Many Blessings

  Her gaze drifted past him, to a distant point in time. “At Jackson Clary’s trial, the attorney tried to plead temporary insanity as his defense. That he just snapped when he arrived on the scene. Fortunately, the jury saw right through it.”

  She returned her gaze to his. “The girl’s father moved them to a different town, across the state line to Idaho. He petitioned a family law judge to let her change her name and seal the files, because there were rumors that maybe friends of Jackson Clary’s might try something. So she took on her mother’s first name, and her paternal grandmother’s last name. She cut her hair short and died it blonde and her dad enrolled her in a private Catholic school of all places, this non-practicing, half-breed girl from Jew Jersey. She gave up shooting skeet with a team, but once she was old enough to get her driver’s license, she’d drive an hour away to a skeet field in Spokane and shoot several rounds at least once a week.

  “And the day she turned eighteen, which was a month after she graduated, her father gave her the money from her mother’s life insurance settlement and she bolted for literally the farthest state she thought she could go and still be in the continental US. She packed up her truck, her gun, and her reloader, and boogied with her father’s blessings.”

  “And that’s how she ended up in Florida?”

  She nodded. “Yep.” She sat up straighter and picked at her cuticles. Her voice returned to normal, albeit a little more subdued in tone. “Enrolled in community college to get an AA and worked several jobs until she…I got my skeet instructor certification. In the meanwhile, I developed the other gifts I knew I had, the less profitable metaphysical ones, and eventually ended up on Julie’s doorstep one day while I was still in school. She took one look at me and hired me on the spot even though I was only in there to look at Tarot decks. She insisted. Who was I to refuse her?” She sadly smiled. “I loved that witch. So, so much.” She sighed. “Got to the point where I quit looking over my shoulder, quit dying my hair, let it grow out again.” She shook her head. “Ironically, most of my ‘gifts’ came out after the attack. Julie’s theory was maybe during the choking, or when Jacob hit me…” Her voice trailed off as she studied her hands. “Something taken away, something given.”

  “How long will Jackson Clary be in jail?”

  She snorted. “They paroled the fucker six months ago. ‘Compassionate release’ they said. He was supposedly diagnosed with inoperable cancer. My dad sent me an e-mail about it. He doesn’t send me anything by snail mail unless he drives a ways to send it.”

  “He stayed out there?”

  “Lots of small airports, bush pilots, lots of work for a certified aircraft mechanic out there in that region if you know your stuff and can get planes back in the air fast.”

  He let the silence lay between them for a moment, broken only by the sound of a dog barking off in the distance and cars over on US 41. “But why no concealed carry permit? I’d think you of all people would want one.”

  “I can’t risk them running my prints and background check and it tripping a flag somewhere about my past, in case he or one of his asshole buddies is still in a vengeful mood. He might be a convicted felon, but he had a lot of friends.”

  “Don’t you think that’s paranoid?”

  A sad smile curved her lips. “I did naïve once, chief. I won’t do it again. Ever. Kind of had it beaten out of me.”

  * * * *

  Sachi led him to the pro shop. An older man stood behind the counter. He smiled when she walked in. “There’s my favorite instructor.”

  Ellis was a little surprised to see Sachi look…embarrassed? “Hi, Bob. He’s a total noob. Can you get him set up with paperwork, charge him for two rounds, get him a vest, and the Lanber twelve-gauge rental gun? He’s got ear and eye protection of his own. I need to hit the john.”

  “Shells?” Bob asked.

  “Nope. I’ve got reloads.”

  “You pulling for him?”

  “Yeah, if you’ll get me the key to the shed to get the remote. Unless it’s already out there on field one.”

  “I think it’s out there. Alex was out there earlier.”

  “Cool.” She headed around the corner.

  Another man appeared from a back office as Ellis was filling out standard liability waiver paperwork. “Was that Sachi?” he asked Bob.

  “Yeah.”

  The man turned to Ellis. “Ah, so you did catch up with her, I take it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The man looked confused. “John said there was a man in here earlier looking for Sachi. You aren’t him?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Sachi’s a friend. She works for my girlfriend. She offered to bring me out and let me try skeet.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Bob looked at the man. “Didn’t John take a message for her?”

  “Guy didn’t want to leave one.” He shrugged. “I suppose he’ll come back or call. John said he took a card.” He looked at Ellis. “She’s our most popular instructor. People usually have to wait weeks for her to have an opening.”

  “Really?”

  Bob snorted. “Heck, yeah. And the juniors love her. The kids would lynch us if she wasn’t their coach. Never seen anything like it. We’ve got parents bring their kids all the way up from Tampa to be coached by her.”

  Sachi and kids wasn’t a mix Ellis could easily envision. “Does she compete?”

  “No. We’ve tried. She could probably make nationals if she wanted, maybe even the US Olympic team, but she says she’s too busy. Just wants to teach.”

  Ellis would have wondered about that statement if Sachi hadn’t confided in him just a few minutes earlier.

  When Sachi finally returned from the bathroom, Ellis wasn’t sure, but he thought she looked like maybe she’d been crying.

  He was also more than smart enough to not mention it.

  She slipped her sunglasses on and adjusted the brim of her baseball cap. “Ready?” Before he could answer, she’d grabbed the shotgun from the counter and balanced it on her shoulder.

  “I can carry that,” he said.

  She smiled. “I know.” She headed out the door, leaving Ellis to gather up his vest and follow her.

  They stopped by her car, where she popped the trunk for him. “Grab that black bag for me, please.” She walked over to the shelter by the first skeet field, closed the gun’s breech, and put it in the gun rack.

  “Rule one,” she said as she walked back to the trunk. “Gun stays open and unloaded until you step up to the station. You don’t load shells into it until you’re ready to call for a bird. One for singles, two for doubles.”

  He nodded.

  She reached into the trunk and unzipped a padded rifle case. From it, she pulled a shotgun.

  A cold shiver raced through his stomach as he recognized it from the one in his dreams. Straight down to the engraving on it and the customized stock. He couldn’t take his eyes off it as she broke it open and carried it that way until she got to the gun rack, where she closed it and stood it next to his.

  “Where do you want this bag?” It was far heavier than it had looked.

  “Just sit it on the bench.” She fastened a belt around her waist, from which hung a leather pouch.

  “Where’s your vest?” he asked.

  She snorted. “You kidding? It’s too freaking hot for a vest out here.” She grinned.

  He looked down at his. “Then why make me wear one?”

  “Because I said so. Duh.” She cocked her head. “And they have extra padding in the shoulder. I don’t need it for my gun. I have a recoil reducer on it. I don’t even feel it anymore. You, however, are shooting a shop gun and might want the extra protection.”

  “Ah. Okay. Thanks.”

  She closed the trunk and walked to the bag. Inside, plastic boxes held twenty-five shells each. She handed him one. “These are lead shot. There are a couple of fields I shoot at around here where you have to shoot steel because of environmental regs, but here
we can shoot lead.”

  “Is there a difference? I mean,” he quickly added when he saw her winding up for a snarky comment, “I know the difference between lead and steel. But I mean how you load them.”

  She smiled and pointed a hand at him and mimicked shooting a gun. “Smarty pants. You catch on quick. Yes, I have different calibrations for whether I’m shooting steel or lead. Different shot and powder bushings I use. I’ve got everything written down at home, spent hours patterning the gun and with the chromographs to make sure the mix is just right. Not something we need to get into today. If you decide you like doing this, we can talk about teaching you that.” She shrugged. “Or you can just buy boxes of shells from wherever you shoot.”

  Once they were ready, she swapped out her sunglasses for shooting glasses and put her ear plugs in. Once he was similarly equipped, she handed him his gun, grabbed hers, and led him to the far left end of the field.

  She quickly oriented him, pointing as she talked. “High house behind us. This is station one. Left to right, it’s stations two, three, four, five, six, seven by the low house, and eight in the middle. Got it?”

  He nodded.

  She grabbed a remote control connected to a long cable snaking from a bunker at the middle of the field.

  “I’ll throw you a high and a low first, just to show you.” She did and he watched as the orange clay disks zoomed over the field.

  “They move fast,” he said.

  She grinned. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. They seem to move a lot faster when you’re trying to shoot them. Hold this. Don’t hit the buttons yet.” She swapped places with him on the small concrete pad. “When I call, hit the button for the high house.” She showed him which button. Then she popped a shell into the lower chamber, closed it, and took her stance.

  He watched as Sachi seemed to change into another person. A quiet calm overtook her. “Ha!”

  He hit the button. Above them in the high house, he heard the machine cycle as a clay launched.

  She fired, the disk exploding into a fine, powdery cloud over the center stake by the bunker.

  She broke the gun open and removed the spent shell, dropping it into the other part of her pouch. “Save the hulls, by the way. Stations one and seven are usually easiest for beginners, because the birds are flying either toward or away from you, not across.”

  She shouldered her gun and took the remote control from him. “Your turn.”

  “I thought there were more shots.”

  “There are. I’m just showing you. High and low singles, then doubles.” She grinned. “But I’ll pull on rapport for you since you’re a noob.”

  He laughed at her good-natured smile. “Awfully nice of you.” He started to load the gun but she stopped him. “What?”

  “Close it and show me your stance.”

  He did.

  She laughed. “Nope. You won’t hit shit like that with a shotgun. She corrected his form. When she was happy with his stance, she had him load the gun.

  As he sighted across the field where she said, he asked, “Why’d you say ‘ha’ instead of ‘pull’?”

  “Just what I was taught. Say whatever you want, as long as you say it so whoever’s pulling knows it’s your call.”

  “Oh.” He took a couple of breaths to settle his mind. “Pull!”

  Her finger was far faster on the button than his had been. The bird immediately appeared. He tried to find it, lost it when he raised the barrel too high, then found it again and fired.

  It dropped unbroken to the far end of the field, where it shattered as it hit the ground.

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll just shoot stations this time around, no score. Try again.” It took him four more attempts to break the high house. Three to break the low.

  She skipped on rapport and moved him to station two, where it took him three attempts to hit the high house and another three to hit the low.

  “I’ve got to tell you,” he said, “I feel humbled.”

  She snorted. “You really want to feel humbled?” She handed him the remote again and led him back to station one. “High, low, doubles,” she said, pointing to the buttons. Then she loaded a shell. “High house… Ha!”

  The clay exploded before it even crossed the bunker in the center of the field. He’d yet to make one shatter so eloquently. His had either split into a few pieces, or broken, but not into a cloud of literal dust.

  She reloaded. “Low house. Ha!”

  That one broke as well.

  She didn’t miss a shot until station six, where she missed the low house double. “Dammit,” she said as she unloaded. “Good thing we’re not playing for money.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. And yes, I’m humbled.”

  “Good.”

  She walked her gun back to the gun rack at the shelter before rejoining him. “Let’s finish up that first box of shells and then we’ll try you on a real round.”

  Nearly an hour later, he had a sore shoulder and a score of twelve for his first official round of skeet.

  He also felt closer to Sachi than he had before. He felt he’d finally been allowed a glimpse behind her wall. He saw another side of her, the confident woman at home here, the encouraging, positive instructor who didn’t tease him in a bad way or make him feel inept for his lack of skill.

  If she acted a fraction of this way around her other students, he easily saw why she was such a popular and successful instructor.

  He also saw the dedication she had for the science of the sport, from the way she helped him correct his form to discussions about reloads. Even though being a serious skeet shooter seemed to fly in the face of her reading Tarot and teaching chakras or whatever it was she did at the store, he felt far more respect for her than he did when they’d started.

  The metaphysical stuff she and Mandaline and even Brad were into no longer provided the mental block it had before this whole experience started weeks earlier with walking into Julie’s store and making the appointment.

  “Thank you for this,” he said as he helped her put everything away and they walked his rental gear back to the pro shop.

  She shrugged, her sunglasses and hat once again hiding her features. “You’re a good guy. Both of you are.” She turned to him and looked up. He saw himself reflected in her glasses. “Don’t hurt her,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t screw it up again. It was a huge leap of faith for her to trust you.”

  He stuck his hand out. “I promise. You can shoot me if I screw up.”

  She looked at his hand before shaking it. She grinned. “I will hold you to that.”

  “I know you will. That’s why I said it.”

  * * * *

  Mandaline nervously looked for any sign of a problem when they returned to the store.

  Sachi laughed. “Don’t worry, boss. I didn’t scare him.”

  Ellis gave Mandaline a hug. “I had a lot of fun. Sachi’s a great teacher.”

  Mandaline knew her relief almost palpably washed off her. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “You know,” Sachi said, “I can go to a hotel—”

  “No,” all three of them said.

  Mandaline couldn’t get over her feeling there was more to this than just a break-in. “You are staying here, with us, and that’s it. When they get the alarm in, then you can go home.”

  Sachi cocked her head. “You don’t think you’re being a little paranoid?”

  She struggled to keep the shrill tone out of her voice. “After what we just went through, I’m not ignoring a bad feeling ever again!”

  Sachi hugged her. “Okay,” she softly said. “I’ll stay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

  “You can’t leave here and not have an alarm!”

  “Shh, it’s all right. I won’t. It’s okay.”

  She didn’t want to cry. Not after she’d made so much progress. Ellis and Brad walked over and joined their group hug.

  “It’s really okay,” Ell
is assured her. “We don’t mind you being here, either. We’re with Mandaline, we’d rather have you here and not have to worry about your safety.”

  When they finally broke apart, Mandaline wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she told Sachi, “but I’m now officially a worrywart.”

  Sachi smiled. “That’s okay,” she gently said. “For you, I’ll make an exception. Although I suspect I’ll be sleeping with my shooting muffs on tonight.” She grinned.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Monday afternoon, Ellis went back to the store for lunch. When he walked in, Brad was alone behind the counter and on the phone. He looked exasperated, which wasn’t usual for him. “Look, mister. I recognize your voice. Like I keep telling you the other times you’ve called, we don’t have anyone on our staff here named Mickey. We have a Makenzie… Dude, I don’t care if you saw her on TV. You’ve got the wrong name. We’ve got Mandaline, Mina, Makenzie. Those are the em names. We have a Paige, Anna, Kim and Sa—”

  He looked at the phone and hung up in disgust. “Asshole.”

  “What’s wrong?” Ellis asked.

  “Same fricking rude old guy’s called like three times today. Keeps asking for Mickey.” He let out a snort. “He calls again, I’m telling him to try Orlando.”

  “Where’s Mandaline?”

  “Out shopping. I gave her an assignment and sent her down to the IKEA store in Tampa. I told her I wanted her to pick out bedroom furniture.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because when I started talking about more expensive furniture, it looked like she was going to pop a vein.” He smiled. “Sachi warned me she’s a thrifty shopper.”

  “Oh. So when will she be back?”