Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (42 page)

I
rolled my eyes and
pushed the sugar over to him. "It's a caffeine type of morning," I said, ignoring his
attempt at
flirt
ing
.

"You need a shoulder to lean on, I got two." Vincent patted one of them with a pasty hand.

"That's very nice of you," I said. "But I'm just going to dive into work."

"Ma
ybe you want to get lunch later? A friend in need
is a friend indeed."

"That's very true, but I have a half day today."

"Doing anything nice? Shopping? Spa?"

"Hanging out with my brother." After
Garrett
dropped my brothers and Ted off, he called and promised to take me to the shooting range so I could try out some different guns. Apparently
,
after
the events of last night
,
he
pull
ed
some strings
, got some time off work
and book
ed
the range for today.

Maddox had no problem giving me the afternoon off,
especially
after he heard I was going to be with
Garrett
. I hadn't told him exactly what we were doing though.
I sensed
he wouldn't be overly thrilled about me going to the range. After all
,
I was supposed to be avoiding danger, but I saw no harm in preparing for it, especially
now that
the threats were getting
so much
more personal.
Plus, without requisite boyfriend status, he had no right to ask me not to do something, or
expect me to answer to him.

"Any plans for the weekend?"
Vincent persisted. He tapped the spoon against the countert
o
p. He tried to flip and catch it
,
but missed and the spoon skittered across the floor.

"No. Not yet." So long as it didn't involve dead bodies, I was good. "You?"

He retrieved the spoon and leant against the counter casually.
"This and that. Going to try out that new barbecue place. Want to come?"

"Oh, I..."

"Lexi, make me a coffee while you're getting yours and bring it to conference room one." Maddox's v
oice boom
ed behind us and V
incent jumped. "Fast as you can,
"
he added.

"Sure. Coming right up," I said. I snagged the pot as soon as the light clicked off and made our coffees, scooting away before Vincent could ask me out again.

"Shut the door," Maddox said, barely looking up when I entered the conference room. I kicked it shut and placed the mugs on the table, sliding into a seat on the curve of the table, not quite next to Maddox
,
but not far away either.

"
Thanks for saving me,” I said
gratefully
. “Any news on the Finklesteins?”

"Solomon is working on it. We're looking for the li
nk between the brothers and who
ever hired them. Let's hope someone got sloppy."

"Okay. Good. Great." So, not great. Someone out there was probably pissed off that their hired
thugs
were dead, and that meant more people pissed at me. The rational part of my mind
insisted
that I had nothing to do with the goons' deaths,
it could have been just a
coincidence that they parked on my street.
I
t was simply unfortunate
that
someone
chose to shoot
them there
,
right
outside my building
. The irrational part of me wanted to run home to my parents and hide under the
ir
bed.
“What do you want me to do?”

"Go back to work. Chat with the other employees."

"What do you want me to talk to them about? The night Dean died?" I didn't
remind him that he
thought I
should be
off the case
.
If he
didn’t
bring it up, neither w
ould
I.

"No, don't mention that at all. We're going to announce it tomorrow morning. Just talk about whatever you
normally
talk about.
See
if anyone's body language is off. Has someone developed a nervous twitch, or
a
guilty
expression
about something? Someone having secret phone conversations or
acting like they’re
doing something they shouldn't be."

"Can't you do this stuff?"

"I'm the boss. Everyone acts nervous in front of me."

"I don't. Do I?"

"You send me lingerie pictures."

"That was an accident." I got up and grabbed my coffee, flashing him an indignant look. My hand was on the door handle, when he asked, "So what did you get?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you buy that lingerie?"

"Like you don't already know. You
forgot that you told me
you can see everything I do on my computer."

Maddox grinned.
He looked really happy.
"The lemon set
is
sexy."

I rolled my eyes and
walked out
, trying not to imagine him looking at me while I wore it and nothing else. I spent the next five minutes Googling dating websites and dog houses
, while
hop
ing
he got the message. Then it occurred to me that whoever else was monitoring my computer was probably getting very mixed messages about my personality
.
I shut the browser and pretended to work like normal.

Through the
morning
hours
until
lunch, I made excuses to talk to everyone from Dominic, Bob
,
and Anne
,
to
a few of the suits
that occupied the other half of our office
. No one seemed
abnormal
at all, though Anne tried to persuade Lily
and me
to give her burlesque troupe a chance
.
I
resigned myself to finishing
the spreadsheet Dominic begged me
to do
, emailing it to
him
just as
Garrett
called to let me know he
was parking
in the lot. I waved goodbye to Maddox and went downstairs, pausing in the lobby to text Maddox
.
I
let him know I
saw nothing out of the ordinary, just in case he hadn’t
already
used his detective
instincts
to work it out.

Garrett
took one look at my neat shift dress and heels and
drove
me home to change.

~

The shooting range was a popular spot with the MPD.
Garrett
got a warm reception from the man behind the desk,
who
signed us in
.
N
ot long
afterwards,
we were ushered i
nto
a booth on
the range.

"When was the last time you shot a gun?" he asked.

I wrinkled my face up in thought. "
I was t
wenty
-
four
," I said finally. It was a bleak period of my life
that coincided with the army incident
I tried
to forget
. "Rifles and handguns. I don't remember what type."

"So you're probably rusty?" he asked.

"I have no idea."

"Try this one."
Garrett
loaded a small revolver and handed it to me
.
T
hen
he
plac
ed
a pair of earmuffs over my head. "Aim and fire when you're ready. We've got the range to ourselves."

I readied myself, held the revolver forward, my arms straight and shoulders relaxed
before squeezing
off a shot. I hit the second ring out.

"Not bad," shouted
Garrett
. "Do a couple more."

I
emptied
the gun, scoring one inner ring, another second and the rest dotted around the outer rings. I made sure the gun was safe and laid it on the shelf in front of our
booth
.

"How's that?" I pulled my earmuffs off and
Garrett
grinned.
He pressed the button to bring the paper towards us and we examined it.

"It's a Graves thing," he said proudly. "We can shoot anything."

"We can even shoot our mouths off."

"That, too. How about something bigger
?
A Glock? A SIG Sauer?"

We returned the revolver and booked out the SIG. "It's a good size, accurate too," explained
Garrett
as he showed me how to load the magazine and insert it. "It comes in compact too."

"Like a dangerous tampon," I said.

"Yeah, that'll make the bad guys run."

"They wouldn't need to run. They could rollerskate or windsurf with the SIG Tampon Compact."

"Fire the gun, sis
’
."

Garrett
made approving noises about my aim, secured the gun and we went back to check out a different model
.
Garrett
ran me through
my paces on
a variety of weapons until I settled on the SIG Compact.
During our
last twenty minutes
,
I fired round after round, my shots gradually
becoming
tighter together.