Then again, I’d be pissed, too, if I’d gotten the call that the court date to contest my ticket was moved up to an hour from now.
Why had that happened?
Because I’d been assigned to work on the case of the sex website serial killer with Easton by my chief, and to not work on anything else until I was no longer needed.
Meaning all my court cases were either rescheduled or dropped.
However, instead of this one being dropped, this one was rescheduled for today, and woooo boy, did she look pissed.
“Hello, Turner,” I said carefully, wary of her angry mood.
She turned her pale green eyes in my direction, then narrowed them.
“Hendrix,” she practically spat.
Her cheeks colored, and I wasn’t sure if that was because she was angry, or because she was embarrassed.
Whatever the reason, it was adorable.
She was dressed in a black Black Sabbath t-shirt, black sweats, and black socks.
Her hair was also falling out of her bun in all directions, making me want to tuck the strays behind her ears and back up into her ponytail.
And there was one lone ringlet right in front of her eye that was bobbing back and forth with the wind.
I couldn’t help myself.
I tucked it behind her ear.
Then we both jumped as the alarm on the truck that I’d seen her get out of in the parking lot started to go off.
“Shoot,” she said, whipping around and fumbling with the keys that were still in her hand. “Turn off!”
I took the keys from her hand and pressed the unlock button, effectively shutting off the panic mode she’d managed to enable when I’d touched her hair.
“Here.” I handed her back the keys.
She snatched them from me.
“Nice truck,” I said, trying not to sound bitter.
She’d had a brand-new car when I’d pulled her over and given her a ticket, though. And now she had that?
What the fuck?
“Thanks,” she said. “My dad gave it to me.”
I felt my stomach lurch at that announcement.
The fact that it was something that my ex-wife, Cher, had gotten from her own father while we’d been together wasn’t lost on me.
That’d been a rather large bone of contention when we were married.
I’d wanted to give my wife stuff that’d I’d provided for her. I didn’t want to compete with what Daddy could give her.
Which made me frown ferociously.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked curiously.
I felt my face go devoid of emotion as I shrugged. “No reason. Do you want to follow me since we’re going to the same place?”
She shrugged and stayed two steps behind me the entire way.
I was laughing internally the whole time.
***
I wasn’t laughing at all an hour later when the judge, a diehard NASCAR fan, was reminiscing with Turner about her father’s skills on the track.
I was fairly sure that the entire courtroom didn’t know what to think when the normally unflappable Judge Hideaway lit up from the inside out at the mention of the man who was Turner’s father.
And it wasn’t because Turner had brought it up.
It was because Turner, who was apparently a skilled driver herself when she chose to drive, was recognized by the judge the moment she entered the courtroom.
The ticket had been tossed out over ten minutes ago, and now the two of them were talking about a race that had taken place a few weeks back where the truck I’d seen Turner arrive in had been given to her father as a congratulatory present on his big win. His eighteenth of the season, and his two hundredth of his career.
“I just can’t believe it,” Judge Hideaway said again. “Hendrix, did you know that you were giving a NASCAR legend a ticket?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. I just knew that she was driving fast in a part of town that normally had kids in it at that time of day.”
Granted, it’d been a holiday the day I’d given a ticket, but it was unlikely that Turner had known that at the time.
“It was a school holiday.” Turner turned her glare on me. “Which you damn well know.”
I waited for Judge Hideaway, who usually hated coarse language, to rip her a new one. But the old fucker laughed instead.
Son of a bitch.
I gathered my things to go, seeing as there was no reason I was still here, and waited for him to dismiss me.
It took him another ten minutes of reminiscing to realize he was holding up the court.
“Well, I guess I better let you go,” the judge said. “I hope you have a good holiday. And tell your dad good luck at the next race.”
Then his gavel banged, and I was up and on my feet.
I didn’t waste time marching straight out of the courtroom and to my police cruiser.
I’d just gotten to the door, and had my hand on the door handle to unlock it, when I saw Turner out of my peripheral vision high-tailing it to her truck as well.