Page 96 of Traces Of You

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DAMAGE WAS DONE

“Are you sure you’re okay delivering this for me?” Brooke asked her three days later. “I can do it when we close.”

“No,” Reenie said. “I’ve got it.”

“If that is the case, you can leave now,” Brooke said. There was a large platter of cookies and another of pastries for a late meeting in Lake George. “They were told it’d arrive between two and four.”

She looked at her watch, it was a quarter after two. “But we’re still open.”

“And no one is in here, and if they come in, I can deal with it. You’ll be back before closing. No reason for you to work longer.”

“It’s not as if I’ve got much going on.”

Ford was out of town until late tonight. He’d left Monday after work for a two-day conference downstate. He’d be lucky to be home by nine, he’d said, and was going to his house. She’d see him after work tomorrow.

“I’m not going to argue,” Brooke said, closing one eye at her. “I’m the boss. Go.” Ford’s mother was waving the back of her hands and shooing her out of the kitchen just like she did her boys when they came to steal food.

Reenie grinned. “Okay. If you insist.”

She loaded her car, then grabbed her purse, and drove out of the gate.

She found the business, went inside with the first platter, waited for a few minutes while they called the person who placed the order and where to drop everything off, then got the second platter.

Ten minutes to town, ten minutes waiting around, now she could go back. If she didn’t rush, Brooke would clean up before she got there.

She was a mile away and turning onto Route 9 when the red flashing lights appeared in her rear view mirror. Then the sirens hit.

She put her blinker on and pulled over to let them pass, but they pulled behind her.

Her heart pounded, palms slick with sweat. She wasn’t speeding, she knew that for sure. Every move she made was deliberate, calculated, meant to avoid even the slightest hint of suspicion.

She grabbed her phone to call Ford, but the deputy was at the window, so she hit the button to lower the glass.

“Are you talking and driving?” the deputy asked.

“No,” she said, dropping the phone on her lap. “I just picked it up now.”

The last thing she was going to do was say it was to call her boyfriend. The only law enforcement person she trusted was Ford.

Throwing names around could get her in more trouble.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” Reenie looked at his name, saw P. Dugen.

She shook her head no. “I wasn’t speeding.”

“You have a brake light out.”

She closed her eyes and put her head against the headrest. That never occurred to her to even check.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll get it fixed right away.”

“You do that,” Deputy Dugen said. “Can I have your license and registration? I see you’re from out of the area. Just visiting?”

“I live here now,” she said. She pulled her purse off the seat and got her license, then her registration. “I was just doing a delivery for work. For Ridgeway Orchards.”

Maybe throwing that name out there would help. Deputy Dugen had to know that Ford’s family owned the place.