Catching Sam: Book 2 of 5: The MacDonald Brothers by Emily Matthews (best mystery novels of all time TXT) 📗

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Taming Jake

The MacDonald Brothers—Book Three

Chapter One

Trooper Jake MacDonald adjusted the air vent on his patrol car and cursed. The potent smell of alcohol wafting through the car meant he wasn’t going to get home on time. Again. In the notebook always at his side, affixed to his mobile desk, he jotted down the time and then his observations of the vehicle in front of him. Speed—about ten miles per hour, how often the driver crossed the center and fog lines—about once every five seconds, and the amount of swerving and weaving between the lane lines—a lot.

He flipped on his overhead lights and picked up his radio mic. “379, Seattle?” His badge number was 379 and was how he identified himself to dispatch.

“379.” That was dispatch’s way of saying go ahead.

“Put me out with a DUI. We haven’t stopped yet, but it’ll be northbound 169, about mile post twenty. And can you call county and see if there’s someone that wants it? I was supposed to be off an hour ago.”

“379.” That was dispatch’s way of saying okay. Per protocol, they used as few words as possible so as not to waste valuable air time.

When the flashing red and blue lights didn’t catch the driver’s attention, Jake pulled to the side of the vehicle and made eye contact with the driver. A woman with blond hair teased to the roof of the car waved.

“I’m not waving at you, lady,” he muttered. “Pull. Over,” he mouthed while pointing to the side of the road, but she didn’t catch on.

He picked up his mic again and switched the setting to PA. “Pull over,” he said as he looked right at her, still waving at her to move to the shoulder.

She saw him, and heard him, but decided to make a run for it. Pushing it to twenty miles per hour she stared straight ahead, put both hands on the wheel, and leaned forward, putting all of her concentration in to outrunning him. While she continually looked over her shoulder to see if he was still there, he patiently stayed at her side, periodically telling her to pull over and stop.

Finally, she eased over and parked askew on the shoulder. He pulled in behind her, updated dispatch on where they’d finally stopped, and got out of the car. Adjusting his hat, he walked cautiously to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

“Hello, occifer,” the woman slurred. “Did you need something?” The smell of booze rolled off her in waves and her eyes were blood shot.

“Hello, ma’am. Do you know why I stopped you?”

“Stopped me? I thought you were just saying hi!”

“Ma’am, have you been drinking?” At this point, it was a rhetorical question but one he had to ask.

“Well, I…um, I mean, I had a couple of beers at the bar earlier. But I’m fine now.”

“Please turn off the car and step out of the vehicle.”

She fumbled with the keys but finally got the car turned off. Then she battled the door but eventually got it open. He helped her out and started to tell her that he smelled alcohol and that she seemed impaired so he was going to do some tests.

“Like hell, Trooper,” she said suddenly and turned to run. “You’ll never catch me!”

She was wearing four-inch heels and was drunk as hell. He could walk faster than she was “running.”

He strode up to her and kept pace easily at a brisk walk. “Ma’am, please don’t try to run.”

She looked over, and her eyes widened, surprised that he was keeping up. She turned around and started back toward the cars. In an attempt to run faster, she pulled off one shoe and then the other. While struggling with the second shoe she tripped and began to pitch forward. Jake reached out to keep her from falling but only caught a handful of shirt. She shimmied out of the top, caught her balance, and tried to run. Having had nothing on under the shirt, she was now topless, bare breasts glowing and bouncing in the headlights.

Jake took two large steps forward and moved to grab her. Just as he did, they made it to where the pavement met the grass and he tripped, falling and taking her down with him.

A county deputy pulled up and got out. He sauntered over to where Jake was lying on top of the struggling woman and laughed.

“Is this how you get so many women, Jake? You know, the rest of us just ask ‘em out, and if they say no, we let ‘em go.”

“You’re a barrel of laughs, Doug. Just get a fucking blanket and help me get her covered up.” It was late at night, but he didn’t need drivers passing by seeing a trooper manhandling a half-naked woman.

A second deputy had pulled up, assessed the situation, and was already coming toward them with a yellow blanket. The kind all officers carried in their patrol cars. He opened it and threw it to Jake who wrapped her up quickly, using it to pin her arms to her sides.

“Thanks, Aaron,” Jake said, shooting Doug a dirty look. “You can have her.”

“Ah, not sure I want her, dude. She seems like trouble. Doug, you got here first. She’s all yours.”

“Fine, but we gotta get her shirt back on her somehow. I’m not dealing with the transport and the Breathalyzer with her wrapped in a blanket.”

Jake handed the squirmy bundle to Doug and walked over to retrieve the woman’s shirt. He went to put it over her head while she was still wrapped up in the blanket.

“Oh my God, Jakie?” she screamed in his ear. “Is that you? I know you.”

Jake panicked. “I don’t think so, lady.” She was about his age and obviously did the bar scene, but Jake would have remembered