The disapproving lines on her grandmother’s forehead deepened. “I am very disappointed—”
“In me. And everyone else. And life in general. I got it, and I’m not saying you’re wrong. We’ll deal with it later, Grandmother.”
“We most certainly will.”
Elanora swept from the room in a huff, and Riley turned to face Nick. “And you,” she said.
“Me?” He pointed at himself and produced both dimples. Weapons of mass devastation.
“Yeah, you. You’re the one who said you could handle dating a psychic.” She didn’t exactly choke on the word, but she did cough.
“Thorn, this has nothing to do with you talking to dead people and reading minds. I don’t give a shit about your psychic training. You haven’t been trained to defend yourself. You barely survived the last time you got tangled up in a case. Hell, you threw a gun at the bad guy. You can’t expect me to pat you on the back and tell you to get back out there and bring home a win.”
“You really do need to teach her to shoot,” Kellen cut in.
“I don’t if she stays away from murderers.”
“Oh, come on. You’re being dramatic,” she complained. “One measly bullet hole in a love handle didn’t put me anywhere near death’s doorstep.”
“Don’t tell me it was one ‘measly bullet hole’ when you almost let a madman drown you in the goddamn capitol fountain.”
Oh, that.
“Nick.” She crossed her arms over her chest. He was putting on a front, but underneath it, she could sense the fear that kept him up at night.
Not again. I can’t lose her.
She slammed the metaphorical garage door shut in her head. As a psychic girlfriend, she tried very hard to give Nick and his inner monologue privacy.
“Riley.” He mirrored her posture hiding his inner turmoil under a cocky, sexy facade.
“Let me hear Detective Weber out,” she said gently. “Looking over a case file isn’t going to put me in mortal danger.” At least, she hoped it wouldn’t. “You have to trust me.”
His jaw clenched under his sexy stubble, making his dimples pop again. “For the record, I don’t like it. And you,” he said, turning on Kellen. “If she ends up in trouble or gets hurt, I will personally choke you to death with your stupid tie collection.”
“Nick.” She sighed.
“I’m not leaving,” he insisted, pulling out a chair from the table and attacking one of the banana muffins Gabe had baked that morning. The man was an angel in the kitchen. Burt trotted over and put his head in Nick’s lap so he could inhale muffin crumbs.
The problem was, Riley didn’t reallywantto consult on a case. Especially not another murder. Especially not when, as her grandmother so meanly pointed out, her powers were not exactly under her control at all times. Which technically was her own fault for denying their existence for the past thirty-four years.
However, she’d also spent the last several years doing what she’d been told in both a dead-end job and her deader-end marriage. She was due for a rebellion.
“Look, I don’t know if I want to get involved,” she told Kellen. Nick’s smug grin had her adding, “But I’ll hear you out.”
They both took a seat at the table. She picked up a muffin and gestured for Kellen to help himself.
“It’s been a week, and we’ve got nothing,” he explained, opening the file and laying out a series of photos of the body.
Muffin lodged in her throat.
The victim was a woman of indeterminate age due to obvious and extensive plastic surgery. She could have been in her forties or her sixties. She had a deep, orange-hued tan, swollen duck lips, unnaturally rounded cheeks, and a frozen forehead. Both her hair and her lashes were longer and thicker than those found in nature.
The body was face-up on plush white carpet with what was most likely a look of surprise. However, given the enhancements, the overall effect was that of a life-sized sex doll.
Thankfully, there was no blood or obvious cause of death.
Riley found it Alanis Morissette “Ironic” that the victim had fought aging tooth and nail only to meet an early end.
