Scratchgravel Road Read Free Page B

good-natured and friendly. She had been a hard worker and Josie had hated to see her leave when their regular custodian came back from his medical leave. Jimmy was a sixty-something-year-old who was slow and quiet and rarely interacted with anyone in the department. Cassidy had been a welcome addition.
    She lived with a man quite a few years older than she was, an odd guy, close to forty years old with a long scruffy beard and dark eyes that bothered Josie. During a traffic stop several years ago, he had avoided Josie’s eyes, never once meeting her gaze. She could not imagine what the attraction was for this pretty young girl.
    Waiting for Lou to respond, Josie opened the water bottle and took Cassidy’s head in her hand, tilting it up, trying to wake her and get her to drink something. There was no response. She poured water over Cassidy’s face and her wrists, attempting to lower her body temperature. Cassidy’s hand moved but nothing more. Josie stood and put the water bottle in her gun belt. She bent at the knees and lifted Cassidy’s torso over her shoulder, then used her leg muscles to slowly stand and balance herself. She took careful steps through the fine sand back to her jeep. In the intensity of the afternoon heat, each breath felt like fire, but she had to get Cassidy into air-conditioning until the medic arrived.
    Josie stood at a trim five feet seven inches, but the walk to the car was slow. The heat magnified every movement, slowing every bodily function. Just as she started to worry the girl would not make it in time she saw the dust of an approaching car, then the unmistakable flash of Otto’s patrol lights.
    Officer Otto Podowski was sixty years old, a large man with little tolerance for the desert heat. He drove his own jeep to where Josie had parked, then ran to her and took the young woman over his own shoulder, carrying her the last forty feet to Josie’s car. She ran ahead and opened the backseat door, then helped Otto position Cassidy inside.
    “Paramedic’s been called. I’ll try and get some water into her,” Josie said, climbing in beside Cassidy and slamming the back door.
    Otto got into the driver’s seat of Josie’s jeep and aimed the air vents toward the backseat. Josie slowly poured water over the girl’s face. Her body was limp and leaning against Josie’s side. Otto turned the jeep around and headed out to the road to meet up with the paramedic.
    “Is that the Harper girl?” he asked.
    “Yes. She’s not doing well. Her face is red. Her pulse is rapid, and she’s not opened her eyes since I arrived.”
    As Otto maneuvered carefully through the sand, Josie filled him in on the position of Cassidy and the dead body when she arrived.
    “Think she found the body and passed out?” he asked.
    Josie glanced up and saw Otto looking at her in the rearview mirror. She shook her head in doubt. “What are the odds Cassidy would pick this spot to take a hike on a day like this? She couldn’t have seen anything from the road. I had to climb on the roof of my jeep before I realized something was out there. It’s not like she saw someone and ran to help.”
    “Since when did you quit believing in coincidence?”
    “My first year on the job.” She looked away from him and tried to pour a trickle of water into Cassidy’s mouth again.
    Otto pulled the jeep onto the side of the road as the ambulance made the turn onto Scratchgravel so fast Josie thought it might tip.
    “That guy drives like a maniac. I’m gonna cite him for reckless driving after this is all over,” Otto said.
    “Cut him a break. He’s just a kid.”
    “You were hired on as a kid too, but you didn’t drive like a jackass.”
    Thirteen years prior, while he was still chief, Otto had hired Josie as an officer. He had retired as the chief three years ago after a hip replacement surgery and aching knees kept him from doing the job he expected of himself. Josie had applied for the job as chief with Otto’s