Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

Jo didn’t bother looking for a group number, she walked right up to Gill, knowing his half smile that bordered on a smirk was meant for her. “What a surprise,” she said without humor.

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.