Page 9 of The Body in the Backyard

Evict the elderly.

Birthday sex with hot girlfriend.

Take hedge trimmer to landscaping and Gentry’s stupid car.

“Who would want to take you out?” Mrs. Penny asked Griffin.

“No one! Everyone thinks I’m wonderful,” Griffin insisted.

“Bullshit,” Nick sang.

“Well, almost everyone,” Griffin amended.

“You can’t think of anyone that you’ve ever wronged? Anyone at all?” Riley prompted.

He shrugged his elfin shoulders. “No. I’m delightful.”

Mrs. Penny popped out of her chair and yanked the shade off the nearest table lamp. She turned it on and shoved the bulb end in Griffin’s face. “You better talk fast, buster.”

“I–I don’t know!” he squeaked.

“Okay, how about Claudia Mendoza, the morning show anchor whose job you took?” Riley suggested quickly before any eyeball–light bulb injuries could occur.

“Pfft. That was years ago. Besides, it wasn’t personal. It was just business,” he insisted.

“Griffin, you took the woman’s job. She was fired because of nepotism,” Riley said.

He scoffed, blinking at the light bulb in his face. “It wasn’t anything like that. My dad just firedherso he could hireme.”

“That’s the definition of nepotism,” Josie said dryly.

Riley wrote Claudia’s name on the whiteboard.

“What about Bella Goodshine?” Brian suggested.

Riley was already adding the name when Griffin’s pea brain sputtered to life. “You think myfiancéewould ruin my perfectly chiseled chest with hot-pink dye? She loves my chestal region.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Nick muttered. He had unequivocal proof that both the news anchor and his weather girl fiancée were cheating on each other every chance they got.

“You say something, boss?” Josie asked.

“Nope,” Nick lied and entered the log-in for his bank. This birthday had gone downhill quickly. Maybe he could salvage it by cooking a nice quiet dinner for Riley and then?—

A resounding crash echoed from the kitchen, followed by Lily’s trilling, “Oopsie!”

Fuck. The geriatric circus from hell was going to put a cramp in his birthday seduction plans. He should have installed a moat.

“Griffin, sometimes you do things to benefit yourself that hurt other people,” Riley continued.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Griffin insisted.

Nick squashed the urge to hurl his laptop at the man.

“For instance, you cheating on your wife with the new, big-boobed weather girl,” Josie said.

Mrs. Penny pointed to Riley. “Put your own name on the board.”

“I already broke his nose for revenge. Besides, I have an alibi,” she argued.