Page 10 of The Body in the Backyard

“We’ll see about that,” Mrs. Penny said.

Dutifully, Riley added her name to the list of suspects. She glanced in Nick’s direction, grinned, then added his name.

Griffin gave a dismissive wave. “That’s all water under the bridge. It was nothing personal. I’m Griffin Gentry. Everybody loves me.”

“Not me. You suck,” Josie said.

“I think you’re a dick,” Brian agreed.

“I hope you’re run down in a crosswalk by a bus full of schoolchildren,” Nick chimed in.

“Maybe it wasn’t personal to you, but it might be personal to someone else,” Riley said to Griffin with the patience of a saint.

Griffin’s mouth puckered into a frown. “Are you saying not everyone thinks I’m incredibly handsome and talented and lovable?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Brian said under his breath.

“I’m saying there are consequences to your actions. You trample people to get what you want and don’t give a thought to how it makes them feel,” Riley said through clenched teeth.

Griffin was thinking so hard, Nick was surprised smoke wasn’t pouring out of his ears. “So when I complained to the country club president about how the large waitress made me lose my appetite and it turned out she was just pregnant but they fired her anyway, you thinkshe’smad at me?”

“That’sexactlywhat I’m saying,” Riley said.

“You’re a terrible person,” Brian said as he continued to type.

“You got a problem with pregnant people?” Josie held one protective hand to her belly and a gripped knife in the other.

“Let’s not stab the new client until after his check clears,” Mrs. Penny suggested.

Josie shook her head and looked at Riley. “I gotta ask it. We’re all wondering it. What in the hell made you marry this fungal infection of a man?”

All eyes turned to Riley, except for Griffin, who was admiring himself in a compact mirror he’d produced from his pocket.

She blew out a breath. “Honestly, he wasn’t always this bad. He didn’t turn into this”—she waved a hand in her ex-husband’s direction—“until he got his first Dilly.”

“What’s a Dilly?” Brian asked.

“Only the most prestigious award in local daytime television,” Griffin said, snapping his compact closed.

“It was a fundraiser that spoofed awards ceremonies sponsored by Dilly’s Sports Bar.”

“I won Best Morning News Hair,” Griffin said proudly.

“I take it the Dilly went to his head?” Brian guessed.

“Literally. He was standing on a desk chair with wheels trying to put it up on a shelf in his office. He lost his footing and fell off the chair, and the Dilly bonked him on the head. The doctor said it was just a mild concussion, but he was never the same afterward. We separated a few months later,” Riley explained.

“That’s almost sad,” Brian said.

Nick snorted. “The only thing sad about it is now we’re stuck with him for the time being.”

“Hey, can one of you hold my selfie light? I need to take a picture of me being bravely heroic in the face of danger,” Griffin asked, waving a small LED ring light.

Nick tuned out Gentry and his team and scrolled through the business’s bank statement with a wince. His bottom line had fallen—make that plummeted—into the basement. Shit.

He pressed his fingers into his eyelids and looked again just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Unfortunately, clearing his vision didn’t distort reality. The bank balance was looking more like the allowance of a ten-year-old, not the cash assets of a business that employed actual people.

He’d shoved his head so far up his own ass that he’d completely neglected Santiago Investigations’ financial stability. They were out of the black and into the red. The deep red. The next-week’s-paychecks-might-bounce-and-the-electricity-might-get-shut-off red.