Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score

14

12:36 p.m., Friday, August 14

Nick yanked back the shower curtain, startling a scream out of Riley.

She beaned him with a bottle of conditioner. “What the hell are you doing scaring the crap out of me like that?” she demanded, dunking her head under the water to wash the soap out of her eyes.

His annoyance temporarily took a back seat to appreciation of his girlfriend’s wet, naked body.

“Stop staring at my boobs. You haven’t earned the right to appreciate them.”

“What the hell are you doing roaming all over the state, and why the fuck are you covered in glitter?”

“Dammit!” She groaned and scrubbed vigorously at her skin.

He reached in and shut off the water. “If you tell me you went undercover at some strip joint, I will—”

While he took a beat to think of a good threat, Riley stepped haughtily out of the tub. She snatched a towel off the hook and wrapped it under her armpits. She had flecks of glitter across her collarbones and on her chin. “What’ll you do? Tell your mother?”

Oops. He’d forgotten that one was going to bite him in the ass. His mother had strolled into his office, lip curled in disdain as she had to climb around junk just to get close enough to passive-aggressively tell him she was so “happy” he was finally settling down with a “complete stranger.” Then she’d insinuated that he must have been too busy being a terrible son to remember to tell his parents anything about his life.

Nick had pointed out that if she cared enough to ask him where he was living and with who, he would have been happy to tell her.

She’d said, “With whom?” and clicked out of the house on judgmental stilettos.

“Okay. I know it looks bad, but I can explain,” he insisted.

Riley grabbed a second towel and wrapped her hair up in it.

He admired the efficiency of it and wondered how women managed to get out of the tub with that much water in their hair and still not leave behind the tsunami men did on the floor.

“Fine. I fucked up. I didn’t tell my parents about you. I’m sorry,” he said a bit more aggressively than he’d intended.

She marched around him to the vanity. “Well, I suppose it’s better than ‘apologies.’”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Why aren’t you mad?”

Her eyes met his in the mirror. “How do you know I’m not mad?”

“My balls are still attached, and this is a ball-dismembering offense.”

Her lips quirked. “I wouldn’t have told my parents if I were you either.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Wait. Are you mad at me for not being mad at you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Relationships were confusing.

Riley spun around and slapped a hand to his face, squeezing his cheeks together. “You’re sooo cute when you’re confused and pissed off.”

“Thorn,” he said in the most threatening tone he could muster with duck lips.

“Santiago.”

“Why aren’t you mad?”

“Oh, come on. What were you supposed to do? Call them up and say, ‘Hi Mom and Dad. I’m seeing someone. She’s a psychic, and she talks to dead people. She got me shot last month in the fountain, and she lives with a bunch of old weirdos who fart all the time and can’t remember the Wi-Fi password. What’s new with you?’”

For once in his life, Nick Santiago found himself speechless.

“I don’t blame you. But if I were you, I’d be tearing open the shower curtain of your detective pal since he’s the one who told her who I was.”

He shook his head to dislodge the image of Kellen in the shower. The man probably used a loofah. “Hang on. I can only deal with one issue at a time. I’ll murder Weber later. Are you saying you’re not mad at me for not telling my parents that I’m living with you because you’re psychic?”

“Your mom doesn’t look like the type to believe in psychics,” she said as if that answered everything.

“My mom doesn’t believe in a lot of things, including tipping housekeeping staff in hotels. What does that have to do with me telling her about you?”

Riley reached for her moisturizer.

“Please. No one wants to tell their parents they’re dating a psychic who was plastered all over the news for getting their son shot.”

He was not liking this whole “psychic second-class citizen” attitude from her.

“You are going to regret this big time,” he warned, fishing his phone out of his back pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling my mother.”

She stopped rubbing lotion onto her shapely legs. “Why?”

“Yeah. Hi, Mom,” Nick said when his mother’s voice mail picked up. “I’ve changed my mind. Riley and I will be over for dinner tomorrow night. I can’t wait for everyone to meet her.” He disconnected and crossed his arms. “Happy now?”

“No! Why would you do that? Your mom already thinks I’m a disheveled, sweaty mess. And then I accidentally read her mind, which she did not like at all.”

He advanced on her until she was pinned up against the vanity. “I didn’t tell them about you for two reasons. One, they were on a month-long cruise when we met and got shot. And two, my family is a bunch of weirdos.”

Riley placed a hand on his chest. “We just had a silent fast at my parents’ house last night, and this morning my grandmother poked me with a walking stick until I fell on the ground. There’s no way your family could possibly be weirder.”

“Baby, tomorrow night you’ll see how that’s possible.”

He dipped his fingers into the space between her breasts. “Now, tell me why you were roaming all over the East and West Shores and where the hell you left your Jeep.”

“I was with Kellen,” she said.

“Yeah. I got that much from my mother.”

“Get ready to raise the weirdo bar then,” she grumbled. “I had a vision during my grandmother’s Psychic Hunger Games this morning. I made the connection to another possible victim.”

She filled him in while she brushed her wet hair and pouted over the flecks of glitter sparkling on her skin.

“That’s impressive, Thorn.” He reached into her cleavage and released the towel to the floor.

“Uh. Thanks?”

“So where’s your Jeep?” His hands skimmed over her naked hips, and her eyelids went heavy.

“Oh. I kind of left it in the middle of a human stampede on Green Street.”

He chuckled and enjoyed the feel of goose bumps as they cropped up on her skin where he touched her. “Of course you did.”

“Help me get it later?” she asked, wetting her lips.

“Anything for you, Thorn.” He kissed her and breathed in her sigh of surrender like it was oxygen. His hands had just begun their journey higher when a loud screech interrupted them.

“Santiago, the po-po is here to see you,” Mrs. Penny’s artificially amplified voice rattled the door.

He dropped his forehead to Riley’s. “Who gave that woman a bullhorn?”

“She bought it on eBay to protest whales.”

On a sigh, Nick re-wrapped Riley and stomped into the hall. He looked down the stairwell to the first floor and spotted Mrs. Penny standing at the foot of the stairs.

“Thanks for the message,” he yelled dryly.

“You’re welcome,” she announced through the bullhorn.

Riley appeared next to him in a bathrobe. “Is she dressed like a mime?”

Mrs. Penny was indeed dressed as a mime with a black and white striped shirt, a beret, and white face paint. Nick sighed. He was going to have to go over the definition of “invisible” again.

Weber stepped into view. He held out his hand to the elderly mime. Mrs. Penny reluctantly handed over the bullhorn.

“Don’t get bacon grease on it,” she said.

“Get some clothes on, Thorn. We’ve got work to do,” Weber said into the bullhorn.

“We need to move out of this circus,” Riley muttered under her breath.

* * *

“You didn’t haveto tag along,” Weber complained as Nick opened the back door of the cruiser for Riley.

“Oh, but I did since you’re poaching yet another employee of mine,” he insisted. As soon as his old buddy was behind the wheel, Nick slugged him in the arm.

“Ow! Dick. What was that for?”

“That’s for introducing my mother to my girlfriend.” Nick punched him again in the same spot. “And that’s for making me take Riley to dinner at my parents’ tomorrow night.”

“That’s what adults in relationships do, jackass. They introduce their attractive psychic girlfriends to their parents.” Weber threw an elbow that caught Nick in the chest, which was sore from last night’s impromptu workout with Gabe.

Riley leaned onto the divider between front and back seats. “Excuse me. If you two are going to wrestle the whole way there, I think Nick should ride back here.”

Nick threw one last jab to Weber’s ribs as he pulled out onto Front Street.

Without looking, his ex-partner shoved Nick’s face against the window.

“Gentlemen!”

“Sorry,” they said in unison.

“Why are you having coffee with my mother, anyway?” Nick asked.

Weber shrugged. “We get together from time to time.”

“If you tell me you’re having an affair with her, I’m going to shave your eyebrows and half of your head.”

Weber grinned smugly. “Your mom thinks of me as the son she never had. I’m the good one,” he assured Riley in the rearview mirror.

“Mmm. I can tell,” she said.

Nick rolled his eyes and directed Weber across the river to Brian’s street in Camp Hill.

“Brian and Josie live here?” Riley asked with a legitimate amount of skepticism.

It was a little brick bungalow on a quiet street two blocks back from the main drag. There were flower boxes on the railing of the wheelchair ramp.

Nick liked to think that the house was like his cousin. Respectable and good-looking on the outside, but inside it was a den of debauchery.

Between Brian’s tech toys, Josie’s collection of antique weaponry, and the room with the sex swing, the freak flags flew proudly behind closed doors.

“They like to keep a low profile,” he explained, opening the door for Riley.

Weber popped the trunk and produced two cardboard boxes labeled “Evidence” and followed them.

Nick rapped his knuckles preemptively on the front door before keying in the code and opening the door. “Get your pants on, kids. The boss is here,” he called.

A steel-toed boot flew down the hallway and landed with a meaty thump on the hardwood floor.

Riley flinched, but Nick pulled her inside and enjoyed the sensory overwhelm that a first-time visitor experienced in Josie and Brian’s living room. The house was much like the couple. They didn’t exactly make sense together, but man, was it entertaining.

One wall was dominated by a huge flat screen surrounded by four smaller screens. A long, low cabinet beneath Screen-o-Rama housed every kind of entertainment equipment known to man, including the latest and greatest gaming systems and a state-of-the-art karaoke system with auto-tune. The whole room was wired with speakers that shook the entire house during televised mixed martial arts fights.

The opposite wall displayed Josie’s collection of katanas and throwing knives. Nick had been present the time Josie’s cousin Ling got hammered and threw a knife at her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend for grabbing the ass of their other cousin Valerie. Ling had missed. So Josie made her come back every day for two weeks to improve her aim.

“Someone better be dead.” Josie stomped into the room and glared at them. Her black hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. She was wearing a short, slinky robe over what appeared to be nothing else.

“We can come back later,” Riley said, looking everywhere but the studded leather collar that accented Josie’s neck tattoos.

“No. We can’t,” Weber insisted. “Sorry for the interruption. But we’ve got official police business.”

Nick’s cousin Brian appeared, wheeling into the living room with a goofy smile on his face. He was shirtless but wearing pants. His blond hair was standing up on end in tufts, and his glasses were askew. “We’re kind of in the middle of…stuff, man.”

“Yeah. You’re interrupting my ovulation,” Josie said, blowing Brian a kiss that seemed both affectionate and threatening.

“You’re gonna have a lot of baby proofing to do in here,” Nick mused, admiring Josie’s newest throwing spear.

“Not if you guys don’t let us get back to business,” Brian complained.

“Believe me, I have nothing but empathy for your interrupted sex,” Nick assured his cousin. “But this douchebag who’s secretly dating my mom has a proposition for you.”

Brian peered in the detective’s direction. “Man, I was in the middle of a much better proposition.”

“You can get back to that as soon as you hear me out,” Weber promised. “I need your help with a case.”

“It’ll cost you,” said Josie, always a mercenary. She drummed black fingernails against her biceps. “We’re making babies here. Babies are expensive.”

“I’m authorized to hire you as a civilian consultant. Our digital forensics unit is backlogged by three months. We can’t wait that long.”

“We need to figure out how two deaths are connected.”

“Both homicides?” Brian asked.

Weber nodded. “One death was officially ruled a homicide. The other is now under investigation. Body was picked up from the morgue. We need a link besides the fact that your cousin’s psychic girlfriend says the deaths are related.”

“Don’t forget the glitter bombs,” Riley added, looking up from Josie’s brass knuckles display. “Both victims received glitter bombs in the mail within two weeks of their deaths.”

Brian adjusted his glasses and grinned at Riley. “Let me guess. Your nose twitched, and now you need something tangible.”

“Something that won’t get laughed out of court,” she told him.

Nick squeezed her hand.

“Let’s talk downstairs,” Brian suggested.

“You have thirty minutes,” Josie warned. “After that, I don’t care if we have an audience.”

His cousin grinned at his wife. “You got it, babe.”

They followed Brian to the back of the house, where he opened a door to reveal the cleverly disguised elevator.

The basement of the bungalow was a Tony Stark-style lair that had even Weber salivating. There was a workstation with six monitors in one corner, a movie screen and projector, a bar, two arcade games, and a sauna off the bathroom.

Nick had serious lair envy.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Brian said, wheeling over to the workstation. Weber followed and unloaded the contents of the boxes on the long, low countertop.

“Personal electronics were stolen from both scenes,” he explained. “No phones, tablets, laptops. Victim two was a part-time assistant manager over at the Game Emporium, and when I stopped by to ask the staff some questions, they said our victim hung out in the back office on the store laptop.” He handed over a laptop covered in gaming stickers.

“So you want me to work my magic to figure out what Dead Guy was doing online all day?” Brian clarified.

Weber slid two case folders across the counter. “Bonus points if you can connect dead body number one to dead body number two.”

Brian opened both folders. “Sounds fun. I’m in. For my usual fee, of course.”

“Usual fee?” Nick demanded.

His cousin shrugged. “I’ve done a little freelancing for the boys in blue over the years.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “My mom. My cousin. Was my whole family seeing you behind my back?” he complained.

Weber held up his hands. “Hey, man. I only go to your dad’s poker games once a month. And I haven’t seen your sister since last week when I took Esmeralda for mani pedis. I can’t help it if your entire family likes me better.”

Nick glanced down at Weber’s hands just to make sure he was kidding about the manicure thing, then flicked him off.

Riley looked at him in surprise. “You really do have a niece named Esmeralda?”

“I wouldn’t lie about that, Thorn,” he said with a wink.

“I don’t want to rain on anyone’s baby-making parade, but this is a top priority,” Mr. All Business cut in. Nick decided he needed to limit Riley’s time with Weber before the guy turned her back into a workaholic with an allergy to fun.

“I heard that,” Josie called menacingly from upstairs.

Weber flinched. “We’ll see ourselves out. Do you have a back door down here? One that doesn’t funnel us past your angry wife?”

Brian pointed them toward a door.

Nick squeezed Riley’s hand. “I’ll meet you at the car. I need a sec with Brian.”

She nodded, waved to his cousin, and left.

“How’s the ramp construction coming?” Brian asked. “Can’t wait to see the new digs.”

“The new temporary digs,” Nick corrected. “The ramp is in its ninth rebuild. I’m giving them one more chance, and then I’m hiring it out. And, trust me, you can wait.”

His cousin grinned. “As you can see, Josie and I have no problem working from home.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“So. Got a problem with me freelancing, cuz?” Brian asked, looking like he didn’t particularly care. Nick got no respect.

“No. But I do like the idea of you being involved so you can help keep eyes on Riley.”

“You worried?”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t like her being wrapped up in another case after the way the last one went down.”

Brian nodded. “Can’t say I blame you. How is the extra hole in your ass these days?”

His surgical scar had healed into the shape of a perfect heart.

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine.” At least that’s what he kept telling himself, hoping that sooner or later the panic he felt every time he didn’t know exactly where Riley was would fade. “But I don’t want her anywhere near trouble again. So if you see Weber or Riley or anyone putting her in a situation that could go south, I wanna know about it.”

“You got it, cuz.”

Nick nodded. “Good. Now, go impregnate your wife before she stabs someone.”