Looking at the bed one last time, I turn around and leave, making sure to keep my eyes to my feet as I go, so I don’t make eye contact with anyone. I’ve kept it together since Elizabeth called to tell me Grandma passed, but I don’t know how much longer that will last since I’m barely hanging on.
I call Colton again once I’m in my Jeep and close my eyes when he doesn’t answer, dropping my forehead to my steering wheel. This is the first time I’ve felt alone in a long time. I forgot how crushing the feeling of being alone is. Knowing I can’t sit here in the parking lot forever, I put my Jeep in drive and take off out of the lot to head for home, where I know Loki will at least be waiting for me.
Halfway to the house, the sound of police sirens starts to get close, so I check my rearview mirror and see a police cruiser with its lights flashing coming up fast behind me. Dropping my eyes to my speedometer, I make sure I’m not speeding. I’m not, so I slow down to let him by. He doesn’t pass. He slows down right along with me, so I pull off onto the shoulder. Once I have my Jeep in park, I look back up at my mirror and watch a large man in his late thirties open the door and get out of the cruiser, putting on a cowboy hat as he walks toward me. Hitting the button for the window, I lower it once he’s close.
“Ma’am.” He tips his hat toward me. “Got word that a vehicle matching yours in description was driving recklessly, and almost ran another car off the road,” he says, and I shake my head in confusion.
“Sir, it wasn’t me,” I tell him, wondering if I’m so out of it that I didn’t notice if I was doing what he said. I could be; I feel like I have been walking in a bubble since I got the phone call about Grandma.
“I’m going to need to ask you for your license and registration,” he states, so I reach over with a shaky hand and open my glove box. The moment I do, something black falls out and lands on the floor with a thud. I start to reach for it, but stop when I see what it is.
“Is that your weapon, ma’am?” the officer asks, and I shake my head, unable to speak as I stare at the gun lying on my floorboard. “Place your hands on the steering wheel,” he instructs, so I do immediately while my heart pounds so hard that my chest aches from the impact. “Whose weapon is it?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly, and I turn to look at him then see he has his gun out of its holster and aimed at me. “I’m going to open your door. Keep your hands right where they are.”
“Okay,” I agree, squeezing my eyes closed so I don’t have to see the gun he has just inches from my face.
“Do you have any other weapons on you or in the vehicle?”
“No.” I shake my head, listening to the sound of the door as he opens it.
“I’m going to reach around you to unhook your belt. Keep your hands where they are.”
“I won’t move them,” I promise, as his arm goes around my waist so he can unlatch my seat belt.
“Now get out of the vehicle while keeping your hands where I can see them,” he orders, and my eyes open. I don’t look at him or the gun I know he has on me. I point my eyes to the ground as I hop down out of my seat, and I keep them down as he orders me to place my hands on my Jeep, calls for backup, and puts me in cuffs.
~**~
“Gia Caro?” I hear a woman call, and I lift my head from my hands and watch a plump woman in a very unflattering skintight uniform come toward me.
“That’s me,” I respond, and she opens the heavy metal door of the room I’m in, then motions for me to get up.
“You’re free.”
My eyes close in relief and I thank my lucky stars that Nat was able to get me out of this mess from hundreds of miles away. I didn’t use my one phone call to call Colton. I used it to call Nat, knowing she’d answer. When I told her I’d been arrested, she assured me that she’d get me out, even knowing I was arrested for the gun, which I learned an hour after I was booked, was stolen property.
“Follow me. You need to fill out some paperwork to get your things,” the woman says, bringing me out of my head, and I follow her toward a large set of doors then stop behind her when she pauses at a small window cut out of the concrete cinderblocks. “This is Gia Caro,” she states to the woman on the other side of the window, who’s sitting behind a desk that’s covered in stacks of paper.