Page 91 of The Body in the Backyard

Riley took a branch to the face. “Ow.”

“Oh shit. Duck!” Jasmine hissed, turning around and tackling Riley to the ground just as the glass patio door opened.

Just beyond a row of squat dwarf spruces, Ingram Theodoric stepped out onto the stone. With his phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder, he held a lit cigar in one hand and a glass of booze in the other.

Puffing clouds of smelly smoke into the overcast November air, he strolled to the edge of the patio, a rich guy surveying his kingdom.

“Go,” Riley’s spirit guides whispered.

Riley signaled for Jasmine to stay hidden, took a deep breath, and crawled on her hands and knees between the spruce and the wall.

“Don’t bore me with your foreclosure guilt,” Ingram slurred into the phone. “People shouldn’t borrow more than they can afford to pay back once the balloon payment comes due. I have more important things to worry about.”

Riley eased onto the patio and tiptoed toward the door, keeping one eye on Ingram. He ended the call with an aggressive stab of his pointer finger.

“Things like ruining Griffin Gentry,” he said to the smoky air.

She froze when she heard Griffin’s name, but her spirit guides were insistent. “Go. Go. Go.”

Her sneakers slipped on the wet stone as she ran as quietly as she could through the open door, leaving Ingram laughing diabolically behind her. She found herself in a stately office full of leather furniture, carved wood, and old books she bet no one had read. There was a lion head midroar mounted above the fireplace. A taxidermied polar bear stood proudly in the corner. Behind it, a cabinet held more than a dozen rifles.

Riley jogged through the set of double doors and found herself in a long hallway. “Shit. Why is this house so big? Okay, spirit guides. Which way to the kitchen?”

She felt a nudge toward the back of the house and headed in that direction. It guided her through a moody sitting room with the kind of furniture that looked as if it had never hosted a single butt. On the other side was another hallway wallpapered in linen with framed photos of Ingram hunting, Ingram accepting awards, Ingram shaking hands with a safari guide, both holding aggressive-looking automatic weapons and a nauseating pile of zebra carcasses at their feet.

Riley heard a loud yipping noise. It grew louder the closer to the back of the house she went. She followed the noise through a swinging door and found a kitchen the size of a city block. It smelled divinely of meat from the juicy roast resting on the counter beside triple wall ovens.

Lily would have had a field day checking out every single cabinet and appliance. But Riley only had time to zero in on the frosted glass door with the wordPantrypainted across it.

In front of the door sat the two little dogs, still yapping incessantly.

A quick scan of the cavernous space told Riley there was no team of chefs ready to jump out at her with knives. But there was a pot simmering on the stove and a cutting board of half-chopped herbs on one of the three islands.

“Sorry, doggies. I need you to scoot out of the way,” Riley said, nudging them out of her path and flinging the pantry door open.

Mrs. Penny was perched on a step stool with her hand in a bag of gluten-free pretzels. Mr. Willicott had his shirt pulled up over his nose and was brushing granulated sugar off his pants.

“About damn time,” Mrs. Penny announced.

“This woman smells like the inside of a septic tank,” Mr. Willicott complained.

“It’s because my intestines are hungry,” Mrs. Penny explained.

The dogs raced inside to bark at the intruders.

Riley spied the glass container labeledDog Treatsand dumped the contents on the floor.

Her phone buzzed with a text.

Jasmine: He’s back in the house. Go out the front if you can.

“We have to go. Now,” Riley insisted.

Mrs. Penny threw the pretzels over her shoulder and hopped to her feet. “Let’s go get us some evidence.”

“Forget the evidence. We need to get out of here without being arrested.”

Riley led the way out of the pantry, leaving the door open in hopes that it would look as if the dogs were somehow responsible for the mess.