Chapter 28
28
12:50 p.m. Sunday, November 3
“ I ’m already exhausted,” Riley said on a yawn as Nick turned onto Front Street. The Susquehanna River looked gray under the cloudy autumn sky.
After leaving the spa, he had taken her back to the gun range and made her shoot her way through four targets and eight magazines of ammo. She still wasn’t a great shot, but there was marginal improvement.
Afterward, Nick had announced he had half a dozen urgent errands to run.
She was fairly certain these “errands” were just a way to avoid being at home with her obnoxious ex-husband. But since she also had no desire to hang around Griffin, she was happy to be along for the ride.
They’d been all over both sides of the river, stocking up on groceries, eating lunch, buying office supplies, and even swinging by a hardware store for a dozen folding chairs, “Just in case we need them.” She was too tired from the early-morning workout to question him. However, even in her state of physical exhaustion, it didn’t escape her notice when Nick checked the rearview mirror for the fifteenth time.
She sat up out of her slump. “Are we being followed?”
“We are not being followed,” he said.
“Then why do you keep looking behind us?”
“To make sure we’re not being followed.”
“Glad we cleared that up,” she said as he swung the SUV into their driveway.
He pulled up to the mudroom door and turned off the engine. They both sat staring through the windshield.
“Remember the good ol’ days when we could just walk into the house and have sex on the kitchen table?” Nick said.
Riley sighed. “Back before my ex-husband and our old roommates became our current roommates.”
He reached over and squeezed her knee. “We could just drive to the airport, get on a plane, and have frozen drinks with umbrellas in hand by tonight.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Much as I’d like to run away with you, we can’t tonight. We’re babysitting, remember.”
Nick thumped his head against his seat. “Fine. But when this is over, we’re planning a vacation.”
There was a lot of “this” to overcome. Attempted murder, the roof collapse next door, getting the business back on its feet… But if there was a chance she could watch Nick Santiago take his shirt off on a beach and slather every inch of muscle and tattoos with sunscreen, she’d do whatever it took to make that happen.
“Count me in.”
They reluctantly unloaded their errand haul and trooped inside.
The bag of sticky notes, pens, and file folders slipped out of Riley’s grasp and hit the floor. Nick ran into her back.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she whispered.
Mrs. Penny, Josie, and Gabe were seated around Griffin at the kitchen table. Griffin wore a blindfold, and from what Riley could tell, he had his hands tied behind his back. Burt sat on the floor next to Mrs. Penny, raptly watching the occupants of the table.
“Why is our client bound and blindfolded at the kitchen table?” Riley asked.
“Shh! Don’t distract him.” With spritely fingers, Josie dipped a piece of celery into a shallow bowl in front of Griffin.
“Mouth,” Mrs. Penny barked.
Griffin obediently opened his mouth, and Josie shoved the celery inside.
Everyone watched with rapt attention as Griffin chewed in tiny mincing bites.
“Even the way this guy chews makes me want to punch him in his fucking face,” Nick muttered, dumping the bags of groceries on the island.
“Truffle mayo with”—Griffin pursed his thin lips—“soy sauce!”
Scattered applause and appreciative murmurs broke out around the table.
“We could have been at the airport by now,” Nick complained as he opened the fridge and began shoveling groceries onto the shelves.
“Are you seriously taste testing mayo?” Riley asked, ignoring her boyfriend.
“We didn’t believe Gentry could taste the difference between Bucket o’ Mayo and his thirty-dollar-a-jar truffle brand,” Mrs. Penny said, as if that explained anything.
“It’s called a condiment palate, and very few people in the world have it. I’m very lucky,” Griffin explained.
“He even tasted the pickle juice we slipped into his Hershey syrup,” Josie said.
“But why are his hands tied?” Riley asked, looking to Nick for help.
“I don’t care if they spoon-feed him Drano,” he said, stealing a slice of Swiss cheese out of the deli pack.
“Mrs. Penny insisted it is part of official sanctioned taste tests,” Gabe explained. “Is this not correct?”
The woman in question tapped her chin. “Maybe I got it mixed up with pie-eating contests.”
Riley felt the relaxation Hector had bestowed upon her vanish and be replaced with rigid tension.
Nick stuffed a package of mini tacos into the freezer and closed the door. “Yo, Jos. Where’s your husband?”
“In his office. Said he was too busy to play Feed Griffin a Bunch of Shit.”
“Gabe, you’re in charge,” Nick said, putting his hands on Riley’s shoulders and steering her out of the kitchen.
“Mouth,” Mrs. Penny said.
Griffin opened his mouth, and Josie fed him another piece of celery. “Hmm, tastes like Tabasco annnnnd…Nesquik!”
They found Brian frowning at four of his six monitors in the skinny office he shared with Josie. He didn’t bother looking away from what looked like pages of data, but he did remove his headphones. “What’s up, coz?”
“Update time,” Nick said, flopping down in Josie’s chair and pulling Riley into his lap.
“Did they get to the Tabasco and Nesquik yet? That was my suggestion.”
Nick’s fingers found their way under the hem of Riley’s shirt and stroked at the skin just above the waistband of her tights. “Not an update on that condiment-swilling idiot. What do you have on our encyclopedia-long list of suspects?”
“Oh, them,” Brian said, swiveling to face them. “Good news is I found a lot of dirt. Bad news is I found a lot of dirt on everyone.”
“For instance?” Nick growled.
Apparently his Hector-induced relaxation had worn off too.
Brian’s fingers flew over his keyboard, and a picture of Claudia Mendoza appeared on the monitor closest to them. “Let’s start here. Gentry got Mendoza fired a few years back. She recovered with a lateral move to Channel 49’s morning show and has been there ever since.”
Nick threw a fresh pad of sticky notes at his cousin. “We know this already,” he complained.
Brian dodged the office supplies and called up another screen. “Ah, but did you also know that Claudia filed a wrongful termination lawsuit that was finally settled out of court last year? I haven’t found my way into any sealed court documents, but I did find a few vague Facebook posts on her personal account from around that time about never settling for less than you’re worth and how karma always wins in the end.”
“I knew she was lying about finding peace. No one finds peace where Griffin is involved,” Riley said.
“Did you further know that Claudia spent time with family last Christmas…in Colombia?” Brian pressed on.
Nick’s hands tensed on Riley. “Hmm,” he said.
“That’s where the shooters were extradited to, right?” Riley asked. She hadn’t bought the news anchor’s new kombucha-and-kumbaya vibe. However, she still didn’t see Claudia hiring a pair of dimwitted hit men to right a years-old wrong. She seemed more like the sneaky revenge type. Unless Griffin had done something to reignite the flame of vengeance, which was entirely plausible.
“Solid find, Bri,” Nick said, lazily stroking circles over Riley’s skin with his fingertips.
Brian pulled up another set of tabs on screen. “Moving on to everyone’s second-favorite douchebag, Ingram Theodoric the Third. The first being the victim himself, of course.”
Riley shivered, recalling their close call with the drunken, rifle-wielding man.
“He’s got motive what with Griffin sleeping with his girlfriend. He’s also got means. Not only is his compensation in the low seven figures, he also comes from family money thanks to his grandfather Ingram Theodoric the OG, who started a chain of roast beef shops, paid his workers below minimum wage, and spent his free time slaughtering zebras and gorillas all over the African continent.”
“Inherited assholery,” Nick remarked.
“Big time. Ingram the Second almost went to jail for assault and battery against his third wife, but the charges were dropped after the wife ‘moved to Oklahoma.’”
“Why the air quotes?” Riley asked.
“Because the only people who claim to have had contact with her since then are Ingrams Two and Three, but I digress,” Brian said. “The Third had his country club membership canceled recently after a dispute on the golf course got ugly. I didn’t get many details, but rumor has it he went after a caddie with a three wood after his fourth gin and tonic. I dug up a couple of old girlfriends of the Third,” Brian continued. “None of them were willing to talk about him, but one did mention an NDA. So he could be covering his tracks that way. Bottom line, he’s a bad dude.”
Riley agreed wholeheartedly.
Nick scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Sounds like he’s got a temper with private-plane-and-hit-man money to back it up.”
“Next up is Kiki Knappenberger. Nice find, by the way, Ry,” Brian said, rearranging more tabs.
She preened. “Thanks.”
“Not only does our new pal Kiki have reason to hate Griffin, she also set off our resident psychic’s alarm bells, and for good reason.” He pulled up a spreadsheet. “I couldn’t dig too deeply into her finances without raising suspicions, but I did discover that she has a recurring subscription of gummy dicks sent to Griffin’s address every month for the last six months.”
“Heh.” Nick chuckled in approval.
“Thanks to these grainy-as-shit photos Willicott took with an actual film camera, we also know that she followed Griffin to lunch.” Brian clicked through a series of photos that showed Mr. Willicott’s confused face as he apparently tried to use the lens as the eyepiece. Over his shoulder, Kiki could be seen in oversize sunglasses and an honest-to-goodness trench coat, sneaking up to Griffin’s car.
“Stalking is a step up from hilarious dick-shaped pranks,” Nick noted.
Brian drum-rolled his hands on the counter that served as his desk. “Speaking of people who have reasons to want revenge on Griffin, that brings us to—pause for a moment of silence because Josie said we are absolutely not naming the baby—Chupacabra Jones.”
“You’ve still got a couple months to wear her down,” Nick said.
“We’re not naming our baby Chupacabra,” Josie bellowed from the opposite side of the house.
“Your wife scares me,” Nick whispered.
“Join the club,” Brian said cheerily.
“Back to Chupacabra. Did you find anything out about this mysterious Pete?” Riley prompted.
Brian triumphantly tapped at the keyboard. “Do you mean this Pete?” he asked with a flourish as a face appeared on the screen.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Peter Rodman, age thirty-three, former limo driver and second cousin to Chupacabra Jones, lost his job when the Escalade he was driving struck a woman outside the Harrisburg Airport when he was dropping off a client. The woman was fine thanks to her impressive array of luggage taking the brunt of the low-speed impact.”
“What does this have to do with Griffin?” she asked.
“Patience, my psychic friend,” he said. “According to the police report, the driver claimed it was the passenger who grabbed the wheel and turned into the woman because—and I quote—‘he thought someone on the sidewalk recognized him and might want his autograph.’”
“Gee. I wonder who that could be?” Riley asked dryly.
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “New rule. No more working for someone I hate.”
“No offense, but that would severely limit our income potential,” Brian pointed out.
“So Pete got fired,” Riley said, bringing them back to the topic at hand.
“Fired and sued, by the victim and—wait for it—his passenger, who claimed he was injured and lost weeks of income while recuperating on medical leave. Pete’s insurance company settled the suits and then did what insurance companies do. They sued him for $150,000 to recoup their losses. Funny thing is Griffin didn’t claim he was injured in the accident until a week later, when his lawyer pushed him into the police station all bandaged up in a wheelchair. Even funnier, Pete insists that when he jumped out of the car to see if the woman was all right, Griffin walked right into the airport and got on a plane.”
“Did the cops interview Griffin at the scene?” Nick asked.
Brian shook his head. “Nope. In fact, there seemed to be some confusion about whether Pete actually had a passenger until Griffin showed up a week later, claiming to have been injured.”
“So Griffin ruins the cousin’s life, and Chupacabra installs herself as the couple’s personal trainer to do what? What’s her endgame?” Riley asked.
“Payback? Maybe she wants to drop a weight on his head?” Nick guessed.
“At this point, who doesn’t?” Brian said, gesturing to his screens.
Nick blew out a breath. “Thorn, I need you to do something disgusting. Something horrible and potentially emotionally scarring.”
“I already told you last night I’m fine with your Princess Leia fantasy.”
“Not that. I mean, definitely also that. But I need you to poke around in Griffin’s head while I interrogate the little fucker.”
It was Riley’s turn to sigh. “Fine. But can I be drunk when I do it?”
“If you can get drunk in the next thirty seconds,” he said. “Gentry! Get in here.”
Brian hit a button, and screen savers of his wedding day with Josie filled all six monitors. The bride wore black.
Riley slid off Nick’s lap and perched on the counter in the corner.
Griffin appeared, carrying a spoon of what looked like straight mayonnaise. He slurped it up like it was soup. Brian gagged.
“Okay, spirit guides. Don’t let me get lost in there,” Riley said in her head.
“Does someone want an autograph?” Griffin asked hopefully.
She felt herself drifting. Her body was still in Brian’s office, but her mind was floating up, up, up into the clouds.
“Tell us about this accident you were in back in May,” Nick ordered. He sounded like he was far away.
“What accident? I wasn’t in an accident,” Griffin insisted, licking the spoon.
Riley cast her mind forward, slipping around Brian, who seemed amused, and then Nick, who was a roiling mass of frustration, before landing on Griffin’s unwrinkled brow.
Either her connection wasn’t good or there wasn’t much of anything going on in Griffin’s brain. She had a feeling it was the latter.
“The one that required you to take a three-week medical leave of absence from the morning show,” Nick prompted.
“Oh, that ,” Griffin said, catching sight of his reflection in one of the monitors and combing his shellacked hair to one side.
“Yeah. That,” Nick repeated. “Tell us about the accident.”
“Well, there I was, driving down Second Street, when the car in front of me stopped for a yellow light…”
Riley’s nose twitched, and then she found herself following along with Griffin in his spiffy little sports car as he waved to people on the sidewalk with the audio of the morning show blaring from his speakers. But it wasn’t a recording of the show, it was a compilation of everything Griffin had said on the show.
Spirit World Riley rolled her eyes.
Griffin leaned forward to check his teeth in the rearview mirror just as the light ahead changed from yellow to red.
Smack!
She found herself up close and personal with the license plate of the city bus Griffin had just rear-ended.
“Not that accident. The one where you sued the driver,” Nick said through clenched teeth.
“You’ll have to be more specific. I sue a lot of people,” Griffin said amicably.
“The airport. When you hit a woman in the crosswalk.”
She could feel Nick’s molars gnashing together.
“Oh, that one,” Griffin said, sounding to Riley like he was underwater.
She tried to navigate her way around conceited mental wonderings about whether his left profile or his right was the more perfect before landing in the back seat of an SUV as it approached the departures drop-off at the Harrisburg Airport.
“I didn’t hit anyone. I wasn’t driving,” he explained.
She was treated to an image of Griffin holding up a hand mirror and admiring himself. Everything else seemed to be blurred.
Oh God. She was in Griffin’s point of view.
“Who’s the best boy in the whole wide world? It’s me! I am!” Griffin winked at his own reflection a moment before he saw something shinier outside.
He lurched forward between the seats, saying something Riley couldn’t make out.
“Dude! What the fuck?” the driver yelped.
Clonk.
She didn’t get a clear vision of what had happened because Griffin had already hopped out of the back seat and clearly wasn’t interested in what was going on at the front of the SUV.
“I’m Griffin Gentry. Bring my bag to the lounge,” he said, pointing finger guns at an airport employee. The man’s face was also blurred, but it was clear he was gaping at Griffin.
Whistling, the narcissistic fool strolled right through the automatic doors into the terminal, ignoring the shouts for help outside.
His cheerful tune was still echoing in her head when Riley slid back into the present moment.
It took her a moment to realize she was still in Griffin’s head. Me. Me. Me. Mine. Mine. Mine. The words bounced around, echoing like a mantra.
“I’m going to ask you again. Have you ever been to Colombia, Gentry?” Nick’s voice floated faintly through her mind.
Gentry sounded louder, crisper, and Riley felt Griffin’s attention light up at his own name. “Columbia University?” he asked.
“Colombia, the South American country, jackass.” Nick’s snarl sounded so far away.
She caught a glimpse of verdant green hills, tall palms, and then they were gone, replaced by a distant pain down her legs, dulled by a pleasant wooziness.
“Nope. Never. Why? Do you think I have fans there?”
Brian’s and Nick’s faces were dim pixelated blurs as if they weren’t just unimportant but an actual threat to Griffin’s self-esteem. However, she was in sharp focus… Well, her boobs were. But the rest of her was pretty clear too.
Mine.
Riley watched herself blanch and dry heave once through Griffin’s eyes.
It was a dizzying, nauseating journey to be ripped from her ex-husband’s head only to reinhabit her own mind and body as Brian shoved a trash can under her face. Sparkles exploded before her eyes, chasing away the pain and vertigo, leaving behind a rush of euphoria.
Nick jumped up, the chair he vacated wheeling backward into Griffin.
“Owie!”
Nick took the trash can from Brian and cupped the back of her head. “You okay, baby?”
“Just peachy. This might be nothing, but Griffin was in the back seat of a black Escalade. I think I remember one stopping in front of our house after the shootout.”
“Could be a coincidence,” Nick pointed out.
“Or could be the limo driver guy just moved up the suspect list,” Brian said, cheerfully clicking keys on his keyboard.
“Did you just have one of those vision things?” Griffin asked her.
“Maybe,” Riley said, avoiding his gaze.
Griffin wrinkled his nose. “That’s weird. You shouldn’t do that anymore, or people will think there’s something wrong with you. You definitely can’t do it when we get back together. I have a reputation to uphold,” he explained patiently.
Nick’s growl brought Burt bounding into the room. Riley gripped his arm to hold him in place. Brian preemptively wheeled himself into his cousin’s path and slapped a hand to his chest.
“Josie! Get in here before Nick kills Griffin!” he yelled.
“You can’t kill me before the big interview. Speaking of, shouldn’t we be leaving soon? I need at least an hour in hair and makeup.”
“What interview?” Riley asked.
“Shit,” Nick muttered.