Page 19 of The Last Grift
The spot he’d occupied was as isolated from the other campsites as possible. Although it was dark, who knew who or what was out there—he was probably better off not thinking about it. A huge picnic table that looked like it had been hewn from a single massive tree took up one corner. With help from the Honda’s headlights, he could see where visitors had carved in J+P and T loves M and 1984 4ever. The table had some stories to tell.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t had anything since the coffee with Elton. Coffee was a food group, right? Gabe dug through the bags and found the cold hand pie, which he ate in four bites, and followed that with a pain reliever chaser. With little else to do except think, Gabriel dug out his e-reader. He liked paperbacks better, but the last thing he wanted was to drain the car’s battery with the dome light.
Only a few pages in, he yawned so wide and long that he worried he might dislocate his jaw. With a sigh, Gabriel set the reader in the door pocket and hunched as far down into his parka as he could, trying to relax and pretend his toes weren’t already feeling winter’s bite. Maybe the sailboat would have been warmer.
With no external story to focus on, all he could think about was every achy part of his body, even his hair. Every few minutes, he’d shift around into a position that didn’t have his lower back and legs screaming in agony but soon enough, a different part of his body would start to complain.
The fuckery of the last couple of days replayed over and over in his mind’s eye, an endless loop ofwhat-the-actual-fuck. Gabriel had gone from living comfortably—if not particularly happily—to running from dogs, jumping fences, being shot at, and now camping out in a car during a bastard of a winter storm.
Peter had to have read the letter he’d left behind by now—right? He steered his brain away from that thought.
Gabe was miserable, but returning to the city would be like hitting the longest slide in a cutthroat game of Chutes and Ladders. He shifted again, trying to stretch his legs out, the Honda’s chassis creaking as he moved around. What was Peter doing? Was he alive?
Several pine cones, or something like that, dropped onto theroof of the car with loud thumps before rolling off onto the ground.
“Who knew the forest could be so damn loud,” Gabe mumbled, his eyes still shut.
Between his overactive imagination, the aches and pains, and the scrape of tree branches moving against each other as wind swept through them, sleep was elusive. Adding in the uneven thump, thump, thump-thump of rainwater dripping from branches of the giant trees that crowded the campsite he was illegally occupying, Gabe suspected he wouldn’t get much sleep. He shut his eyes again, determined to drift off.
No more than five minutes had passed when a thunderous bang jerked him awake.
“What the fuck?” he whispered, his heart pounding. Couldn’t be pine cones, could it? They would have to be the size of boulders to make that amount of noise. Maybe this day could get worse? He should never assume things couldn’t take another downward turn.
A second bang had Gabriel struggling to sit forward so he could peer out the windshield into the dark. He whacked his injured thigh against the steering wheel in the process.
“Motherfucker,” he ground out, shifting positions again.
The inside of the windshield and windows were fogged over from his breath. He squinted, trying to see through the condensation, but all he could make out were vague tree shapes.
“Fucking hell.”
Swiveling, Gabe swiped his hand across the driver’s side window but still couldn’t see anything. Maybe a tree branch had fallen on the roof? More than one? A whole tree? Bigfoot? He had the vague sleep-deprived thought that maybe this was a dream. Or he was dead.
“Time to wake up in there,” a deep voice called out.
Not asleep or dead, then. Now Gabriel was pissed off.Was it too much to ask that he be allowed to get some sleep? A few fucking minutes?
The faceless jackhole thumped against the roof of his car again and followed that by shining a brighter-than-the-sun light through the windshield and directly into Gabriel’s eyes.
“What the hell?!” Gabriel snarled. “Knock it fucking off. Who the fuck do you think you are anyway?” Blinking furiously against the blinding light, he bolted upright and smacked his head against the rearview mirror, hitting the exact spot he’d banged against Dwayne earlier. His eyes started to water. Gasping, he covered the pulsating lump with his hand, trying to will the sharp ache away. “Mother of hell, that hurt.”
“This is Ranger Lundin. You’re trespassing. This part of the park is closed to the public. The Closed signs are clearly marked. You need to move your vehicle. Failure to comply will result in a call to the sheriff on top of the citation you are receiving.”
Gabe raised his other hand to shade his eyes, trying to see who was out there. “Lower your goddammed flashlight, I can’t see anything.”
After a few seconds, the light was lowered, but the asshole didn’t turn it off. Shifting sideways in his seat, Gabe squinted out the window again, blinking and trying to see clearly. Giving that up, he rolled the fogged window down.
“How do I know you’re really a park ranger? You could be a fucking serial killer,” he said to the looming stranger.
In the glare of the flashlight, all Gabe could see was a silhouette. From where he was sitting in the front seat of the Honda, the park ranger seemed tall, but that was all he could discern.
With an audible sigh, the man stepped back a foot or two and briefly shone the flashlight at his face and then down his body. Gabe saw a dark green Washington State Park Ranger uniform underneath an unfastened yellow slicker. It lookedlegitimate, but good fakes of any uniform were available online. Could even be a Halloween costume.
Fuck.
“Happy?” The ranger lowered the light. “Now, get your stuff together and get out of here ASAP. I don’t want to find you parked here again. As it is, I’m citing you for trespassing.”
Gabriel wished he could see the guy’s face so he could punch it, but he was too far away, and it was shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat that protected him from the weather. Also, he’d have to get out of his vehicle to smack him, and since he’d been sitting hunched up like a frozen pretzel for several hours, he’d probably fall over.
