Page 74 of The Body in the Backyard

Whatever. It still felt like a win.

“Okay,” she agreed, trying not to sound too excited.

“Now, if I can get that little tangerine turd to call me back, we’ll also be stepping up our personal security on Gentry. One of us needs to be with him at all times. And by ‘us,’ I mean me, Josie, or Gabe.”

Gabe tipped his head regally. “I am honored my sarcastic self-defense demonstration has convinced you of my prowess.”

“Uh, what sarcastic self-defense demonstration?” Riley asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said.

“I hurled your boyfriend to the kitchen floor for my own amusement,” Gabe explained.

“Did you do it shirtless?” Lily wondered.

“We were fully clothed, and I was minding my own business. He took advantage of me,” Nick said.

The doorbell rang, and Riley excused herself, confident that it would take at least five or ten minutes to get Lily back on track and forget about shirtless men.

She opened the door, then stifled a sigh when she spotted yet another complication. Weber stood on the welcome mat, hands on hips, badge and Glock on display. He looked like a man who wasn’t having a very good day.

“Riley.”

“Kellen. Tough day?”

“I wasted an hour of my life interrogating your boyfriend because he can’t share his toys.”

“Did you come to take another crack at him? Because I don’t think it’ll go any better than the first round,” she warned.

“I’m here to follow up with you and your purple-haired anarchist roommate. And you two had better be more forthcoming than Nicky, or else I’m going to get pissed off enough to haul someone downtown.”

Riley had always felt that she wouldn’t fare well in jail. Mrs. Penny on the other hand would probably end up running a profitable, illegal goods–based business behind bars.

“You know, now isn’t a great time,” she hedged.

“It’s never a great time to get murdered, but that’s exactly what happened to Lyle Larstein, and if you and your friend don’t give me ten minutes of your time here, I’ll drag both of you into an interrogation room.”

Interrogation rooms were small, and Mrs. Penny was a gassy woman.

“Fine. Come in,Detective Weber. You can wait in thekitchenwhile Iget Mrs. Penny,” she said in a near shout, hoping someone in Nick’s office would hear the warning.

“Very casual, Riley,” Weber said dryly. “I think I’ll come with you to get your friend.”

Freaking great.

Riley made a production of stomping her way slowly toward Nick’s office. “Can I get you anything to drink,Detective Weber?” she shouted.

Behind her, he muttered something that sounded a lot like “I hate my job.”

Riley entered the room and found everyone still staring raptly at Nick and his whiteboard. Only instead of being covered with suspect names and photos, it was a mathematical equation with arrows and complex shapes.

“And that’s how quantum physics works,” Nick said, capping his marker.

“Ahhh,” the roommates said in unison, nodding their heads.

“Oh look, it’s my favorite ex-partner and current pain in my ass, Detective Weber,” Nick said, acknowledging their guest.

“That was sarcasm. I am laughing,” Gabe said with enthusiasm.