“Yes –” I began.
“Oh no. No, no, no. I don’t want Lee Nightingale on my ass. You are not draggin’ her into this. She’l recruit Chavez’s woman and Nightingale’s sister and it’l be the Rock Chick Renegades against the Denver Drug Dealers. I see rivers of blood and pissed off bad boys denied their pieces of ass and they’l come after me. No fuckin’ way, I won’t be a part of it.”
I couldn’t help it, he was being so dramatic I had to smile. “Zip, listen to me. Indy just wants to see me shoot.
She’s not ‘into this’. Please, Zip, she’s just…” I hesitated and stared at him. “A friend,” I finished.
Zip went silent and watched me. He knew enough about me to know the importance of what I’d just said.
Then he said, “Crowe fucked you yet?”
“Zip!” I snapped.
“Wel , has he?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He dropped his chin and shook his head. “He has,” Zip said to the display case like I was his twelve year old kid and he was disappointed in finding me in the garage stealing a smoke. Then he looked up at me again. “Girl, you’re cruisin’ for a broken heart and a bul et-ridden body.
God damn.” He reached into the case and pul ed out a box of ammo and slammed it on the counter, indicating my tongue-lashing was over. “Get her glasses and ear protectors. Three’s open. God damn.”
Indy took her phone away from her ear, flipped it shut and approached us, smiling at Zip.
“Hey Zip,” she said.
“God damn,” he replied
Indy threw me a look. I mouthed “not now” and I walked her back to the range.
“What was wrong with him?” she whispered as we stood in the smal soundproof antechamber, putting on glasses and wrapping ear protectors around our necks.
“Nothing. He just gets a bit… overprotective,” I explained. “What’d Lee say?”
She scrunched her nose. “Lee said that you go to the meet with Vance.”
“God dammit,” I muttered. I was worried those boys would stick together.
“I tried to get it out of him. I even offered naked gratitude.
But he didn’t bite,” Indy told me.
“Naked gratitude?” I smiled at her.
She linked her arm in mine and turned us to face the door to the range. “Why do you think I know everything?
Naked gratitude. Works every time.” She winked at me.
Then she said, “Wel , nearly every time.” I was stil smiling at her.
We put our ear protectors over our ears and stepped inside the range.
*
With the target twenty-five yards away, I had both my arms up, gun in hand, the side of my right hand above my wrist held in my left hand, arms slightly bent to absorb the impact of the recoil, my head tilted to the gun’s sight; I emptied a clip in the target. Seventeen rounds, head for three, then chest for three, and back again until the clip was spent. I dropped my gun, squinted at the target, saw that I didn’t do too badly even with my arms aching and Indy came up close to my back, super close, weird close.
Yikes.
Yikes.
I started to turn to tel her to back off but it wasn’t Indy.
It was Vance.
Before I could react, he reached low, grabbed my wrist with one hand and twisted the gun out of my grip with his other.
Oh crap.
I stared at Vance’s angry face for a beat then my eyes slid to the side.
Indy was sitting on a stool behind me. For the last twenty minutes we’d been taking turns with my gun, her father had taught her how to shoot and she wasn’t a bad shot.
Now she was sitting frozen and throwing me an “eek” look.
Vance’s hand was stil at my wrist and he dragged me right by Indy without sparing her a glance and toward the soundproof door.
I tried to pul free. This didn’t work.
We went through the door into the antechamber and he closed it behind us.
I tore off my ear protectors and goggles and tossed them on the shelf on the wal .
“What the fuck?” I snapped.
He shoved my gun in the back waistband of his jeans, ripped off his protective gear and tossed it on a shelf next to mine.
“What the fuck?” I repeated, thinking he hadn’t heard me with his ear protectors on.
Then he looked at me.
Wow.
I didn’t have to know him very wel to know he was seriously pissed.
“You hung up on me,” he said, voice smooth and quiet.
“Vance.”
“Don’t ever hang up on me.”
Most girls would probably hear the way he said those six words and nod meekly.
I wasn’t like most girls.
“You put a tracking device on my car,” I said in my defense.
“So?” he responded.
“And in my purse,” I went on.
“This is a problem because…?” he asked.
“This is a problem because…” I couldn’t think why it was a problem with his angry eyes on me. Then it came to me.
“It’s intrusive,” I finished.
“It’s intrusive,” he repeated.