She pressed on. “Then I saw him again, out on the sidewalk when we were in Mechanicsburg having sushi. I recognized the hair from this morning and his face from the vision. Although he didn’t have an evil goatee. He looked right in the window at us. It didn’t feel like a coincidence, so we ran out the back door, and I called you.”
“Is that the guy who took you?” Weber demanded, looking at Sesame. “If he is, you could be in serious danger, and we need to know.”
She blinked several times in a row, eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings. “I…I…think I’m getting a headache. I’m going to go lie down,” she said, bringing the back of her hand to her forehead and clomping dramatically out of the room.
Nick wiped a hand over his face and muttered something that sounded like, “We should have made them drink wine.”
“Ugh. Who lives like this?” Jasmine demanded, opening cabinets in Kellen’s kitchen. She pulled out a box of bran flakes. Riley couldn’t think of a more on-brand breakfast for the detective.
“Someone who works for a living,” Kellen called back in annoyance. He winced and rubbed a hand over his ribs.
“I’m an attorney, you insufferable ass. Are you saying I don’t work for a living?”
“I’m saying I spent my morning in a dumpster while you bought out half the inventory of retail stores in Dauphin and Cumberland Counties.” Kellen left them to fight with Jasmine in the kitchen.
“Look, I know you’re mad,” Riley began.
Nick’s hand closed around her wrist and dragged her toward the kitchen. “We’re going home and you’re giving Brian a description of this guy so he can put it into facial rendering software.” He looked at Kellen, who was snatching utensils out of Jasmine’s hands as she rearranged them.
“Do you know nothing about feng shui or kitchen organization?” she scoffed.
“You good here?” Nick asked Kellen.
Kellen grabbed a pair of manly grilling tongs away from Jasmine, then clutched his ribs. “Yeah,” he wheezed. “I’m taking personal time for the rest of the weekend. She won’t be alone.”
“Good. Jasmine, leave the man alone. We’ll drop you off on the way home.”
And with that, Nick dragged Riley out the door.
* * *
“There’ssomething not right with the jawline,” Riley told Brian as he finessed the computer-generated sketch of the villain.
“Stronger and more pronounced, or weaker and less defined?” he asked, toggling keys to turn the man on screen into a leading man or a secondary character.
“I don’t know,” she said, scrubbing both hands over her face. She was tired, hungry, annoyed, and something was tickling at the back of her mind. Something she couldn’t bring into focus. Something she couldn’t ask her spirit guides to help with because they were gone. She’d locked herself in the bathroom when they got home and tried to drop into Cotton Candy World. But all that she found was a dark, cloudless void.
“Why don’t we take a break?” Brian suggested.
“A break sounds good,” she admitted. “Where’s Josie?”
He opened a sleek mini fridge under the desk and pulled out two beers. “She’s interviewing Mrs. Penny’s friend again to see if her knickknacks really are disappearing or if she’s just really old.” He popped the top on one of the beers and handed it over.
“Thanks,” Riley said. “How’s the gym rat case going?”
He adjusted his glasses and opened his own beer. “Oh, swell. Got banned for life from Muscles Muscles Muscles this morning.”
Riley sputtered in her beer. “Seriously?”
“Apparently they have a strict ‘only selfies’ in the locker room policy. I wasn’t even taking pics.”
“What were you doing?”
“Using the public Wi-Fi to hack into Brotein’s phone.”
“Of course you were.”
“How’s your ‘case’ going?” he asked.
