Page 60 of The Body in the Backyard
“You…what…? Why?” Nick couldn’t quite form a sentence. “That wasmyTV.”
“I apologize,” Gabe said, looking chagrined. “Mrs. Penny told me it belonged to her.”
“What do you want me to do? A gamer’s gotta game. It keeps me sharp.”
Nick clenched his hands into fists at his sides so he wouldn’t be tempted to strangle Mrs. Penny. “Sharp? You’re duller than a plastic butter knife.”
She hefted her elastic waistband pants. “Need I remind you that I’m the one who brought in the Gentry money?”
“I don’t care! You stole my TV!”
“I didn’t steal it. Iborrowedit.”
“Then unborrow it.”
Mrs. Penny waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Trust me. You don’t want it back. We knocked out a few hundred pixels when it fell off the wall onto Lily’s erotic fireplace poker collection.”
“Thorn?” Nick breathed. If his nostrils flared any wider, he was afraid they would split open.
“Yep. On it,” Riley said, gripping the back of his shirt. “Mrs. Penny, order Nick a new TV.”
“And a full-motion bracket,” he added.
“And whatever a full-motion bracket is,” she repeated.
“Fine. Sheesh. Everybody’s so damn sensitive about their damn electronics,” Mrs. Penny muttered as she stomped back to the happy hour.
Riley released Nick’s shirt and patted his chest. “Are you ready for more good news?”
He growled.
“My mom just texted. We’re invited to dinner at my parents’ house. She says she has something exciting to show us.”
“It better not be more nude self-portrait pottery,” he said.
“I think she’s done with that class until spring.”
16
5:29 p.m. Friday, November 1
“Wait till you see my surprise,” Blossom sang by way of a greeting when she flung open the front door of Riley’s childhood home. Not much had changed since she’d lived at 69 Dogwood Street. Her mom still wore hippie outfits and gardened barefoot. Her father still lived to annoy the next-door neighbor. The brick two-story still butted up against the sidewalk, and the neonPsychic Readingssign in the front window still lit up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
It was chilly edging toward cold as the November evening fell. Riley was tired. Finding dead bodies took a lot out of a person.
A low moo sounded from the fenced backyard. Burt answered his four-legged bovine friend with a cheerful bark and barreled past Blossom into the house.
That was the main difference, Riley supposed. Instead of raising children, now her parents had a backyard cow named Daisy. Her father was more enthusiastic about the addition than her mother.
“Thanks for the invite, Blossom,” Nick said.
Riley signaled to him that he had a spot of ketchup in one dimple. As was their Thorn family dinner tradition, they’d stopped at a drive-thru for predinner dinner on their way. Her mother was a bit too much of an adventurous cook when it came to her family’s digestive systems.
Nick surreptitiously swiped his forearm over his face before dropping a kiss to Blossom’s cheek.
Riley used the sleeve of her jacket to erase all evidence of Gabe’s milkshake mustache.
“Come in! Come in,” Blossom said, all but dragging them across the threshold.
