I swear, I think Officer Nelson smirks. “She won’t be,” she tells me. “If anything, it’ll be the truck driver for speeding in bad conditions.”
“Good.” I glare at the driver, who’s about fifteen feet away, whining to another officer about reckless female drivers and crappy Vermont roads. As I guessed earlier, he wasn’t injured in the crash. But if I hear him bitch about Vienna much longer, I might be tempted to injure him myself.
Vienna comes hurrying back to us, carrying two large backpacks, one slung over each shoulder. They’re the kind of backpacks I see hikers use when they’re going off for a weeks-long trip. But these backpacks are worn and reinforced with strips of duct tape. “Okay,” Vienna says breathlessly. “I’ve got everything.”
I can’t put my finger on it, but something about Vienna strikes me as off. Not in a dangerous, serial killer way, but like a collection of puzzle pieces that don’t fit together.
But it’s not my problem,I remind myself.Whether the pieces fit together or not.
Besides, I’ve already helped enough,I silently add while trying not to notice the lost expression on Vienna’s face. Or how the large backpacks seem far too big for her body.I stopped. I helped rescue the dog. I stayed when I could have insisted on leaving.
But shit. There’s a part of me that wants to figure her out.
“Is the dog going to be okay?” Vienna asks, her gaze moving to Officer Hannigan’s patrol car, where the dog is sitting in the back. “Will he go somewhere warm? Safe?”
For the first time since he arrived, the male officer softens. “Yeah. He’ll be fine. I’ll drop him off at the shelter on the way back to the station.”
Vienna turns to him. “The shelter?”
“Barks n’ Bliss,” he explains. “It’s a dog rescue run by a local couple—Rory and Gage McKay. They’ll take good care of the dog. Get him warm, fed, scan him for a microchip and hopefully find the family.”
She bites her lip. “What if he doesn’t have a family?”
There’s a sad note to her voice that plucks a chord inside me.
“Then they’ll find him a new home,” Officer Harrigan answers. “And they’ll take good care of him until they do.”
“They will,” Officer Nelson adds. “I know Rory and Gage pretty well. They’re good people. And they love those dogs.”
Vienna stares at the dog for a second before nodding. “Okay. Good.”
“So,” Officer Nelson continues, “Do you live in town? I can drop you there on the way to the station.”
“No.” Vienna shakes her head. “I just moved here. So I haven’t found a place yet.”
“Are you staying at one of the hotels?”
Another quick shake of her head. “No.” She pauses. “I was going to find a place. But with the snow…”
I’m hit by that strange sensation of off-ness again. If Vienna was looking for a hotel, why was she headed out of Bliss? Unless she was on her way to the next closest town north of here, but I can’t think of another hotel for close to thirty miles. And with the weather like this, why wouldn’t she have stopped in Bliss for the night?
Without thinking it through, I hear myself asking Vienna, “Do you work in Bliss?”
She turns to me with an almost uncertain look in her eyes. After a brief hesitation, she says, “Yes. I just started working at The Laughing Goat. The farm-to-table restaurant in town…”
“I know of it.” I haven’t been there, because I never go out to eat anymore. But I’ve driven past the place, and it seems nice enough.
“Alright, it’s all set.” The tow truck driver jogs towards us, his boots kicking up small drifts of snow as he goes. He jerks his head at Vienna’s car, now up on the flatbed. “Are we good to go?”
Officer Nelson nods at him. “Yeah. Ellicott’s, right?”
“Yup.” The driver glances at Vienna. “It’s just on the west end of town. Call Max in the morning, and he’ll let you know when he can take a look at it.”
“Thanks,” Vienna replies. Then she hesitates. “Do I… need to pay you?”
“Nah, the insurance company will do that,” he says. Then he turns back to the officers. “I’m heading out. It’s cold as a wolf’s frozen tit out here. And my wife’s warming the bed for when I get home.”
Without waiting for a response, he lopes off. Less than a minute later, his truck is only a flash of taillights dimly glowing through the still-falling snow.
