Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
My lips tipped up.
“For any other individual that’s not a cop, nurse, paramedic, etc, then honesty is the best policy. Don’t be a dick, admit that you were wrong, and be courteous. When he pulls you over, turn the car off, roll down the window, turn on the dome lamp—if it’s dark. Put your hands on the steering wheel so that they can see that you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be doing with them.”
“You don’t want me to get my insurance and registration before you get to the window?” I was confused now. “Why?”
“Let’s put it like this,” he said. “Say you’re walking up to a car, sometimes at night, and you can’t see what the driver is doing exactly, but he’s leaning over in his seat really fast as you walk up to him. What is he doing?”
I paused. “Getting his insurance?”
Wasn’t that obvious.
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure? Well, no. But there was a fairly good possibility that he was.”
His lips hardened into a thin line, and then he shook his head as a speeder topped the hill going not five over, not even ten, but twenty-two.
“Gotta take this one,” he said, flipping on his lights. “And to answer your question, what if what he was doing was reaching for a gun?”
Reaching for a gun.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded his head. “That’s right, you don’t. Nobody knows. The cop that’s pulling you over is doing a job, a very dangerous one. We never know what’s going to happen. We have been trained and we have experience. We know what is supposed to happen, but sometimes it doesn’t always play out that way. We know that so when we’re approaching a driver’s window, we’re aware and watching for it.”
He started into traffic, and I realized that every single person that’d been passing had conveniently moved out of his way, giving him easier access to the man that had already pulled to the side over a mile away.
And this time, as he got out of his car, I watched the other car.
The man was scrambling for something in his middle console, and I now saw the dangers that Tobias did.
Was he reaching for a gun? Or was he searching for his insurance card?
Oh, God. How did he do this day in and day out? It was nerve wracking.
Luckily, it was just his insurance card that he was looking for, and Tobias came back to the car moments later with the man’s license and insurance.
“This makes my stomach hurt,” I said to him.
His lips twitched. “Sorry, darlin’.”
He went about writing a ticket. This dude didn’t get off, despite Tobias saying that he was, indeed, very understanding and nice about getting pulled over.
Going twenty-two miles over the posted speed limit wasn’t something that Tobias would let him walk for, despite him being courteous.
I realized, though, in the next thirty seconds, that it wasn’t always the car that you pulled over that you had to watch for. You also had to watch the traffic surrounding you.
Which I wasn’t doing…not until it was too late.
I’d been watching Tobias’ ass as he sauntered to the car in his tight pants when my whole world exploded.
Something hit the cruiser so hard that it shook.
My head hit something solid, and I felt blood running down the side of my face and into my t-shirt.
My vision was blurry, but as I opened my eyes, I wasn’t where I was only two seconds earlier. I was now well away, in the grass median, and watching as Tobias started running toward the car.
He made it three steps before the popping started.
It was gunshots.
A lot of them.
And when I saw Tobias go down, and disappear into the tall grass, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
It was almost on automatic that I reached for the handheld microphone that Tobias had been calling his tickets into all day.
At first, I couldn’t find it, but it was still connected to where it used to be, so I followed the cord down with fumbling fingers until I found it on the floor next to the driver’s side floorboard.
My fingers wouldn’t work correctly, so I had to use both palms of my hand to press the button and hold it for counter pressure.
“O-o-officer d-d-down,” I stuttered.
My mouth wasn’t working right, either.
My tongue felt so thick.
***
Big Papa
“O-o-officer d-d-down.”
Every cop’s worst fear was hearing those two words.
Every single cop’s. Every single cop’s wife. Every single cop’s mom.
I found myself on my feet as I listened to the radio go crazy.
Cops in the area that were able to hear the radio traffic started asking locations. The dispatcher told everyone to get off. Officers ignored her.
But no location ever came.
I stared at the radio, my heart beating a mile a minute, and I tilted my head.
Reaching for my phone, I called Ghost.