The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [48]
He withdrew. She almost fell.
“What do you see, Angela?”
“Straw?”
“No shit. Pick a ring, any ring.”
“The bull’s-eye,” she said fiercely. She made the mistake of moving and lost her stance. He arranged her once more, looking impatient.
“Shoulders down, arms straight. Tuck the butt of the gun in the V between your index finger and thumb. Grip it firmly. Now, see the front notch on the gun?”
She nodded.
“That’s your front sight. You want to align it perfectly between the two rear sights. Then you want to aim at the target so the bull’s-eye sits right on top of your aligned front sight, like a full moon. Got it?”
She nodded vigorously. “Can I take off the safety?”
“Fine. We’ll do a dry run first so you can get used to the feel of the trigger.”
“All right.” It took her four tries to push the safety down.
“Okay,” J.T. continued crisply. “You have a Walther .22 semiautomatic pistol there, just like the one you were carrying. It’s not a powerful gun and it’s not super accurate, but it’s small, easy to conceal, and reliable. If you’re at close range, you’ll hit something. So for you, that means let the attacker get in close, aim for the chest, which is the biggest target, and once you start firing, don’t stop. You wing someone with a .22 and it’s like grazing a charging lion—you’ll only piss him off.”
“How reassuring.”
“Align your sights. Find the target. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, then hold the rest of the air in your lungs, and pull back the trigger steadily. Okay. Fire.”
She squeezed the trigger. The first pull was long. Her arms bounced up and her elbows locked, but the trigger came back easier than she’d expected. The trigger mechanism clicked dully in the silence, gutless without bullets. With more enthusiasm she followed up with quick, short jerks of her index finger, all that was now necessary for the double-action pistol.
“Congratulations,” J.T. informed her. “You just killed a cloud.”
He taught her how to load the magazine, then showed her how the gun locked open when the last shot was fired. With a push of a button the old magazine was released and she could pop in a new one. Simple. Easy. Foolproof. The gun held six bullets in the magazine plus one in the chamber, giving her seven tries to get things right.
She put in the earplugs, donned her goggles, and leveled the loaded gun at the sacrificial bales of straw. She fired the gun, then leapt like a scared jackrabbit at the noise.
“Let me be more specific,” J.T. drawled beside her. “Before you pull the trigger, open your eyes.”
“I did.”
“Uh-huh. Try again. Hammer’s already cocked back from the first pull, so you don’t have to squeeze too hard. Remember to actually hold your breath while squeezing the trigger. Otherwise, your arm automatically jerks up when you inhale, and down when you exhale. You want to minimize your arc of movement. If it helps, picture my head on the target.” He smiled sweetly.
She pulled the trigger six times. She finally hit the hay bale. The target remained unscathed.
“Sugar, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Shut up.” She no longer felt cocky or triumphant or ready for battle. How could anyone miss with seven shots?
She tried thinking of the zone thing. She tried picturing her daughter. She thought of that night in the basement, her hand wrapped around the cow’s heart, thinking it was a real heart, a real human heart.
She swayed on her feet.
J.T. caught her elbow.
“Maybe you want to try again tomorrow,” he suggested quietly.
“No. No, I have to be able to do this.”
“It’s not such a great thing to know how to do, shooting a gun.”
She pulled herself together. “It’s the only thing.”
He was silent for a moment. He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m just the teacher.”
His hand slipped off her elbow. She stood alone. He rammed a fresh magazine into the gun and handed it to her.
She fired the first bullet. Her trigger pull was jerky, and she missed the hay bale altogether. Furious and frustrated, she bobbed the gun down and pulled back the trigger with vengeance. She finally hit the edge of the bale, then she hit