Hung Out to Dry: The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag, #4

by Jennifer L. Hart

  Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. It went on for some time, him hitting the target in a neat little cluster of holes in the shadowy head and heart regions. His back was straight, his arms strong and steady. I tried to mimic his stance from my position in the spectator’s area and then jumped when the guy who had been doing a half-assed job of collecting the empty casings started in again.

  Neil ejected his clip and opened the slide, showing that the Glock was empty. He laid the weapon down, barrel still facing down the lane and retracted the well-maimed target before waving me forward.

  We couldn’t talk, not with our hearing protection in place and firearms going off on either side. In the movies, the heroic cop team always had the range to themselves and could carry on conversation intermittently throughout. But this was a real-life range, open to the public and we had to proceed nonverbally.

  I didn’t have any questions as I watched Neil’s steady hands reload the clip one brass bullet at a time. He swapped out the battered target for the fresh one and then moved it about halfway to where his had been. He pointed to the gutted weapon, the freshly loaded clip, to me, and gave me a two-fingered salute before stepping back.

  My palms were sweaty as I picked up first the clip and then the gun. The guy to the left had paused thankfully, probably reloading. I took a deep breath and then slammed the clip into place. My index finger wanted to curve around the trigger but I forced it up alongside the barrel as I pulled back on the slide. It was quiet, no one else firing as I aimed down the lane at the paper target, getting the ball in the basket. I put my finger on the trigger, ready to pull, then recalled the safety was still on.

  Muttering to myself, I switched it off and then took aim again. My arms seemed to waver in the air in front of me.

  Just do it already, I told myself and then gently squeezed the trigger.

  My arms jerked, though I’d been prepared for the kickback. My eyes had closed instinctively afraid of that flying metal casing as much as the noise. When I opened them I saw that, much to my surprise, I’d actually managed to hit the target on the left side. I blinked and then raised the weapon and took aim again.

  I was by no means a natural. Though the large room was cold, my hands were slick with sweat. It was harder than it looked, especially compared to a seasoned pro like Neil doing it and my anxiety never really settled down. The knuckle on my left hand between thumb and forefinger stung. Afraid I would drop the damn thing, I hit the little mechanism to remove the clip. My hands shook too badly to eject the chambered round and though it probably violated range policy, I turned and beckoned Neil forward with a frantic motion.

  He came immediately and I pointed down at the still closed slide. He pulled it back with ease and the bullet popped out like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Want me to finish for you?” He mouthed and I nodded, stepping back out of the way.

  It didn’t take long and I felt as though I could breathe again by the time he packed up and we left the range. The outer area didn’t seem nearly so loud after the noise of the range and I sagged against a wall.

  “You okay?” Neil asked.

  “Yeah. Except for this.” I showed him the sore spot on my thumb.

  He grinned and there was pride in his eyes as he looked from the small boo-boo and back to my face. “You’ve got Glock thumb.”

  “Rookie mark?” I asked, raising a brow.

  “It’s just a quirk of that particular weapon. You did well though, Uncle Scrooge. Hit the target every time. Come on, I’ll take you to lunch.”

  “Somewhere where there’s alcohol. I think I need some.” I breathed.

  It was a relief when we pushed outside into the bright sunshine. Neil slung an arm around my shoulders as we walked back to the Mini. At least one of us was in a chipper mood.

  “I’m proud of you,” he said as he drove us down to the new Mexican restaurant off of Vine Street. “I know you didn’t want to do that.”

  No, I hadn’t and I dreaded going back next week. “I was afraid I’d accidentally shoot someone.”

  “But you didn’t. For your first time out, you did better than I expected.”

  He parked and I narrowed my eyes at him, gripping his arm before he could get out of the car. “Did you expect me to shoot someone by accident?”

  “No.” he said sincerely. I relaxed until he added, “I thought you’d come up with a monkey-butt-ton of excuses to get out of doing it in the first place.”

  I glared at him, but admitted to myself that he was probably right. If we hadn’t had the hearing protection on, I probably would have tried to talk him out of it. Instead of admitting that I lifted my chin. “You so stole monkey-butt-ton from me.”

  He dropped a quick kiss on my lips and then exited the car.

  I smiled, glad he was in a good mood. The misery of the range was worth it if it meant Neil felt he was doing something to help me protect myself. Next week we’d start self-defense class and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that either. I made a mental note to ask the instructor just what I was supposed to do when two big guys tried to drag me bodily out of the car, other than nearly pee my pants. I had that part covered already.

  It was late for lunch and we had the outdoor patio to ourselves. I ordered a giant hibiscus Margarita and then leaned back against the wrought iron chair. “Are you still upset with me about lying to the police?”

  Neil had been studying the menu and glanced at me over the top. “I wasn’t upset over that, Uncle Scrooge. I’m pissed off because someone tried to grab you off the damn street yesterday and we don’t know who or why or if they’ll try again.”

  I blew out a breath. “And you think my shooting holes in paper targets will somehow keep me safer? I know I agreed to this, but I’m scared to death I will have to shoot someone, or worse, be shooting at someone and hurt someone else by mistake.”

  Setting the menu aside, he reached for my hand. “That’s actually a good sign, it shows you have respect for the weapon and realize it can do some damage. It won’t all come together right away, but eventually, you’ll be comfortable with the idea of defending yourself and using deadly force.”

  I seriously doubted it but I had given my word so there was no backing out now. I nodded at the menu, letting the subject of guns and self-defense drop for the time being. “Okay, so what are you ordering?”

  Neil dropped me off at home before heading to work for his half day. The boys were at soccer practice and the house was quiet. I plopped my shoulder bag on the half-moon table and frowned.

  It was too quiet. “Atlas?”

  Nothing.

  I checked the living room couch but other than a big dog-haired covered dent in the cushions it was empty. Frowning, I moved down the hall into the kitchen. “Atlas, where are you, boy?”

  “Surprise!” Sylvia, Sarah, and Leo popped out from the laundry room door.

  “Whaaa?” I jumped half a foot in the air. “What the hell?”

  “See, it’s too much,” Leo said, hands on his narrow hips. “The baby would cry. No surprise party.”

  “I told you she wouldn’t like it.” Sarah looked much better today. Her cheeks held a slight tinge of pink and the dark circles were mostly gone from under her eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah, you know everything.” Sylvia rolled her eyes dramatically.

  I smacked Leo on the shoulder and then Sylvia’s. I considered giving Sarah a wallop too, but she was still my employer and she’d been having a rough time. “You scared the hell out of me. Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Trying to decide what sort of party to have for Penny when she comes home from the hospital. You said a baby shower was out but we have all these people invited and I’ve ordered the food. It’d be a shame to let it all go to waste.” Ever practical Leo said.

  “Where’s my dog?” I looked around but still didn’t see any sign of Atlas. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

  “Oh, he kept barking at us so I put him out.” Leo gestured at the back
door.

  I stalked to the door and slid it open. “Atlas? Here boy. ”

  No sign of him under his usual copse of trees. He wasn’t terrorizing the birdbath or digging at the hole he’d started between our yard and Sylvia’s. I craned my neck to the side and then gasped as I saw the gate to the fence standing wide open. “He got out.”

  “What?” Leo came to my side. “I’m sure that was closed. Oh, Maggie. I never would have put him back there if I’d known.”

  I was already out the door and heading toward the open gate. “Was Josh mowing the lawn today? Sometimes the latch sticks and it pops open if you’re not careful shutting it.”

  “Oh shit. We’ll help you look for him. Sylvia!” Leo ducked back inside.

  I ran around the side of the house, head looking back and forth. Atlas was roughly the size of a draft horse so he should be easy to spot.

  If he hadn’t been taken.

  A cold shiver ran down my spine. Was it really out of the realm of possibility that Josh had latched the gate properly and that some psycho had taken my dog as some sort of sick warning?

  I wished Neil were with me, both for the reassurance of his presence and because he would help keep me sane and tell me to not get ahead of myself.

  Atlas was enormous and only those that knew him understood that he was a big dumb wuss. It wasn’t like they could have smuggled him out in a Coach purse for God’s sake. Someone would have seen.

  I was halfway up the hill when Leo’s car pulled up beside me. “Get in.”

  He drove at stalker speed through the neighborhood, each of us scanning the side of the road for any signs of a misplaced, oversized pooch and Leo apologizing profusely the entire time.

  “Am so, so sorry. I never would have thought—”

  “Leo, it’s okay, you didn’t know. Take a left here.”

  We spotted him a mile from the house. He stood in front of a large maple tree, barking like a champ. The tree’s owner stood on her front porch at one o’clock in the afternoon wearing her pink bathrobe and wearing green curlers in her hair, swearing at my beast for treeing her cat.

  Way to class up the neighborhood, Atlas.

  “Sylvia and Sarah are already here. I knew I should have taken the psychic.” Leo parked the car and pointed to the other end of the pie-shaped lot where Sylvia’s Prius was visible.

  “Atlas!” I called, vaulting from the car. “Come!”

  “Is this your dog?” The woman in the bathrobe squared off at me, her expression sour.

  “Sure is,” I smiled, trying to take the drama down a notch. My dog hadn’t been abducted or hit by a car. Atlas was safe and terrorizing the neighbors. Good news, for the most part. “Sorry, he escaped from my backyard. I’ll get him out of here.”

  “And what about Lulubell?” She gestured at the hissing fluff ball in the tree. “How the hell am I supposed to get her down?”

  “Call the fire department?” Leo suggested.

  I shot him a warning glance.

  “We’ll get her down,” Sarah said.

  I’d snagged Atlas’s collar and was heaving with all my might, but paused to stare up at her. “We will?”

  Sarah nodded. “You will, actually.”

  Not for the first time, I wondered if her gift of foresight made her a tad…simple. She wasn’t missing a chromosome or anything, but at times it seemed as though she lived in a different reality from the rest of us.

  I looked to Leo and then to Sylvia. They both gave me a palms up, whatcha gonna do shrug.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Psychic says,” Leo deadpanned.

  “Jerk.” It took all my strength but I hauled Atlas back to Leo’s car and stowed him safely inside. One critter squared away, one to go.

  I eyed the tree warily. I’d never been the nimble sort and if I had ever climbed anything more than a flight of stairs, I had no memory of it. Still, the maple was huge and sturdy looking, the cat was only a few feet over our heads and the branches were thick enough to hold my weight.

  I hoped.

  Sylvia, Sarah, Leo, and the woman in the pink bathrobe formed a spectator’s semi-circle around the base of the tree.

  “You people need a life,” I grumbled as I reached for the first branch.

  It was slow going, mostly because I didn’t know where to put my feet. Thankfully, I was wearing sneakers and managed to wedge them in at intervals. By the time I got to the first V of the branches, I was about four feet off the ground and sweating like a whore in church. This in no way resembled Neil’s elevator antics from the previous week. He’d made that look easy. I had a feeling my audience would all be ready for a nap by the time I reached the cat.

  “Here, Lulubell.” I crooned, feeling like an idiot. What sort of a stupid name was that for a cat anyway?

  Of course, the feline couldn’t make it easy on me and scramble down into my arms. No, she decided to bathe her tail instead. Must be the cat equivalent of giving me the finger.

  Fine then. Up I went to the next branch, reaching ever closer.

  “Be careful,” Sylvia called.

  “Thanks for that,” I wheezed as I heaved my bulk upwards. I might get the cat, but who was going to get me down?

  A car pulled up behind Sylvia’s and Josh and Kenny got out, followed by Marty. Great, the gang was all here. “Maggie? I thought that was you.” My brother called. “What are you doing?”

  “Making you ask questions,” I gasped. “See, it’s working.”

  “She’s getting Lulubell out of the tree,” Sarah told him.

  “Oh.” Marty frowned. “Who’s Lulubell?”

  The cat was finally within reach. Considering she’d climbed the tree in the first place, I was fairly certain she had claws. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  The cat hissed, took a swipe at me before she jumped down a branch and then stalked away.

  I blew hair out of my eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Told you you’d get her down,” Sarah said.

  The spectators started a round of clapping. I thunked my head back against the tree. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Probably.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “So it turns out, your bathrobe-clad pet owner has solved our party dilemma,” Leo said as he poured me a glass of ice tea. “Where are your lemons?”

  I shook my head. “No lemons. And I didn’t realize the party thing was a full-fledged dilemma. Can’t we just have an informal thing, no surprise, no baby shower, just a gathering?”

  Leo gave me a dry look. “This isn’t a meeting of the Highland clans. Although that would be a terrific theme…”

  I was tired, sore, scraped up, and pissed off. Even the thought of men in kilts wasn’t enough to keep me from biting Leo’s head off. “So, bathrobe lady?”

  “Oh, her name is Doris and she sells, ahem, marital aids.”

  I blinked. “Say what now?”

  “You know, whips and chains, leather and lace, fuzzy handcuffs and sexy lingerie. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to tell from that bathrobe of hers—”

  I snapped my fingers. “Leo, focus.”

  “Yes, well I thought we could host a Sizzle and Sins party.”

  “Sizzle and Sins,” I repeated. “You want me to throw a sex toy party for my brother’s postpartum suffering baby mama?”

  “Of course not,” Leo gave me a don’t be ridiculous look. “Sarah’s going to throw it.”

  “Sarah?” I blinked, sure I’d misunderstood. “You asked Sarah Dale to host Penny’s party?”

  “She volunteered.” Leo insisted.

  That made no sense, but then again, nothing about my life recently did. “Why would she volunteer? She’s never even met Penny.”

  “A, because she likes our little group here. Did you know her grandfather kept her locked away by herself in that house? She didn’t attend school, just had hordes of private tutors. No friends or siblings. Only her dogs. She’s never even been to Boston, for crying out loud.”
<
br />   I leaned back in my chair, stunned “You sure about this?”

  Leo nodded. “So she tells me. I think she likes the idea of hosting something she considers risqué. Gives her a little thrill.”

  “I had no idea her grandfather was so controlling.” I’d been about to put the kibosh on the entire scheme, but hearing about Sarah’s isolated childhood made me pause. Who was I to say what she could and couldn’t do? “If she really wants to. We’re going to have to step up our game on cleaning out the downstairs parts of the estate.”

  Leo rubbed his chin. “Do you know when Penny’s due home?”

  “Tomorrow. Her relatives will be here on Friday.”

  “You guys are going to be like sardines in a can around here.” Leo leaned back, smirking.

  “They’ll be staying in the RV.” Penny’s mother and two sisters were coming into town to meet Mae. “Will Sarah’s place be ready on time?”

  “We can probably get the main rooms cleared out. The fire department cleared it for occupancy, so Sylvia took her to get her pooches and is driving her home. Donation truck is scheduled for Thursday morning. Is there any way you can get away from planning Ralph’s B.S. retirement party to help?”

  Leo stared at me. “It’s not B.S. He really is retiring.”

  I shook my head. “Neil said he does this all the time.”

  “Yeah, well this time it’s for real. Doctor’s orders and all that. He had a mild heart attack.”

  I stared at him. “What? When?”

  “A few weeks ago, when we were in New York. They didn’t want you and Neil to know. I just found out about it because I overheard them fighting.”

  Was he serious? “You’re screwing with me, right?”

  “Scout’s honor. Ralph is retiring and the two of them are already bickering like cats and dogs. Why do you think I’ve been hiding out over here?”