It was still raining when Rosie pulled out of McNulty’s parking lot and headed towards Jackson Street. Her thoughts were teetering between rationality and fear. There was a chance that note meant nothing, there was no threat and there was no danger. But Rosie had learned not to throw caution to the wind.
Though she was only a few minutes behind Carter, Rosie still hadn’t seen any sign of his blue pick-up truck. The rain was coming down harder and the headlights of passing cars were blurry through the windshield of Rosie’s black sedan.
Maybe he went a different way home, she thought. Surely there had to be a faster route, she hit every red light she came to. She seemed to be the only car headed out of town, except for a sole pair of glowing white orbs in her rearview mirror.
“145 Shooks Pond Lane,” Rosie said to herself. The silence of her panicking thoughts was broken.
She was almost there, but still no sign of Carter’s pick-up.
POP!
Rosie suddenly felt her driving become more uneven; there was now a flapping sound coming from the backseat.
This is great, she thought. There was no shoulder on the back country road she was climbing and the rain was now making it impossible to see further than a few feet in front of her. She needed to make sure Carter was okay and if that meant her rim would have to be replaced, then so be it.
She rounded the final bend that would take her to Shooks Pond Lane, where she hoped to find some kind of answer to the note left in Carter’s tip.
Carter lived on a hill with a handful of neighbors. His mailbox stood as a marker for visitors and an invitation to travel down a gravel driveway to Carter’s humble abode. Rosie parker her car next to the mailbox and climbed out to make the rest of the way on foot.
She checked her tires and her right rear tire was blown. As soon as she figured out Carter’s fate, she’d call a tow truck.
.JPG)
Halfway down the driveway, Rosie could see there were no lights on in the house. It was a small, gray two-story with a porch, a carport at the end of the gravel and a shed around back. As she got closer, she realized there were children’s toys scattered in the yard. But Carter never mentioned having children. And the way he hung around Brewery Boulevard certainly didn’t help his case for ‘World’s Best Dad,’ Rosie thought.
“Hello?” she yelled at the front door. “Carter! Is anyone home?” Her voice didn’t echo in the stillness, the damp trees surrounding Carter’s house muffled the sound.
She walked around the house, peering in windows and banging on doors, hoping to arouse some kind of life from the house. After twenty minutes, she gave up and headed back up the driveway.
I’ll ask the neighbors if anyone has seen Carter’s truck come home tonight, Rosie thought. Though the other homes seemed to be tucked away from the road, perhaps someone had seen his headlights in the rain.
There was light at the end of the driveway, she noticed through the trees. The driveway wasn’t a straight shot to the house, it turned twice, but Rosie could just see the outline of another vehicle parked behind her.
Relief swept over her. Carter was in the pick-up truck and he was waiting for her to get back to her car to help her with the flat tire.
“Carter!” she cried, running the rest of the way up the hill. “Carter, it’s—“
But she knew then that it wasn’t Carter.
Two men stepped around the back of the truck, which Rosie now recognized was a police car. Rosie wasn’t running anymore. She stopped in her tracks. Police cars didn’t go over well with her.
“Do you know where Carter is?” asked the shorter of the two officers. “We’re looking for him.”
“No. I don’t,” Rosie replied. “Why are you looking for him?”
“We found his pick-up truck abandoned on the other side of the hill. The driver side door was open. We ran his tags and found out whose it was. Thought he might have gotten a ride.”
“The lights aren’t on in that house,” said Rosie. “No one’s home.”
“You’re right. The house was foreclosed on last week,” said the taller officer. “Carter doesn’t live in that house. No one does.”
