“Are we sure about the body bag?” Josie asked.
Riley turned off the engine. “We should be able to see any comings and goings from h— Jasmine! Where are you going?”
Her friend was already on the sidewalk, feeding her ponytail through the back of a ball cap.
Josie got out too.
“You guys, we can’t wander around this neighborhood. They call the cops on all suspicious activity,” she whisper-shouted out the window at them.
Jasmine gasped. “Wait.Thisis where you and Nick got busted doing the dirty?”
“I can see his parents’ house from here,” Josie noted.
“They have neighborhood security, and I do not want to end up on the front page of the newsletter again,” Riley complained. “We can’t just trespass on private property,” she called after them, but they were both already crossing the street.
Riley thumped her head against the seat twice. Then on a groan, she exited the vehicle and marched across the street after her friends. “You can come back online anytime, spirit guides,” she muttered.
She was halfway up the driveway when an arm reached out of a bush and grabbed her. Riley yelped.
“Shh!” Jasmine hissed. “Are you trying to get us busted?”
“Are you trying to get us arrested?”
“Nobody’s getting arrested,” Josie assured her from her squat under a Japanese maple. “I never get caught. But if you’re too much of a good girl to get a little dirty to help little Cookie—”
“Kory,” Riley corrected her.
“Whatever. I’m just saying, if you don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to rid law-abiding society of this pubescent asshole, then maybe you should wait in the car.”
“I don’t have the stomach for jail…or fire.”
“Who said anything about fire?” Jasmine asked.
Wide-eyed, Riley pointed toward the backyard, where a blast of flames lit up the darkness. It was accompanied by eerie laughter.
“He sounds like an evil villain,” Josie observed.
“That’s our guy,” Jasmine said.
Together they crawled through the shrubbery to the backyard.
“Huh. Definitely a villain in training,” Josie said, peering through the leaves of a large rhododendron.
In the middle of the backyard, Lance was juking and jiving with a plastic tank strapped to his back and a hose in his hands.
“He looks like a deranged Ghostbuster,” Josie whispered.
“I said back the fuck off, Luke Skywalker!” he snarled at some invisible enemy. Another huge flame exploded out of the hose, turning the leaves on the closest tree brown. The yard was already full of charbroiled spots and dead or dying plants.
“Who in the hell gave this kid a flamethrower?” Jasmine whispered.
“Who fantasizes about killing Luke Skywalker?” Josie asked.
“That’s a magnolia tree! They’re so hard to grow here,” Riley groaned.
Lance paused his yard assault and took a beer off his tactical belt. He chugged it, burped, then hurled the half-empty can into the air and turned the hose on.
“Eat hellfire, Betty White!” Lance roared, aiming the flames at the can that landed close enough that Riley felt the heat.
