I’m too exhausted with worry at this point to muster much of a reaction. What could she have possibly found?
“Do you have a Ruger?” she asks.
The muscles leave my arms, and the car swerves. I quickly jerk it back into place. “The rifle?” I blurt out. “No.”
Guns? Is she saying my name is being mentioned with firearms somewhere?
“Do you have an AR-15?” she presses.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I don’t mean to shout at her, but now I’m worried.
“Yeah, I’ve never known you to be an enthusiast,” she goes on, “so that’s what caught my eye. There are six firearms registered in your name at the address 8 Green Street.”
“What?!” I shout.
Weapons? Are they just registered, or are they the subject of police investigations?
That son of a bitch! Drew either registered them under me to frame me for something else, or he wanted weaponsthat wouldn’t be confiscated if he was arrested. I knew he had some. I remember the gun cabinet upstairs where he stored them. I just had no idea he put anything in my name. Did he do it before I left?
“I’ll get in touch with a lawyer there,” she tells me. “They’ll want to have you file a police report.”
But that black gun cabinet at Green Street lurks in my head, my memory stirring.
The ammo boxes…
“Wait,” I say.
There was one green bullet case. It had a black handle. He didn’t store bullets in it, though.
And then it all comes back to me.
Shit. It might still be there. In that cabinet. He would believe it was safe there while he was on the run.
I blink, shaking my head. “Yes,” I tell her, changing my mind. “Go ahead. Tell them to call me tomorrow.”
I need tonight.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
I’m almost at Frosted, but I need to make sure. “They haven’t been used in any crimes, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
Thank God.
I swallow. “I’ll talk to you later.”
We hang up, and I coast into the center of town in less than two minutes.
Your family is your strength.Good job, Isobel. Who knows what I could’ve accomplished if I’d asked for help eight years ago.
Quinn is going to love hearing I was wrong.
Leaves spin in little cyclones in the empty street, and a couple of businesses glow with light. But most are still quiet. My tires screech as I halt in front of her place, and I chargeout of the car, across the sidewalk, and grab the door handle. I jiggle it, seeing her moving in the kitchen, unaware of me.
Rounding the building, I walk into the alleyway behind her business and find the back door locked as well.
