“Sure was, seventy-five in a forty-five,” said the trooper. He was examining a driver’s license. She caught the name Seth Baker on it. She bent to peek in the window. The driver turned his face away, but not quite quickly enough. It was definitely Lloyd/Seth/Adam, currently going by Seth.
“I bet people get carried away on this stretch of road all the time,” she said sympathetically. Taking a step to the side, she leaned in to check out the back seat.
It was a jumble of blankets, along with a sleeping bag and a pillow, as if he’d been camping out in the car. But she saw no young woman lying on that back seat, or any other human being.
Damn it.
Jack’s hopeful imagination had probably gotten away from him.
“Well, good luck to you, Trooper. Looks like you have this situation well in hand. This foliage, my gosh. It’s stunning.”
She stepped away from the car and drew her phone from her pocket. At a moment when Adam—no, Seth—had no choice but to look back at the officer, she discreetly took a couple of shots of his face.
If only she knew if someone had called in a “shots fired” report at Rutland General. If the officer knew about that, she could plausibly claim that the Honda CRV matched the description of a vehicle spotted at the scene. If no one had, she’d be way over her skis.
“I just came from Rutland General,” she began, but the officer gave no reaction to that. “You’ll probably catch a few speeders, that’s all I’m going to say. Carry on.”
On her way back to the car, she gave a small shake of her head, letting Jack know that she hadn’t seen Jessie in the back seat.
Unless…
Shit. Was she about to make an even bigger mistake than she already had?
She wheeled around and strode back to the officer. “I’m sorry to interrupt again, but I was just passing the trunk and I heard a thump. You might want to check it out. Back in Harbortown, we’ve been dealing with some dog thieves. If you can believe it. Who would steal a dog? It’s heartbreaking. Anyway, you don’t want to encourage that kind of thing in a peaceful community like this one.”
“You say you definitely heard something?” The officer was making sure there was probable cause to open the trunk.
“It was like a mmmh.” She mimicked the sound. “You didn’t hear it?”
“There’s nothing in my trunk,” Seth growled.
“Oh well, then we have nothing to worry about.” She rolled her eyes at the officer, with an unspoken, Like we’re going to fall for that.
“Open the trunk, sir,” the officer directed.
Seth’s hands hovered over the steering wheel. Shit, he was going to make a run for it, thought Tina, ready to step back so her toes didn’t get run over.
The officer drew his weapon and aimed it at Seth. “Mr. Baker, open the trunk. Nice and slow.”
]Showing his palms, Seth looked around for the trunk release. “I’m not used to this car, it’s a buddy’s.”
Tina didn’t like the way he was feeling around the console, then down by his feet. What if he had a weapon stashed down there? She drew her own firearm, so now he was staring down two Glocks. Her heart beat slow and steady. Alert but calm.
This was the kind of moment that she’d trained the most for. This was when you had to keep your head and not react in a knee-jerk way to something that wasn’t actually a threat. This was the kind of moment when deep and hidden biases against non-white drivers could surface, when later the officer would say, “I feared for my life,” and they may have, even though the driver was just reaching for his inhaler or something like that.
In her view, it was an officer’s responsibility to train themselves for exactly this sort of situation, so innocent people didn’t pay the price for their unprocessed trauma. She’d had this conversation many times with her fellow officers; some thought she was overthinking it, others agreed it was worth their attention. Policing was a traumatic profession, after all. And trauma didn’t follow rules of logic or proper engagement. It just acted.
The trunk popped open.
She heard the officer’s breath release, and felt her own arms relax. Leaving the officer to keep an eye on Seth, she stepped toward the trunk.
No Jessie. Damn it. The trunk held a case of motor oil, a jug of windshield wiper fluid, and a collapsible playpen, for some reason. And a hair. A long, reddish-brown hair. She collected it quickly, before the officer could see her, and closed the lid of the trunk.
“I must have imagined it, sorry for the trouble!” she called to the officer. He looked fit to be tied, but she didn’t give him the chance to yell at her. With a cheerful wave, she trotted back to their rented Sentra and slid inside.
“No Jessie,” she said in a low voice as she handed him the single hair she’d found. “But does this look like hers?”
He stared at it for a long moment. “I mean…maybe? It’s just one hair! How am I supposed to recognize a single fucking hair? It’s auburn, but it also looks a little gray. Or is that dust? Jesus.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Fuck. If it’s hers, why is it in the trunk? Is that where he had her? In the trunk of his car?”
