In Seconds (Bulletproof #2)(19)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Fine. Send her in.” Perhaps she’d spotted a stranger with blood on his shoes or something. Myles could always hope. No one paid closer attention to the actions and mistakes of others than Chrissy Gunther.

Hoping that whatever she had to say would be worth putting up with her flirtatious smiles, Myles stood to one side as she came bustling past him. “I saw it myself!” she exclaimed before he could even greet her.

He tried to rub away the grit in his eyes, but the stress of the murder, his lack of sleep and preoccupation with his neighbor was taking their toll. “What are you talking about?”

“The gun.”

The headache and fatigue instantly disappeared. “What gun?”

“The pistol Vivian was carrying out of Mountain Bank and Trust a few minutes ago.”

Hearing Vivian’s name added a one-two punch. A gun belonging to anyone else wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy, not unless there was more to go along with it. Montana’s gun laws weren’t exactly the strictest in the nation; guns didn’t even have to be registered in this state, and almost everybody had at least a rifle. But someone like his neighbor toting a handgun out of a bank? “Vivian Stewart?”

“I think you’re familiar with her. There’s just one Vivian in Pineview, right? And I’ve seen the way you watch her. It’s made all the rest of us girls jealous.”

Inappropriate as it was for her to include herself in that comment, he ignored the jab. “Are you sure?”

“That you watch her?” She fluttered her eyelashes. “How could I miss it?”

“I mean, are you sure it was her?” He suspected she’d understood what he’d meant the first time, but he wasn’t about to let her draw him into the kind of conversation she obviously craved.

Annoyed that he wouldn’t rise to the bait, she propped one hand on her hip. “Positive. And she definitely had a gun in her purse. I wasn’t the only one to see it. Buster Hayes saw it, too. All you have to do is ask him.”

Myles had no idea what Chrissy was talking about. Maybe Montana had the third-most legal gun owners per capita, only a tenth of a percent behind Alaska. And maybe the prevalence of firearms per capita in a rural county, one with eighteen thousand residents, would be even greater than the more populated parts of the state. But he couldn’t see Vivian toting around a weapon. Especially a hidden weapon. For one thing, he’d be very surprised if she had a permit to carry concealed. And she didn’t like guns. He’d heard her say so when Jake asked her how old he had to be before he could buy a hunting rifle.

So what did she plan on doing with a pistol? Why would she be attempting to conceal it? And why would she take it to the bank?

He motioned to a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

Chrissy’s ponytail—an obvious hairpiece since he’d seen her without it—bounced as she perched on the edge of the chair.

“I suggest you speak to her immediately,” she said.

Myles tried not to notice that the vinyl was only slightly more orange than her self-tanner. “Thanks for the advice. But first, why don’t you slow down and tell me exactly what happened?”

Rhinestones embedded in the acrylic of her nails flashed as she fanned herself. It wasn’t remotely hot in his office, but the excitement of her errand seemed to be affecting her. “There isn’t much to it,” she said. “She was coming out of the bank, bumped into Buster Hayes and dropped her purse. That’s when we both saw it. She had a handgun in there that fell out.”

Myles returned to his own seat. “You’re not suggesting Vivian tried to hold up Mountain Bank and Trust.”

“Maybe she was thinking about it. Maybe she chickened out at the last minute. Why else would someone carry a pistol into a bank?”

“Did you ask her?”

“I didn’t have the chance! The minute she realized we’d seen the gun, she grabbed it and rushed off.” Chrissy lowered her voice and widened her eyes for emphasis. “I’m telling you, she was acting really strange.”

Myles imagined Vivian as she’d been last night. She hadn’t behaved like the woman who’d done her best to ignore him over the past few months, to stay out of his way. That signified a marked change, too, didn’t it?

Or maybe not. Their feelings toward each other had been changing for some time, growing more intense. On both sides. Until last night, Vivian had hovered on the edges of his life, remaining safely out of reach. But for the first couple of years after Amber Rose died, she could’ve run naked across his lawn and it wouldn’t have raised his pulse by one beat. “In what way?” he asked.

Chrissy adjusted the strap of her blouse, which had slipped off her shoulder. She dressed as if she was one of the cheerleaders she coached—short shorts, skimpy tops and always a bow. “I don’t know. Spooked. Guilty.”

“So…how do you think this firearm you saw ties in to the murder? My deputy said—”

“It’s not every day someone drops a handgun coming out of a bank!” She put her purse on the floor, leaning forward to give him a clear view down her blouse.

Averting his eyes, he straightened his stapler. “I realize that. But a lot of people own guns around here. And the murder wasn’t committed with a firearm. So bear with me. I’m searching for a link.”

Her nails clacked as she tapped them together. “Something’s up, okay? That’s all I’m trying to tell you.”

For some reason, Myles liked Chrissy even less than he had before. She wasn’t bad-looking, but her personality… He’d heard rumors about how bossy she could be and how poorly she treated her husband. They ran a secondhand shop together, situated near the bank. He’d felt sorry for Mr. Gunther before, when Chrissy came on to him at the annual crab feed or at the bar. But driving all the way out here just because she had a tidbit of information? A tidbit about someone she viewed as a rival for his attention? That made him feel even worse for the poor bastard who’d married her.

“I’ll look into it,” he said. And he planned to. He’d forgotten to give Marley money to go to the bowling alley with her best friend this afternoon, so he had to drive back to Pineview, anyway. “Thanks for stopping by.”

She jumped to her feet. “If you’d like me to go over there with you, I will.”

He made a gesture that suggested she needn’t trouble herself. “That won’t be necessary. But…can I ask you one more thing?”