Page 21 of The Last Grift
“What day is it?” Gabe asked randomly. He was cold, tired, and slightly damp, but he wasn’t the one standing out in the storm.
“For fuck’s sake, are you for real?” The words were uttered in a snarl, the growl deeper than earlier. Now Gabe smirked and didn’t try to hide it. “I’ve finally figured out where the end of my rope is. It’s you, in case you were curious.”
Hah, he was pissed off. Good. So was Gabriel.
“Are park rangers allowed to use profanity?” Gabriel wondered as the rain started to come down even harder, hammering against the roof of the car. He imagined fat drops bouncing back up and off the rim of the ranger’s hat and let another little smile play across his lips.
The tables had turned, a bit, and Gabriel decided to see how long he could keep the grumpy Ranger Man standing out in the rain talking to him. His car window had to stay down for this, but it was worth the slight unpleasantness. “I bet not. Isn’t there a special code of conduct you’re supposed to follow?” Maybe he could make this worth the one hundred dollars he was going to have to pay.
“I think you’re mixing me up with the Boy Scouts. I am not a scout.” Ranger Man looked at his wrist and the expensive-looking dive watch wrapped around it. “I don’t have a fucking code, and I don’t have to be patient. I can call in the sheriff, but since I am also an officer of the law, I don’t have to. If you’d like, I can let my dog out.”
“A dog?” The image of the dog he’d barely avoided the day before flashed in Gabe’s mind. It was probably a good thing Gabe hadn’t responded that he didn’t have a fucking code, either, but that if he did, the ranger wouldn’t measure up. That would have been an outright lie though; the man ticked too many of his boxes.
Rules are meant to be broken, Chance.
“Yes,” the ranger confirmed. As if the dog had heard and understood their conversation, a sharp bark, louder than the rain, sounded from the guy’s vehicle.
Fucking dogs again. With a put-upon sigh, Gabe twisted to reach behind his seat and dragged his boots to the front.
“Clock’s ticking.” The asshole tapped his index finger against the face of his nice watch to emphasize his point.
“I’m getting my fucking shoes on here.”
Gabriel was pissed off again but also impressed that the guy still stood there, not giving an inch and with the rain pouring down, just waiting for Gabe to get a move on. Apparently, Ranger Man was impervious to the weather. The anti-weatherman.
When his boots were on his feet, Gabriel started the car. As he backed out of the camping spot, Gabriel gave the park ranger a little finger wave. “See you around.”
“Hopefully not.”
“I wouldn’t hope too much if I were you,” he said with a grin as he rolled up his window.
ELEVEN
CASEY
Tuesday Evening
Casey scowledafter the departing vehicle. “Good fucking riddance.”
Waiting in the rain for a random asshole who thought he was a comedian was the perfect end to a perfectly shitty day. The guy in 201C thought he was a charmer, and Casey didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. The kind of person who thought fast talking and a mischievous smile would get him out of a ticket. Casey snorted—no doubt it had worked for him in the past.
“I’m never letting Greta go on vacation again,” he grumbled. Earlier that day, she’d sent a picture of herself and Abby, her wife, relaxing on a beach somewhere in Thailand. Normally, Casey wasn’t a beach and fruity drink guy, but this had been the Tuesday that had never stopped giving.
Because he was in a shit mood and because he didn’t trust Charming Fucker, Casey moved over to the middle of the campground access road and waited until the silver car’s taillightsfaded into the distance. He knew it was a stupidget off my lawnmoment and he didn’t care, although he did suppress the urge to shake his fist at the departing car.
For fuck’s sake, the Closed and No Trespassing notices were clearly posted. Why couldn’t people just follow them? Casey felt the tiniest twinge of conscience for handing out citations to campers, and occasionally he let people off with just a warning. But Mr. Charming had irritated the fuck out of him from the second he opened his mouth.
On a night like this one, with sheeting rain and the temperatures a good ten degrees colder than normal for the time of year, the park was no place to sleep. It was better to stay at a public rest area; at least there was water and an available restroom. This was why he and Bowie had gone out for a check, to make sure idiots like Charming Fucker didn’t end up in the hospital with hypothermia. Or worse, dead.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d discovered a dead body, but he would like it to be a rare occurrence. For one thing, the paperwork was a nightmare. Nowhere on the forms was there a space for death by idiot behavior.
“Jackass,” he muttered for good measure. His words seemed to float on the air before a gust of wind snatched them away.
Casey’d had to roust three other illegal car campers before getting to the person hiding out in site 201C, and none of them had set him off like the last guy. Did he think he was extra clever parking back there? It was one of the places Casey routinely checked because the spot was so secluded from the road compared to the rest. Summertime campers also loved it for that very reason.
The other illegal campers had packed up and left without too much argument, just a sorry and a random excuse. They hadn’t tried a flashy smile or ridiculous finger wave as theyleft the campground. The fucking guy thought he was fucking irresistible. He was not.
He was probably down on his luck, Casey reminded himself, and the ticket he’d issued could have been a warning. But with Greta gone, the park’s resources were stretched to the limit, and he didn’t need a search and rescue call because someone got lost in the forest looking for somewhere to take a piss.
