One You Can’t Forget

The policeman believed her, but her parents didn’t.

“What were you thinking getting on that bike?” said her mother. “It’s not safe!”

“You’re supposed to be grounded!” said her father. “You’ll never see him again, Emily Rose Dougherty.”

“Daddy!”

“Not while you live in this house! Go to your room!”

She did, but as she left the room she heard her mother’s words. “Sam, you’re being too hard on her.”

“She could have gotten killed, Amanda. Killed. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

#

A shower and coffee put her head right. She had no time to think about old loves. She had plenty of problems with her current boyfriend, or rather ex-boyfriend. Her phone had a least forty text messages and ten voice mails. She scanned the texts, each one increasingly nasty. The last one said, “You’ll be sorry.”

She shivered. What had she ever seen in that creep? The problem was Evan Roberts was everything her parents thought she should date. Good education, good job, good Catholic family. She’d never be able to explain to them why she dumped Evan.

Emily tossed her phone in her bag and headed out the door. She was late, or would be, if the traffic on I-91 decided to act up again. It was a busy highway, and rush hour traffic could be truly awful.

Luckily, the early leg of the journey wasn’t bad, and Emily made good time. And then she saw him.

The biker.

It was the same one all right. She had caught the picture of the patch on the back of the jacket the last time, just didn’t see the words then.

Hades’ Spawn.

You couldn’t miss the twin chrome tailpipes of a 2009 XL Sportster, a Harley built for speed. The driver drove like a bat out of hell.

On impulse, Emily sped up. The bike weaved in and out of the slower traffic, but Emily followed down the straight road, passing cars at a rate of speed she never dared before. Her heart pounded with heady excitement as she matched the moves of the unknown driver, determined to catch up with him, to see his face once more. She was going so fast she didn’t notice the state trooper parked on the grassy median. But apparently he noticed her.

Emily’s heart pounded harder as the trooper pulled in back of her, his lights flashing. Gulping, she pulled over onto the shoulder and fumbled in her purse for her driver’s license, and then her glove box for the registration and insurance card. The trooper wearing sunglasses bent over at the passenger side window and tapped on it.

She lowered the window.

“License, registration and insurance card, miss.”

“Yes, officer,” she said, handing him all three documents. He looked at the driver’s license, then her, and without another word walked away.

Emily waited, and waited, until a point where she thought it was becoming entirely ridiculous. She was speeding, she wasn’t going to deny that, but the drivers on this road regularly ignored the speed limits.

However, what got Emily even more frightened is when a second trooper pulled up in front of her car.

The first trooper came to the passenger window again.

“Step out of the car, miss.”

“Look, officer, I’m sorry. I know I was speeding, but I do have to get to work.”

“Step out of the car,” he said even more sternly. The other trooper came to stand next to him.

Emily moved to open her driver’s side door.

“No,” the trooper said. “This side.”

She scooted gracelessly to the passenger side, over the panel where the automatic shift was located between the bucket seats, and the trooper opened the door. Swallowing hard, she got out, not understanding what the fuss was about. “What’s the problem?” she asked, panic rising.

“Put your hands above your head on the car,” he ordered.

“What’s wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, I’m sorry I was speeding, but is this really necessary?”

The trooper ran his hands up her back and side.

“Do you have any weapons,” he asked.

“What? Of course not.”

“Any needles we should know about?”

“Now see here—”

“Answer the question.”

“No, of course not.” She began shaking. What was going on?

“Have you been drinking?”

“For heaven’s sake, no. I’m on my way to work.”

The officer took her hands and put them behind her back. “You’re under arrest, Ma’am.”

“Arrest, what for?”

“Just get in the cruiser, ma’am. You can straighten this out at the arraignment.”

“Arraignment?” Emily had no idea what was going on. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s for the courts to decide.”

Emily never felt so alone as when the trooper shut her in the back of his cruiser. It was hard sitting with her hands cuffed behind her back. How had her day gone so wrong?

April six. April fucking six.

It took hours, but after they fingerprinted her, took her photograph, and most humiliatingly, did a full body search, she was allowed a phone call. Thankfully, she reached her sister. She couldn’t hold back the tears when she told Angela where she was.