Chapter 31
31
6:30 p.m. Sunday, November 3
“ M om says I have to be exceptional in all things. Normal is for losers,” Esmeralda announced from the back of Wander’s minivan.
Riley smiled out the window. There had been a time in her own life when she would have sold internal organs for a shot at normal. But after Nick, well, the man had opened her eyes to the delights of an abnormal life.
“No offense, Es, but your mom is full of sh—crap,” Nick said.
“Shcrap,” Janet repeated gleefully from her booster seat.
“Our mom says we have a responsibility to find out what brings us joy and follow it through life,” Rain said, kicking her feet in the air.
“You know what? This is one nieces’ night out. Let’s not try to undo a lifetime of parenting,” Riley suggested.
“Aunt Riley, how many boys or girls have you kissed?” River asked.
Nick’s gaze slid to her from behind the steering wheel.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m considering having my first kiss, but I want to go to an expert for advice.”
“Your aunt Riley is an expert kisser,” Nick assured River.
Riley’s expertise most likely paled in comparison to the legions of women that Nick had kissed. But she was pretty confident in her abilities.
“Good. How do you not smash noses?” River asked.
“Ah. Excellent question. You have to tilt your head to one side, and your kissing partner has to tilt their head to the opposite side,” Riley explained.
Esmeralda was leaning forward, absorbing the information like it was periodic table flash cards.
River frowned. “How do you know which side to tilt to?”
“Uh…there are a couple of approaches, I guess. You can take charge and tilt first. Or you can wait until they tilt and then tilt the opposite way,” Riley explained, wondering how her sister was going to feel about Aunt Riley’s Kissing 101.
“Or you can take their chin in your hand and tilt it for them,” Nick added.
Riley’s cheeks flushed, recalling how he’d kissed her exactly like that…and then they’d gotten naked.
“Yeah, that’s good too,” she said, adjusting the vent so the air hit her heated face. “Oh, and don’t forget to make sure the other person wants to kiss you.”
“How do I do that?” River asked.
“You could say, ‘You have a kissable face. Mind if I kiss it?’” Rain suggested, ending with several dramatic air kisses.
“Maybe stick with something classic like ‘I’d like to kiss you now,’” Nick suggested. Beads of sweat were popping up on his forehead, and Riley could sense a rising panic in him.
“Oh. I was thinking about just running into him with my mouth,” River explained.
“Christ,” Nick muttered.
“I see where you’re coming from, but you could accidentally bite him that way,” Esmeralda pointed out. “And it bypasses the whole consent conversation, which is very important.”
“Maybe you four unicorn chipmunk skunks should consider not kissing or dating until college. Wait, no. College was worse,” Nick said, swiping a hand over his face.
Riley reached over and put her hand on his leg. “I think that’s enough advice for now.”
“Thank you for your feedback, fellow unicorn chipmunk skunks,” River said.
“Okay, who’s hungry?” Nick sounded desperate. He took the turn into the parking lot just fast enough to make the tires chirp.
The car behind them did the same.
“Are you okay?” Riley whispered.
His knuckles whitened on the wheel. “I’m just envisioning them dating. Do you know how disgusting and awkward and stupid teenage boys can be?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. But hopefully today’s boys are being raised by parents who prioritize showing them at least how not to be disgusting and stupid. I don’t know if they can do anything about the awkward though.”
“We must protect them at all costs,” he said, looking at the girls in the rearview mirror.
“You know the best way to protect girls from choosing bad partners?” she prompted him.
“Eliminate all contact with men and boys of all ages?” he suggested hopefully.
“No. We show them what good partners and good relationships look like.”
Nick nodded as he swiped an arm over his sweaty forehead. “Yeah. Okay. We’ve got this. We have a few years before River starts dating. I’ll get her signed up for self-defense classes. She can have a black belt in something before her first date.”
“Are we here?” Janet asked, peering out the window from her booster seat.
“Wow! I’ve never had Taco Bell before,” Esmeralda said, gleefully pressing her face to the window. Her book was long forgotten in the back seat while she and River took selfies with funny Snapchat filters on Nick’s phone.
“Are you sure you want to take three mostly vegan and one paleo kid through the Taco Bell menu?” Riley asked.
“It’s time for this sacred canon event,” he announced like he was the movie voiceover guy. “Besides, it’s Wander’s car, not ours.”
And just like that, Nick Santiago had fully recovered from his parenting panic.
“This is the best night of my life,” Esmeralda whispered.
“How do you say no to that?” Nick asked Riley, hooking a thumb at the girls behind them.
Riley responded by rifling through the glove box for vomit bags and fast-food napkins.
“Okay, unicorn chipmunk skunks,” Nick called, “I don’t have the patience to wait for all of you to figure out exactly what you want so I’m gonna go through the drive-thru, order one of everything, and we’ll eat it all on the way to our next stop. Cool?”
“Cool!” they agreed.
“Please tell me the next stop is a living room with a TV next to a bathroom,” Riley muttered.
“Everybody shut your mouth holes and let me order.”
“What are these doughy thingies with the stuff in them?” Janet demanded in a high-pitched voice.
“That, my friend, is a Cinnabon Delight,” Nick explained, eyes on the rearview mirror as he headed south on Route 15.
“I want to eat ten of them,” Janet announced. “Also, I tooted.”
“Me too,” River confessed.
“Me three,” Rain said.
“Me four,” Nick announced.
Riley snickered.
“What? I did,” he insisted to the delight of all four nieces. His gaze skated back to the side mirror.
Rain groaned. “I accidentally dropped part of a taco on the floor.”
“That’s okay. That’s why we papered the entire van in napkins,” Riley said as Nick took a surprise exit onto Capital City Mall Drive. He was frowning now, gaze glued to the mirror.
“Uh, everything okay?” she asked quietly.
“Remember when you asked me today if we were being followed?”
“Yeah. And we weren’t.”
“Guess what? Now we are.”
She whirled around to see a pair of headlights in the dark behind them. “How long?”
“Since Taco Bell.”
“Damn it.” They had four kids and eighteen pounds of tacos in the car. This was not an ideal time for a high-speed chase. “What do we do?”
“Text Mrs. Penny.”
“You think Mrs. Penny is going to ride to the rescue?”
“I do not. Text her the stupid code word.”
It was possible that Nick was overreacting. It could absolutely be a coincidence that the car behind them was still there. But Riley wasn’t about to take any chances. Not with their nieces in the car.
Riley : We have a Cold Burrito situation.
Mrs. Penny : I was born ready for Code Cold Burritos. See you at the drop site.
“What’s the drop site?” Riley asked.
“The safe house,” he said grimly.
A safe house was only safe if they didn’t manage to lead the bad guys to it. Riley closed her eyes and somersaulted into Cotton Candy World. She didn’t even bother asking the spirit guides for help before casting her mind to the car behind them.
Her nose twitched violently.
“Lesbians?” she said quietly.
“What?” he said.
She opened her eyes. “I don’t know. Lesbian energy is all I got.”
“My dentist is a lesbian,” Janet chimed in.
“That’s great, kid,” Nick said, eyes on the rearview mirror. “Is Janet’s dentist following us?”
“Doubtful. But something about them feels familiar.”
“Yeah, like Griffin-Buttface-Gentry suspect list familiar,” Nick said, whipping the minivan into a parking lot on their right. “Okay, kids, change of plans. Who likes jumping?”
All the female occupants under the age of ten screamed their assent as the tires squealed.
“What’s the plan, Santiago?” Riley demanded while clinging to the handle. The sedan behind them slowed but continued on past the parking lot.
Nick brought the minivan to a screeching halt in front of the commercial building. “Everybody inside.”
“Ohhhhh nooooo,” Riley moaned as she read the sign. “They just ate Taco Bell, Nick! They can’t go in there.”
“No choice. Everybody out. You take them inside. I’ll be right behind you.” He punctuated the words by throwing his wallet at her and dialing his cousin. “Yo, Brian. Same sex couples of the female persuasion on the suspect list. Who’ve we got?”
Grimly, Riley took the wallet and the four girls, some of whom were still clutching taco wrappers, and guided them through the front door.
Bouncy Boo’s was a childless adult’s living nightmare.
After paying the astronomical admission, adults and children alike were unleashed into a huge space filled with inflatable obstacles and bounce houses. There was a snack bar, a foam pit, and not nearly enough hand sanitizer to ward off all the different strains of pink eye that were being smeared around.
“Whoa!” Esmeralda whispered in awe.
“Everyone stick together,” Riley yelled over the noise of both joyful and tearful screams as she frantically swiped Nick’s credit card. She kept her eyes on the door as the dead-eyed teenage attendant slapped wristbands on everyone.
“You look familiar,” he said. “Aren’t you the girl who tackled the news guy on TV today?”
“No, that was some other poor unfortunate soul,” Riley lied.
She had all four girls by various limbs as they each struggled to get free when Nick strolled inside. Several nearby mothers looked up from their e-readers to admire the real-life book boyfriend.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure no one kidnaps our nieces.”
He grinned. “It’s fine. Let them play. You and I are going to sit here on this unnaturally sticky bench and watch the front door.”
“It’s okay, Aunt Riley. I have a good feeling about this,” River assured her, patting Riley’s arm.
Nick’s and River’s confidence lowered her stress level enough to release the girls.
“Fine. Be safe. Stick together. Don’t let anyone bite you!” she called as the four girls stampeded toward a bounce house shaped like a gigantic squid.
As soon as they disappeared, she smacked Nick on the muscly bicep. “What the hell? I thought we were in danger!”
“At the time, it was a possibility.”
“‘At the time’ was less than three minutes ago,” she pointed out. She huffed out a sigh of indignation and sat on the sticky bench. “Yuck.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders. “Do you really think I would drive a minivan full of nieces to Bouncy Fucking Boo’s if I thought assassins were on our tail?”
“Honestly, with you, it’s hard to tell.”
“I know who’s following us, and the only thing we’re in danger of is getting strep throat in this germ factory.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Pfft. I’m never wrong. And we’re about to find out just how not wrong I am.” He nodded toward the front door as two women entered.
The first was on the short side with long blunt bangs that brushed the tops of her glasses. She had a peaches and cream complexion and was dressed like a Nirvana fan, with a flannel shirt tied around her waist and ripped gray jeans. The second woman was all long legs and sharp angles with bronze skin. She had a nose ring and an eyeliner cat eye, and wore high-waisted slacks with a David Bowie crop top.
Both of them were frowning. To be fair, most of the adults trapped in the building full of screaming children, spilled soda, and vacant-eyed employees were also frowning.
The moment the women spotted them, Riley felt a punch of recognition from them. “They’re definitely here for us.”
The women reluctantly paid the teenager at the cash register and accepted their wristbands before walking straight over to their bench.
“We’re not attempted murderers,” the shorter one announced.
“We’re not baby seal clubbers,” Nick said.
“Cut the crap,” the taller one grumbled.
“Sorry. I thought we were trying out some kind of new small talk,” he said.
“Chill out, Betty,” the shorter one said, laying a hand on her partner’s arm. “Look, we know you’re looking at us for the Griffin Gentry attack.”
“What makes you think that?” Nick asked.
Betty pulled out her phone and pushed a button.
A familiar voice came out of the speaker. “Yeah, this is Penny PI with Santiago Investigations. You two are suspects in an attempted homicide investigation and are legally required to be interrogated by me and my associates.”
There was a fit of coughing.
“Jesus, Willicott. Chew your damn food. Don’t inhale it! Anyway. As I was saying, call me back so I can come interrogate you and search your house. Okay. Bye.”
Nick sat poker-faced while Riley covered her eyes with one hand.
“Tyra and I wanted to talk to you on neutral ground,” Betty said, eyeing the chaos of bouncing children behind them. “And tell you that we had nothing to do with what happened to Gentry.”
“So you can call off your geriatric watch dog,” Tyra said.
Nick slapped his palms against his thighs. “I don’t know about you ladies, but I could go for an Icee. Who wants? I’m buying.”
They hit the snack bar and moved from the sticky bench to a stickier table with a view of the foam pit and the inflatable cross-eyed-lizard obstacle course.
“How did you know we were following you? We watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on surveillance. I thought we were doing pretty well,” Tyra said as she spooned up a bite of fruit punch Icee.
“You made one rookie mistake. You parked in the Taco Bell lot while we went through the drive-thru, and then you followed us on our way out. Nobody pulls into Taco Bell and doesn’t at least get a burrito. You would have been less suspicious if you’d gone through behind us.”
“That’s what I told you,” Betty said, sighing into her pi?a colada calamity Icee.
“Yeah, but you know what happens to me after I eat too many chalupas,” Tyra reminded her.
“Can we rewind for a minute and talk about why you two are on the suspect list in the first place?” Riley asked, setting aside her berry belly blast.
“Gentry told us you had a merchandising dispute,” Nick said before slurping up some of his root beer rocket.
Riley saw Rain pause halfway up the inflatable climbing wall to hang by one hand so she could take a bite of the chipotle chicken roll-up she’d squirreled away in her pocket.
The way-too-young-to-be-responsible-for-children’s-lives attendant blew his whistle. “No outside food or drink!”
“ Merchandising ?” Betty repeated as if Nick had just said, “Selling kidneys on the dark web.”
“Oh my God. I’m gonna kill him. Figuratively, of course,” Tyra said quickly.
“Griffin’s recollection has historically been a little skewed,” Riley said sympathetically.
The couple shared a look. Betty sighed. “We knew Griffin from a few golf tournaments. We played a few rounds with him, had dinner a couple of times. He seemed like a nice, good-looking guy.”
“So we asked him for his sperm,” Tyra said, cutting to the chase.
Nick choked on his drink.
“It was more like we floated the idea,” Betty explained. “We wanted to have kids, and we didn’t want to go through a sperm bank, so we had a list of men we knew who seemed somewhat normal.”
“He said yes. Immediately,” Tyra said, picking up the story. “We were ecstatic.”
“I bought a frigging onesie,” Betty put in.
“And a crib,” Tyra added.
“Yeah, but I’m trying to make myself sound more stable. You were so grateful you built that lean-to thing in his backyard over that god-awful naked statue that he never paid you for.”
Tyra blew out a breath. “Fine. We were both unstably grateful. About a month after he said yes, we get this letter in the mail from his lawyer stating that our ‘transaction’ fell under Griffin’s trademarked branding and that we could license his sperm for $500,000.”
Riley’s spoon slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. “Half a million dollars for his sperm ?”
“What’s sperm, Daddy?” asked a little boy who was being dragged away from the claw machine by an aggrieved man in flannel.
“Ask your mother.”
“The agreement also included clauses about allowing him to borrow the offspring for public appearances if said offspring was deemed attractive enough,” Betty said. “We’d told our family and friends. We’d spent a butt-ton of money on baby stuff. We’d picked out names. One of them was even Griffin.”
Tyra rubbed her temples. “I just can’t believe we even considered him to be baby daddy material. I mean, what a fucking dumbass.”
“The baby would have been born with a mirror in one hand and a selfie stick in the other,” Betty agreed.
“One second,” Nick said, getting to his feet. “Esmeralda! Let the kid out of the headlock. He didn’t push you. He tripped.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Riley said.
Nick sat back down. “Sorry about the yelling and the Gentry-being-an-opportunistic-sphincter thing.”
“Look, do we have a reason to hate Griffin?” Betty asked.
“Absolutely,” Tyra said.
“But we didn’t hire some contract killer to take him out.” Betty said.
“We don’t have the budget for that. I work for a general contractor, and Betty is a fourth-grade teacher. We do okay, but not pay-for-murder okay, and day care is crazy expensive.”
“We know this because we have two kids in it,” Tyra said, smiling for the first time.
Betty linked fingers with her wife. “A year after Griffin tried to license his sperm to us, we adopted a brother and sister out of foster care. The minute we saw them, we knew it all happened for a reason. Those kids were meant to be ours.”
“We’re thrilled to be parents to our babies. But I would like to reiterate that we legit do not have the money to pay for a hit man. And even if we did, if I wanted to ruin Griffin’s life, I wouldn’t kill him. I’d kidnap him and do laser hair removal on his scalp and eyebrows,” Tyra said wistfully.
“You’re muddying the we’re innocent waters, babe,” Betty warned her.
Tyra winced. “Sorry.”
“Okay. So there you have it. You can subpoena our finances and our phone records, but that’s just going to be a waste of your time and ours, and the hassle will just piss us off more than having to waste our one date night a month on tracking you guys down,” Betty said.
“I appreciate you talking to us. And my apologies for my elderly business partner,” Nick said.
“She gets a little aggressively overzealous,” Riley explained.
Betty waved away the apology. “Believe me. We understand. We have Mrs. Sapperstein next door. She’s eighty-six and tried to open a marijuana dispensary in her garage.”
Nick leaned across the table. “Listen to me very carefully. Whatever you do, do not let her move in with you.”
“Aunt Riley! Esmeralda just throwed up in the foam pit!” Janet yelled.
“You didn’t call Brian until after we pulled into the parking lot,” Riley said, breaking the silence in the vehicle and broaching the subject that had bothered her since before Esmeralda had spewed her dinner everywhere.
They had dropped off their little vomit queen eight minutes late and had to listen to Nick’s sister’s rant about timeliness and responsibility, which made them half an hour late dropping off Wander’s daughters.
“That was a big risk,” she continued.
“It was a minimal risk,” he countered. “I pulled in after your vision.”
She looked at him and frowned. “You made a potentially life-threatening decision based entirely on my blurry psychic vision?”
“You’re good at what you do. I trust your visions like I trust Brian’s backdoor research, Josie’s knife-throwing skills, and my right cross. If we were in real danger, you would have felt it, and you would have told me.”
Riley felt a little glow in her belly that had nothing to do with the Cheesy Gordita Crunch. “You don’t think it’s weird…or that I’m weird?”
“You’re the most powerful psychic in a long line of psychics. What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t respect that?”
Griffin Gentry, Riley realized. That was what kind.
“Six tacos,” she said, changing the subject. “I thought your sister was going to set you on fire when you told her Esmeralda had thrown up six tacos in the foam pit.”
“Heh. Kid’s definitely got the Santiago appetite.” Nick’s half smile was illuminated in the glow of the dashboard.
“We were doing really well up until that point,” she mused.
“Are you kidding? We kicked ass tonight. I got high fives and hugs from all three of your nieces,” Nick pointed out. “They barely said a word to—what’s that big shiny dome at Epcot called?”
“Spaceship Earth?” Riley supplied.
“That’s the one. They barely said a word to Spaceship Earth when we dropped them off.”
“To be fair and accurate, two of the three of them were asleep. Do you believe we are in a competition for the affection of children?” Gabe asked from the back seat of Nick’s SUV.
“Of course not,” Riley said.
“Yes,” Nick countered.
“Besides your wonderful girlfriend, your life must be very meaningless,” Gabe observed.
“Anyway, as I was saying before Spaceship Earth Loser of Children’s Affection interrupted, I think we did great. All four kids are still alive, and they all said it was the best night ever.”
“Six tacos. A medium-speed chase with potential suspects. A foam pit full of vomit.”
“That cleaning fee is definitely going on Gentry’s tab.”
Riley was about to argue when she realized they were heading in the wrong direction.
“Why are we crossing the river?” she asked with a sinking feeling.
“It’s because of the Code Cold Burrito,” Nick said as if that explained everything.
“What does a cold burrito have to do with crossing the river, Nick?”
She knew it before he made the turn up the hill she was hoping he wouldn’t. “Nooooo. Nick! I’ve had a really long day. I don’t have the energy to pretend to be nice when someone is aggressively passive-aggressive to my face.”