Until The Ride Stops

Matt was relieved to see a small smile return to her face. She wasn’t mad.

“I’d be more worried about it falling down,” he said. “Have you ever looked at the roofline? It waves like a flag.”

“Maybe they built it that way,” she said, resuming her walking pace.

“Right,” Matt said. “More likely it’s sitting on unstable ground and it’s shifted here and there until you could probably shove it over with your car.”

Caroline’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Is the ground at Starlight Point unstable?”

An odd question for her to ask. Her expression right now said investigative cop.

“It’s a peninsula on the lake. Of course there are moisture issues and sand.”

“And that contributes to the failure of a building or...other things over time?”

“Tough questions,” he said. “You’d be better off asking a soil engineer.”

They walked in silence a few minutes until they got to the parking lot at the end of the path. Matt stopped at the bike rack. “Here’s my ride,” he said.

“Mine’s over there.” Caroline pointed to an older vehicle that looked like a former police car. It didn’t have official decals, but it still had a spotlight attached to the driver door.

“Nice, huh?” she said, smiling. “I bought it at a police auction for five hundred bucks.”

He laughed. “You don’t drive that on dates, do you?”

“Not yet,” she said. She waved and walked across the lot.

“See you tomorrow,” Matt yelled.

She acknowledged him with a head bob as she climbed into her silver car. Matt watched her drive away, already looking forward to seeing her the next day at Starlight Point.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ua32b0c63-fd2b-5923-8518-3d87215e3c13)

IF IT HADN’T been so early in the morning and so quiet, Caroline might not have heard the crunch and the swearing. Without the luxury of air conditioning in the employee dorms, she kept her window open night and day. Her window faced the construction zone, and she considered it her responsibility to keep watch even when she wasn’t on duty.

She jumped out of bed and went to the window. A dump truck was creeping away from one of the traffic pickups parked outside the construction gate. The traffic truck wasn’t usually there. And she could see how the dump truck driver might not have seen the smaller truck as he backed through the gate. It was understandable.

The dump truck driver got out and slammed his door. Caroline watched as he walked back and inspected the front fender of the yellow traffic pickup. He pulled the hem of his work shirt loose and rubbed the paint on the fender. Looked around. Looked over his shoulder.

And got back in his truck as if nothing had happened.

Caroline took in a sharp breath and grabbed the shorts and shirt she’d worn last evening after she got off work. Slid her feet into sneakers without slowing down for socks. She grabbed her phone and raced down the stairs. The truck was making a careful three-point turn and it was obvious what the driver’s plan was.

He was fleeing the scene.

She dashed across the road and held up her hand, traffic-cop style, in front of the dump truck. The sun was just up, but she had no doubt the driver could see her. His window was down and he had one thick arm resting on the open frame. He stuck his head out the window.

“Problem, lady?”

“Yes, there is. You backed into that truck,” she said, pointing at the yellow pickup without taking her eyes off the driver.

He cocked his head and Caroline could see him thinking about a way out of it.

“Is it your truck?”

What kind of stupid question was that?

“No, it belongs to Starlight Point,” she said, trying to keep her voice cool.

“Then it’s none of your business.”

“It’s everyone’s business, especially those of us who work here.”

“Did you actually see me back into it?”

Rage bubbled up in her throat. She wanted to lie. Desperately. Wanted to say that she had seen it with her own eyes. But it wasn’t the truth. Not exactly the truth. And she was an officer of the law. She risked a glance at the damaged truck. The morning sun glinted off the yellow fender’s large dent. The bumper was crinkled and the headlight broken.

“I heard it,” she said. “And when I looked out my window, I saw you rubbing your truck’s paint off the fender. Trying to destroy evidence.”

“Maybe I was just cleaning it,” he said. “Construction zones are dirty. There wasn’t nobody in the truck, and nobody actually saw anything. You should go back to bed and let me do my job.”

Caroline put her fisted hands on her hips and shook her head. “You know what you did. I’m Officer Bennett of the Starlight Point Police Department. Step out of the truck.”

She had no badge, no gun, no uniform and no radio. All she had was tangled hair, a college T-shirt, good posture and the cop face she’d practiced in her mirror. She had no backup, but she had justice on her side. If she did nothing, some seasonal employee would be blamed for the damage to that traffic truck. Starlight Point’s insurance company would be stuck with the bill. She wasn’t standing by and letting it go.

The burly dump truck driver sat back in his seat and stared at her through his windshield. I’ve got him. He’s going to give up without a fight.

And then he laughed at her. Crossed his arms over his belly and laughed. Caroline stood her ground in the middle of the road, snapped a picture of his license plate with her phone and hit the speed dial number for Starlight Point’s police dispatcher. She relayed a quick report of a noninjury accident and gave her location so a uniformed officer could come out and write a report.

The driver stared defiantly while she called it in, and Caroline realized she was in for a long two-minute wait for someone to come over from the station. If she could arrest the driver for mocking her, she’d do it. But she would settle for busting him on leaving the scene of an accident if he tried to drive away before backup arrived.

Her indignation churned into adrenaline when the driver swung open his door and stepped out. He was twice her size and moved toward her with an ugly expression. Even if she called dispatch again and asked for emergency backup, it would still take a few minutes for anyone to arrive. Caroline had self-defense down to a science, but the truck driver had size and anger in his arsenal.

The last thing she wanted to do was back down, but she was almost considering it when she heard a loud truck right behind her on the outer loop road. Given the time of day and location, it was almost certainly a construction vehicle.

Great. Construction workers probably stick together.

The driver turned off the engine. She heard the squeaking of a window being rolled down.

“Is there a problem?” a voice behind her asked.

A familiar voice.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Matt Dunbar at the wheel of a blue pickup, his yellow hard hat in place as always, but his usual smile replaced with a look of worry. His eyes met hers for a moment as if he was assessing her.

The driver had stopped his advance, but his menacing expression and tense body language remained obvious and reminded Caroline how lucky she was Matt had come along at the right moment.

“There is a problem,” she said clearly, her words reverberating off the fence in the silent morning air. “One of your trucks backed into that parked vehicle. And the driver is trying to deny it.”