Page 41 of The Body in the Backyard
Taking matters into her own hands, Mrs. Penny strutted over the threshold and pinched Griffin’s cheeks. “There’s my special boy.”
“Ow! My face,” Griffin howled.
“Gam Gam wanted to spend some quality time with you,” Nick said pointedly.
Griffin’s confusion was obvious.
“I’m happy to get some refreshments for your guests, Mr. Gentry,” the guy offered.
“I’ll take a coffee, black, and a side of bacon. Oh, and a couple of breakfast tacos if you have any handy,” Mrs. Penny said.
“And I’d like some fresh pineapple cut up and stacked like onion rings. Then I need you to schedule a massage for my legs and wear my new driving moccasins around the house to break them in, Staff,” Griffin added.
“Of course,” the employee said. “Anything for you two?”
“Uh, Nick and I are fine,” Riley told him.
“I’m Staff, Mr. Gentry’s personal assistant. If you change your mind, just yell obscenities or insults and I’ll appear,” he said before heading for the kitchen. The back of his shirt had an even biggerstaffacross the shoulders.
Left alone with Griffin, Riley noticed he was staring strangely at Mrs. Penny. “Gam Gam? I thought you were dead,” he whispered.
“Oh boy,” Riley muttered under her breath.
“For fuck’s sake,” Mrs. Penny groaned.
“No, you lobotomized puppet,” Nick snapped. “Mrs. Penny is going undercover as your grandmother. She’s your security today.”
Understanding dawned slowly. Very slowly. “Ohhhh. Thank goodness, because Gam Gam used to hit me with a ruler, and I didn’t care for thatat all.”
“It’s safer for you if other people don’t know you have security with you. It’ll make it easier for us to catch them if they don’t know who we are,” Riley explained.
“Ohhh, okay. But I can tell Staff, right?”
“Do you trust him?” Nick asked through clenched teeth. The vein in his forehead looked a little throbby.
Griffin placed a hand over his heart. “I trust him with my dry cleaning,” he whispered earnestly.
“Maybe let’s keep this between us for now,” Riley suggested.
“If you think that’s best,” Griffin agreed. He frowned. “You don’t think my dry cleaning is in danger, do you?”
“Jesus, Gentry. Go sit on your doughnut with Gam Gam. We have a few questions for your fiancée,” Nick said.
Mrs. Penny produced a ruler from her oversizeGrandmas Give the Best Hugstote bag and rapped Griffin’s wrist with it.
“Ow! Gam Gam!”
“I’m a method investigator,” she said.
They found Bella Goodshine,perky weather girl and soon-to-be bride, on her back in a compromising position with a female personal trainer.
“Do you feel that?” the trainer asked as she used her body weight to press Bella’s bent knee into Bella’s waxed armpit.
Riley had to give Nick credit. He wasn’t staring at the semi-erotic stretching happening on the mat. No, his appreciative gaze was fixed on the huge flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. Dance music thumped from a speaker in the corner. There was a small scruffy dog wearing a purple scrunchie curled on a fluffy matching pillow next to a mini fridge filled with expensive bottled water and fresh pressed juices. Rain pattered against the basement windows high up on the wall.
“I do. I really feel it,” Bella chirped as she admired her own reflection in the wall of mirrors.
“I get the feeling she has to say that line a lot,” Nick muttered to Riley under his breath.
