Ashley arched a brow, meeting Karen’s gaze. “You just think they’re assholes because you got a mega-ticket from one,” she said. “I wanted to be on the metro force.” Miami-Dade County, also known as the Greater Miami area, was made up of more than two dozen small cities, villages and municipalities. Some had their own large forces, with departments dealing with everything from jaywalking to murder, while others depended on the metropolitan force, which covered the entire county, for their homicide and forensic divisions. She had always wanted to work where she could cover the full scope of the area where she had lived all her life. “There are good officers—and even cute ones on all the forces.”
“And you were whizzing down the highway when you got that ticket,” Jan said. “Oh, look, Ashley is bristling. When she’s in her patrol car after graduation and needs to give out tickets, you’ll have to watch out. All she’ll need to do is park near your house and wait for you to leave the driveway at ninety.”
“I do not speed that badly,” Karen protested. “And look—Ashley is speeding now!”
“She’s going two miles over the limit,” Jan said. “And watch it, or we’ll wind up crawling the whole way to Orlando.”
Even as Jan spoke, Ashley began to press on the brake.
“See,” Jan said.
“No, no, there’s something going on up there,” Ashley said, frowning.
The cars ahead of her were suddenly squealing and braking. Behind her, two cars, in attempting to stop, nearly plowed into the median.
They were almost at the turnpike. The highway was five lanes each way here, with turnpike access just ahead, and the ramp for the east-west expressway also branching off. The early morning traffic, which had been so smooth, was suddenly a mess.
“What the hell is going on?” Ashley murmured. Creeping in line behind the cars directly ahead of her, she saw that two cars had apparently been involved in an accident. She was off duty and still just in the academy, but if there had been an accident and there were no other officers at the scene, by the book, she was obliged to stop until someone on duty could arrive. But just as the thought occurred to her, Karen, who had toyed with the idea of going into law instead of education, read her mind.
“No, we don’t need to stop. There’s already a cop car at the scene—just ahead. He must have just gotten there.”
Whatever had caused the accident, they had missed it by no more than a few minutes. The lanes weren’t blocked off yet, which meant the officer really had just arrived. The drivers of the vehicles were both out of their cars. One was sitting on the median, a man with his face in his hands. The other, who had apparently struck the first, was standing by his car, just staring at the road.
The accident had occurred in the far left lane. Ashley was driving in the lane directly next to it. As she moved along, she looked to her left, noting gratefully that neither driver appeared to have been hurt.
But someone had.
As she crept along in her lane, she suddenly gasped.
There was a man on the highway. Sprawled in the lane, naked except for a pair of white briefs. He was facedown, head twisted to the side, apparently dead.
She’d gone through everything necessary to become a cop. Taken the tests and seen all the videos featuring the types of horrors a policeman was likely to be up against at some point in his career or hers. But the sight of the man sprawled on the highway, naked except for his underwear, was still shocking and terrible.
“Oh, my God,” Karen breathed at her side.
“What?” Jan demanded.
Ashley’s hands were glued around the steering wheel as she fixed the entire scene in her mind. The immediate area first. The position of the two cars involved. The cop and the cop car that had just arrived. The body. Sprawled. Naked except for the white briefs. The head, twisted. The blood that seemed surreal against flesh and asphalt.
The cars, still veering off toward the median. And, across the median, cars slowing, braking, the screech of brakes. Far across the opposing lanes, someone standing, staring at all the traffic as if waiting for a light to change.
She moved past the body. It was still imprinted in her mind. As crystal clear and vivid as a photograph. The rest merging, blurring. The cars in the opposing lanes a kaleidoscope of color. The figure standing, watching the scene…
Just someone. Faceless. Dressed in…black, she thought. Man? Woman? She didn’t know. Part of what had happened? A friend of the man who had been struck?
“What? What the hell is it?” Jan demanded from the back seat.
“A body. A body on the highway,” Karen said, her voice faltering.
“A body?” Jan swung around.
They were past it now.
“Maybe I should turn around,” Ashley said.