Chapter 29
29
2:55 p.m. Sunday, November 3
E very once in a great while, Nick had a moment that caused him to question his life choices. Like maybe once every twenty years or so.
This was one of those moments.
He and Riley stood behind the camera crew in Griffin and Bella’s formal library and watched two vapid narcissists try to out-narcissist each other. Channel 50’s darlings, as the network’s graphics advertising this special live shit show had dubbed them, were seated on Gentry’s white couch, facing an empty chair.
Tyrell “the Terror” Tutley, a former professional football player and Channel 50’s veteran sportscaster, was supposed to be occupying the chair, but he was too busy pacing in front of Nick and Riley.
“I usually only report on sports,” Tyrell said to them as he dabbed at the sweat on his forehead. “Not murders and shootouts. But the network offered me an extra five hundred bucks to tape this interview, so here I am.”
“You’ll do fine,” Riley assured him.
“It’s just I kinda hate these two. But I love sports. And if I don’t do a good job with this, I might get fired. Griffin fires a lot of people. Like a lot .”
“Tyrell, buddy, pal.” A guy Nick vaguely recognized from that summer’s Channel 50 hostage situation and subsequent accidental bombing bustled up. He had multiple food stains on his shirt, and his hair stuck out in all directions over and around his headset. “We need you to take your seat because this is going to be live in”—he glanced at his watch—“two minutes.”
“Don’t nervous vomit. Don’t nervous vomit,” Tyrell chanted as he was led away.
“I don’t think my cheekbones look sticky-outy enough,” Griffin said, frowning into the hand mirror the makeup artist held for him.
“Is my hair big enough?” Bella asked no one in particular. “It doesn’t feel big enough.”
Tyrell took his seat and gripped his note cards hard enough to leave sweaty fingerprints behind. “Uh. Right, so I guess we’ll start with me asking you about the uh…the body in your backyard. Then you can walk through the shootout and the arrest.”
“Staff!” Griffin’s high-pitched scream brought his assistant galloping into the room and had Nick reaching for his weapon. Henry dodged his way around a stepladder-wielding guy with a thick silver mustache and backward ball cap.
“Oh, there you are. How’s the lighting? Am I tan enough?” Griffin demanded.
“I adjusted it myself to your specifications,” Henry assured his boss, pointing toward the studio light above the couch.
Griffin sat back on the couch and emitted a rubbery fart-like sound. “Don’t worry, everyone. It’s just my butt doughnut for my injured tailbone,” he assured the group.
“I want to pop that thing,” Nick complained.
“Griffin or the cushion?” Riley asked.
There were too many people in the room, all of them looking vaguely annoyed at having to spend their Sunday afternoon with Griffin. Every single one of them could be a suspect.
“Hey, you with the ladder,” Food Stain called as he popped an antacid in his mouth. “Close that air return up there? We’re getting feedback on the boom mic. And, Shirley and Erin, triple-check the teleprompter script. We don’t need a repeat of last week’s ‘Over to you, Smella Goodshine.’”
The aforementioned Shirley and Erin shared a smug look.
“Are your spidey senses tingling?” Nick asked Riley.
“Uh, yeah. Only all of them. I’m starting to think everyone in this room could be our murderer even though I doubt any of them have private-plane money,” she said, nose twitching dramatically as she scanned the crew.
“No more taking jobs from ex-husbands.”
“Agreed,” Riley said on a sigh.
“How about her? Do you recognize her?” He pointed to a woman in a sharp-looking purple suit planted between the two cameras with a direct line of sight to Griffin. She had dark skin and expert eye makeup and had her thick black hair pinned at the nape of her neck in a bun. She was frowning down at the stack of note cards in her hand.
“Live in one minute, people!” Food Stain Guy bellowed.
“I don’t recognize her,” Riley said. “She could be with the network.”
“Only one way to find out,” Nick said and headed for the woman in question. “Who are you?” Nick asked her without preamble.
She looked up coolly from her note cards, which looked as though they had a series of emojis on them.
“I’m Rebecca Maylen. Mr. Gentry’s attorney. And you are?”
“The guy who’s reluctantly trying to keep your client alive. You must sue a lot of people.”
She gave him a sharp smile. “My beach house in the Outer Banks is named Gentry Windfall.”
Nick rubbed a hand over his stubbly jaw. “Question from one professional to another. How do you get him to pay up?”
“I’m apparently smarter than you, because I followed the money. Griffin’s father pays me an embarrassingly large annual retainer to keep his son out of legal trouble. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure my client doesn’t make himself look like more of an idiot than usual.”
“Good luck with that,” Nick said.
Food Stain Guy called for quiet and counted down for the live broadcast, and Nick sidled back over to Riley. He gave her a nudge and mouthed “lawyer.”
Riley glanced over and frowned, her nose giving a little twitch. “She hates him but loves the money. She’d be annoyed if her meal ticket dropped dead.”
“Hello, central Pennsylvania. I’m Tyrell Tutley coming to you live from the home of Channel 50’s own darlings, morning news anchor Griffin Gentry and sunshiny weather girl Bella Goodshine, who recently had to go on defense on their home field.”
“You know what?” Nick whispered in Riley’s ear.
“What?”
“Let’s just quit. We’ll let Griffin get murdered, sell the house, and move to a beach somewhere. You can wear bikinis all day, and I’ll fish for our supper.”
Riley snorted, earning a dirty look and a shush from a production assistant.
“You’ve had to step up your defense due to recent happenings off the field,” Tyrell continued on set. “Care to break down the play-by-play for our viewers and tell everyone what’s been happening?”
“Well, Tyrell,” Bella began in her breathy for-the-cameras voice. “It all started on a dreary fall day. It was a high of forty-eight degrees with precipitation.”
“We were watching The Price Is Right and agreeing that I would be a much better host,” Griffin said, glancing toward his lawyer.
Off camera, Rebecca waved her arms and held up a note card with a heart on it. Griffin frowned and cocked his head like a golden retriever with a fur coat full of hair product. The lawyer pointed frantically at Bella. Griffin brightened and reached for Bella’s hand. The lawyer held up a smiley face sign.
Nick shot Riley a look. She rolled her eyes ceilingward.
He rolled onto the balls of his feet and took another gander around the room as Griffin and Bella took turns babbling at each other about the body in the backyard. Most of the crew was clumped together at their stations, looking both bored and pissed off.
“I was very brave,” Griffin said directly to the camera.
Nick gritted his teeth. What a fucking asshole.
Riley elbowed Nick in the gut.
“Ow. What was that for?” he whispered.
“For what you were about to say audibly on live TV. Oh shit?—”
“Oh shit what?” he demanded.
Her nose twitched, and she gripped his forearm.
“What have you got?” he asked under his breath.
Her brown eyes took on a glassy sheen as she stared straight ahead. Nick held on to her while he scanned the room again for threats. No one appeared to be making any suspicious moves. There were no menacing gunmen in the windows. The lawyer was holding up a frowny face sign. The producer was inhaling more Tums. One of the camera people was covertly flipping Griffin the bird.
Riley came back in a gasp. “The light!”
It was all she said before launching forward, knocking the producer out of his chair and into one of the camera operators. Nick was on her heels as she lunged onto set. He saw it then as if it were happening in slow motion.
The support wire on the overhead studio light snapped.
Riley dove for the couch and its occupants. Nick reactivated his high school football muscle memory and threw himself after her.
“Keep rolling!” the producer screeched from the floor.
They were both airborne; then the couch was tipping backward as they made contact. Nick heard the surprised cries and felt the whistle of air as the heavy light smashed to the floor, just missing his arm. His body landed on two soft female forms just as glass shattered in an explosive arc, peppering the exposed bottom of the couch with shrapnel.
“Are they dead?” one of the crew asked.
“You guys are supposed to stay off camera,” Griffin whined from under Riley. “This is my moment to shine. Remember?”
“Are you okay?” Nick demanded.
“No! I think you smeared my makeup,” Griffin complained.
“Not you, you idiot. Riley, are you okay?” Nick repeated into the pile of limbs.
“Crushing. Me,” she wheezed.
“Me. Too,” Bella said in a voice even breathier than usual.
Nick managed to climb off them and helped Riley to her feet. She had a cut on her forehead and a long orange smear of Griffin’s makeup down her arm.
“I’m good. I’m fine,” she insisted, pulling Bella to her feet.
“Someone tell me we’re still rolling,” the producer shrieked.
“Still rolling,” one of the camera people confirmed, sounding much more excited about the broadcast.
Tyrell was standing on top of his chair, looking like he didn’t know whether he should tackle something or run.
Nick and Riley hauled Griffin off the floor. “My suit is all wrinkled, and look what you did to my couch.”
“Riley just saved your life, you diminutive fuck,” Nick snarled, scanning the room. There were multiple someone’s missing, including one of the teleprompter ladies and Griffin’s assistant.
“Bleep that in the delay,” the producer shouted.
“Bleeping!” someone answered.
Griffin and Bella gaped at the studio light that lay where they’d been seated only seconds before.
Bella let out a low keening wail and started flapping her hands.
“Do not start that again,” Nick ordered, snatching a box of tissues off the end table that had miraculously remained upright. He pressed a wad of them to Riley’s forehead.
The weather girl obligingly clamped one hand over her mouth and continued to flap the other hand like a baby bird learning to fly.
“You saved my life,” Griffin said, looking wide-eyed at Riley. He grabbed her and turned her to face the camera. “Don’t worry, America! I’m okay thanks to Riley Thorn and this other guy. They’re my bodyguards, and they just saved my life!”
“Griffin, you just faced down death again. Tell me what you were thinking when you were scrambling out of the pocket,” Tyrell said, still standing on his chair.
“This interview is over,” Nick said, grabbing Griffin by the lapel and drawing his gun. “Let’s go.”