Page 6 of The Body in the Backyard

Riley rounded the desk to get a better look.

“Is that your chest hair?” Riley asked.

“Shh!” Griffin pressed a manicured finger to her lips. “I’m a famous celebrity. I’m supposed to be hairless.”

“Get your stupid fucking finger off my girl and put your goddamn clothes back on, Gentry, or I’m putting you in this wheelbarrow,” Nick snapped from the doorway, where he was indeed pushing a wheelbarrow overflowing with trash bags.

Griffin dropped his finger from Riley’s mouth.

“Lemme get a better look at this.” Mrs. Penny huffed and puffed her way out of the chair.

“Did someone saychest hair?” Lily appeared in the doorway. Her pink housecoat was still covered in a fine layer of dust, and she had several serving spoons in each pocket.

“Take a look at this,” Mrs. Penny told her roommate.

Lily motored in and planted her face two inches from Griffin’s chest. She raised her glasses and squinted. “Hmm. What an interesting birthmark.”

Nick returned through the front door with the now empty wheelbarrow. He glanced their way, shook his head, and stomped off, muttering about how much birthdays sucked.

“I don’t understand what I’m looking at,” Riley admitted.

“The wax dyed my skin,” Griffin lamented. “The esthetician didn’t notice until he got to the bottom. He always starts with aGforGriffin.”

“And you think this is related to the note?” Riley clarified.

“Of course it is,” Mrs. Penny said, elbowing her way in for a closer look. “Any idiot can see that.”

Lily poked Griffin in the belly with her finger.

Riley stepped back and rubbed her temples. “Griffin, I don’t see how these things are connected. They both seem like pranks to me.”

“There is nothing funny about defacing my body! Now use that creepy psychic woo-woo or whatever it is to solve this.”

Riley had done her best to deny her psychic powers while married to Griffin. Nothing was more important to the man than appearances. She’d put so much effort into pretending to be normal that she’d ended up suppressing her gift until it became uncontrollable.

Now he wanted her to use it…and she wanted to punch him in his pinkG.

“I’m telling you, this is bullshit,” Nick called as he pushed another overflowing wheelbarrow load past the doorway again.

“AndI’mtellingyou,as long as his check clears, I don’t care,” Mrs. Penny barked.

“These aren’t pranks! Someoneshotat me,” Griffin announced.

“Before or after the capital letters?” Mrs. Penny asked.

Riley’s nose twitched. “Oh boy,” she muttered. Sometimes the stronger psychic visions came on too quickly to mentally prepare.

Suddenly, she found herself back among the cotton candy clouds. They parted to reveal a worried-looking Griffin behind the wheel with a pink hairlessGpoking out of his unbuttoned shirt. As he swooped his sports car around his circular driveway, a single shot rang out, and a nice neat hole appeared in Griffin’s windshield several inches from his head. Riley watched from the clouds as the blood drained from his face. A high-pitched screech emanated from his mouth before his small foot mashed the accelerator.

The car shot across the cul-de-sac, taking out the neighbor’s concrete corgi statue next to their mailbox, before he shifted into drive and fishtailed down the street.

Riley’s stomach dropped as her body went into free fall. And then just as suddenly, she was back in her office, steadying herself on Lily’s sturdy arm.

“Griffin, did you say someoneshotat you today?” Riley asked.

“Oh yeah. I was very upset about my chest and forgot to mention that part when I got here.”

“Nick!”