Detective Teddy Wuwas a large man in jeans, cowboy boots, and a rumpled corduroy blazer. He hadn’t been on the force during Nick’s tenure, which was probably a good thing.
Riley insisted on inviting him into the living room, probably in hopes of keeping things friendly, but she was the only one who sat. The men remained standing in some sort of face-off.
“Why did you call Detective Weber instead of 911?” he asked Nick in a slow Southern drawl as a uniformed officer bagged the finger and nondisclosure agreements.
“I’m not a fan of the Harrisburg PD after a couple of your dirty boys in blue tried to kill my girlfriend and then burnt down my business,” Nick said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“So let me get this straight.” Wu flipped back a page in his notebook and glanced at Kellen. “Your sister disappeared without a trace six years ago. She reappears without warning, claiming she had amnesia and was abducted. You think she hasn’t been honest about what she’s been doing all this time. Then you,” he said, pointing at Riley, “got ‘the psychic flu’ trying to read her mind.”
“That’s correct,” Riley said like she was under a spotlight in an interrogation room.
Nick stepped closer to Riley’s chair. “You got a problem with psychics, Detective?”
Wu ignored him and flipped another page in his notebook. “And then you, a former cop turned private investigator, gave Detective Weber’s sister and her husband a place to stay after finding them in bed together and discovering that she not only wasn’t abducted, she’d left willingly.”
“Yeah, so?” Nick snapped.
Riley cleared her throat pointedly.
“This morning you discovered the sister had disappeared again. You answered the door to a man in a ‘bad suit’ who handed you an envelope that contained two signed copies of a nondisclosure agreement and one severed finger.”
“That’s correct,” Kellen answered.
Wu closed his notebook and fixed Kellen with a stare. “So what I’m wondering is why in tarnation you, a homicide detective in the Harrisburg PD, didn’t feel your captain needed to be informed of the situation until now.”
“Christ. Either you boys are working for megalomaniac villains or you’ve got the rule book shoved so far up your ass it tickles when you cough. Where’s the fucking middle ground?” Nick growled.
Kellen held up a hand. “Shut up, Nicky. Detective, I let my personal feelings get in the way. I thought my sister was dead. But that’s no excuse for ignoring my duty as an officer of the law.”
“So what is your sister involved with that involves delivering a finger and legal documents?” Wu asked, not looking particularly moved by Kellen’s admission that he had human feelings.
“We don’t know. She hasn’t been forthcoming,” Kellen said.
Wu turned his attention back to Nick and gave him a long assessing look. “How’d you get the shiner?”
“I smacked my face on a Not Relevant to This Case,” he told the detective.
Wu tucked his notebook into a pocket in his jacket. “Since we’re here and all, you mind if we take a look at this Sesame’s room?”
“Not without a warrant,” Nick said.
“Seriously, Nicky?” Kellen said under his breath.
“You can take the finger with you. But if you boys wanna do this by the book, then get a damn warrant.”
He purposely hadn’t mentioned the vials they’d found in Sesame’s room to Kellen or Wu and wasn’t about to open up his home to a legal search until he knew exactly what was in them.
“I need to make some calls,” Wu announced.
“Well, do it someplace else,” Nick said.
“You can use my office,” Riley offered. She ushered Wu toward the door and shot Nick a pointed look.Behave,she mouthed at him.
“I need coffee,” Kellen said and slunk off in the direction of the kitchen.
Nick yanked out his phone and dialed.
“You got Penny, PI,” Mrs. Penny said with a full mouth.
