“Sorry,” I said. “Will you patrol Ordinary?”
It grumbled.
“Inconspicuously?”
It grumbled some more.
“She’ll pay you,” Ryder said.
I tried to elbow him, but he just laughed and pulled me closer.
“Fine. I’ll pay you. In food.”
It growled softly.
“Or in stuffies,” I said. “How about one new stuffy a month and an extra snack every day?”
The dragon-pigoinked and jumped off the pile to run down the hall to the spare room where Spud was sleeping.
“Thanks for bankrupting me,” I said.
“I wasn’t the one who set the terms.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder and was quiet, resting in the warmth of him, in the even rise and fall of his breathing.
“I love you, Ryder Bailey.”
“I love you too.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You really should relax,”the dead body on the floor said quietly.
I glared at Rossi, who was supposed to be staring sightlessly at the gymnasium ceiling and pretending he was breathing but was trying not to.
“You should be dead,” I replied.
His eye crinkled with the smug smile on his face. He whispered, “I am.”
“The next group of people will be here any minute. If you screw this up, Bertie will have your head.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“No, she won’t. This isn’t the rehearsal for the murder mystery. Thisisthe murder mystery. Be dead.”
The gymnasium door slammed open, and echoes clanged off the high ceiling. Rossi went unnaturally still, but it was just Jean. She sprinted across the room, glanced at Myra who was over at the refreshment table getting some water, and came to a halt next to me. “Sorry I’m slightly late.”
She wore a pink skirt and had layered a lime-green shirt under an orange sweater. But maybe the most shocking part of her appearance was her hair, which was a lovely palenaturalblonde.
“What did you do to your hair?” I asked.
“Oh, I colored it. Like I always do.”
“But it’s…normal.”
She laughed. “It’s blonde. My natural hair is brown.”
“Sorry. I’m just used to, you know, green, or pink, or blue.”
