Under the Gun

by Kelsey Browning

  “I’m on it,” Jenny called back and leaned inside the front door.

  “What’s the matter?” Lil asked when she made it back across the yard. “You look like you saw a ghost, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Worse.” Maggie stomped in a circle. “So much worse.”

  “How can things be worse than seeing a ghost?” Lil asked.

  Before Maggie could answer, Jenny came jogging toward Abby Ruth’s trailer.

  Maggie took a visible gulp of air. “You know how Abby Ruth never let us in here alone?” She closed her eyes. “Well, I was curious and wanted an unchaperoned peek at her gun collection.”

  Jenny chuckled. “We won’t tell.”

  “No. That’s not the problem. Look!” Maggie hitched her thumb toward the inside of the trailer. “The space at the front is empty.”

  “What?” Jenny stumbled back, and Lil took her arm to steady her. “Are you saying all Mom’s guns are gone?”

  Teague joined them at a dead run but wasn’t even breathing heavy when he skidded to a stop at the back of the trailer. “What happened?”

  Jenny pointed inside.

  Teague didn’t waste one moment. He jumped into the trailer and marched straight to the front. The echo of his boots against the aluminum floor sounded like a drum roll.

  Lil, Maggie, and Jenny quickly followed. At the gooseneck end of the trailer, the carpeted dressing area Abby Ruth used as her personal gun safe was stark naked except for the fine linens on the bunk.

  Not one pistol. Not a rifle or shotgun hung from the hooks on the wall.

  “Damn,” Teague said under his breath.

  “Maybe she moved them or took them with her,” Jenny reasoned.

  Teague peered at a U-shaped piece of metal.

  “What’s that?” Lil asked. “It looks like a ring like they put in a bull’s nose. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Abby Ruth rode a big ol’ bucker and saved this as a souvenir.”

  When she reached out to touch it, Teague blocked her way. “Please don’t contaminate the crime scene. The bull nose ring is actually the other half of this lock. Someone cut the thing off.”

  Properly chastised, Lil covered her cheek with a hand, trying to cool her hot embarrassment over her investigative faux pas. The other gals probably would’ve known better than to touch evidence.

  “Bolt cutters,” Maggie said. “They used my bolt cutters. It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s no one’s fault,” Lil said. “But someone will have to tell Abby Ruth.”

  “She’ll come unglued,” Maggie moaned.

  Jenny blew out a breath. “I guess it should be me.”

  “No, Sera is the only woman for this job,” Lil said. “Because we’ll need all the Zen and balanced chakras in the universe to settle your mom down.” Sera was the only one Lil knew who had enough patience. Plus, it was likely Sera would be returning to California, a safe distance from Abby Ruth’s backlash.

  Teague held up his hand. “Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll start working on this. Maybe we’ll recover the guns before you have to tell her anything. I’ll get my guys to come out here and fingerprint everything. Now, everyone out.”

  Jenny’s shoulders sagged as she backtracked, and Lil felt pretty much the same way. With all these Hollywood-types invading Summer Shoals and making a ruckus, it was highly unlikely that Teague would have free time to hunt down missing guns.

  “What are we going to do?” Maggie said.

  “I can’t lie to her,” Jenny said. “She’s like a human lie detector, always knows when I’m not telling her the whole truth. But if we tell her the truth, all hell will break loose.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Teague said. “About like a bull with a flank strap tied one notch too tight.”

  “Well since she’s not here and we don’t know when she’s coming back,” Lil said, “I say what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  “You mean we should hide this from her?” Maggie’s eyes were wide with horror.

  “I like to call this tactic justified omission.”

  * * *

  As if she hadn’t already been heartsick over the earlier conversation with her mom, now Jenny’s stomach was a mess of worry and confusion. All fifteen of her mom’s guns. Missing. Jenny plopped down on the running board of the trailer. The sun was setting, the graying clouds matching the color of her mood perfectly. “Maybe keeping quiet for now would be smart. Mom will go crazy when she finds out.”

  “Can’t say that I blame her,” Lil agreed. “Those guns had to be worth a fortune. I don’t know if my homeowners’ insurance will cover something like that.”

  “I highly doubt it. Her guns are pretty rare.” Jenny ran a hand through her hair, snagging strands on her beautiful engagement ring. She plucked them out of the setting and let them fall to the ground. “Why did this have to happen when she’s out of town?”

  “It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry,” Maggie said. “If I hadn’t forgotten to lock the other door, no one would’ve ever been able to get this far. I feel awful.”

  “Who knew, besides all of us, that she had guns in the trailer?” Teague rubbed his hand across his five-o’clock shadow. “Anyone?”

  Although she longed for him to put his arms around her and comfort her, Jenny knew Teague was already in cop mode. Exactly what they needed right now. “This horse trailer hasn’t held horses one day since Mom bought it back in 2005. Travel and a rolling gun transport. That’s all it’s ever been to her. Regardless, she didn’t go around advertising what she had inside.”

  Teague’s radio went off. “Sorry,” he said as he stepped away, and Jenny felt the loss of his calming presence.

  “Do you know what kinds of guns they were? If we can get a list of them, or at least some of them, maybe we can start asking around,” Lil said. “Help Teague out.”

  Jenny cast a glance at the trailer. “Mom has a detailed accounting of those guns. Trust me, sometimes I think they mean more to her than Grayson and I do.”

  “That’s not true,” Lil said with a frown. “You couldn’t possibly believe that.”

  “Oh, wait until you see where and how she keeps her gun inventory,” Jenny said with a panicked laugh. “You might change your mind about that.” She hopped to her feet and scrambled into what used to be her mom’s gun room. “She keeps important papers in a locker in here.”

  “Teague told us not to touch anything,” Maggie said from behind her.

  “The thief wouldn’t have known this area existed.” Jenny said. “It’s like a secret compartment, looks like a wall panel, unless you know what you’re looking for.”

  Lil and Maggie followed Jenny, filing back into the trailer. They marched past the boxes holding her mom’s remaining household belongings to the dressing area in front. Jenny stepped inside and pushed against a wooden panel on the left. A compartment popped open.

  “Very nice,” Maggie said. “That’s clever.”

  Jenny pulled out a vertical file and flipped through it. Then she reached inside the compartment to the right. “Here it is.” She lifted out the square maroon photo album her mom had always kept on her bedside table back in Texas. “This isn’t your average brag book.”

  Maggie flipped through the pages. “Seriously? This is like a baby book. Only for guns!”

  Each page held pictures, facts, and target practice dates and scores. Detailed history. More details than the average mom would’ve ever filled in about her kid.

  “I know.” Jenny tried to keep her voice level. “Isn’t it a shame her guns rated a nicer baby book than I did?”

  “Stop that,” Lil scolded. “You know she loves you.”

  Teague poked his head inside the small area and sighed. “Didn’t I tell y’all not to touch anything?”

  Uh-oh. “But I remembered Mom keeps an inventory of her guns.” Jenny hustled the other women out of the trailer. Once they were back outside, she pointed at the book in Maggie’s hands.

  Teague rubbed hi
s temples the way he did when Grayson’s pup Bowzer piddled on the floor and let his head drop for a few seconds. When he looked up again, he said. “Get me a copy of all the information. Sorry, Jenny, duty calls. Problem down at the grocery store. Someone’s pitching a fit over something called truffle oil. I know all these rich folks are spending a lot of money, but I’ll be glad when they leave and we can get back to sleepy Summer Shoals.” He leaned down and gave Jenny a kiss that made her want to throw her arms around his neck and never let go. Instead, she released him and watched him leave.

  Maggie pulled a carpenter’s pencil from her shirt pocket and a small spiral notebook from the pocket of her cargo pants. “I’ll jot down the details.”

  Jenny started reading off the specs for each gun, each detailed on a two-page spread. When they reached the sixteenth set of pages, Jenny said, “Well, sorry, Maggie. That was all a big waste of time. Look, here’s an insurance list of all of her guns.”

  Lil grabbed the paper from Jenny. “This is exactly what we need. I bet the gun club guys could help us out.”

  Maggie thumbed through the pages of the album. “Well, look here. I found some interesting snapshots.” She spun the leather book around and placed it back in Jenny’s hands.

  Jenny couldn’t hold in the grin that spread across her face. “I didn’t know she had these.” She ran a finger across a picture of her mom looking so young, holding Grayson when he was hours old. Her hand covered her heart as she flipped the page and saw the collage of pictures immortalizing her childhood. Cheerleading, AAU softball, and the prom picture of her and Teague with him down on bended knee, offering her a corsage of white roses.

  “If there’s any way we can recover these guns before she gets home, I’ll be forever indebted. There’s no telling what she’ll do if she finds out they’re gone. Lil, she’s liable to take a lesson from Grayson’s castle-building book and dig a moat. Maybe build a watch tower.”

  “As long as she doesn’t stock up on alligators.” Maggie pulled out her phone. “Here. I’ll take a picture of the inventory and send it to everyone in a group text. That way, we can split up and make better time on the gun hunt.”

  “You know Teague wouldn’t be happy about y’all getting involved with this,” Jenny said.

  “Are you saying we should wait?” Maggie asked.

  “No, but you might want to keep it on the DL for now. And I’ll hope he doesn’t ask me about it.”

  “First thing in the morning, Maggie, Sera, and I will stop by the gun shop. You okay with that?” Lil said, looking to Jenny for agreement.

  She should say no. Knew she should say no. Teague was the sheriff of this county and her fiancé. She should tell them to let him handle it. “Yep.”

  So much for good intentions.

  Chapter 8

  Although Sera had felt bad about leaving the table last night after the strange phone conversation with Abby Ruth, she’d figured it was a situation the others could mull over, since she couldn’t always put her friends before Marcus. But when they’d all trampled in the house hollering and moaning about Abby Ruth’s missing guns, not to mention the mess Teague’s guys were making of the horse trailer in the fingerprinting process, Sera had vowed to do whatever it took to help find them.

  So this morning, she jumped behind the wheel of her sunshine-yellow VW van, feeling the familiar exuberance she’d so often experienced by teaming up with these ladies. “Come on, girls. Load up.”

  Lil hopped in to ride shotgun, and Maggie slid the van’s side door closed with a grunt. “Where is Marcus anyway?”

  “He was out of bed and gone before the sun came up. But I’m not thinking about him right now.” Because if she did, she might worry about why he hadn’t asked her to go along. Sera waved a hand. “We’ve got more important things to do. Like hunt down a gun-nabber.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie shouted from the back seat.

  “Hope we get lucky,” Lil said quietly, her brows knitting together.

  “Don’t worry, Lil. Those gun fanatics stick together. I’m betting that the people down at the gun shop will be able to point us in the right direction if they haven’t already heard something about Abby Ruth’s guns themselves.”

  When Sera pulled into the lot for Bull’s Eye gun shop, she parked on the far side of the building. Marcus seemed to be everywhere in Summer Shoals these days, and no matter how terrible it seemed, even to herself, he was not invited to her investigation party. He’d catch one whiff of the missing guns and either tell her she shouldn’t be involved or come up with some movie idea.

  They walked inside, and a tall man in a Bull’s Eye logo T-shirt and camo ball cap looked up from behind the counter, his eyes full of excitement. For a moment anyway, because once he focused in on them, his expression faltered. “Ladies, what can I do for you?”

  The man’s disappointment in spotting three normal women meant only one thing. “Had a lot of big names in here the past few days?” Sera asked.

  That light in his eyes sparked again. “You best believe it. You’ll never guess who was in here looking for guns for his collection.”

  Easy. “Brad Huffman.” Sera tilted her head slightly, casting a smile in his direction. I’ll play your little game.

  His mouth moved, but nothing came out. He blinked. “How in the world would you know that?”

  She batted her eyelashes. Being Marcus Johanneson’s wife did come with a few perks. She knew lots of intimate things about the Hollywood rich and famous. When she was living here in Summer Shoals, she’d kept up through the tabloids at the Piggly Wiggly checkout counter. Those tell-all newspapers held more truth than the average person realized.

  The guy grinned a toothy smile. “Yeah, well, you won’t believe who else stopped by recently.”

  Oh, game on, Sera thought. But Maggie took the bait first. “Who?”

  The man tugged on his ball cap and smirked. “Marcus Johanneson. Bigger than life. Know who he is?”

  Sera choked.

  Lil slapped her on the back. “You okay?”

  Her face hot, she nodded.

  “He might shoot part of a movie right here in my store,” the guy said proudly. “He’s a big-time Hollywood producer and director. Used to be an actor. Heartthrob type. Surely you ladies would know him, right?”

  “Of course we’ve heard of him,” Lil said. “We were with him at Jessie Wyatt’s funeral. Why, in fact, he’s almost like family.”

  Sera elbowed her for name-dropping.

  Lil elbowed her back and said to the gun shop owner, “Nice guy, isn’t he?”

  Sera shot Lil a glare and plucked the inventory sheet from her hand to pass it to the man behind the counter. “We’re looking for guns. Very special guns. Can you help us?”

  “This is your lucky day because special guns are our business here at Bull’s Eye.” Then he looked closer at the paper he held between his long fingers and let out a long, high-pitched whistle that sounded like the air being released from a balloon.

  “You’ve seen them?” Sera asked hopefully.

  “No, but you’re in luck.”

  “How so?”

  He wagged a finger over the list. “Because you can’t get those types of guns just anywhere. They’re collectibles. Very high-dollar ones at that.”

  “These were stolen.”

  “Oh, no. I got no use for stolen property.” The man winced and ran his hand across his chin. “Guns the likes of these should be kept in a safe.”

  “They were locked up.”

  “Hope you called the cops.” The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Guns in the wrong hands, that’s how people get hurt.”

  “Yes, which is why we need to find them.”

  “May not be that easy.”

  If they couldn’t find the guns fast enough, maybe there was another way to keep Abby Ruth from having a meltdown. Sera hitched her purse on her shoulder. She was willing to pull out the platinum card if necessary. “Maybe we could replace them.”

&nbs
p; “You won’t happen into a shop and buy these off the shelf.” The man pulled out a spiral notebook, scribbled something, then tore out the page and slid it her way. “Here. Do some surfing on these websites. If anyone has seen something on your list, this is where you’ll hear chatter. Depends on if whoever has them knows what he’s got or not. Give me your information and I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

  “Thank you so much.” If there was one thing Sera wanted to get done before she had to figure out her own life, it was to help Lil and Maggie solve this problem with the guns. These two ladies had given her a home and purpose when her life was a little off the rails. She wouldn’t trade their friendship for anything.

  This gun thing was much more than a petty theft. It was a personal attack on their sacred space. And Summer Haven had been her safe place for over a year. Now, the more she was faced with addressing her situation with Marcus, the tighter her ties to this town and its people felt.

  “This is helpful.” Not completely, but at least they knew one place the guns weren’t. She pulled his spiral notebook over in front of her and wrote her name, Serendipity Johnson, and phone number on it.

  With Maggie and Lil on either side of her, Sera left the gun shop. No one said a word as they walked to the van.

  Maggie was the last to climb inside. “Y’all thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Sera glanced over at Lil and then back at Maggie. “I’m thinking Operation Remington is now in progress.”

  * * *

  Sera was finishing up an impromptu early evening yoga class on Summer Haven’s lawn—a welcome relief from thinking about her future and stressing about the missing guns—when Abby Ruth’s huge white dually came rambling up the drive. The strange weight Sera had been carrying around her heart since Jessie’s funeral eased slightly.

  Oh, thank goodness. She’s home safe and sound.

  That wasn’t fair, though, because Sera had no idea if Summer Haven was home for either Abby Ruth or her. But it would be good to have Abby Ruth helping hunt down Jessie’s missing gauntlets. The whole team back together again.