“I know.” Grinding her teeth together, Ellie chuffed out a laugh. “They were just doing their jobs.”
“Will you step out of the car, please?” Brett’s voice at the window made them both jump.
“What? Why?”
“What’s going on?” Jayne unbuckled this time before leaning across the seats. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t make me ask again, Ellie.” Brett pulled open her door, then stood with one hand resting on the top, waiting.
Jayne had already scrambled out and around the car before Ellie had her feet flat on the pavement. Traffic was fairly light on this stretch of the highway, but in small-town Newport Ridge, almost every car that went by was driven by someone Ellie knew, and every single person honked and waved as though the flashing lights on the patrol car weren’t even there.
“What are you going to do,” she asked, half-joking. “Arrest me?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said. “But I haven’t ruled it out, either.”
“Brett!” Jayne positioned herself between Ellie and the traffic, as if that would somehow shield her from the gawkers. “What the hell’s going on?”
He didn’t answer, just waited until Ellie was out of the car, then clicked the door closed behind her and directed them to the front of the car, out of the way of traffic, before holding out her registration papers. Her license, on the other hand, he kept tucked against his open notebook.
“Do you know your license has been suspended?”
“What?!” Jayne’s eyes just about bulged out of her skull. “Ellie!”
“No, it hasn’t.” With an exaggerated sigh, Ellie half-nodded, half-shrugged. “They sent a letter a couple months back saying something about me being on probation, but it never said I couldn’t drive.”
“And then you were cited six weeks ago for operating a motor vehicle at a rate of speed higher than—”
“I was speeding!”
“—the posted limit. And any violations incurred while you’re on probation subject you to an automatic driving prohibition. The letter was mailed a couple days ago.” He turned slightly, spoke quietly into the squawking mic clipped near his shoulder, then turned back to her. “We’re giving you the benefit of the doubt that you haven’t received the notification yet—otherwise you’d be looking at a twenty-three-hundred-dollar fine and another ten points.”
“Did you get this letter?” Jayne’s jaw hung open, making her look like one of those freaky giant orange fish down at the pet store.
“Of course not!” And then, to reinforce it, Ellie stared straight back at Brett. “Check my mailbox if you’d like.”
For a second there, she almost thought he was going to take her up on it, but then he quirked his left eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Great. Can I go, then?” Flashing her most exasperated “what the hell” look, she started around the car, but he shifted over and pressed the side of his thigh against it, blocking her way.
“No.”
“If the letter hasn’t arrived, then I haven’t been officially notified. Ergo, I’m still good to drive.”
“Wrong. Regardless of whether or not you’ve received the letter, it’s in the system. Ergo, consider yourself officially informed and notified.”
Oh, how she’d love to tell Dudley Do-Right exactly where he could stick his “informed and notified,” but…ugh…she couldn’t afford the twenty-three-hundred-dollar fine, so she clamped her mouth shut, inhaled a long breath, and jammed her hands down deep in her pockets.
“All right, then, Poncherello, what am I looking at? What do I have to do to get it back?”
His mouth tightened for a second before he spoke.
“Mandatory three-month suspension and you’ll need to complete—and pass—a safe driver’s course.”
“Three months?” she bellowed. “Are you on crack? I can’t go three months without my car—I have a business to run! A business that helps pay your—”
“Ellie!” With that sharp look and harsh tone, Jayne would have made one hell of a good cop herself.
Damn it! Most of the stock for her boutique was shipped to the bus depot, so how was she supposed to pick it up now? And what about the trade show in Vancouver next month? She did almost half her fall ordering there and always came home with her trunk full of samples.
“You’re not going to impound her car, are you?” Jayne asked, her voice breaking through the buzzing in Ellie’s head.
“Not unless we find her driving it again while she’s suspended.”
“She won’t.” It was hardly necessary for Jayne to say it like that, grinding the words out between her teeth as if she needed to make a point with Ellie. “What about today? Are you going