Ghost Times Two by Carolyn Hart

Author:Carolyn Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-09-14T09:52:40+00:00

Chapter 9

I reached Megan’s side, stared down, too.

Jimmy crowded next to me. “Oh hell.”

I realized I was clutching my invisible throat.

I’d thought the situation could not get worse for Megan.

I was wrong.

A gun rested neatly on the bottom of the drawer. I stared at the shiny stainless steel barrel and ridged black grip.

“Top of the line.” Jimmy sounded choked. “A Ruger Mark III target pistol. Twenty-two caliber.”

“Did you do target shooting?” In a moment of shock perhaps a foolish question could be forgiven.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Megan stood rigid, purse hanging above the drawer. Sudden fear marked her heart-shaped face.

Jimmy exploded, half-mad, half-scared. “That’s all the cops need. The gun might as well have a tag on it: Murder weapon used in Graham homicide. We have to get rid of it.” Jimmy’s elbow jabbed my hip. He pushed me out of the way, and I grabbed at the desk to keep from falling.

The gun rose in the air, the barrel gleaming bright silver in the light from the overhead fluorescents.

“Jimmy, stop.” Megan knocked over her chair as she raced around the desk, hands outstretched.

The gun rose to the ceiling, far out of reach.

I went up after the gun and Jimmy. I gripped his arm. “Don’t be a fool. She has to tell the police.”

Jimmy yanked away from me. As we struggled and the gun dipped toward the floor, I clung to his muscular forearm. The gun went off, the sound of the shot loud as thunder in the small office. The bullet gouged a streak across the wooden floor, ricocheted to the window, shattering the glass.

The gun clattered to the floor.

Through the office door there were sudden shouts, the pound of running feet.

Megan darted to the gun, snatched it up. Her hand shook as she aimed the barrel at the floor. Her face was taut with stress. The gun looked huge in her small hand.

The door burst open, slammed against the wall. “Hands up. Police.” In a half crouch, Johnny Cain moved fast at an oblique angle, gun drawn, leveled at Megan. “Drop that gun.” Officer Anderson, also crouching, gun drawn, moved to his left, covering him, gun trained immediately on Megan. Her face was empty of expression, her eyes alert.

Megan looked at the gun in her right hand. Her words were jerky, fast, breathless. “I found it. It went off. An accident. I’ll put it down.” She bent forward and cautiously placed the gun on the floor, slowly straightened, backed away, hands partially raised.

The doorway seemed full of people, Sam and Hal Price and behind them the office staff and Brewster Layton.

Megan, her face stricken, stared at the service revolver aimed at her. She knew her position was untenable, unexplainable.

Burly Sam, white-blond Hal, and frowsy-haired Weitz bunched just inside the doorway, alert, wary, poised to draw weapons.

“Hey, what the hell.” All elbows and knees, moving like a halfback looking for an open field, Blaine Smith wriggled past them despite Sam’s stern order to get back.

Blaine reached Megan. “What happened?”

Johnny moved fast, never taking his eyes off Megan.

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