Chapter 1

It was just about sundown, and I was near the outskirts of town on the shoulder of a busy state highway. I was writing this insolent little brat a ticket for flying too low over a gas station. I heard a semi come up behind us, a bit noisier than normal, whipping past doing at least seventy. The posted speed limit was fifty-five, and I generally went with the ten percent rule. Sixty-one wouldn’t have gotten a ticket. It allows for mechanical and calibration errors in the speedometers of the older cars. I looked at my dash and saw the forward display on the old VASCAR unit had the trucker going seventy-two. The new dash camera array I had Terry install last month would get his truck info and trailer license plate. This would be interesting.

Just after the truck went over the hill, I heard a screech and a loud crash, complete with crunching metal and breaking glass.

‘Oh, God’, I thought, ‘that cannot be anything but bad.’

I ripped the ticket off the tablet, threw it into Timmy Anderson’s window and told him to “be in my office tomorrow afternoon after school so we can finish our business.” He was beside himself at that point. Star quarterback on the football team, one more year to shine, but he was a pain in the ass to everyone in our little town. He had no real idea what to say, as he was no longer the center of attention. At that point, I almost told him to disappear and slow the hell down. He was ‘only’ doing sixty-eight as he went by the Sinclair station where I was sitting, but I didn’t cave and didn’t let him walk. Now, I’m glad for that decision. He wound up having to testify about the crash later. He also had to explain why he was there. Priceless.

Our county seat was one of the smaller towns in the state serving as such. With the population just at three thousand, the rest of the county seemed to do a lot better back in the day than we did, but living in, and serving out of, a small town was actually nice. The point is: Timmy was the biggest jerk of the entire populace. Worse even than his father, and that was a task.

I jumped in my truck, flipped on the switch for the siren and flashing lights, and got to the scene as fast as I could, calling for fire rescue and an ambulance as I pulled out from behind brat turd Timmy’s car. I knew they’d be needed, regardless of what hit what. It was a serious situation, one way or the other.

When I topped the hill and saw the front end of the little silver Mustang wrapped around the tree, I almost broke down in tears. It just had to be Lori Simpson. She was the cutest girl I’d ever seen, let alone known. It was heart wrenching to see her leaning over her airbag and blood was everywhere.

I could smell gas and the putrid scent of electrical wiring shorting out. Those two things don’t mix well. I pulled her door open even more. It was already sprung open from the frame bending and while not easy to pull on, at least it came open farther. I had enough adrenalin running through me that I’m sure it wouldn’t have mattered. Out came my skinning knife, being used for only the second time in this capacity. I cut the shoulder belt then as it retracted, the lap belt went slack, I yanked it out of the catch bracket, pushed the airbag detritus to the side, and then I pulled Lori into my arms and turned, walking quickly, but carefully away from the car. If I tripped, and the worst happened, we’d both be burned. Badly. Or maybe worse.

I felt her move in my arms, so I carefully pulled a blanket out of my truck with the hand I was using to hold her legs and started to lay her down on it. She wrapped an arm around my neck and whimpered.

“No, Sheriff. Oh, Charlie, hold me, please. Hold me ‘til I’m gone. ‘Til it’s over. Hold me until I go. The hurt will stop then. It hurts so bad inside. I hurt all over. Hold me, please. It won’t be long. God, it hurts. I can’t breathe.” She could, though, and was breathing, she just didn’t know it. It didn’t sound good when she exhaled, kind of gurgling, but she was alive. Her speech was muffled by her injuries, but I could understand her. I almost wish I didn’t. Hearing her giving in, giving up, preparing herself to die, was killing me.

I sat on the blanket, her in my lap, holding her and rocking her as gently as I could. Thankfully we were far enough away from the wreckage to only feel a blast of warmth as the car caught fire and started burning. It wasn’t two minutes longer until the EMS team showed up and took over, but it seemed like an eternity.

They carefully pulled her from me, looking out for the cut on her face first. I had stopped the bleeding with my hand and the blanket, but it was bad, and she was a mess. They laid her flat on a stretcher, immobilizing her, injecting her with something and placing an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. I kissed her on her forehead and prayed she’d make it. She may have been prescient, but I hoped not. She didn’t deserve anything like this. She definitely did NOT deserve to die at the hands of a foolish truck driver. She was a great girl, a wonderful lady. There are nice lawyers out there. She was one of them.

As one of the EMS crew was putting her stretcher into the ambulance, the little lady medical tech turned to me and opened a bandage wrapper. She poured some liquid on it, then pulling me down by my ear told me to, “Be more careful next time, Charlie. You’re a mess.” She wiped my lips, nose, chin and cheeks, then showed me the blood all over the cloth and wiped me clean again with a new one. I remembered kissing on Lori’s forehead, just trying to comfort her. I must have been a bloody sight.

“Thanks, Phyllis. Go. Take care of Lori. Bill has her secured now.”

She hurried into the front of the ambulance, yelled at the other tech, Bill, the one watching over Lori, and off they went. It was fifteen miles, thirteen minutes to the nearest well equipped and staffed emergency room at Code Three speeds, with lights and sirens, seventy-five, give or take, miles an hour, for that truck. I prayed, every one of those thirteen minutes and many many more, that she’d be OK. After that, we’d probably know, one way or the other.

Lori Simpson was in her late twenties, going to work in her father’s legal firm when she came back from our state university’s law school. She graduated in the top three or four places of her class and was courted by some pretty good sized and famous law firms in the big cities, on both sides of the state, to come work for them.

She didn’t need the money. She just wanted to be with her family. Her mother and father were wonderful parents and raised several wonderful kids. She was the youngest. A funny story came to mind when I turned and looked back toward the accident site. Just a few years ago, her mother was getting gas, went into a convenience store and on a lark, bought two of every lottery ticket they had. Scratch offs from one to twenty dollars, quick picks for all the little three, four and five number games, as well as the Lotto, Powerball, and Megaball games. She won over four hundred million dollars, and after taxes gave each of her kids twenty million and kept sixty for her and their father. They were beyond wealthy before that, but that’s how luck rolls sometimes. Most of it is going to charity anyway, so that may have had something to do with it. Good Karma and all that.