Excerpt: Jill (from Journey Man)

Two melatonin tablets failed to summon sleep. The curse of being both highly intelligent and well-read is that sometimes a person knows too much for their own good. A modicum of ignorance truly can be bliss. Jill knew why she couldn’t sleep, and she also knew that she could do nothing about it.

It’s free-floating anxiety, she told herself. Anxiety unattached to a particular cause.
Yes, and it’s also called “generalized anxiety disorder.” And I’m being pedantic with myself. I could bore a whole classroom to sleep like that. Too bad it doesn’t work on oneself.

She took her blanket to the living room couch and wrapped up. The fire flared briefly in the fireplace, a spent ember releasing its last gasp of volatile gas. An indistinct sound came from outside. Jill barely heard, but Lucky perked up his ears.

“Is something out there, boy?” she asked softly.

Lucky cocked his head. He got up and went to the door and reared up to look through the glass. A moment later, his ears relaxed, and he dropped to the floor.

“I guess not,” she said as the big dog did a couple of slow-motion spins before settling onto the rug again.
Tingling with an unease that wouldn’t still, she shifted her position. Then she remembered that she hadn’t made a copy of the gun safe key.

It’s still in my jeans!

She went to the utility room, rummaged through the hamper in the dark, found her jeans and looked through the pockets, exhaling in relief when she found the key.

It would be just like me to lose it.

She held it in her hand a moment, wondering where to put it so that she wouldn’t misplace it.

On your key chain, of course. What’s wrong with you?

It was an odd key, one with a hollow barrel shaft with a slot in it. Suddenly, she imagined herself needing to open the little safe and being unable to. She went to the bedroom and took the heavy box down from the shelf in the closet. Placing it on the bed, she inserted the key. It wouldn’t turn.

She went to flip the lights on, but hesitated.

If someone is outside, he can see in.

Although there was no way anyone could see in through the drawn curtains, she was still afraid to flip on the lights.

I must learn to unlock it in the dark anyway, she rationalized.

She tried turning the key in various ways to no avail.

Finally, she pushed it in and twisted. The spring-loaded lid flew upward, startling her. The box slipped from her hands and dropped to the bed. She heard the pistol hit the floor with a loud thud.

She held her breath, waiting for Mirabelle to call out. Instead, she heard Lucky come into the room. Backlit by the dim light of the living room, he cocked his head and whined.

“It’s okay, Lucky. Go on back to the living room,” she told him.

He trotted dutifully back to the hearth, and Jill felt around the floor until she encountered Richard’s old .45 service automatic. She remembered the one time she fired it, when she and Richard were on Bonne Femme Island.

It has a touchy trigger. If I drop it, I could shoot myself.
I’ll take it back to the couch and . . .
You’re paranoid. As jittery as you are, you have no business with a gun in your hand, especially if you fall asleep with it in your lap.

Jill closed her hand on the cold steel. It had comforted her once, and it did so now. She stood, braced the .45 with both hands and took a wide shooter’s stance, aiming at the window.

The army developed the pistol to drop charging Philippine insurgents in their tracks. That’s what I need if— If what? What’s wrong with you?

She carefully placed the automatic back in the lock box, and then went to find the flashlight. Using it, she got down on her hands and knees and picked up the scattered ammunition and extra clip. She shut the box and put it back on the shelf in the closet. Then she found her purse, and put the key on her keychain