Read Online Blood Tears by J.D. Nixon - Free Book Online

I’ve
noticed something, and I just thought I’d let you know about it, in
case it’s important.”
    “ Go
on,” I encouraged, pulling out an incident report form.
    “ I
drive back and forth on the highway a lot coming into town and back
home.”
    “ Yep.” We all did, though she and her husband lived further
out of town than I did.
    “ A
ute’s been parked on the side of the highway for days now. There’re
no houses around there, so I don’t think it’s someone parking. And
it’s at a rather odd angle, which makes it look as if it’s been
dumped. It looks familiar too, but I just can’t place
it.”
    “ A
ute, huh?” I repeated, busy scribbling, wondering if this could
have something to do with Dave’s carjacking.
    “ Yeah, it’s an old workhorse of a vehicle, so it could be
someone’s just abandoned it and walked away.”
    “ Possibly. Can you give me some more specific directions?
Sergeant Chives and I will take a mosey on over and have a
look.”
    I took some more
details and filled in Baz while I grabbed my cap and the patrol car
keys. Baz plucked them from my hand.
    “ Aw,
I never get to drive anymore,” I moaned. “It’s not
fair.”
    “ Super’s orders. I understand you had a few unauthorised
chases.”
    “ So
what? Doesn’t mean I should never be allowed to drive
again.”
    “ I’m
just following orders.”
    “ Now
you know why I don’t want to talk to the Super if they’re the sort
of orders she’s dishing out.”
    He locked the front
door. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but she has your best
interests at heart.”
    “ Sure
she does.”
    “ Tezza, just go with the flow for once. Suck it up, and before
you know it, your disciplinary time will be over.”
    “ It
will always be there, recorded on my personnel file though, won’t
it,” I said glumly. “It’s hardly going to do wonders for my
career.”
    “ It
never stopped Fiona from getting promoted, did it?”
    “ I
s’pose not.” I looked at him. “Did you really wrangle her, or are
you just bullshitting to make me feel better?”
    He winked. “You never
heard it from me. And it’s not my job to make you feel better. It’s
my job to make you behave better. Now, where are we going?”
    We followed Valmae’s
instructions, pulling up behind the casually parked ute.
    “ That’s Dave’s ute, all right,” I said, stepping out and
walking over to the driver’s seat. The door opened on my first try.
“It’s not even locked. And look, the key’s still in the
ignition.”
    “ Maybe it broke down?” Baz said, poking his head through the
open window of the rear seat.
    I turned on the engine,
only to be met with a red fuel light. “Nah, ran out of petrol by
the looks of it.”
    “ Here’s his wallet,” Baz said, groaning as he lent down to
pick it up off the floor. “Not a cent left in it, and no credit
card either.”
    “ Hope
they didn’t gouge Dave too much on the credit card. He’s not
exactly rolling in it.”
    I pulled out my phone
and rang him, letting his mother know when she answered that we’d
found his ute, and breaking the bad news about the missing
money.
    “ So,
our two teens got this far and then lost their wheels. Where’d they
go next?” I looked around me, seeing nothing but bushland on either
side of the highway.
    “ I
think we better ask around at some of the properties closer to
here,” Baz decided.
    “ But
I already rang everyone out here. Nobody knows
anything.”
    “ Better check again.”
    And so, after securing
Dave’s car, we spent the rest of the day tramping around from
property to property, asking the farmers if they’d noticed anything
strange over the last week or so. The only thing even remotely
interesting was the disappearance of a very elderly bicycle from
one property’s outlying shed, but as it was a surplus piece of
equipment, the apologetic farmer couldn’t even remember the last
time it had been sighted.
    “ Well, that was a complete waste of