny was already shoving her way into the house. Burt and the other two dogs, still yapping, raced inside after her. Mr. Willicott wandered off into the backyard.
“Crap,” Riley muttered.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” Josie said, nudging her toward the door.
“Why do I have to go first?” Riley hedged.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Come on, you big babies. I’ll protect you from Scary Nick,” Jasmine said, leading the way.
Mrs. Penny perched on a barstool and rained french fries on the floor while she recounted their afternoon to Nick, who listened with eyes closed and fingers massaging his temples. Lily was relaxing in a kitchen chair and thumbing through an ancient recipe book. Fred, dressed in incredibly inappropriate yoga attire, was sitting cross-legged on the table, listening with rapt attention.
“Remind me to disinfect the table,” Riley said to no one in particular.
“So then the guy’s pointing this old-ass rifle at Burt, and Riley’s all ‘Don’t shoot my dog’ and running at him,” Mrs. Penny continued as the dogs slurped up her floor fries.
Nick’s eyes came open and pinned Riley with “the look.”
“Uh-oh,” Josie muttered and shuffled away from the death glare.
“So I run up behind him like one of those superfast ninjas, and I bonk him on the head with a club I stole off his wall,” Mrs. Penny said.
“Thorn,” Nick said, his voice deadly calm as the dachshund scrabbled her little paws at his legs.
“Um. Yes. Present,” Riley said, trying to look both alive and competent.
“He’s gonna blow like my elementary school science fair volcano,” Josie said in a stage whisper.
The kitchen door swung open, and Griffin trotted inside, holding a plate with a sandwich on it. Gabe was behind him.
“Excuse me,” Griffin sang. “I believe I ordered my sandwich with truffle mayonnaise. This tastes like regular mayonnaise.”
Nick was still staring at Riley, his left eye twitching.
“This ain’t no diner, bub,” Mrs. Penny said to Griffin. “You want truffle mayo, you gotta cough up the cash for it.”
Griffin sighed and pulled out his money clip. “Fine. How much does mayonnaise cost? Forty dollars?”
Mrs. Penny snatched the twenties out of his hand and pocketed them. “Who wants to go on a grocery store run?”
“I’ll go,” Lily volunteered. “That cutie with the booty stocks shelves on Saturdays.”
Gabe’s hand shot into the air. “I would very much like to attend the grocery store outing and leave Mr. Gentry’s personal security to someone else.”
Riley sensed a teensy bit of desperation coming from her spiritual adviser. She couldn’t blame him. Griffin was hard to take in even the smallest doses.
“Not it,” Josie said, putting her finger on her nose.
“I’ll take over,” Riley volunteered.
“The hell you will. I have yelling to do,” Nick snapped.
“Don’t you tell my friend what to do.” Jasmine stepped in front of Riley and crossed her arms. Jasmine’s idea of conflict resolution was to throw as much gasoline on the fire as possible until everything exploded.
“Don’t criticize my feelings about my girlfriend putting herself in the literal line of fire !”
“Don’t you tell me what to do!”
“Wow. She really has no sense of self-preservation at all,” Josie said, hopping up on the kitchen island to get a better view of the argument.
“I forgot to tell you the best part,” Mrs. Penny said over the shouting. “So the guy pulls the trigger right as I’m knocking him out…”
“I also requested sparkling water for my afternoon snack, not tap water,” Griffin yelled over the commotion.
“Fred, your balls are on the table,” Josie noted.
He peered down at his short shorts. “Oops!”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Brian wheeled into the kitchen and paused. “Why do we have extra dogs?”
Nick tried to peer around the seething Jasmine. “Riley Middle Name Thorn, you better have a good explanation for why you would willingly run toward an armed man, steal two dogs?—”
“Don’t forget the breaking and entering,” Mrs. Penny piped up.
“You did the breaking and entering first,” Riley argued. “I was just coming to rescue you!”
“Pfft, I would have had us out of there in no time,” Mrs. Penny argued.
“Yeah, with a body count,” Josie shot back.
“And another thing! You don’t get to get mad at Riley when you’re the one who spent the last however many weeks obsessing about another woman,” Jasmine yelled at Nick.
Nick was still trying to dodge his way around her best friend to get to Riley. “If you don’t get out of my way, Patel, I will physically remove you from it!”
All the dogs were barking, and everyone was yelling at once.
“I also don’t care for this plate made of paper! I feel like I’m eating off a napkin,” Griffin announced over the shouting.
“Everybody shut the hell up!” a voice of authority snapped.
Everyone looked toward the kitchen door, where Weber was standing looking almost as pissed off as Nick.
“Who let you in?” Nick demanded.
“The Denzel Washington look-alike,” Weber answered.
“How much did you hear, copper? You have to tell us. It’s the law,” Mrs. Penny said, brandishing a french fry.
“Hey! I’m not done with you, Santiago.” Jasmine drilled a finger into Nick’s chest.
“And I haven’t even gotten started yelling in concern at Riley,” Nick said. “If you don’t step aside right now, Patel, I’ll cut your bangs.”
All the women in the room gasped together.
Weber was suddenly standing between Nick and Jasmine. “Back off, Nicky,” he growled.
“I can take care of myself,” Jasmine snarled at the cop’s back.
“Oh really? Because from what I heard, so far today, it’s been breaking and entering, abducting dogs, and encountering a shooter.”
Great. Riley was definitely going to jail.
“We were running lines for a play,” Nick lied.
“What play? How to Fuck Up Your Life and Everyone Else’s by Nicky Santiago?” Weber said.
“Why didn’t I get an audition? I’m leading man material,” Griffin whined.
The yelling started again, this time accompanied with wild gestures and some french fry throwing. Mr. Willicott walked into the room, clapped his hands to his cheeks, screamed, and then disappeared again.
“Did he just Home Alone us?” Riley asked Fred, who had thankfully tucked his balls back into his shorts.
“He didn’t want to feel left out.”
Mrs. Penny’s french fry supply had run out, and Burt began to howl. The other two dogs joined in.
Emotions were running high, and Riley’s psychic sensor was on overload. She looked at Gabe in desperation. “Uh. Help?”
He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and folded his hands at the center of his chest.
Immediately Riley felt a peaceful wave of well-being wash over her. The tension left her shoulders, her nervous system calmed, and each breath felt like a massage. Her brain finally quieted, and she felt fully present in the moment.
The fight seemed to leave everyone else at the same time. Mrs. Penny was happily licking the salt off her fingers. Still on the table, Fred leaned back on his elbows with a dreamy smile. Jasmine and Weber stood there blinking at each other. Burt and his new dog friends curled up in a puppy pile and went to sleep.
“Want. To. Stay. Mad,” Nick gritted out between his teeth. His hands were balled into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
Riley felt an extra punch of peace from Gabe’s direction, then watched as Nick sagged against the island.
“Damn it. What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“Does it really matter?” she asked.
“It will later, when I remember how to be mad,” he said. He pointed at Weber. “You stay here and keep this mayonnaise-eating moron alive.” He looked at Riley. “My office. Now.”
She fervently hoped Gabe’s psychic reach would extend to the other side of the house as she followed Nick out of the room.
“I know it looks and sounds bad. Like really bad. And honestly it was. I thought we were either going to get murdered or end up in prison. I screwed up, and I understand if you want to fire me.” Riley blurted the words out in a rush.
He dropped down on the squeaky couch and surprised her by pulling her into his lap.
This was way better than getting yelled at. She wondered if Gabe could teach her the emotional cloud trick.
“I’m not firing you. I’m just struggling with the fact that I love you and you keep ending up in danger,” Nick said.
“It does appear to be a reoccurring theme in our relationship,” she agreed. “What are you going to do? Stop loving me?”
He ran a thumb over her lower lip. “No, dummy. I’m going to train the hell out of you and turn you into a self-defense expert.”
She perked up, shifting in his lap. “Really?”
“Really,” Nick said, giving her a gentle squeeze. “Besides, since whoever wants Griffin whacked is still out there, it’s the best way I can think of to keep you alive.”
“And you’re definitely sure about that?” she asked.
“My gut is. Those two idiots this morning were just that, idiots. Someone hired them to do a job, and that someone isn’t going to stop just because their pawns got sacrificed.”
She felt the same thing. That fog of uncertainty was still clinging to her. “Is your gut usually right?”
“It was right about you.”
“Aw.”
Another chorus of barks erupted from the kitchen, making Nick groan.
“I swear to you I’ll track down their owner tonight and return the dogs. She’s Theodoric’s ex, so she might have information we could use about him.”
“Are you sure you won’t get shot at or kidnapped?”
“I’ll leave Mrs. Penny here to even the odds.”
He gave her another affectionate squeeze. “I’m going to swing by the jewelry store tonight. I have something to return to Peabody.”
“You didn’t buy anything,” she pointed out.
“No, but I did steal something out of Griffin’s closet that didn’t belong to him.”
“You big softy, out there righting the world’s wrongs.”
“Keep it down. I don’t want to damage my reputation as a careless badass.”
She leaned in and kissed him. “I love you, Nick Santiago, you careless badass.”
“I love you back, Riley Thorn. Which is why self-defense boot camp starts bright and early tomorrow morning,” he said with a stinging slap to her butt.
“ How bright and early?”
“I hate to ruin this make-out session, but we’ve got a problem,” Weber announced as he entered the room.
“I got my hand stuck in a pickle jar,” Griffin said, holding up the jar in question and raining pickle juice all over the floor.
“How…? Why…?” Riley began.
“I didn’t know you were supposed to use a fork. My pickles always arrive on my plate with my truffle mayonnaise. Not to be a jerk, but poor people mayonnaise is terrible. I fed the sandwich to the dog that looks like a lion.”
“Christ,” Nick muttered.
“Trust me, after this afternoon, a sandwich is the least of our worries,” Riley said.
“And so is an idiot with a pickle jar stuck on his hand,” Weber said.
Griffin held up the jar and banged it experimentally off a filing cabinet.
Nick and Weber both rolled their eyes.
“Why don’t you go ask Lily if she has any of her organic lube handy,” Riley said, climbing off Nick’s lap and giving her ex-husband a push out of the room.
“Let’s cut to the chase. Which one of us are you here to arrest, Weber?” Nick demanded when she returned.
“I’m not here to arrest anyone…for once. I’m here to casually mention that the two shooters from this morning are on a plane back to Colombia with a couple of U.S. marshals and their fancy-ass lawyer,” Weber said.
Nick drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. “Fuck.”
“That seems fast,” Riley asked.
“Light speed. Extradition usually takes weeks. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it gives local law enforcement time to interview the suspects,” Weber explained.
“I take it you didn’t get that time,” she guessed.
“We had them in the box for barely an hour before some lawyer from DC showed up with all the right paperwork,” he said. “The official department line is the persons responsible for this morning’s shootout have been brought to justice.”
Nick nodded at the quantum physics side of his whiteboard. “So, you in?”
“I’m not out.”
“What’s happening here?” Riley asked.
“Weber here is gonna help us keep that vapid bowl of butterscotch pudding alive,” Nick announced.
“That’s great. Now, I hate to be that girl, but is there any way we can negotiate a you-won’t-arrest-any-of-us-during-the-investigation deal?” she asked Weber.
It looked as if it physically pained him to answer. “As long as everyone stays on their best behavior and doesn’t break any laws, I’ll stay focused on the investigation.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Nick said.
“Fine. As long as no one does anything worse than whoever the hell we’re looking for, I’ll try to maybe look the other way. Within reason. Final offer.”
Riley and Nick exchanged a look. She nodded. It was as good as they were going to get.
“Deal,” Nick said. “Brian! Get your ass in here.”
The sound of glass shattering and dogs barking rang out from the kitchen. “I’ll go fix whatever that was,” Riley volunteered.
She left the men and headed back to the kitchen, where she found Lily and Fred sweeping up shards of pickle jar. Mrs. Penny had her feet propped up on the table and was reading over a fat legal document.
“My hand smells like pickles,” Griffin complained.
“I hope you get run over by a fleet of golf carts at your next charity function,” Jasmine said.
“I’m a great golfer. Everyone says so,” Griffin said.
Jasmine frowned at him and stepped into his personal space. “Did you get slightly taller?”
Nick poked his head into the kitchen. “Hey, Gentry. You ever been to Colombia?”
“Never heard of it,” Griffin chirped.
Riley got the distinct feeling that her ex-husband was lying, and the gleam in Nick’s eye told her he was reading it that way too. But before she could dig in any further, Burt whimpered dramatically from the mudroom.
“Gabe, do you have a minute? I need to ask you something,” she said, tilting her head toward the door.
“It would be my pleasure to leave this room as quickly as possible,” Gabe said.
They shrugged into coats, and Riley opened the door to the chilly November afternoon. The dogs bolted out in front of them, the little ones yapping like their lives depended on it.
“What you did back in the kitchen,” Riley began.
“I like to think of it as a calming ether,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, that. Is that something I can do? I mean at least to myself?” she added quickly. Though it would be handy to have that in her arsenal to deploy on Nick when he got too worked up or her grandmother whenever she opened her judgmental mouth.
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve spent the last few days running around from distraction to distraction until I’m too exhausted to function. And when I do try to convene with my spirit guides, I’m either yanked right back out by some emergency or I can’t stop thinking about all the other things that I should be doing. It’s like my brain is too busy to be psychic right now.”
“One must always be able to find peace in chaos,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, but how ? It seems like chaos is everywhere and peace is—hey! Dog number two, no chasing squirrels,” Riley said, clapping her hands. The dachshund ignored her and continued to race around the trunk of the hemlock tree. Its partner in crime, the wiry one, was barking furiously at the front tire of Mrs. Penny’s minivan.
There was a shout and another crash from inside the house that had all three dogs racing to the door in a chorus of frantic barks.
“Perhaps you are only looking at the chaos?” Gabe suggested.
“What if that’s all there is to see? And are you Zen riddling me right now?” she asked.
He gave her a beguiling smile and bent to pick something up off the ground. It was a perfect scarlet maple leaf. He handed it to her. “Nooooo.”
She smiled, twirling the stem between her fingers, making the leaf spin. “Now you’re being sarcastic.”
“Only in jest. Look at the leaf,” he suggested.
Riley held it up and examined the paper-thin skin, the delicate, symmetrical veining, the precise curves of each edge. It was a perfect piece of nature just existing no matter how many other leaves fell or dogs barked or squirrels raced. It was just there, waiting to be discovered, appreciated.
She felt it then. The quieting. The gradual release of tension she hadn’t been aware she was holding.
“You’re a very good teacher,” Riley told him.
Gabe winced. “I have a confession to make. I am not a good teacher or a good person. It was I who suggested Mr. Gentry insert his hand into the jar.”
She patted him on his muscled forearm. “You’re not a terrible person. You’re just human. Griffin has the ability to bring out the absolute worst in everyone. And if your worst only involves a pickle jar prank, I think you’re still pretty wonderful.”
“I have never wished ill will upon someone before. However, I cannot help but hope chronic constipation will haunt him for the rest of his life,” he confessed.
“Me too, big guy. Me too.”
“Hey! Tall, Dark, and Biceps,” Mrs. Penny yelled from the door. “I’m making a grocery run for dumbass’s truffle mayo. Still wanna go and help me get crap off the top shelf?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Gabe rumbled. “Would you care to join us, Riley?”
“I think I’ll stay here and look at this leaf for a few minutes.”
There was a horrible clattering of pots and pans in the kitchen.
“I’m okay,” Lily yelled.
Riley winced. “Maybe a few hours.”