Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score

9

6:59 p.m., Thursday, August 13

69 Dogwood Street in Camp Hill looked just like any of the other sedate brick houses on their late summer dead-grass lots. But appearances were deceiving.

“Okay,” Riley said, turning around in her seat to look at the rest of the vehicle’s occupants. “Is everyone familiar with the plan?”

Gabe nodded. “We are to attend Thorn Family Dinner.”

“And?” she prodded.

Fred’s toupeed head popped up in her line of sight. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, her eighty-something-year-old roommate had decided to join them at her parents’ house for God knows what her mother was going to serve.

“After an appropriate amount of time, we make an excuse and leave.”

Burt gave an agreeable grumble from the back of Nick’s SUV. Gabe and Fred nodded solemnly.

“Great. Don’t let your guards down in there. My grandmother is a terrifying woman and always has an ulterior motive,” she warned them.

“Chicken or tacos after this?” Nick asked as he turned off the car.

“Yes.”

They piled out of the SUV and strolled up the walk. A welcoming “moo” came from the backyard.

“That’s my dad’s spite cow,” Riley explained to Fred. “He got it to annoy the lady next door.”

Chelsea Strump’s house was an immaculate two-story with a front porch she never sat on because she hated all of her neighbors. Her lawn was the only one on the street that still bore any resemblance to actual grass. August in Pennsylvania was hell on landscaping.

“No tarot readings. No second helpings. We get in and get out,” Riley reminded them as they trooped up the porch steps.

“Aww,” Fred whined. His toupee was on sideways. The part ran from ear to ear like an equator.

“Let’s get this over with.” Riley sighed, squeezing Nick’s hand for courage. Her grip was weak from the gun range. But Nick had stayed true to his word. He hadn’t let her quit until she’d hit the target with all six shots. Sure, they’d been all over the freaking place. But it still counted, and she actually felt proud of the effort. Proud enough that she was sure she could handle anything Elanora doled out at dinner.

She gave a cursory knock and then opened the door.

It was eerily silent inside.

“Hello?” she called.

There was a beat of silence, and then her grandmother’s voice came from the kitchen. “You will join us in the kitchen.”

Burt sniffed the air with suspicion. Riley did the same. “Do you smell that?” she asked Nick.

“I don’t smell anything,” he said.

“Me either. No cabbage. No quinoa. I don’t smell dinner.”

“Maybe it’s fresh vegetables and green juice,” he whispered back as they cautiously approached the kitchen.

Burt trotted ahead, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. He stopped in his tracks at the doorway to the kitchen and backed into Nick’s legs.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” Nick asked.

“Oh, boy,” Riley said under her breath.

Her entire family was seated around the table. Elanora was at the head in her father’s chair. Roger was seated at the foot. His hands were fisted on the table as if they held invisible utensils. Blossom sat on her mother’s right. Her sister, Wander, on Elanora’s left. Wander’s three daughters—Rain, River, and Janet—were pouting at a child-sized table in front of the sliding doors that led to the backyard. Daisy the cow was on the deck, pressing her wet nose against the door.

“Moo!”

It sounded like a warning.

“You’re late,” Elanora said. “And you brought an extra guest. That’s incredibly rude.”

Fred poked his head around Riley’s shoulder and waved. “I heard there was an attractive single lady who might need some flirtation.” He whipped out a tube of breath spray and doused his mouth suggestively.

Riley fought back the urge to barf.

“Uh. Where’s dinner?” she asked.

Wander’s brown eyes were telegraphing an emergency S-O-S to her. But it got interrupted when she spotted Gabe. Wander went all gooey and smiley.

“You will all sit,” her grandmother ordered. “But since there are too many of you, one must join the children.” She said the word “children” like it was a synonym for “demons.”

“Dibs,” Nick said, pressing a kiss to Riley’s cheek.

“Traitor,” she whispered after him.

Riley let Gabe have the seat next to Wander while Fred dragged a chair around and stuffed it into the corner between Elanora and Blossom.

“Now what?” Riley asked. If they weren’t eating, she and her little entourage could get out of here faster than she thought.

“Because my family and those they hold company with have become such lazy gluttons, we will be participating in a silent fast,” Elanora announced.

“Sounds like fun, sexy lady,” Fred said, adding a mouth click and a wink.

Riley’s stomach let out a plaintive growl.

Burt barked.

Daisy mooed again from the deck.

“Nick, you mind letting Burt out to play with Daisy?” Roger asked from the foot of the table, still clinging to his invisible cutlery. “She’s feeling left out.”

“Sure.” Nick uncurled himself from the kids’ table and opened the door. Burt joyfully romped outside, most likely to tell his cow friend how weird their humans were.

From her vantage point, Riley watched the cow and pony-sized dog play chase around the overgrown yard.

“We will begin our hour-long silence. If anyone utters a word, we will start over. The silence begins now,” Elanora said, ringing a tiny bell.

The tone hung in the air until Riley’s stomach growled over it. She shrugged when her grandmother glowered in her direction.

An hour of sitting and staring at each other. And not eating. Great.

While Nick made faces at her nieces and Burt and Daisy sprinted around in circles outside, Riley tried not to make eye contact with anyone.

Need to ask Rye Bread if there’s a safe way to Google getting rid of mother-in-laws.

Awesome. Now she was picking up on her father’s thoughts.

She gave herself a few minutes to wonder if it was “mother-in-laws” or “mothers-in-law.” Until she was distracted by some R-rated thoughts that were coming from the direction of the kids’ table. Her cheeks flamed pink when Nick shot her a look that told her exactly what they were having for dessert that night.

Her grandmother cleared her throat imperiously, and with a guilty conscience, Riley looked past Nick to where Daisy was rubbing up against the fence, scratching an itch on her hind quarters. Burt followed suit, and the fence wobbled dangerously.

She opened her mouth to say something until a sharp kick landed against her shin. Her mother looked her dead in the eye.

Geez. Fine. If the fence fell down, it fell down. It wasn’t her fence, and her parents were the ones who would have to deal with the consequences.

Next to her, Gabe was statue-still. Eyes open and unblinking. He was sweating profusely.

Her father was glaring at Elanora like he wanted to stab her with his invisible knife and fork.

Someone farted. Her money was on Fred.

Cabbage casserole would have been a godsend in comparison to this disaster.

With no place else to escape, Riley closed her eyes and called up her spirit guides. “Hey, guys. It’s me. Is there anything you want to show me for the next ohhhhh fifty-five minutes or so?”

The pink and blue clouds slowly swirled into her mind’s eye. They pulsed with warm light, and she allowed herself to relax into them. Maybe she could take a psychic nap on these things, she mused, squishing a cloud between her hands.

“Do you have anything to show me regarding Bianca Hornberger or Larry Rupley?” she asked the clouds.

They pulsed again and then slowly began to rotate like a tropical storm with her as the eye.

When the clouds parted, she saw nothing but sparkling particles. Like a craft store had imploded during a scrapbooking tutorial. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but there was only more sparkle. Glittering in a rainbow of colors.

“Okay. This is fun. But I don’t know what this means,” she told the clouds.

In response, she felt a gust of air against her face and the stinging of tiny particles hitting her skin.

“Are you saying I need to schedule a microdermabrasion?” Her friend Jasmine was big on facials and was always trying to get her to go along.

Again, she felt the whoosh of air and the blast of tiny shards of something dusting her skin. This time though, it was accompanied by a blast of heat. She shook her head. “Sorry, guys. I’m not getting what this is. What else do you have?”

It took a beat, but she saw Nick standing in Larry’s living room holding a phone. Her phone. Vision Nick glanced toward the kitchen, and Riley realized he was making sure she was occupied.

“Is he snooping on my phone?” she asked, more confused than appalled. Nick wasn’t the “secretly read text messages” kind of guy.

She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she felt a grim kind of purpose pumping off him. Like it was something he felt he had to do. Something he knew she wouldn’t like. He glanced up again in Vision Riley’s direction, and she felt something else. A fierce protectiveness swept through her, followed by a softening, a warmth. Something like, well, like…only more. It made her palms sweat. Her pulse accelerate.

Was Nick Santiago in love with her? Is that what she was feeling? And what the hell had he done with her phone?

The doorbell interrupted her psychic epiphany and yanked her back into her body. Her parents exchanged a glance, but neither of them moved to answer it. They had less than ten minutes left on the clock, and Riley sensed the collective agreement to murder anyone who opened their trap now.

The visitor gave up on the bell and pounded on the door. “I know you’re in there!”

Her father’s face flushed a reddish purple.

Chelsea Strump was pounding on the front door with something to complain about. Not standing up and yelling at her went against Roger’s very DNA.

Chelsea pounded again. “Your disturbing menagerie of illegal livestock is going to knock that fence down, and if one splinter falls on my side of the property line, you can bet I’ll be on the phone with my attorney so fast it’ll make your heads spin!”

Blossom’s face turned an unnatural shade of red. Wander’s daughters squirmed in their chairs, trying not to giggle as Nick silently mimicked the irate neighbor. Elanora remained completely impassive.

Roger’s nostrils flared so wide Riley could have inserted salt and pepper shakers in them.

There was another pound followed by what sounded like a kick. “Answer this door, you weirdos!” Chelsea howled. Blossom gripped Roger’s hand when it looked like he was about to rip the table in half.

Finally, things went quiet again, and Riley envisioned Chelsea stomping back to her house.

Someone at the table farted again.

Oops. Tooted again. Good thing it was silent!

That was definitely Fred.

She tuned him out and tried to focus her attention on Wander. She was the safest mind to read at the table. Her sister was the kind of person who didn’t even think mean things, let alone say them. Apparently, Wander wasn’t thinking about anything other than how much she liked sitting next to Gabe. It was sweet…and dangerous given their proximity to Elanora’s disapproval.

Riley’s stomach growled again, drawing a disgruntled glare from her grandmother. Riley gave up being psychic and urged the minute hand on the clock above the sink to tick faster.

Daisy and Burt took turns nosing a large exercise ball around the backyard until Burt accidentally bit it too hard and it deflated. Daisy let out a mournful moo.

Finally her grandmother raised her stupid bell and rang it.

“That was a barely adequate attempt,” Elanora announced, and Riley sagged back in her chair.

Wander blew out a breath from somewhere on the other side of the wall of Gabe’s large torso.

“Mommy, can we have some tofu nuggets now?” Janet, the youngest, begged from the kids’ table.

Nick turned and locked eyes with her. Riley felt…a lot of things. Most of them were obscured by hunger. But girlish giddiness and middle-aged suspicion ranked in second and third place.

“I gotta get to someplace that ain’t here,” Roger announced, jumping up from his chair.

“So, sweetheart. What’s your sign?” Fred asked Elanora.

Nick stood up and let Burt back into the house.

“That was lovely, Mom,” Blossom said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t patronize me,” Elanora announced. “Tomorrow, you will join me for an intensive spiritual training session that will cleanse your souls of laziness and discipline your minds. We begin at six a.m.”

“Six in the morning?” Riley swallowed hard.

Her grandmother leveled her with a stare. “Do you have an issue with that?”

“Yes.” She nodded vigorously.

“I do not care. You will be there, or I will drag you from your bed.”

“Sounds great,” Riley said dryly.

“Gabe,” Wander said softly. “The girls and I would love it if you’d join us tonight. We’re making kombucha.”

Gabe opened his mouth, hearts in his eyes. But the cloud of doom cut him off.

“Gabriel doesn’t have time to socialize,” Elanora cut in. “He has much to make up for since detouring from his quest.”

Wander dipped her head, disappointment radiating from her.

Elanora pushed her chair back and rose. “I am retiring for the night.”

“Need any help with your nightgown?” Fred offered hopefully.

“Not from a man with so little control over his digestive system,” she said and swept out of the room.

“Dad didn’t go next door to murder the neighbor, did he?” Riley asked, standing up.

Blossom poked her head out of the fridge, a bottle of wine held to her lips. “No. We have a plan.”

“You have a plan to murder your next-door neighbor?” Nick asked. He put his hands on Riley’s shoulders and dropped his chin to the top of her head.

“Of course not,” Blossom assured him. “That whackadoo isn’t conserving her water. She’s got those sprinklers running in the middle of the night for hours during a drought. Can you believe that? Roger’s gonna get footage of it and report her to the municipality. Does anyone else want wine?”