A big man in a brimmed hat and uniform stood with his back to them talking to someone. She could hear his deep voice rumbling through the air as if it carried thunder, but she couldn’thear what he said. All she knew was that he wasn’t saying it with enough urgency for her. They had to speed this along if she was going to make it to the other side of the mountain in time.
The big guy moved, and Lauren saw a uniformed woman in front of him.
Her heart hammered to life and her grip on the pepper spray tightened. The woman was mixed-race with thick black hair secured in a ponytail. Like a chameleon, the female cop briefly became the spitting image of Lahn, not because the cop looked like her sister, she didn’t in the least, but because… Lauren didn’t know why.
“It just came out of nowhere, Sheriff,” a petite elderly woman in a mauve silk wrap dress and platinum hair called out frantically from the opposite side of the road. “There was nothing I could do but try to avoid it, and now, would you just look at my car!”
Lauren walked over to the shaken woman and looked at the drop off to the left of the road.
“What came out of nowhere?” she asked, scanning for a large animal. She’d come across predatory animals in the wild when hiking, which was one reason she always had her pepper spray with her. The other reason was because human animals were just as dangerous.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the elder woman said, arms crossing over her chest, one hand touching her throat. “Who are you?”
Lauren frowned, stepping closer.
The woman’s eyes were watery, and Lauren could smell the alcohol on her from two feet away.
“Oh, hell no,” Lauren snapped. “You’re drunk? You have the nerve to be driving drunk and think you can blame that shit on some fictitious animal?”
“Animals on the road are a big hazard in these parts,” a man directly behind her said. Lauren jumped and pivoted, fists high and spray armed.
“Woah, woah there missy, we don’t mean you no harm,” the old man with the teenager said, hands raised in submission. “I’m Harlan, and this is my grandson, Zeek.”
“Where I come from Harlan, men who sneak up on unsuspecting women usually do mean them harm,” she said.
“Well, ain’t you glad we not wherever it is you come from?”
You don’t know the half of it, Harlan, she thought, lowering her arms. She refused to take out her anger atthosepeople on an innocent old man. Not when the man responsible for handling this mess was standing right there, looking her way with black sunglasses that reflected the world but exposed nothing about the man wearing them—except that he was less charming than Derry. As a matter of fact, he kind of looked like an idiot, because why wear shades when you’re on a dappled road with maybe two hours of sunlight left?
“What is your problem? Why are you looking at that car for answers when the answer is right fucking here?” she shouted at him. “This woman should’ve already been arrested, cuffed, and put in the back of your patrol car. Or isnotarresting people who drive drunk what you do here?”
“Oh, you just hush and mind your ever-loving business,” the drunk woman sneered, the veneer of innocence gone. “Don’t you come to my town causing trouble, you hear. Now you get back in your car, and I mean get in there now.Get.”
Lauren took a settling breath before she responded. She wasn’t trying to end up in jail in someDeliverance-type town she didn’t even know the name of.
“You do realize you could’ve killed someone? That the tree lying across the road could’ve been one of these people’s dead and broken bodies.”
When the woman didn’t respond, Lauren looked back over to the still motionless man waiting for him to do something, anything. When he continued to silently stare, her anger rose to nearly nose-bleeding levels. She was sick todeathof people getting coddled for doing terrible things.
“Are you gonna handle this, or are you waiting for me to make a citizen’s arrest?” Lauren demanded.
“You, arrest me?” The older woman snorted. “You must be an idiot. I have never been, nor will I ever be, arrested.”
“So let me get this straight,” Lauren said, looking the sheriff dead in his eyes even if she couldn’t see them. “In this town, where you are paid to enforce law and order, some crusty privileged bitch”—there were gasps from the people on the road—“so drunk off her ass she can barely stand straight, can hold up traffic, cause environmental damage, and endanger lives, yet you care more about her crashed car than the fact that she drunkenly crashed it?”
“I said I crashed it trying to avoid a deer,dear,” the woman said smugly.
Lauren didn’t give her the time of day, choosing to focus on the piece of shit sheriff who seemed more than willing to believe the bullshit deer story.
Without looking away from him she pointed behind her. “That car has a whole family in it. They were likely right behind her, which means that not only could they have been killed, but they would’ve also seen the deer. Did you even ask them, did you do a breathalyzer? Unless you plan to aid and abet a criminal,do your fucking job!”
The sheriff turned toward the horizon and stretched his neck from side to side. Turning back toward her, he advanced slowly, like she wasn’t losing precious time with every languid step. Not until he stoppedwellwithin her personal space, didshe acknowledged that she may have responded with a bit more passion than prudent, because, Jesus, was this guy big.
“I’m gonna strongly suggest you walk back down the hill, get in your car, and be patient until we have this matter cleared up. Ma’am.”
Her brow rose dangerously high. “And if I do that, what happens to her?”
“If you don’t, I may have to charge you with obstruction.”
