she didn’t have this lunch scheduled with Paul Dells. She was in no mood to talk to her old boss. There was too much happening. Only curiosity stopped her from canceling. She needed to know why he’d been in touch after so many months of silence.
After finding a parking spot not far from the restaurant, she fed the meter all her change, and headed down Liberty Street on foot. But she didn’t go straight to the restaurant. Instead, she stopped in front of a grimy building where thick metal bars secured the doors and windows. A sign out front promised cash for gold.
When she opened the door, an alarm gave a shrill warning. In a seat near the register, a burly man with buzz-cut hair glanced up from his newspaper.
The room had a stale scent of sweat and dust. A long counter traced the edges of the small room. Behind it, the walls were covered in guitars, long guns, and tools—anything that could be sold and resold. Under the glass-topped counter were more guns—mostly semiautomatic handguns—and jewelry.
Gold and guns—the merchandise of pawnshops.
“What can I do you for?” the man asked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“I need a gun.” It felt strange to say it aloud. But in the long sleepless night, she’d made a few decisions, and this was one of them.
His expression didn’t change. “Hunting gun?” he asked.
“Handgun,” she said. “Something small, light, and accurate.”
He didn’t move. “You got a Georgia carry license?”
She shook her head. “It’s for home protection.”
He nodded as if that simple, four-word sentence answered every reasonable question, and rose to his feet. “We keep our ladies’ guns in this cabinet over here.” He motioned to his left.
Pulling a jangle of keys from his pocket, he unlocked the back of the display case. Harper approached cautiously.
Fifteen guns were set out in the long cabinet against a grubby suede base. They came in all shapes and sizes, from long, sleek automatics to short, rounded revolvers, and tiny, snub-nosed pistols no bigger than the palm of her hand. One was garish pink. The rest were silver or coal black, oiled to a glossy sheen.
He stood back, letting her look. “Which one takes your fancy?”
Harper didn’t like any of them. For as long as she could remember, the cops had been after her to get a gun. She’d always refused. “I’d shoot my foot off,” she explained whenever the subject came up.
The truth was, she didn’t like guns. She spent her nights walking through the aftermath of people underestimating the power of a bullet, trying not to get the residue of their mistakes on her shoes.
She’d never wanted one because she knew all too well what a pistol could do. Which was precisely why she needed one now.
“What’s most accurate—a nine-millimeter?” she asked, bending over the cabinet, the astringent smell of gun oil cutting the dust that tickled her nose.
“They’re all fine at close range.” He pointed at a revolver. “Nothing wrong with a snub-nose, but they’re heavy as a brick and hard little suckers to aim.” Holding up his fist with his index finger extended, he explained, “You move when you breathe. With a short little barrel like that a fraction of an inch is enough to screw up your shot if the guy ain’t right in your face. You end up blowing a branch off a tree, instead of whatever you were aimin’ for.” Warming to the topic, he gestured at the longer-barreled automatics. “Nine-millimeter’s lighter and the aim’s good, but there’s more to remember before you shoot and they’re bulky as hell. Some people don’t think they stop a shooter as well as a revolver, although I’m not in that camp.” He stepped back, hands behind his back. “Depends on what you need it for.”
This was not Harper’s area of expertise. All the guns looked equally deadly to her.
She glanced up at him. “If someone was threatening your girlfriend—someone well armed, who’d killed before—which one would you choose for her?”
He gave her such a long assessing look that for a second, she thought he’d refuse to answer. But then he leaned over and slid the back of the cabinet open. He pulled out a black weapon with a squared-off muzzle, tilting his hand so she could see it better. “I’d get her this Glock, no question.”
He twisted and turned it in the light as if it were a diamond necklace. “Lighter to hold, got a small grip. Great accuracy. Soft trigger.” He flipped