Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score
12
8:54 a.m., Friday, August 14
Riley whipped her Jeep into a parking space directly in front of Little Amps, the hipster coffee haven on Green Street that she’d been avoiding. In all her years guzzling caffeine from this place, she’d never once snagged such a prime parking spot. Maybe it was a sign that she could officially return as a regular.
It wasn’t until she’d unclipped her seatbelt that she realized her spirit guides had nudged her here. She hadn’t texted or called to ask Detective Weber where he was or if she could meet him. She’d simply “seen” him having coffee and got in the car.
“You’re really getting the hang of this psychic thing,” Uncle Jimmy’s voice from the beyond said in her head.
Her dad’s brother had died a few years earlier. Riley had inherited his Jeep and his ghost.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said. “Just don’t tell Grandma that or she’ll drag me out of bed even earlier.”
She climbed out and stuffed the keys in her still soggy shorts. She probably should have changed. Showered. She sniffed an armpit and regretted it instantly.
Riley burst through the door woman-on-a-mission style and spotted Kellen at a table in front of a window with an attractive older woman. He glanced up as she approached and was on his feet by the time she got to the table.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, giving her the once-over.
Riley looked down. She looked like she’d just wandered through a car wash.
“Grandma’s boot camp,” she said, waving away his concern. “I got something. Bianca Hornberger isn’t your only victim.”
Kellen took her arm. “What makes you say that?”
“I’ve got a where. At least I think. But I don’t have a who or a how, unless people can be killed by sparkling explosions.”
“I’m gonna need you to start at the beginning.”
“This looks like official business.” Kellen’s coffee mate gave Riley a look usually reserved for barefoot people on sidewalks asking for change. “I should go.”
She looked like the kind of woman who disapproved of a lot of things and demanded that her grocery store stock exotic organic produce. Her hair was cut in a sleek, stylish bob. She wore gray linen pants and an expensive-looking ivory tank.
“I’m sorry for interrupting. And for looking like this,” Riley said, waving a hand over her sweaty torso.
“You two do know each other, don’t you?” Kellen asked, looking confused.
Riley and the woman eyed each other. “No,” they said together.
But just as the word left her mouth, Riley was smacked in the face with a cotton candy vision of the woman, younger and softer, bouncing a drooling, dimpled baby on her lap. “Who is mama’s little flirt? Is Nicky mama’s little flirt?”
Well, hell.
“Mrs. Santiago?” Riley choked on the name.
“Dr. Santiago,” she said, extending a hand for a perfunctory hand shake. Her grip was firm and her palm cool against Riley’s shaky, sweaty one.
“Marie, you haven’t met Riley yet?” Kellen asked, looking like the cat that ate an entire branch of canaries.
Marie’s eyes widened in horror. “Why would I have?”
Oh, boy.
“Riley is Nick’s girlfriend. They live together. Didn’t he tell you?” Kellen asked smugly.
Dr. Santiago’s gaze flew back to Riley.
“This must be a joke.”
“It’s not,” Riley said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s not a joke. Nick and I are…dating.”
“I never implied I thought it was a joke,” Marie insisted.
Great. Now she was reading the mind of her boyfriend’s mother, who had no idea she existed. “Of course not. I’m sorry for presuming,” Riley said. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Nick.” That was a big, fat lie. He’d mentioned his parents in vague terms, as in he acknowledged that he had some. She had a brief recollection of him saying something about them being on a cruise. But clearly, they’d gotten off the boat.
Dr. Santiago picked up her very nice purse and slung it over her shoulder. “Well, it seems I’ll be paying my son a visit. I assume he’s working or at least pretending to today?”
Riley didn’t know how to answer, so she just nodded.
“Do you have the address of his new office?” Weber asked with a smug grin.
Nick’s mother pursed her lips. “Apparently not.”
“I’ll write it down for you,” Riley offered. She patted her pockets and realized she had nothing but her car keys and phone on her.
“No need. It’s the big three-story Victorian on Front Street,” Kellen volunteered. “Watch out for the roommates.”
“Yes. Well. It was good to see you again, Kellen.” Marie turned to look at Riley again. “It was…interesting meeting you, Miley.”
“Riley,” she corrected.
“Yes. Well.”
They watched Marie leave, shoulders back, sunglasses on. She strode out to a glossy BMW parked across the street.
“Nicky’s in trouble,” Kellen sang under his breath.
“That was not how I planned to meet his parents,” Riley groaned, flopping into the chair Dr. Santiago had vacated.
“You’re not going to ruin my fun and give him a heads up, are you?” he asked.
She snorted. “Please. We’ve been living together for two months, and he still hasn’t gotten around to mentioning it to his family? He gets what he gets.”
“In that case, let me buy you a drink.”
“Make it cold and sugary,” she said.
Kellen returned with a jar of cold brew flavored liberally with caramel and sweet cream. “So, now that you’ve helped me ruin Nick’s day, what had you running here straight from Boot Camp for Grannies?”
“It wasn’t a boot camp for grannies. It was a boot camp my grandmother was running. Never mind. Forget about that part. And yes, I am aware how crazy this sounds. But you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Consider it dealt with.”
“Good. I had this vision of Bianca alive in her closet, and then I was ripped out of the closet and flying across the river.”
Kellen watched her closely.
She took a gulp of coffee and swiped the back of her hand over her mouth.
“Then I see this guy kind of hovering above Enola. I think it was symbolic? Like psychic GPS. I don’t think he was thrown from a plane. Anyway, here’s where it gets weird.”
“Oh, it hasn’t gotten weird yet?” Kellen teased.
“Need I remind you that it’s your fault I’m here?”
“Apologies.”
“You know, men who say that don’t know how to apologize.”
Riley grinned as Jasmine Patel—best friend, family/elder law attorney, and Indian-American bombshell—pulled up a chair. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
Jasmine plunked down a black coffee. “I just finished an appointment with a couple on Maclay Street. What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh, you know. My grandmother is in town and insisted on torturing me with a psychic boot camp, and then I came here to tell Detective Weber about a vision I had about a case he’s working and ended up finding him having coffee with Nick’s mom, who had no idea her son was dating anyone let alone living with someone.”
“So the usual then,” Jasmine said. She turned to Kellen and raised an eyebrow. “Why were you having coffee with Nick’s mom?”
Riley frowned. “Yeah. Why?”
“Are you having an affair with Nick’s mom, Detective Assface?”
“No, I’m not sleeping with Marie, and I really don’t think I have an assface,” Kellen scoffed.
Jasmine pinned him with a look. “You have the face that I tell you you have.”
Her best friend apparently hadn’t quite forgiven the detective for labeling Riley a person of interest in the recent murder of her across-the-hall neighbor, Dickie. Jasmine’s fierce loyalty was Riley’s favorite character trait. That and her ability to hold copious amounts of alcohol.
“Are you trying to arrest my friend again?” Jasmine demanded. “Because if you are, I’ll have your badge.” She stabbed the table with a shiny, red fingernail.
Weber leaned in. “Not as long as she stays on the right side of the law. And I’d like to see you try.”
Riley snapped her fingers between their faces to end the glaring contest. “Guys. Can we focus on the exploding shiny dead guy?”
Jasmine wrinkled her nose. “Ew. What?”
Riley ran through her explanation quickly between slurps of cold brew. “Then he just exploded into sparkles. Oh, and he was wearing this confederate flag shirt that said something like ‘Stomp My Flag I’ll Stomp Your Ass.’”
“Husky guy? Looks like he and the shower weren’t on speaking terms?” Jasmine asked.
Riley frowned. “Yeah. Thinning hair on top but a ponytail down the back.”
“Titus Strubinger. He died in his mom’s basement two weeks ago.”
“How in the hell do you know that?” Kellen demanded.
Jasmine’s thumbs moved efficiently over her phone screen. “Here.”
Riley’s eyes widened. “That’s him!” It was an obituary in ThePatriot News for Titus Strubinger, age 49, from Enola, Pennsylvania.
Kellen leaned in to take a look. “Died at home,” he read. “How did you know about this?”
“Attorney-client privilege,” Jasmine announced smugly.
“Strubinger was your client?” he pressed.
“No. But his mother is.”
“What were you helping her with?”
“Get a warrant.”
“How did he die?” he asked.
“Heart attack,” she said. “His mom found him in the basement a few days after he’d kicked the bucket.”
Two dead bodies linked by her spirit guides. It couldn’t be a coincidence, Riley mused.
“I guess lawyers aren’t completely useless,” Kellen quipped.
Riley pushed her chair back to avoid the line of fire.
“At least I knew my friend here wasn’t a murderer, idiot,” Jasmine spat out.
“You know what, ma’am? This is official police business,” Kellen said. “Maybe you should go back to trying to get old folks to name you in their wills.”
“Don’t you ma’am me. I am an elder law attorney, you smug son of a—”
“Is that an elderly mime?” Riley strained to look at the front window where a short, roundish woman with a cane and a beret had been until she’d been lassoed by an invisible rope. There was something eerily familiar about her.
“Oh. Em. Gee. It’s you!” The high-pitched squeal coming from behind Riley brought their conversation to a screeching halt.
Riley didn’t have time to duck the incoming body as it collided with hers. Within a second, a barista with pink hair and a nose stud had her in a headlock.
“Gah,” Riley croaked, flailing her arms.
“You’re Riley Thorn!” the girl squealed. “You saved my life.”
“Oh, shit,” Jasmine muttered under her breath.
“Help. Me,” Riley rasped.
“Okay, honey. Let’s let Ms. Thorn breathe for a second,” Jasmine suggested, unwinding the girl’s arms from Riley’s neck.
Every eye in the cafe was on them.
“Sorry! I was just so excited. I never thought I’d get the opportunity to say thank you,” the girl said, fanning her face as her eyes filled with tears. “So. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Not only did you find my cancer, I also met a really cute nurse, and we’re totally dating now!”
“Uh. You’re welcome?” Riley slumped lower in her chair.
Earlier in the summer, Riley had been cursed with a message from the barista’s great-grandmother Ida about the girl’s lymph nodes. Turned out, Ida was on to something. After Riley reluctantly passed on the message, the barista was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the story of the mysterious woman with the message from beyond made the local news.
“This is the psychic who saved me, you guys,” the girl announced, going in for another hug.
Spontaneous applause broke out around the cafe, and Riley felt her face turn ketchup red. The patrons started to crowd around their table.
“Just smile and wave,” Jasmine advised without moving her lips.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kellen said, picking up on the vibe of the crowd.
“Hey, psychic! What number am I thinking of?”
“Did you get my letter about my gerbil, Ms. Thorn?” shouted a woman in a maxi dress. “I just need to know if he blames me for the cat eating him!”
“Yeah, I’m going to need you to let go of my friend’s neck,” Jasmine told the barista, who was sobbing into Riley’s shoulder.
Together, Jasmine and Kellen led her toward the door.
She felt like a celebrity on the verge of a nervous breakdown with a half-dozen cell phones recording her while coffee drinkers young and old hurled questions at her.
“Should I quit my job to start a lip balm business?”
“Who really killed JFK?”
She was definitely never coming back here.
Riley’s Jeep was surrounded by people.
“Leave it,” Kellen advised. “You can come back for it when they’re not so caffeinated and excitable. Step away from the psychic, people!”
