Page 28 of The Body in the Backyard

Nick glanced back at her, his grin wicked. “Baby. This isn’t amateur hour. Play along. It’ll be fun. Oh, and don’t be afraid to whip out those psychic abilities. The faster I can prove no one is out to get Gentry, the better.”

“Spirit guides, prepare for…anything,” Riley muttered under her breath as he led her directly into the path of Ingram Theodoric.

Nick froze midstep. “A-a-choo!”

His fake sneeze had him bobbling his appetizer plate. He dramatically pulled a dinner napkin out of his jacket and blew his nose noisily. “Ugh. Darling,” he said with a suddenly posh British accent. “When will event planners stop insisting on using chrysanthemums? For the last time, if it’s in season, it’s too cheap.”

“Uh, you’re so right, dear,” Riley said, struggling to keep a straight face.

“I’ve said the same thing a thousand times of these ridiculous dinners,” Ingram announced with the slightest slur to his words. The glass of scotch in his hand was almost empty.

Nick tucked the napkin back into his suit jacket like it was a handkerchief. “Andshrimpcocktail?” He gestured with his plate of shrimp tails and sauce. “How gauche.”

Riley hadn’t been aware that Nick knew the wordgauche, let alone how to pronounce it.

Ingram polished off the rest of his drink with a noisy slurp. “Next thing you know, they’ll be feeding us SpaghettiOs and expecting us to say thank you. By the by, I’m Ingram Theodoric the Third. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

“I’m Poindexter Flopper the First,” Nick said. “And this is my wife, Gilligan. Say, old man, you don’t know that tiny tosser over there with the unforgivable spray tan?”

Riley didn’t miss the subtle tightening of Ingram’s jaw beneath his garish mask. “That’s Griffin Gentry. He’s on the morning news,” he said. He snapped his fingers at the nearest waiter. “Scotch. Double. Now. And don’t get your fingerprints all over the glass this time.”

Nick snorted. “I don’t care if he’s onThe Price Is Right; the man’s a colossal prick. He insulted me on the pickleball field.”

“Court,” Riley muttered.

“Right. Court, of course. I was thinking of rugby,” Nick continued in his ridiculous accent.

“You’re not the first person Gentry has rubbed the wrong way,” Ingram said stiffly.

Riley’s nose twitched. Nick gave her hand a squeeze, and then she found herself swooping along through clouds of baby blue and candy pink. The clouds parted, and there was Griffin in an all-white tennis outfit, standing on a pickleball court. His sweatband was stained orange from his fake tan. Ingram stormed the court just before a serve and began hurling plastic balls and paddles at the news anchor.

She couldn’t hear what Ingram was shouting. The sound was muffled like it was coming from underwater, but she was fairly certain some of the words were “you son of a bitch.”

Griffin did his best to dodge the onslaught by hiding behind his doubles partner, a young man of possibly Asian heritage with messy hair, glasses, and a resigned look on his face.

“These pickleball folks sure take their sports seriously,” Riley observed to her spirit guides.

But the scene was gone as quickly as it appeared, changing and shifting into something else. The clink of cocktail glasses and a sudden explosion of laughter in the ballroom threatened to pull her out. Riley clung tighter to the wisps of a new scene.

Focus focus focus, she ordered herself.

Griffin—hands stacked under his head, expression smug—lounged naked on a king-size bed with an imposing wrought- iron canopy.

“Is this view really necessary?” Riley asked her spirit guides as she tried not to dry heave.

The woman partially draped in a sheet next to Griffin was not Bella. She was too blurry to make out more than a leggy brunette with pouty lips and long fingernails. “That was it?” the brunette asked, sounding flummoxed.

“That was it,” Griffin said with pride. “You can give me a back rub now.”

The scene spun, and Riley found herself zooming in on the shelves on the wall opposite the bed. Closer, closer, closer until she realized she was looking at an oil painting of a scowling man in a suit. Ingram Theodoric III.

Was this Ingram’s bedroom? Did that mean the woman was his girlfriend? His wife? His daughter?

The band played an orchestral riff, and the gala attendees began to applaud, which popped Riley’s little psychic bubble.

“Oh boy,” she muttered, lurching sideways into the strong, solid heat of Nick’s body. She really needed to ask Gabe if they could practice more dignified exits from Cotton Candy World.

“You all right there, love?” Nick asked.