by Hope White
FBI agent Matt Weller is the ideal man to help Jenna find her confidence and strength as he protects her from criminals threatening her life and that of little Eli. Matt’s faith has helped him cope with personal tragedy, and his recovery from the pain is a good example for Jenna to witness.
As they rely on each other to protect a toddler from harm, Jenna and Matt exemplify teamwork and the blessing that we need not handle personal challenges alone. I’m ever so grateful for my family, friends and God, who help me along the way.
Peace,
Hope White
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Plain Jeopardy
by Alison Stone
ONE
The traction-control light lit up on the dashboard, and Grace Miller clutched the steering wheel tighter. The tires quickly gained purchase on the snowy country road. Phew. Not as icy as she’d feared. All she needed to do was leave a little extra distance between her car and the car in front of hers, which wasn’t too hard to do on the deserted streets of Quail Hollow, New York. Not a lot of cars—or wagons—out after dark. Most people were hunkered down at home doing sane things like watching TV or reading a book, not chasing leads on a story on a snowy night in the Amish community.
Grace reached across and touched the crumpled handwritten note she had tossed onto the passenger seat.
I have info about drinking party. Meet at gas station. Main and Lapp. 8 p.m. Get gas while your there.
She could forgive the writer’s misuse of the word your if it meant she had a new lead on a story that had, so far, produced nothing more than what had already been published in regional papers or played on the local TV stations out of Buffalo.
Grace had been surprised to find the handwritten note taped to the front door of her sister’s bed & breakfast. She wondered why they hadn’t knocked. She had been home alone most of the day, except for the window of time when Eli Stoltz, her sister’s Amish neighbor, stopped by to care for the horses.
That would have been too easy. Instead, the author of the note had insisted on a clandestine meeting at a random location on a freezing night. Making her get out in the cold and pump gas, no less.
Already she didn’t like the person. They better not waste her time.
Since she had zero leads, she didn’t have much of a choice. The bishop had turned her away, and the sheriff’s department had only given her the most basic of information regarding the party and the fatal accident that night. Even the few teenagers she’d tracked down had shut her out. However, Grace was not easily deterred. She had spent her days since graduating with her journalism degree traveling the world, writing in-depth articles featuring people or events that needed highlighting. The tagline under her online bio read Giving a Voice to the Voiceless.
Grace turned her car onto Main Street and was mildly cheered by the trees covered in twinkling white lights, even though Christmas had passed a few weeks ago. She supposed no one could fault the residents of Quail Hollow for looking for something to brighten up the long months of January and February in the great white north, where the days were short and the snow was deep.
It had been a long time since she had spent a winter up north. Her job afforded her the luxury of traveling the world, and when she had a choice, she chose warm, mild weather, certainly not polar-bear cold.
Before Grace’s emergency appendectomy, she had finished a story in Florida about a young mother who had lost her job after she missed work due to cancer treatments. Grace’s story led to a huge community outpouring of support and the promise of another job when the woman felt well enough.
That was why Grace did what she did.
But life’s twists and turns—including a surprise appendectomy, infection and prolonged recovery—put her right in the middle of an exciting story while holed up at her sister’s bed & breakfast in Quail Hollow.
Grace slowed and turned into the snowy parking lot of the gas station. The back of her car fishtailed, then she regained control. Prickles of anxiety swept across her skin. Boy, she hated driving in the snow. It didn’t help that her sister’s car probably needed new tires.
Grace pulled under the overhang meant to protect customers from the elements while they filled their tanks. The snow swirled violently, touching down in mini tornadoes. No overhang would protect the customers from those gusts. She shuddered, despite the warm air pumping from the heating vents. In the rearview mirror, she saw an Amish man with his collar flipped up, hunkered down in his wagon. He flicked the horse’s reins and continued to trot down the street in a steady rhythm.
Suck it up, buttercup, she thought. At least she wasn’t exposed to the elements like the Amish man in his open wagon. How did they deal with the harsh winter? It reminded her of a story she had written about the homeless in Arizona. One man claimed he moved down there from Minnesota because if life had dealt him the unfair hand of being homeless, he would choose to live in the desert.
Clearing her thoughts, Grace scanned the gas station parking lot. She had to keep her head in the game. Stay focused. The gas station and surrounding stores were mostly quiet except for a couple of vehicles parked along the fence on one edge of the parking lot. One car, covered in a layer of snow, was probably an employee’s. The other, a truck, looked like someone had recently parked and run into the attached minimart or a neighboring store on Main Street.
No sign of someone lingering around to talk to her.
Clicking her fingernails on the steering wheel, she watched the red digital number on the dashboard change to 8:01 p.m. Past experience told her that sources didn’t always keep to a schedule. Dreading the inevitable, she wrapped her scarf around her neck and pushed open the door. The arctic air rushed in, making her wish she was covering a story near the equator. “Where are you?” she muttered under her breath as she climbed out and scanned the parking lot again. It didn’t help that she had no idea who she was looking for.
Grace waited half a second before lifting the pump from its slot and jamming it into the car’s tank, hoping that the letter writer approached before her ears froze off. She yanked down her hat. Sighing heavily, she swiped her credit card through the reader, selected 87 octane and began pumping. Because she refused to ruin her nice leather gloves, she didn’t wear them while she filled the tank. Seconds seemed like hours, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to uncurl her frozen fingers from the metal handle.
She continued to sweep her gaze across the area while she pumped gas. The pump clicked off. If her secret informant was going to show, he’d better show now or she was getting back into her car and cranking up the heat before she turned into a popsicle.
She turned to hang up the pump when she heard the deep rumble of an engine roaring to life. She spun around. The reverse lights lit up on the pickup truck parked nearby. Strange, since s
he hadn’t noticed anyone getting into it. She reached for the door handle on her car, convinced her pen pal had stiffed her.
The sound of tires spinning drew her attention back to the truck. Her heart jolted into her throat. The driver sped in Reverse, barreling directly toward her.
She dove to the side, fearing she’d be pinned between her car and the gas pumps. Visions of news coverage of fuel pumps ablaze and charred cars ran through her mind. She landed with an oomph and pain shot through her midsection from her recent appendectomy. Slushy wetness seeped through her clothes, adding insult to injury.
The sound of metal crunching metal filled her ears. She desperately tried to scramble away in an awkward crab crawl. Craning her head, she caught sight of the pickup truck tearing out onto Main Street. Relief that he was leaving wrestled with anger that he was getting away, making her forget the pain shooting through her numb hands. The world shifted into slow motion. A bitterly cold wind turned her vision blurry, making it difficult to make out the profile of the departing driver.
* * *
The back end of a vehicle had been smashed against the fuel pumps, leaving Captain Conner Gates wondering what had happened here. When Dispatch sent him on the hit-and-run call, he had expected to see a fender bender and two drivers arguing over who was at fault.
This was far more than a simple collision.
An uneasy feeling swept over him as he pushed open the door on the patrol car and climbed out. Despite having grown up in Quail Hollow, he’d never get used to the cold. Squinting against a blast of wind, he inspected the crumpled back end of the vehicle driven against the cement base of the fuel pumps. No sign of a second vehicle. Unease tightened like a fist in his gut. The images from the night of his cousin’s fatal accident six weeks ago were seared into his brain. Well, technically, Jason was the son of a cousin, but he’d been like a brother to him. Jason’s pickup truck had clipped an Amish woman’s wagon then continued on, careening out of control and coming to rest wrapped around the solid trunk of a tree. Past experience told him no one could survive the brutal impact.
Past experience had been right.
Jason had died instantly.
Blinking away the graphic image of the young man’s bloodied face, Conner muttered to himself that he hoped no one was injured tonight. He had long ago given up on prayer.
The dispatcher hadn’t indicated any injuries.
Conner flipped up his collar and shrugged his shoulders against the punishing winds. The harsh glare of the emergency lights on his patrol car cut across his line of vision. He caught sight of a woman standing inside the minimart with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The woman next to her, Erin, the gas station clerk in her green uniform vest, waved at him frantically. Conner stopped at the minimart at least once a shift for some friendly chatter and hot black coffee.
He glanced around. There was only one other car in the lot, and it hadn’t sustained any damage. He spoke into his shoulder radio. “I’m at the gas station. Send a tow truck.” He yanked open the glass door and stepped inside. “You okay?” he asked the shivering woman. “Need an ambulance?”
Her red fingers flitted in a quick wave of dismissal. “No. No ambulance. I’m okay.”
He nodded briefly and relayed the information to Dispatch.
Conner tugged off his leather glove and held out his hand. “I’m Captain Gates from the sheriff’s department.” Her hand was ice cold. “Can you tell me what happened here?”
“Someone rammed into my car and took off.” Conner expected to hear fear in the woman’s tone. Instead, he was met by the hard edge of annoyance. “It’s my sister’s car,” she added, as if that might explain her tone.
“It was horrible.” Erin rolled up on the balls of her orthopedic shoes and her eyes brightened with excitement. This was, after all, probably the most thrilling thing she’d witnessed in her fifty-odd years. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Always thought maybe someday someone would come crashing through the front of the store. You know?” She touched the arm of the woman standing next to her. If she had been looking for an ally, she didn’t find one in the woman’s steely gaze. The clerk continued, undeterred. “I see that all the time on the TV. But, wow, never seen anything like that in real life. He was aiming right for this lady’s car.”
“You saw the accident?”
“Yes,” Erin said. “I looked up when I heard the tires squeal. At first I thought it was on account of the snow and ice. But no, this was completely intentional. He tried to crush her between the car and fuel pumps.” The clerk’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t catch the license plate. He pulled in and parked there shortly before this lady arrived. Never came into the store. I didn’t think much of it because people use this parking lot all the time to shop at other stores. Easier than street parking.”
“Did you notice anyone getting out of the truck?” Conner asked.
“Can’t say that I did.”
Conner directed his attention to the attractive woman who clasped a blanket tightly around her shoulders. Her attention was focused on the parking lot, or maybe her car. What was she searching for? “Any surveillance camera footage from that part of the parking lot?” Conner asked.
“Doubtful. You’re free to look, though,” Erin offered. “The only camera is pointed at the register.”
“Do you...” He backed up his train of thought and turned toward the shivering woman. “I’m sorry. What’s your name?” It wasn’t often that he met strangers in Quail Hollow. It was one of those places where everyone knew everyone else or, at the very least, knew of everyone else. He most definitely had never met this brunette with watchful brown eyes. Yet something about her seemed vaguely familiar.
“Grace Miller.” She blinked slowly, as if she had to think about it.
He made a mental note of it. Miller was a common Amish name around here; however, this woman was definitely not Amish. Not with her long brown hair flowing out from under her knit cap. Not to mention her expensive-looking boots, albeit not snow boots.
“Do you have ID?”
She held up her hand toward the smashed car. “My purse is on the passenger seat.”
“No problem. We can deal with that later. Want to tell me what happened?”
A shadow crossed her eyes as if she were deciding how much to tell him. “I was pumping gas and some guy crashed into me. And took off.” She seemed bored with the retelling. It was odd. Most people would have been completely panicked if someone rammed into their car while they pumped gas.
“Do you know the guy? Did you see him or get a license plate?”
“Of course I don’t know him. And no, I didn’t get a license plate. I was too busy diving out of the way.” She twisted to get a better look at the slushy, black snow on her pants. She winced and her hand moved to her midsection. “I only saw a profile. Male. It was too hard to make out his face.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I’ll be fine. I had my appendix out a few weeks ago. Landing on my side didn’t do much for my recovery.” Apparently sensing he was going to push the doctor thing again, she held up her hand. “I’m fine, really. I want to go home and change my clothes. I’m soaking wet.”
“All right.” Conner glanced around. The beeping sound of a tow truck backing up to her damaged car filled the night air. “Do you have someone you can call for a ride?”
“Um, no?” Her answer came out as a question. “I don’t suppose Quail Hollow has Uber.”
He suppressed a chuckle. “Let me take a few photos of the scene, talk to the tow truck driver, then I’ll see that you get home.”
A fraught expression tightened her pretty features. “That would be great.”
“Wait here where it’s warm.”
Grace hugged the blanket closer around her and shuddered. “That’s a matter of opinion.” Her lips tilted in
to a weary smile, but he didn’t miss the daggers shooting from her eyes.
* * *
For all the investigative journalism Grace had done over the years, she had never sat in the front seat of a patrol car. She had never sat in the backseat, either, for that matter. She’d come close a few times, but she had a knack for knowing when pushing law enforcement for answers had drifted from merely annoying to “let’s lock her up.”
The officer had started the engine, then climbed back out of the vehicle. She felt a little guilty about being coy regarding what happened tonight. She hadn’t just been filling her gas tank. She had come here because she had received a tip on the story she was working on. However, the sheriff’s department had been less than forthcoming with information when it came to the underage drinking party and subsequent fatal car accident.
Two could play at that game.
Besides, she didn’t want to become part of the story. If she kept her mouth shut, the hit-and-run would be a little blurb on the back page of a local paper and not part of a larger story, one that she was trying to cover. That was, if Quail Hollow had a newspaper.
Grace hadn’t dealt with this officer from the sheriff’s department before. Maybe she could pry some information out of him before he realized she was a journalist.
Just maybe...
Just maybe that would be unethical, a little voice whispered in her head.
Stifling a shiver, Grace adjusted the vent on the dash, glad the officer had turned on the heat before getting back out of his patrol car to talk to the tow truck driver and retrieve her purse from the passenger seat of her car. She plucked at the fabric of her wet pants, eager to get home and change.
When the officer finally climbed behind the steering wheel, he handed her the purse. “Warming up?”
“Thanks. Yeah.”
“Before we go, I want to see if you recall anything else from the accident. Anything else important you haven’t told me?” His intense brown eyes searched her face. She wasn’t ready to talk. Not yet.