The Second Gun

1/

“What happened to your skirt?” Holly asked the minute Jasmine walked through the door. There was a huge rip down one side and, from Jasmine’s expression, Holly figured it wasn’t anything good.

“Asshole decided he didn’t want to pay me,” she said as she shook out the flare of her skirt. “So I tried to get it from him.”

“Don’t tell me you attacked him, because that’s what it looks like.”

“All I did was grab his back pocket to get at his wallet,” said Jasmine, casting a guilty glance at Holly.

“It’s not going to end well for you, you know that, right?”

Jasmine responded, “Quit worrying. I’m fine.

Holly was slightly relieved.

“Although he did have a knife,” Jasmine added.

“What?” Holly shrieked. “What the fuck! Is that how your skirt got ripped?”

Jasmine nodded ‘yes’.

“Are you OK? Did you get stabbed or…?”

Before Holly had finished, Jasmine held her hand up, palm out, in Holly’s direction.

“Just leave it, OK? I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, it sure looks like it,” Holly observed.

“Holl,” Jasmine replied to the sarcastic remark, “Drop it, Holl. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over.”

Holly knew there was a very good chance it wasn’t over. The guy could easily find her again. She didn’t want to belabor the topic, but asked, “Did you at least get the wallet?”

“What do you think?” Jasmine asked.

“I’m guessing ‘no’?”

“You’d be wrong.” Jasmine reached into her right jacket pocket, pulled out a black wallet, and waved it at Holly.

“Jazz, you can’t do that. He can find you. He can follow you here,” Holly frantically attempted to reason.

“Well, he didn’t,” Jasmine responded. Before Holly could say anything else, Jazz said, “I’m pretty sure he was unconscious. I hit him pretty hard with the kettle in the hotel room .” She smiled limply. “You’re such a worrier.”

Jasmine threw the wallet onto the coffee table. Holly made a move to pick it up, but her roommate grabbed it away. “For my eyes only,” Jazz told her.

Jazz’s bravado was faked, Holly was sure. She could never admit mistakes and always took everything to the next level when challenged. Though she had more questions, Holly decided to leave it alone. At least the guy hadn’t followed her.

Jasmine went into the kitchen for something to drink. She opened the fridge door, and stood staring into its emptiness. “Did you drink all the shitty wine?”

“Sorry,” said Holly. Under the circumstances, she actually was. Jazz could use a drink. Then she remembered, “Hey, there’s that bottle of Jack in the can cupboard. We didn’t finish it at Christmas.”

“YOU couldn’t, more like,” Jasmine reminded her.

Holly laughed weakly, remembering the terrible hangover she'd had the next day.

Closing the fridge door, Jasmine walked over to the cupboard where the two women kept all their tinned goods. She rummaged around through the bottom shelf, knocking two cans onto the counter, then, obviously annoyed, went to get a chair from the kitchenette. She slammed it down in front of the cupboard and climbed onto it.

Holly thought of a few things she could say to temper the mood, but dismissed all of them. She hated when Jasmine was angry. The mood would be as tense as an over-wound guitar string and, like an over-wound string, Jasmine could snap.

Jasmine was the older of the two, by three years. Despite being the younger, it was Holly who kept things under control. Mostly. She worried about Jasmine. The girl was so gullible. She’d been lucky so far to get away with a ripped skirt and that black eye a few months ago.

“You’ve got to get an agent,” Holly told Jasmine regularly. She didn’t like the word ‘pimp’. It was too common. And hardly anyone used the term any more.

“I make enough to pay the rent the way things are, right?” would come the response. Holly didn’t mention all the groceries that were hers to buy if they were to have food in the apartment. But Jasmine did pay what household expenses she could afford.

Holly and Jasmine weren’t their real names. They were both from Bonnesville, and were awed by the life they'd found in the capitol. Holly’s real name was Dianne, Jasmine’s Evelyn. She’d been called Evvy all her life, but forbade Holly from calling her that. Both of them always used their nicknames, even with each other. It avoided any slip-ups. Holly certainly didn’t want any of her clients to know her real name. She had chosen ‘Holly’ at Christmas when she had just turned 22. It had an upbeat sound to it, and pretty much everybody loved Christmas.

Evvy just picked her name out of thin air, she told Holly. She’d been lying in the hotel bed, waiting for the work to begin and realized she didn’t want this guy to know her real name. For some reason, ‘Jasmine’ popped into her head. Holly was pretty sure she was thinking of the perfume a lot of the girls wore, but let Evelyn have her own story.

Jasmine emerged from the kitchen with the Jack Daniels’ bottle in one hand and a half-full glass in the other.

“Want some?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“I do,” Holly answered, “but I’d better not. I have a really early morning breakfast tomorrow,” she said, having air quoted the word ‘breakfast’. Jack always keeps me from sleeping."

“Does the opposite for me,” Jasmine said.

Holly just looked at her and nodded. She knew Jazz couldn’t handle her booze. Two drinks in and she’d be rarin’ to go. A third, and she’d be asleep. Holly was fairly certain liquor was the main reason Jasmine had trouble with some of her clients. She’d tried to convince Jazz to skip the alcoholic drinks. Most of the escorts knew this informal caveat and stuck to sparkling water or non-alcoholic, ‘virgin’ cocktails. Holly knew there was no point reminding Jasmine, especially after a night that had gone badly, likely because she’d over-imbibed.

“I’m going to bed,” Holly announced. “Jazz… .”

“Yeah,” came the response.

Holly hesitated, then decided to leave the subject alone. “Please don’t blare the music.” The last time the upstairs neighbor had come knocking at their door at 1:30 a.m. to scream about the noise. He certainly had reason to complain, and Holly wanted to avoid any further run-ins.

“I won’t,” Jasmine assured her. She feigned a look of innocence.

“G’night then,” said Holly.

------------------

2/

Once in bed for the night, Holly pondered their friendship. Was it a friendship, she wondered, or just a convenient arrangement to save them the full cost of rent? Likely that’s how it had started, when the two had met in a club, both lamenting there was nothing affordable in the city. Jasmine had come with what meager savings she’d put away from her job as Assistant Manager at a fast-food restaurant, and it was running out fast. Holly moved to the city after being hired as a receptionist for a small advertising agency. She had landed the interview based on her resume which listed just the skills the job needed. She got the job immediately after the interview.

She loved the job, and the staff at the agency was friendly and fairly easy-going. They quickly came to value Holly’s perfectionism and how efficiently she completed any projects they gave her. They’d gone out as a group every Friday after work and, usually, closed the club in the early hours. It was a fun place to work, and party. She was young and fit and, besides, she could sleep in on Saturdays.

After a year at the job, Holly had been promoted to Media Supervisor. It was a lot more work and even more responsibility. But now she had a stake in the company’s earnings, and she wanted to excel in every way. She had taken over a couple of accounts – relatively small – when Samantha went on maternity leave, and treated her clients with pristine precision. She knew all their birthdays and spouses’ and children’s names, and never let an occasion or event go by without some acknowledgment.

She had saved a bit, less than she would have liked, as she needed most of what she earned just for the basics. But she’d managed to put an amount aside and guarded her savings account fiercely. She would not use the money in it short of a real emergency, she had sworn to herself.

All was going well for Holly. Too well, she’d let her negativity tell her, but she’d chase that thought from her head immediately.

As it turned out, she was right. On a Tuesday afternoon, Kendyll, the VP of Accounts called the staff together in the lounge area with news. The look on his face told the tale. The agency was being sued for malpractice on their flagship account – he didn’t give details – and before lunch time, Holly was out of a job. She could stay on until the end of the month, and she would get a bit of severance but, suddenly, everything for which she’d worked so hard was gone.

It wasn’t long before Holly had to dip into her savings just to pay rent on the small room she had in a family home. The people were kind and gave her as long as she needed to find another job, but she felt guilty living rent-free. She’d signed with a few employment agencies and was prepared to take anything offered, but it was a tough job market and there were more than a few nights, Holly nursed herself to sleep, in tears, with a bottle of wine she knew she couldn’t afford. She began to think about moving back to Bonnesville, but didn’t want that humiliation. Her mother had told all her friends and neighbors about how well Dianne was doing in the big city, and she didn’t want to burst her mom’s bubble. No, she’d give it another two months, she decided, until her scant savings were gone and only then would she consider moving home.

A week before the deadline she’d given herself, a perfect job just fell into her lap. An owner at one of the employment agencies heard a family friend – a VP at a fairly prestigious advertising agency – was looking for someone to work a contract as a junior account manager. Holly couldn’t believe that luck had swept in and crowned her with such favor.

When Mr. Francis called her from the agency to tell her about the job, she immediately Googled the title and found it was exactly the sort of thing she wanted. She had one interview with the VP, Bernie, and, simple as that, she was hired for a five-month contract, perhaps leading to full-time, depending on staffing needs down the road.

Holly – still Dianne – booked a meeting with Mr. Francis to thank him in person for recommending her for a job outside of the employment agency’s clientele. He could see her on Friday afternoon, but wanted to meet for drinks at a club nearby instead of at his office. Holly figured it was a celebratory occasion, so agreed immediately, amazed at the favoritism seeming to flow her way.

Mr. Francis had ordered a bottle of Prosecco by the time she found him at the club and, when Holly sat down at the table across from him, he raised it and a glass, then poured some for her. By the time they were two glasses in, Holly wondered whether, under the circumstances, it would be insulting to call it a night. Weighing her options, she decided she didn’t want word getting to the ad agency that she was too fond of alcohol, and began to sling her bag over her shoulder to leave.

“What’s the rush?” Mr. Francis – ‘call me Gord’ – asked. "We haven’t done justice to the good luck you’ve had.”

“I wouldn’t have had such good luck if you hadn’t told me about a job with a friend of yours. I’m so grateful.”

Gord had ordered another bottle and poured quite a bit of Prosecco into her glass. Holly hesitated, as she wanted a few good nights’ sleep before starting her new job on Monday. As the evening progressed, she played with her glass, drinking very little. When he’d finished his glass, Gord let his hand slip under the table onto her knee. Holly immediately jerked it away and, knowing she was beet red, told him she really needed a good night’s sleep as she’d been up late most nights working on job applications.

“You’ve got plenty of time for that,” Gord said, definitely beginning to show the Prosecco’s effects. “You can’t leave anyway.”

Holly was taken aback. Was he kidding? Trying to avert her gaze, she asked, as innocently as she could manage, “Why not?”

“Because…,” Gord began, “…because I still haven’t told you all the job requirements.” She'd thought he winked.

“I heard all that from Bernie during my interview,” Holly replied.

“No you didn't,” said Gord with a faint smile (or was it a leer?). “Sit down. You’ll want to know how highly Bernie thinks of you. He says you’ll go places if you do as good a job as he thinks you will.”

“I’m flattered,” Holly said, honestly.

“You should be,” he confirmed, “The last person to have your job with the agency took off to have a kid, but we really liked her.” He nodded his approval.

“We?”Holly couldn’t help but ask. Why would Gord – Mr. Francis – be involved with the job any further?

An hour later, she was hurrying along the pavement, shedding tears on the way. “How stupid!” she repeated under her breath between sobs. “What an idiot I must be.”

Gord had explained that the job and part of the agency’s income was from an elite escort service. They did have actual ad-related clients, but most kept their business with Bernie’s agency for the ‘extras’, as he’d called it.

That’s when Holly had quickly stood up, grabbed her coat and started to walk away. “You’re disgusting,” she told him.

Before she could take a step, he said in a stage whisper, “There’s no job without the ‘extras’.” He’d grinned.

Holly wanted to sink into the floor. She wanted to scream but, instead, she moved closer to the table. She had next to nothing left in her savings and had been wondering how she’d afford food the following week. “What’s involved?” she asked as she sat back down.

It paid well, the escort service, much better than her last job. Holly hated every second of the ‘extras’, but she didn’t know how she’d survive in the city without the income. There was no time to look for another job. She promised herself she’d quit as soon as she had enough in her bank account to live, sparingly, for six months.

Six months quickly became two years. She’d tried to quit a few times, but Bernie made it clear that there was no leaving. She had a fairly prestigious clientele, all extremely fond of her, and the agency wasn’t giving up that sort of money because she had suddenly ‘found religion’, he’d told her.

Determined, Holly changed her cell number and started looking for another place to live. The agency had her current home address, and she didn’t want the family upstairs either bothered or involved. As she was sitting, reading the day’s newspaper in a coffee shop blocks from her building, a man pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.

Startled, Holly was about to ask him to sit somewhere else. When she looked at him closely, she was taken aback by his appearance. He was about 50, she guessed, bald with a shaved head. He was still wearing sunglasses indoors, and his hands were huge and covered in tattoos. Several ostentatious looking rings adorned his fat fingers.

“It’s a nice day,” he said to her. “Yep, nice day out there.”

Holly agreed, “Yes it is.” She paused, then said, “I’m sorry, but would you mind moving to another table?” The place was nearly empty.

“It’s not always a nice day. For some,” the man said, his sunglasses nearly touching her face. “The boss wants to tell you to ‘get well soon’.”

“Why is that?” Holly asked nervously. “I’m fine.” She moved her head away and looked at him for a few seconds. She could just make out his eyes behind the glasses.

“You wouldn’t skip a day of work unless you were sick. Aren’t I right? So he hopes you’re better soon. Real soon,” he added with a sullen smile. He then got up and went to sit at a table on the other side of the coffee shop. He smiled again at her.

Holly started to make sense of what had just happened. She knew who ‘the boss’ was and, though she knew the agency was a crime front, she had hoped Bernie and Gord would let her get on with her life. That had been the agreement. Her heart began palpitating and the butterflies she kept inside her began fluttering anxiously in her stomach.

The man didn’t show any sign of leaving. Rather, he walked over to the counter and gave an order to the barista. Before he could return to his table, Holly grabbed her things and hurried out onto the street. She didn’t slow down until she got to her subway stop. Her heart was pumping in her throat, and she was in a cold sweat, panting from the speed with which she’d run from the coffee shop.

She had no idea where she was going. She couldn’t go home, but she had to get away so she could think. When the subway stopped, and its doors opened, Holly looked up and down the platform before getting on. Her heart sank. There he was, standing at the bottom of the steps, smirking. He signaled a ‘goodbye’ to her, then turned and walked up the steps.

Three years later, now 27, Holly was the agency’s top escort. It was earning her a fair bit of money but she was miserable. There was no way out, she realized that. None of the girls had left during her time there. She was stuck.

The studio apartment she’d lived in for a few years made her feel sick every time she walked in the door. It was her first ‘home’ after moving from the family’s basement, and she had rented it when she’d saved enough money for a few months. It was all she needed but it was a constant reminder of how she’d earned that money. She wanted to move to a less seedy part of the city, but the rents were exorbitant. When she met the older woman in the dance club one evening, they clicked immediately and soon were planning to look for a place together. It wasn’t until a few weeks later than Holly realized ‘Jasmine’ was also working with the agency. “Two ‘working’ girls shacked up and pimped up,” she thought, ruefully. It wasn’t what she’d planned for her life as the ‘cosmopolitan ingenue’ she’d once fancied she’d be.

However, she had learned quickly that life had other plans for her.

3/

Holly woke up in her dark room. She looked at the clock beside her bed and saw that it was 12:45 a.m. Again. She woke on and off every night, and her sleeps had been disjointed the last few weeks. She knew it would be pointless to try and sleep before she had forced her mind elsewhere in hopes it would make her tired. She would usually watch TV or get a drink from the fridge, and the distraction always left her ready to give sleeping another chance.

She clicked the remote for the small television in her room, then decided which late night talk show would best suit her mood. They’d all be over soon, but should be long enough to tire her mind enough to sleep for the rest – or, at least, most – of the night.

She didn’t spend much time actually watching the TV chat show she’d chosen. Her mind kept drifting to other things, mostly mundane chores that she’d have to make herself do. She itemized everything in her mind and decided which needed attention first. She would, she hoped, have tomorrow afternoon free. Plenty of time to get some groceries, pick up the dry-cleaning and still be able to fit a long soak in the tub before dinner. Holly hoped Jasmine had plans so that she could have the whole afternoon and apartment to herself.

She had proceeded to a mental list of what groceries she needed to pick up. As she mulled over recipes she wanted to try and what basic staples were needed, she began to plan out where she needed to go first, in order to take the most advantage of her route. She’d find a coffee shop in the opposite direction to her usual place, shop for a few grocery items, pick up the dry-cleaning on the way home. Holly wondered where she had stowed the dry-cleaning ticket. She hoped it was in her wallet, so went out to the hall to go through her handbag and retrieve the bit of paper.

It wasn’t in her wallet, nor was it anywhere else in her bag. She went through every section but, finding nothing, Holly dumped the contents on the couch and decided it was a good time to rethink what she actually needed to have in the bag. It usually weighed a ton, and she knew she could do without half of what she stuffed in it. As she unearthed an ancient cough drop, stickily attached to a piece of tissue, she suddenly remembered that Jasmine had said she’d pick up the dry-cleaning. She obviously hadn’t yet, so Holly would go retrieve it as she’d just planned. She now distinctly remembered handing the ticket to Jasmine and watching her stick it in the front section of her purse. Holly decided to ask for it before leaving in the morning but, then, feared she’d forget and her afternoon’s plan would be foiled. Jazz wouldn’t mind her getting it from her purse. They both liked their privacy, but wallets were often open territory to the other when one of them discovered she hadn’t enough cash to cover a food delivery.

That was one benefit of having a roommate, Holly thought as she searched for the purse Jazz always left just lying wherever she’d last had it. Finding it on the kitchen counter, Holly turned on the light and began digging her way through the contents. She’d thought she’d find it in the wallet but was disappointed. She put the wallet on the counter while she made her way through the various pockets. When she got to the biggest section, her fingers connected with something that felt like cold metal or steel. Jazz hoarded fridge magnets, and picked one up wherever she saw one she didn’t already have. Holly smiled to herself and pulled out the pair of mitts that had been jammed in. And then she saw it.

Now she couldn’t ‘unsee’ it. She picked the small, black hand gun out of the purse and stood, just looking at it in her hand. Jazz had a gun? Why hadn’t she said anything about it? She should have known to tell Holly there was a fire arm in the apartment. Holly could understand that Jazz may feel more safe with a gun, especially since the odd appointment with her clients didn’t end well. She probably wanted it for just the sort of physical dispute she’d had the night before. Holly wondered if Jazz had thought of using it. The threat of being shot by an out-of-control escort would make a lot of people back off. She absolutely had to talk to Jazz about it before she left for her early appointment.

She put the gun back in Jazz’s handbag, zipped up the pockets, then set it back down on the counter, wondering how long it would take her roommate to find it. Turning off the kitchen light, Holly headed for her bedroom. Just before settling back into bed, Holly heard what sounded like a knock at their door. No. It was way too late. But she heard it again, a bit louder this time. Who would be knocking at this hour of the morning. It couldn’t be the neighbor complaining about noise because things had been quiet except for the TV, and Holly was certain he couldn’t have heard that.

She walked over and put her eye against the peephole out into the hall. She saw a man, there, bearded with black hair, someone she didn’t recognize.

“Come on. Open the fucking door, you slut. I want my wallet.” Holly realized the chain lock on the door hadn’t been fastened, and quickly cracked the door the tiniest bit to get it and snap it on to the door frame. They had a rule about ensuring all locks were armed whenever one of them came home. It looked like Jazz had forgotten. She moved the door a fraction of an inch toward her. Just as she went to reach for it, an arm pushed the door open; before she knew it, the man was standing in the hall, a knife in his hand.

“Where is she, bitch? I know this is her place. Where is she?”

Though breathless with panic, Holly backed away, the man following her brandishing the knife and repeating, “Where’s the fuckin’ bitch?” He then pushed Holly aside and headed toward the short hall way that led to the bedrooms. “Come on, bitch, where are you? You’ve got something of mine, you whore.”

Fearing for Jasmine’s safety, as well as her own, Holly went to grab the cell phone sitting on the small table beside the sofa. As she picked it up, her fingers turned to jelly and couldn’t manage ‘911’. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed Jasmine’s handbag, pulling out the revolver as she hurried towards the bedrooms. He was just coming out of Holly’s room and headed for Jasmine’s.

“Stop!” she screamed, as she pointed the gun at his back. He turned immediately and, for a split second, looked shocked. That soon turned to rage, and he barreled towards Holly, the knife in his right hand.

“You wouldn’t dar…,” he shouted. Before he could finish the sentence, a blast shot through Jasmine’s bedroom door, and the man fell to his knees. “You bitch, you fucking bitch,” he yelled at the door, clutching the middle of his chest. The knife fell from his hand.

Holly had no idea what to do. The guy was writhing a bit on the floor in front of her. He then lifted his head slightly and looked directly at her. Then his head dropped to the floor. She choked back a scream and walked towards him, keeping her distance. She still had the gun in her hand and pointed at his head. But there was no need for either. She knew he was dead.

When Holly finally found her voice, she called, “Jazz…Jazz, are you OK?”

Jasmine’s bedroom door cracked open a bit. She stuck out her head and saw the body on the floor. “Shit, Holly, this is the guy from tonight. The asshole who wouldn’t pay me.”

“You shot him through the door?” Holly couldn’t yet make sense of what had happened. “You have another gun besides the one in your purse?” she asked.

-------------------

4/

“Jesus, Holly… Is that my gun?” She looked at Holly, but got no response. “Where did you get my gun?”

“It doesn’t matter about this gun. You had another gun in your room?”

“I’ve had it for months, in the drawer beside my bed. But that’s hardly the point now,” she said, looking more angry than anything else.

“What are we going to do?” Holly asked. “Do we call the cops?”

“NO. No. Not until we get the story straight,” Jazz cautioned.

“What’s to get straight? You shot him through the bedroom door.”

Jasmine narrowed her eyes, looking at Holly, standing with the gun still in hand.

“Shit, Jazz…” Before Holly could say more, there was a loud banging on their door, then a louder voice screaming, “What’s going on in there? I heard a shot. I’m calling the cops.”

Without thinking, Jasmine ran straight to the door, opened it just a crack and said, as calmly as she could muster, “I’m sorry. It’s nothing. My roommate was watching a cop show. She always has the TV sound up too loud.”

The man pushed against the door. “Let me in. I want to see…”

Jasmine pushed the door back, closing it on his arm.

“There’s nothing to see,” she said, then added, “Just two naked girls wanting their privacy. You don’t want me to call the cops on you, do you?”

The pressure on the door lessened. “No. I’m just trying to help. Forget it. But I might still call the cops. You two have always been a problem.” He began walking towards the elevators.

When she saw him get on an elevator, Jasmine said, “He’s gone.”

“What do we do, Jazz? I can’t think.” Holly looked again at the man on the floor, hoping to see a sign of life, but there was no movement.

“How am I supposed to know?” Jasmine asked. “You’re the one who shot him.”

“No I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I saw the shot come through the door. It was that second gun…”

“Jesus, Holly, this is just great. Well done.”

Holly shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she began to say, then asked, “Should we move him? “

“Are you really that stupid?” Jasmine asked her.

There was a sudden commotion in the hallway outside their door. Then loud banging, and a man’s voice. “Metro Police! We got a call about a gun shot in this apartment. Open the door!”

“Tell me what to do, Jazz. I don’t know what to do.”

“Shut up,” Jazz spat at her, then walked to the door. “Just a minute, Officer,” she called, casting a look back at Holly and holding a finger to her lips for Holly to stay quiet.

By the time she had opened the door for the police, Jazz had begun what could pass for crying.

“I’m sorry, Officer,” she said. “There’s been an accident. My roommate shot this guy.”

The first officer looked at Holly as he walked through the door. “Is that true, ma’am? You shot him?”

“No. It was an accident…” Holly began. “My roommate…”

“Your roommate shot him?” He looked over to Jasmine. “Is that true, ma’am?”

“No. I was asleep. The gunshot woke me up.”

Holly realized what she was holding in her hand. “It’s not my gun,” she said immediately. “It’s not mine. I found it and I wanted to stop him from hurting us.” Holly pointed at the floor beside the body. “He had a knife.”

“Is this true, ma’am?” The officer addressed Jasmine.

“I don’t know. I was asleep. The gun shot woke me up.”

“You were alone with this man, is that correct?” Holly was asked.

Before she could answer, a paramedic team entered the apartment. “Too late, guys,” the policeman said to them.

He pointed at the gun Holly was holding. “Is that your gun, ma’am?” he asked.

“No. No. Absolutely not. I just found…” Before she could finish, the officer looked at Jasmine.

“Is it yours, ma’am”, he asked, pointing towards the gun.

“I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t know we had one in the apartment. I’m afraid of them,” Jasmine responded. “I honestly didn’t know my roommate had a gun,” she added for effect.

When the paramedics had the man’s body on their stretcher, they wheeled it out. “I imagine it’s not registered," the officer said, referring to the gun.

“I don’t know,” Holly replied. “I told you it’s not mine.”

“We’re going to have to take you in, ma’am. You have the murder weapon.”

“It’s not the murder weapon,” Holly protested shrilly. “There’s another gun. Tell him, Jazz.”

As he reached behind his back for the handcuffs, the policeman looked at Jasmine and raised his eyebrows as if to ask for confirmation.

Jasmine shook her head in a definite, “No.”

Forensics proved the gun Holly held hadn’t been shot and Jasmine was then brought in for questioning. Threatened with a charge of withholding evidence, she admitted to owning the two illegal guns and that it was she who had shot the man. Forensics already knew that from the gun powder residue remaining on her hands even after she’d scrubbed them, she thought, clean.