Making It Right (A Most Likely To Novel Book 3)

by Catherine Bybee

  He tilted his glasses enough to make sure she saw his dark orbs. “Time to see what you’re made of, Sheriff.”

  Jo knew, without a doubt, this was going to hurt.

  They started at the range. A place Jo felt comfortable. Her father had raised her with guns in the house, and there wasn’t a memory there that didn’t involve her safely using every gun available to him.

  Small towns didn’t have a ton available, however. And with the price of finely tuned weaponry, Jo didn’t have the budget to add to her personal arsenal.

  Gill introduced his group to the range officer, who went over the plan for the morning.

  “We want to know your baseline . . . want you to know it. I’m sure you’re accurate with your service weapon. What about your perpetrator’s weapon? When you manage to disarm your suspect and have need to use their guns?”

  Gill took up where the range officer left off. “We want you to team up with another person who uses a weapon different from your own. Who uses a forty?” he asked.

  Several hands went up.

  “The nine millimeter?”

  Jo raised her hand.

  He went down the short list of backup weapons after that, before pairing the groups.

  Jo found herself with Lenny, a deputy from somewhere in Ohio, and Sal, a vice cop from Chicago. Both men had half a foot or more on Jo and several more years on the force than she. When she introduced herself as the sheriff of River Bend, the men exchanged unconvinced glances.

  “It’s a small town,” she explained.

  “How good a shot are you, Sheriff?” Sal asked. Sal had a long, lean face that belonged on top of a thin body . . . instead it bobbled on a thick neck that made the man look completely out of proportion.

  “I hold my own,” she said as she loaded the clips for her weapon of choice.

  “I’m a betting man . . . how about you, Lenny?” Sal asked.

  Lenny, a little younger than Sal, glanced at Jo. “Small town girls grow up with guns,” he told Mr. Vice. “I’ll stay out of that bet.”

  Sal smirked as he loaded the forty-caliber Glock. “What about you, Sheriff? Put some money behind your skills?”

  Jo saw Gill approach.

  She stopped being a sheriff for two seconds and gave Sal the sweetest smile she could muster. “I don’t know, Sal. You probably get all kinds of practice in a big city like Chicago.”

  Sal tilted his head. “Where’s your confidence, Sheriff?”

  She knew Gill heard the bet. “Twenty dollars says I’m a better shot with my nine than you are with your forty.”

  Sal approved with a nod.

  “And . . . just for shits and giggles, twenty more says I’m better with your forty than you are.”

  He blinked. “Fifty.”

  Jo forged insecurity with a dip of her chin. “Small towns don’t pay well.” Before he could back out, she agreed. “But I’ll take that bet.”

  Shots started to ring out around them.

  Jo covered her ears with the protection provided and pushed her sunglasses higher on her face.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Gill watched.

  Her target was twenty-five yards out. The first round suggested the sights on Sal’s gun were a little high. She adjusted her aim and concentrated. The rapid succession of bullets flew through the air until her clip was empty. She dropped the clip and set the empty gun down and stepped back.

  Lenny sat with his arms crossed, a smile on his face.

  Gill smirked.

  Sal wasn’t happy.

  “Your turn, Chicago,” Jo said.

  Gill walked by, patted Sal on the back. “Never bet your lunch money against a woman at the range. She’ll take it every time.”

  Seventy dollars richer, Jo happily moved on to weapons she didn’t have as much experience with.

  The .45 shot a lot like her 9mm with a little more kick. Her backup .38 was easy, but when put in a smaller weapon, she found the target moving around. Or perhaps she wasn’t hitting it.

  Sal wasn’t a sore loser, and gave her pointers on the smaller weapon.

  Gill would walk by on occasion and offer one of them a pointer they hadn’t thought of that helped them improve their game.

  When they moved to the outdoor long range, Jo asked Sal if he wanted to win his money back.

  He hesitated, and Lenny reminded him that there was more open space in rural Oregon than there was in the city of Chicago.

  Sal passed.

  This was where the best military snipers in the service came to train. There was something inspiring about the grounds. The group training wasn’t there to hit their targets at five hundred yards with scopes and spotters . . . but with what they’d actually use in real-life scenarios they’d face.

  Agent Ault and the range officers spoke of offense and defense when being called for backup.

  When he asked how many of them hunted for sport, less than half of them raised their hands. Though Jo didn’t do it any longer, she had when her dad was alive. The small hunting cabin her father had used for years sat high in the forest above River Bend collecting spiders and dust. She’d been a couple of times since his death, just to make sure the place wasn’t overtaken by raccoons, but couldn’t bring herself to stay. It was the one place she left exactly as it had been since the day her father passed. Removing any of his things felt like a sacrilege. So she left all as it was and thought one day she might bring herself to use the space.

  Or maybe she should just open it up to Luke and Wyatt, not that either of them hunted for venison. The place was off the grid, completely unavailable outside a two-way radio that her dad had kept with him in case of extreme emergencies. When he’d been sheriff, he never really took any time off away from River Bend. Even the cabin wasn’t outside of the zip code. When she was older and didn’t go up to the cabin with him, he’d come back from a weekend refreshed and ready for a new month, a new season.

  She smiled fondly into the memory and remembered that he was the reason she was there.

  “Sheriff?”

  Jo jumped. How someone the size of Gill could sneak up on her was a mystery.

  “Agent Clausen.”

  He looked out over the range and back to her. “You looked lost in your thoughts. Uncomfortable with rifles?”

  “I hold my own.”

  He smiled.

  “I don’t have a lot experience with ARs. We trained with them, but it isn’t what I carry in the squad car. I’d use a range rifle when we’d hunt,” she confessed.

  “We’d?”

  She looked past the man, tried not to imagine the ink she knew was under his FBI T-shirt. “My father and I.”

  Gill turned a chair around and straddled it. “Burton told me about your father. I’m sorry.”

  He sounded as if he was.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  She watched Sal struggle with a lever-action 558, paid attention when Lenny instructed the man.

  “I was surprised to hear your father died of an accidental shooting.”

  Lenny looked behind his shoulder and waved her over.

  “Yeah,” she said, standing up. “I was, too.” Without more, she placed her ear protection on and moved in, leaving Gill behind.

  Later, when they’d moved to the ARs, Gill took a space beside her and took over the instruction.

  The man was distracting. When he called her on a lack of concentration, she focused and went through the paces of becoming more familiar with a weapon she hardly ever shot. Problem was, this gun was available to most anyone out there who had the money. Unfortunately, law enforcement in rural Oregon didn’t think she needed one enough to put it in her budget. Once she started shooting it, however, she made a note to lobby the deciding parties to change their stance. Even without the use of the scope, the gun was a dream.

  Gill stood behind her when she shot, a pair of binoculars in his hands. The targets were as close as one hundred yards out and as far out as three. Hitting the mark was
n’t easy, and it took more concentration than would work in any real-life uses.

  Once she’d squeezed the trigger, she’d wait to hear him call out if she hit, if the shot was high, or if it was too low.

  “High and to the right,” he told her.

  She adjusted.

  “Too low.”

  Another breath, her eye peering down the barrel at the sights, she missed her target again.

  “Lean into that gun, Sheriff,” Gill called behind her.

  She squeezed.

  “Closer.” Gill stood behind her, his chest pressed into her back, his face close to hers. “Get closer to the weapon.”

  He moved away far enough to not be hit by the casing as it exited the chamber.

  She didn’t need him to tell her she hit her target. So did the next six shots.

  When she pulled the clip and sat back, Gill was smiling. “A couple hundred more hits and I might consider you efficient.”

  She’d argue with him if he wasn’t telling the truth.

  He waved one of her trio over. “You’re up, Lenny.”

  By lunch, she was already tired . . . and they hadn’t even started the hand-to-hand yet.

  Chapter Six

  Shauna met Jo during lunch. “How was the first half of your day?” she asked, sitting with her sandwich and soda.

  “Intense.” Jo moved her tray over to give her room.

  “Gill said you’re a pretty good shot.”

  Jo couldn’t stop her eyes from searching the man out in the crowd. He sat with a few instructors.

  “Did he?”

  “Hey, that’s high praise, coming from him.”

  “He’s an intense guy.” Gill took that moment to feel the weight of her stare. He met her eyes and didn’t flinch.

  Shauna glanced over her shoulder and back. “Well, look at that.”

  From across the room, Gill appeared to laugh before moving his attention to the people he was with.

  “Look at what?” Jo picked up her sandwich and attempted to focus.

  “He’s single,” Shauna said, a smirk covering her face.

  “Who’s single?”

  “Gill . . .”

  Jo felt her face flush. “Did I ask?”

  “Your eyes did.”

  So did the rest of her, but Jo kept that to herself. “Not interested,” she said.

  “Liar! But I’ll let it go. We haven’t had a chance to really talk since last fall. How is everything in River Bend?”

  Jo was happy to change the subject. “Quiet.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  “Considering all the excitement in the past couple years, yeah. It’s also a little unnerving.”

  Shauna shifted in her seat. “I don’t like sitting idle either. A place like River Bend would grow cobwebs on my feet in no time.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. My badge feels like a target or a noose.” The words escaped her mouth before she could retract them.

  “Target I get . . . but noose?”

  Jo wasn’t one to really talk about her emotional stress on the job, but if there was anyone who might understand, it was someone who carried a badge of her own. “Some kids inherit their family business . . . auto shops, plumbers . . . even a restaurant. I somehow managed to inherit a badge. Not the path I thought I’d find myself.”

  “You don’t like it.”

  Jo gave up on her lunch, pushed it aside. “I’d like it more if it wasn’t such a marriage to an entire town. I’m more of a play the field woman, commitment phobic. Watching out over the same street, the same neighbors week after week, year after year, makes me feel old.”

  Shauna shrugged. “Then why do it?”

  Jo thought of the flag that hung over her fireplace. The one that had been draped over her father’s casket at his funeral. “I need to finish what I started.”

  “What am I missing, Jo?”

  “This summer will be the ten-year anniversary of my father’s death.”

  “And?”

  Instead of coming out and telling Agent Burton every thought, every fear . . . Jo asked, “How many men or women in uniform ‘accidentally’ shoot themselves with their own weapons?”

  Shauna laughed as if it was a joke, but then her face lost her smile. “Wait, didn’t the investigating officers determine your father accidentally shot himself?”

  “That’s what the report said.” Jo left her thoughts open.

  “You don’t believe it.”

  “My father was a smart cop . . . an avid hunter, and a man who respected his weapons more than any marksman here. I believe my father accidentally killed himself about as much as I believe you can out arm wrestle your partner.” Jo’s eyes moved to where Gill had been a few moments before.

  He wasn’t there now.

  “So you became a cop to get answers.”

  Jo set both arms on the table and leaned forward. “I became a cop because it was what my father would have wanted. I followed his steps in River Bend to find the truth.”

  “And what have you found after all these years?”

  She released a painful sigh. “That my father led a very boring and unfulfilling life. The only dirt on the man was what I created when I was a teenager.”

  “Sounds depressing,” Shauna said.

  “Sounds like bull. My father was a good-looking guy. More than one single woman in town tried to get his attention that I remember, but he didn’t bite. Not that I found out about.”

  “Maybe he went out of town for that part of his life.”

  Yeah, she’d thought about that more than once. Even Waterville didn’t bring up any hits when she’d asked around.

  “Where do you go when you want to let loose?”

  Once again Jo found her gaze rolling over the room in search of Viking Man. “Anywhere but River Bend.”

  “Seems to me you need to start looking in Anywhere, USA, instead of River Bend.”

  Jo glanced at her watch when the other students started to get up and clear their lunch trays.

  “Well, this is about as far from River Bend as I can get without leaving the country.”

  They both stood and moved their half-eaten lunches to the garbage.

  “I’d be happy to look over the reports on your father’s death. Not sure if I can help, but I’m willing.”

  Jo smiled. “I’d like that.”

  Barefoot, on mats, in sweatpants was only attractive if you were kicking ass . . . which Jo was not.

  She’d always considered herself competent in hand-to-hand combat . . . or at the very least, able to take a perpetrator down despite her size and weight. But for every move in her cop’s toolbox, Shauna had one of equal or greater value that neutralized Jo’s efforts. While Shauna worked with Jo and a handful of other female classmates, Gill knocked around several of the men in an effort to show them their weaknesses and where they could grow.

  Then they switched.

  “And this is where I get my ass handed to me,” Jo said under her breath.

  It wasn’t that Gill smirked when he approached . . . wait, yeah, that was exactly the expression on his face. An I’m going to show you who the strong one is, babe look.

  Jo was teamed up with a half dozen women; none reached the height of Gill, and only one competed with his girth. And Bess didn’t look like she spent all her time at the gym. Big boned was the polite term that would be tossed around River Bend.

  From the east side of the room someone rolled in a cart full of replica weapons and started dropping sets off with each instructor.

  Gill addressed their group as the weapons were passed out. “Chances are you’ll have a weapon on you, and your opponent will know it. So for the purpose of these exercises, we’re going to increase your chances of overtaking your opponent’s weapons or ensuring yours stay with you.”

  Gill glanced up, met Jo’s eyes. “JoAnne?” He motioned her forward.

  “Jo is fine.”

  “Great . . . take a weapon, Jo.�
��

  She grasped a purple mock handgun similar to hers and turned toward Gill.

  “Some of these tactics you’ve seen before, some you’ve practiced, but my guess is you haven’t spent a lot of time on mats perfecting your skills like you did when you were training to carry a badge.” Gill kept talking. “It’s one of the things that separate this department from yours.”

  Jo stood beside Gill, waiting for him to finish.

  “Jo, you work in a small town, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “When was the last time someone went for your gun?”

  She thought about the scuffle in Josie’s bar and shook it off. “I can’t say anyone has.” Saying that out loud made her realize how inept she was.

  “All right then . . . let’s begin.”

  Three times Gill had her point the gun at him at point-blank range, three times he disarmed her before she could blink and had the gun on her. Each time he took her weapon away, he did it differently, from several angles and positions. The fourth time, he had her gun, and her pinned to the ground.

  “In tiny, little pieces, Anne!” he said so only she could hear.

  He stood, held out a hand for her to take.

  “Now let’s slow all that down and practice,” Gill addressed the class.

  Jo limped off the base hours later with the need for an ice pack and a shot of anything, as long as it was strong.

  Gill sat beside Shauna at a bar not far off base.

  “So, Sheriff Ward?” Gill opened the conversation over a beer.

  Shauna glanced at her watch, huffed out a laugh. “Less than two minutes, Clausen. Not bad.”

  He twisted his frame on the supersmall bar stool and glared. “What?”

  “She’s single.”

  “Who?”

  “Jo. Sheriff Ward. Keep up!” Shauna tilted her glass back with a grin. “Go on . . . you want to know something about Jo?”

  Right. He wanted to know something about the mirage that shimmered out of his weekend and walked into his week. “What’s her story?”

  Shauna studied the inside of her glass. “I already told you. River Bend’s sheriff, had a steady head when I was there investigating the disappearance of the girl. We chat once in a while.” A look of concern crossed his partner’s face before she took another drink.