скачать книгу бесплатно
Jack’s phone rang as they passed the Kiddie Land motorcycles chasing each other on a track. He answered, listened and dropped the phone back into the pocket of his suit coat. “I need to go to my office,” he said. “Will you deliver Caroline’s doughnuts?”
“Sure.”
Jack handed over a white pastry bag, waved and left the midway with long strides. He cut through Kiddie Land, his steps keeping time with the beeping horns and flashing lights.
Matt headed toward the long fence where Caroline stood like a post, arms crossed. He held out the bag and was gratified to see her posture relax as she reached for it with a hint of a smile.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Anytime.” He balanced his crew’s box of doughnuts on his hip. “If you’re going to be out here all summer, we should get to know each other. So far I know you don’t like spiders or camping, you’re merciless with a flashlight and you like pastries more than teenagers.”
“Everyone likes pastries more than teenagers,” Caroline said. She opened the bag and looked inside, nodding approval at what she saw.
“I can’t believe you doubted me,” Matt said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the other side of the fence?”
“Yes. But I get out every now and then. Like when we’re waiting for a fresh truckload of licorice.”
Caroline smiled. “Sorry about that. While I’m standing here, I make up ridiculous answers to the question about what we’re building, but I can’t use my snarky answers with actual guests. I don’t think the Hamiltons would be impressed.”
“But you’re related to them. Jack said your brother married his sister.”
She nodded. “They met last summer.”
“And Jack met his wife here, too?”
“Yes. That was before I worked here.”
“Must be something in the air,” Matt said.
Caroline raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
“You could probably have your pick of jobs with family connections like yours. Why are you standing in the hot sun warding off gawkers outside a construction zone?”
Her jaw tightened and she turned steely eyes on him. “I’m willing to work my way up and earn my stripes. Justice is a serious business.”
Matt cleared his throat. “So is building stuff. I should get back to work. We’re digging out some old roller coaster footers.”
“From the Loose Cannon,” Caroline said.
Matt bit his lip and goose bumps lifted along his back. When Bayside Construction had won the bid to build the new coaster practically on top of the one his uncle had built, he’d asked his stepfather for more information. The older man had muttered something about letting sleeping dogs lie. Bruce Corbin’s heart was delicate, and Matt hadn’t pushed for details.
Why was Caroline so quick with the coaster’s name? She seemed to be a few years younger than he was, and the Loose Cannon was gone long before either one of them was born.
“How did you know about that?”
“I...studied a little park history. It’s no secret. A roller coaster named the Loose Cannon was built on this site back in the 1980s.”
Did she sound defensive?
“I’ll have to come find you if I ever need a history lesson on Starlight Point,” Matt said.
Caroline shifted her gaze to the side, refusing to meet his eyes.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to find a giant man in a black uniform.
“Is this guy bothering you?” the man asked Caroline.
“No,” she said. “He was asking directions.” She turned and pointed to the tree that concealed the entrance gate into the construction site. “That’s where you want to go.”
She walked away, leaving Matt with the giant police officer.
“Guess you ought to move along,” the man said. “Before she comes back and finds you hanging around.”
Matt let himself through the gate, shoved his hard hat on and went back to work. He considered opening a conversation with Caroline—or anyone—about the Loose Cannon. His stepfather brushing him off had been out of character. It made Matt wonder if there was more to the brief story in the family archive of things-we-don’t-talk-about. Considering his stepfamily’s connection to that ride, he was tempted to find out how much Caroline knew, just to be on the safe side.
Right now, he had work to do. This project would make or break Bayside Construction. And in the process, it would determine the fate of the people he loved most.
* * *
CAROLINE CLOCKED OUT, changed out of her uniform and headed for the filing cabinets in the corner of her chief’s office.
Some of her friends from the rides and foods departments were meeting up to play volleyball and picnic on the beach. Wasn’t the wide swath of sand in front of the Lake Breeze Hotel much more inviting than musty old files?
But she had a mission. Impress her boss and get his recommendation for the limited police academy class beginning in September. Just as important, she wanted answers about the Loose Cannon roller coaster.
She’d heard the rumors last summer, and she’d been curious about what had caused the accident. Then a few weeks ago, she’d discovered that the reclusive older couple who lived down the street from her parents had lost their daughter to the accident, but they’d never gotten any answers. The scars were so deep and wide, they’d moved away from Bayside to Yorkville where Caroline had grown up.
Caroline knew what it was like to lose someone senselessly. Perhaps that’s why the quiet Knights had finally shared their story with her.
She’d known them for years, stopping by their porch on her paper route, shoveling their sidewalk in the winter. She remembered walking past their house on the way to school one spring day when she was in sixth grade. Mrs. Knight had stood on the porch and stared at her sadly but kindly. “You remind me of my daughter,” she’d said.
Caroline had always wondered where the daughter was, expecting her to appear out of nowhere when she dropped off misdirected mail or stopped by with cinnamon bread her mother made on snowy days.
But Jenny Knight had died, her death on the Loose Cannon ruled accidental. It was hard to believe a life could be erased like a chalk drawing with no one to blame.
Somewhere in these rusty filing cabinets, there could be answers. But to find them, she’d have to spend hours scanning all the files.
“Are you sure you want to do this on your own time?” the police chief asked. “We could work it into your shift and cover you out on the midway.”
She shook her head. “It’s good experience.”
Chief Bert Walker sat in a roller chair and used his heels to shove the chair back and forth. “Raking leaves is good experience, but I still pay the neighbor kid to do it so I don’t have to. This is a lousy job.”
Caroline sent him a quick smile and opened the second drawer of the cabinet on the far left. Folders with dates ranging from 1974–1978 filled the drawer.
“Should I throw these away after I scan them?” she asked.
Walker shrugged. “Seems like it would be safe to do that, but you never know when someone’s going to want to see the real thing. And these are actual public and criminal records.”
Caroline’s heart thumped in her chest. “Do people request old records very often?”
“No. Big city departments, maybe. But not here, not in years. Especially not records from before you were born.”
She pulled out the first folder in the drawer and turned on the scanner. “Am I going to find anything interesting in here?”
The chief rolled back and forth in his chair, watching as she carefully laid papers inside the marked area on the scanner glass. She closed the lid, pressed a button and a blue streak of light slid out.
“Probably not,” Walker said. “In my career here, I’ve only seen a few things that would make it onto the evening news.”
“Such as?”
“Rash of car thefts in the 1990s, right from the parking lot. People stole cars and stereos.”
“Pretty bold.”
“They were,” the chief agreed. “That’s why we have the tower in the parking lot. Used to be the worst job sitting in that tower watching the cars.”
“Worse than scanning all these files?”
“Tough call.” He leaned back in his chair. “We also had some fights over the years, some of them ugly like the one last summer, but you already knew about that one ’cause you were there. Employee theft from cash registers,” he continued, “thefts in the dorms or the hotel. But quiet for the most part. I’ve had years’ worth of petty stuff and general peace.”
“When was your first summer?” Caroline asked.
“1985.”
Her heart flipped again. “You’ve been the chief that long?”
He laughed. “No. I started out just like you. Nonbond without a gun for a few summers, then the academy, then bonded officer for a few years before I moved up the chain.”
“Wasn’t 1985 the year of the accident on the Loose Cannon?” she asked, trying for a casual tone. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for, a chance to bring up the old case with someone who was there. Who better than a police officer?
The chief spun his chair around so she couldn’t see his face when he said, “Yes.”
“And you were a nonbond?”
“I was.”
He completed the spin and met her eyes. “That was a real shame.”
“The accident?”
“All of it,” he said.
“Were you part of the investigation?”
He shook his head. “No. I was low man in the pecking order. And ride accident falls under the state anyway. They came out and did the inspection, wrote it up.”
“Did they find out what caused the accident?”
He scratched his head.
She waited.
Jenny Knight’s parents had already told her it was ruled as undetermined. But Caroline didn’t want to show her hand. She was more interested in hearing what he knew.
“It was an accident, they said. Sometimes you never know exactly what goes on.”
Caroline slid the paper off the scanner, replaced it in the folder and put it back in the drawer. She took out the next folder, marked February 1974, and began scanning the thin file of documents.
Chief Walker got up abruptly and his chair rolled into the wall with a solid clunk. “Happened a long time ago.”
Caroline finished the February folder quickly. Not much action in the winter.
“The Loose Cannon was in the same place the new ride’s going, wasn’t it?” she asked, as if she were just killing time with conversation. “It’ll be nice to have something fun there instead of just concrete and benches.”
The chief grunted. “You seem awfully interested in this,” he said.
She smiled at him, trying to make her curiosity seem innocent. “I want to be an investigator someday. I have to practice asking questions.”
“And learn when it’s best to stop,” the chief said. He shuffled out to the dispatcher’s desk, said something to the officer on duty and left the station.
Caroline watched him leave and wondered how many questions she should risk asking. Was he right about learning when to stop? Or was he issuing a warning?
CHAPTER THREE (#ua32b0c63-fd2b-5923-8518-3d87215e3c13)
TRAFFIC DUTY. Not her favorite. There was no shade on the Point Bridge. There was no end in sight to the line of cars flowing across the bridge for a Saturday in the park. And why couldn’t people understand how to follow the orange traffic cones? Was it rocket science?
Last summer, she’d watched her partner bounce off the hood of a car whose driver wasn’t paying attention. That was an experience she’d never forget. Or repeat.
Caroline kept her eyes on the incoming cars, their drivers distracted by digging through purses and wallets for the parking fee or for their season pass. One more hour and she could hand this job to someone else and take up her post along the midway where she usually guarded the construction zone. A shade tree with her name on it was waiting for her.
A heavy-duty pickup truck, loud diesel engine rumbling, pulled up in front of Caroline’s post near the tollbooth. The driver cut the engine. What was he doing? There was a line of cars a mile long behind him and he was blocking an entire lane.
She tried to give him the move-it-along look she’d been practicing, but bright morning sun reflected off his window and she couldn’t see his face.
The window slid down a moment later and Matt Dunbar rested his elbow on the frame.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “I can’t work unless I know you’re outside my construction fence keeping me safe.”
“I don’t always work in that zone,” she said. “Nobody likes traffic duty, so we have to take turns.” She approached his truck so she wouldn’t have to shout over the traffic noise. “You have to move along. You’re blocking a lane.”
Matt drew his eyebrows together, erasing his easy smile. “Seems dangerous out here with unpredictable drivers. You don’t know what they’re thinking.”
Caroline crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head.
“I know,” he said. “Like me.” He reached onto the floor of his truck and picked up an orange hard hat. “At least put this on, just in case.”
