Page 77 of The Body in the Backyard
“A very large man leaned out of the passenger window and shot off my side mirror!”
“Are you sure you didn’t just hit something? You’re not a very good driver,” Riley said.
“Oooh! Wrestling! I’ll make some popcorn,” Lily chirped from the kitchen door.
There was another noise on the line that sounded a lot like gunfire to Riley’s untrained ear. She couldn’t concentrate on the call or the images she felt bubbling to the surface of her mind with Nick and Weber wrestling on the table like children.
She picked up her water glass and dumped it on them.
“Whoa,” the lawyer said.
Sputtering, Nick and Weber broke apart and frowned at her.
“You are adults. Act like it! Griffin, where are you?” she snapped.
“I’m heading down…street.”
“You’re cutting out. I didn’t catch that. Are you near a police station?”
“…front…house.”
A vision finally surfaced. Griffin speeding into their driveway with the bad guys on his heels.
“Uh-oh,” Riley said.
“What?” Weber demanded.
“He’s coming here.”
Nick snatched the phone from her. “If you bring your shit to my house after refusing to pay up, you’ll have more to worry about than a shooter in a smart car. Hello? Hello?”
But the call had already dropped.
20
11:15 a.m. Saturday, November 2
“Get everyone upstairs or hidden,” Weber said tersely. He was already dialing his phone as he stormed out of the kitchen.
“Keep everybody to the back of the house,” Nick ordered Riley, following Weber out and looking just as steely.
“You heard them,” Riley said, helping Mrs. Penny out of her chair. “Billy, help Mrs. Penny and Lily. I’ll warn the rest.”
She could see bits and pieces of it play out in her mind. Two cars sending gravel flying as they careened up the driveway. A sense of urgency permeated the candy pink clouds. Griffin was bringing danger right to their doorstep.
“They didn’t teach us about this in law school,” Billy said, looking a little green around the gills.
“You’re a smart kid. I have faith in you,” Riley called as she hurried out of the room.
She ran into a grim-looking Nick coming out of his office loading his gun. Weber was pocketing extra magazines for his sidearm. “We need to set up?—”
“A barricade,” Nick finished for Weber. “You get the?—”
“Gate,” Weber said.
“Meet you out front.” Nick turned to her. “Stay inside and stay down, Thorn.” Then he grabbed her by the front of the shirt and hauled her in for a short, hard kiss.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” they said in unison.
