“Want to tell me what happened?” the officer continued.
“A fire truck took off the door of my car,” Nicole said. She tried for a competent and neutral tone, one she had practiced in business meetings at her former job in Indianapolis. The tone that said everything is fine; we just have things to discuss.
“It was technically an ambulance,” Jane interjected. “The big rescue squad. Red.”
“Thanks, Jane,” the cop said. “How’s the painting business?”
“Good. Busy week with spring breakers. My kind of busy. I’d take a whole summer of this.”
“I hope you get it.” The cop smiled and turned back to Nicole. “So how did the ambulance grab your door?”
“It was open,” Nicole said.
“You were just getting out of the car?”
“Not exactly.” Nicole was starting to get that not guilty but not exactly blameless feeling.
“I see,” he said. He raised both eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead. “And was your car parked like this at the time of the accident?”
Nicole felt heat in her cheeks. She was the victim here! The ambulance wrecked her car. But...okay, yes, she was illegally parked. And, sure, she had left the door hanging open. The box with her computer and her desk supplies was heavy. It really was.
Rats.
“Yes, but...” she began.
Jane stepped between her friend and the police officer. “I think I can explain. Nicole just arrived from out of town after a very long drive. She’s my new business manager and an old friend. I had her pull up out front to unload a box of stuff. Very heavy stuff. There’s a delivery truck behind the grocery store next door. That’s where I usually unload. You should really talk to them about hogging the whole loading zone back there. Especially during tourist season.” Jane shrugged and smiled at the man. “I’d say it’s technically their fault.”
The police officer pulled a notepad from his breast pocket and clicked a silver pen against his shiny badge. “Out-of-state license plates, double-parked, left car door open, using the street as an unloading zone,” he said aloud as he jotted down notes.
“Hey,” Nicole said, hustling over and looking at what he was writing. “The ambulance never even slowed down. There were dozens of witnesses.”
The cop raised his eyes and looked at her for a moment before flipping his notepad closed and putting it away.
“I’m usually very responsible,” Nicole grumbled. This was true. Her life had been orderly and ordinary at one time. National Honor Society in high school, dean’s list in college, excellent credit score, not even a speeding ticket to put a black mark next to her name. But since last summer, she could only make it through a day by hanging on with both hands.
She’d hoped moving to a new town would help her let go. Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong place to start over.
The cop smiled and cocked his head. “I’ll send a report to the city’s attorney since it involved a city employee, although which one I don’t know.” He winked at Jane. “You know I’ll find out.”
“I thought I saw Tony Ruggles in the passenger seat, but I didn’t see who was driving,” Jane said.
“Chief’s son riding shotgun,” the officer commented as he wrote the fact in his notepad.
“And will the city replace my car?” Nicole asked. With each question her case grew dimmer.
“That’ll be up to the insurance companies. Yours and theirs.”
Nicole sighed. Maybe tomorrow would be the day her luck would change.
“Welcome to Cape Pursuit,” the police officer added. “I’ll call you a tow truck.”
* * *
HOURS LATER AFTER the art gallery had closed for the day, Nicole got in the passenger seat of Jane’s Volkswagen Beetle. The car was sunny yellow and decorated with ads for Jane’s art studio, Sea Jane Paint. It also enjoyed the luxury of having all its doors.
“I’ll drive next time,” Nicole offered, smiling and trying to be cheerful despite the events of the day. “Even if I have to steal a car.”
“Tourists leave rentals unlocked sometimes,” Jane suggested. “Just a thought.”
The spring break weather and happy vibe of the beachside town was something to celebrate. People in colorful shorts and T-shirts strolled the walks, lovers kissed under awnings and the calm sea appeared in glimpses between the buildings they passed.
The evening sky stretching over the Atlantic Ocean nearly transcended the sight of her almost-paid-for car being hauled off by a tow truck, its dismembered door tucked underneath it on the flatbed. Nicole had the feeling she was never going to see it again, but the insurance adjuster on the phone assured her that doors got lopped off all the time. The car might live to ride again—after a few weeks in the body shop.
“We could go to a restaurant,” Jane said. “There’s at least a dozen of them within walking distance of my studio, some of them really good. But I don’t feel like fighting the spring break crowds on the strip.” She turned down a residential street, heading away from the ocean. “I’m taking you to a place on the edge of town the locals like.”
“Do they have fried food and alcohol?”
“That’s all they have,” Jane said.
“Perfect.”
The low brown building’s painted sign said it all: Cape Pursuit Bar & Grill. It was not the kind of place that would attract the tourist crowd. Out of the way and under the radar, it had local watering hole written all over it, from the pothole-riddled parking lot to the mismatched faux shutters.
Nicole followed Jane inside to a row of dark, high-backed booths and slid in across from her. She picked up a colorful laminated menu and smiled. Fried macaroni bites. Fried mozzarella sticks. French fries. Fried onion straws. Five different kinds of burgers, nearly all with some combination of bacon, cheese, barbecue sauce, fried onions and fried pickles.
Her stomach growled. The car fiasco had robbed her appetite for lunch, but she was starving now. She deserved saturated fat after all she’d been through, and she had a feeling she’d be on her feet working hard in the art gallery. Life in a sunny beach town where she’d be likely to walk everywhere now that she was without a car was a far cry from the sedentary office job she’d left several states behind.
“Thanks for letting me stay with you until I find a place,” Nicole said. “I looked at some rental houses and condos online, but I was afraid to commit before I actually saw the properties.”
“Someone’s looking for a place to live?”
A man with a face straight out of a magazine slid into the booth next to Jane. He had blue eyes, rugged cheekbones, a day’s growth of beard and dark hair that was just a little too long. He wore a T-shirt with Cape Pursuit Fire Department screen-printed over the left side of his chest.
“Charlie Zimmerman,” he said, extending his hand across the table. “I can help you buy or rent a place if you’re interested. I’m a part-time Realtor here.”
“And a full-time pain in the butt,” Jane added.
“Keeps me busy,” Charlie agreed, smiling.
“This is Nicole Wheeler,” Jane said. “My best friend from college. We both went to Michigan State, but she majored in something far more practical than I did.”