Mrs. Penny shrugged. “How the hell should we know? We tried to call you when we realized Riley probably got herself abducted and murdered, but you were too busy to answer. Really, this is all your fault.”
“Not helping, Penny,” Nick snarled as he pounced on the coffee table and started sorting through the debris. Old newspaper clippings. Photocopies of police reports. The remains of last night’s cold pizza snack. Or was that last week’s cold pizza snack?
Finally he found his phone under a coffee mug that had mold growing in the bottom.
He’d been too distracted. Once again, he’d shoved his head up his own ass and someone else had paid the price.
With shaking hands, Nick dialed Riley’s number.
“Gee, if only we’d thought to call her,” Mrs. Penny said.
Half a second later, Riley’s phone rang. In the room.
His geriatric partner pulled his girlfriend’s phone out of her pants pocket and wiggled it at him.
“We were unaware that Mrs. Penny was still in possession of Riley’s phone,” Gabe said, looking at his canoe-sized feet in chagrin.
“Not my fault I wanted to rock out in the Jeep.”
The Jeep.
Nick turned his back on them and scrolled through his apps. “She drove off in her Jeep, right?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Mrs. Penny squawked.
He ignored her and opened his tracker app. The Jeep was parked on Hanna Street.
“What the hell is she doing at Savannah’s?”
“The nudie club? Hoo, boy! Now we get to show Gabe here a real-life champagne room. Stick with me, big guy, and I’ll educate you on all the fun stuff,” Mrs. Penny promised.
“Where are my fucking keys?” Nick snarled, staring at the red dot on his screen as he patted his pockets.
He didn’t have a good feeling about this. And the second he found Riley, he was going to give her one of those week-long, loud lectures about personal safety. Then he was going to take her away for the weekend. Somewhere without elderly neighbors and missing persons and suspicious limos.
“I’ll borrow Willicott’s car,” Mrs. Penny volunteered. “Gabe ’n’ me will follow you over, and if she’s not there, we’ll stay put in case she shows up again. We’ll need a lot of singles so we don’t look suspicious.”
Panic clawed at him as Nick scoured his office for his keys. “Why is it such a goddamn mess in here?”
Goddammit. He hated when other people were right. He kicked the easel leg in frustration and sent the whiteboard crashing to the floor.
“Told you he was gonna lose his shit,” Mrs. Penny stage-whispered.
“Burt the Good Boy has discovered your car keys,” Gabe said, holding up a slobber-covered set of keys. The dog sat with his tail swishing back and forth over a missing person report from Kansas.
Nick snatched keys out of the man’s hand, gave Burt a quick pat on the head, and started for the door. “You two go home and stay by your phones. If you hear from her, you call me immediately.”
Mrs. Penny snorted. “He says that like he’s gonna answer the phone this time.”
With clenched teeth, Nick glared at her. “Iwillanswer. Finding Riley is our priority. Nothing else matters.”
“The victims of the Dog Doody Bandit would beg to differ,” the old lady claimed.
Nick growled at her.
She held up another burrito in a threatening manner. “Come at me, bro.”
“Where do you keep getting these burritos?” he asked as he shoved his keys into his pocket and called up Kellen’s contact on his phone.
