Free T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril by T. Lynn Ocean Page A

where I normally carry it, and readjusted the hem of my top to cover it.
    Jenna caught a glimpse of the gun. She stopped patting dry a foot and removed one ear cuff. “Thought you retired, Jersey.”
    “I did. Sort of.” Months ago, I’d confessed to her that I had everyintention of leaving home without a weapon. However, strapping on a hunk of stopping power is part of my daily routine, a habit like flossing and putting in contact lenses and wearing a bra to push up my size D’s. “There’s a patch for everything else. Nicotine. Waning hormones. Back pain. But they haven’t yet made a patch for retired security specialists.”
    Spud let out a sound like a wounded dog. “Holy bejeeezus! Are you into that maraschino crap, for crying out loud?”
    “You mean masochistic crap, baby. Like masochism, the opposite part of sadism. Maraschino is the sweet cherry that goes into a drink.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind,” Fran said. “That’s okay. It wasn’t on the Word-A-Day calendar.”
    “Remind me to never come back to this toe salon,” Spud muttered.
    Jenna replaced her headphones and pulled my other foot out of the water. Fran went back to her magazine. Spud crossed his arms and squinted at his nail tech, who threw him an air kiss and kept filing. I’d planned to get a manicure as well but decided that it was more important to get my father out of the salon. My fingernails could wait.
     
    We left the day spa—me in my hearse and Spud on the back of Fran’s Vespa—and took off in opposite directions. Gathered inside the glass storefront, a group of heads watched us go.
    I decided to pay Morgan a visit, for lack of anything better to do. The front doors were locked when I arrived, but his car was parked in back, next to a Gaffney Enterprises van. The door panel told me that the Gaffneys were in the safe business. I found a rear deliverydoor cracked open with a wedge of wood and stepped into a sparkling clean industrial kitchen.
    “Hello? … Morgan?”
    I followed the sound of voices to a small office. The office door was the kind with a hydraulic spring at the top, and it was held open with a chair. In jeans and a plaid shirt, a man—presumably the fellow from Gaffney Enterprises—crouched on the floor in front of a two-foot-tall metal safe.
    “Morgan, hi, it’s Jersey.”
    Morgan jumped at my voice. “What are you doing here?”
    “Just out running errands.” I glanced at my watermelon-colored toes that stuck out of wedge sandals. “Thought I’d stop in to say hello.”
    “I’m trying to get this safe opened,” Morgan said through a small laugh. “Couldn’t find the combination anywhere.”
    “Well, it definitely saved me time when you e-mailed a picture,” the safe technician said. “You do the research in advance, you know exactly where to drill. This baby has a one-inch steel door and two different bolt systems.”
    I don’t know a thing about safes, but the idea of breaking into one intrigued me. “Is the safe destroyed once you’ve opened it?”
    He repositioned his large frame on the floor. “Naw, not if a person knows what they’re doing. Once it’s open, I’ll put a new dial ring and lock on it and repair the drill hole. Nobody will ever know I was here.”
    “How long does it take?”
    “I’ll have this one open in another twenty minutes or so.”
    “Very cool.” I nearly went into bimbette mode to cull information on the safe’s contents but stopped myself. Morgan needed to trust me and open up, not blow me off more than he already had.
    “You want something to drink?” He walked out of the office, waving me to follow.
    “Water would be great, thanks.”
    We sat at a booth in the dining area, only the drilling noise of metal cutting through metal coming from the kitchen disturbing the silence. Morgan’s knee bounced up and down. I asked how everything was going for him. Fine, he told me. Everything was fine. I drank my water. He fidgeted with his glass. I asked if