Chapter 4
“Hey,
what’s taking Nick so long?” Kevin asked, glancing at his watch. “How far away is that video store?”
“Just
about ten minutes away,” Brian said.
“But you know how picky Nick can be.”
“Yeah,”
AJ said. “He’s probably still trying to
decide what movies to get. Don’t worry,
Kev, he’ll be back soon.”
Kevin
nodded, settling back on the couch to wait, trying to ignore the strange
feeling deep inside him, the feeling that something wasn’t right.
***
“Shit,
here comes the police,” Shawn said to Marissa, his eyes widening as a squad car
approached, its lights flashing brightly.
He scooted from his perch on the hood of his car as the police car
stopped, and two officers climbed out.
“How
many people are injured?” one of them asked, as they both hurried over to Shawn
and Marissa.
“Two,”
Marissa replied. “But one’s already
dead. Luke,” she said sadly, motioning
to the backseat of the car, where Kaelyn still sat, sobbing and cradling her
dead boyfriend’s body in her arms.
“And
the other?” the officer asked.
Shawn
nodded to the other car. “The driver of
that one’s hurt pretty bad, I think,” he said.
“W… we didn’t know what to do.”
The
officer nodded and hurried off towards the other car. The other officer remained behind with Shawn
and Marissa.
“My
name’s Officer Kennel. Can I get your
names, please?” he asked.
“Shawn
Roberts,” Shawn replied.
“And
I’m Marissa Cohen,” Marissa said.
The
officer nodded. “Can you explain what
happened?” he asked.
“We…
uh… we were just driving along, and that car came out of nowhere. I… I didn’t even see it until it was too
late. I tried to swerve out of the way,
but it hit us,” Shawn stammered.
“Was
it in the wrong lane?” Kennel asked.
“Um…” Shawn looked to Marissa for help.
“No,”
she said softly. “We were in the wrong
lane.”
He
studied them for a moment, then asked, “Kids, have you been drinking tonight?”
Marissa
felt her face grow red. “Well…”
“No,
sir,” Shawn interrupted, his eyes focusing on the ground.
Marissa
glanced at him quickly, surprised that he would just lie like that. “Officer, I did have a few drinks,” she
admitted, not wanting to get in even more trouble for lying to him, as Shawn
had done.
He
nodded. “How old are you?” he asked.
“Eighteen,”
she said, glancing down.
“And
do you know what the legal drinking age is?”
“Twenty
one,” she replied, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
He
nodded. “I want you to go over by the
police car over there for a little bit, okay?”
She
nodded, hurrying over to the car. There,
she stood, watching as Kennel continued to talk to Shawn.
“So,
sir, you’re telling me you haven’t had any alcohol to drink tonight?” Kennel
asked.
“Yes,
sir. No alcohol,” Shawn confirmed.
“Okay. I need you to do a few things for me then,”
Kennel said.
“Okay…”
Shawn replied slowly.
Kennel
took him by the shoulder and led him to the side of the road. As he did so, two ambulances pulled up, and
some paramedics hopped out. “Over
there,” Kennel instructed one group, pointing to Nick’s car. They nodded and hurried over, while the
others went to Shawn’s car.
Kennel
turned back to Shawn. “Okay, sir, you
see this line here?” he asked, pointing down to the white line marking the edge
of the road. Shawn nodded. “I want you to walk straight down it, one
foot in front of the other.”
“Sure,”
Shawn said, relieved. This would be
easy. He started down the line,
surprised when he discovered it was a lot harder than he had expected to stay
on the line. He kept losing his balance
and staggering. “My balance has never
been to good,” he said sheepishly to Officer Kennel when he reached the end,
feeling the need to defend himself.
Kennel
said nothing. He pulled a small
flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on.
“I need to take a look at your eyes,” he said, holding the light up to
Shawn’s eyes. “Follow the light with
your eyes, but don’t move your head.”
Shawn did so, wondering what the officer was looking for.
When
that was done, Kennel pulled another piece of equipment out. “This is a breathalyzer,” he said. “I need you to breathe into this for me,
okay?”
“Uh…
sure,” Shawn said. Shit, his mind
screamed. He knew this was a device for
measuring his blood alcohol concentration.
His heart sank, knowing that once he had breathed into it, the officer
would know how much he really had drunken that night.
But,
knowing he couldn’t refuse to do the test, he breathed into the
breathalyzer. Kennel stared at it for a
moment, waiting for the results to show up.
When they did, he looked up at Shawn, his eyes narrowing. “Son, your BAC is at .13. The legal limit for people of legal age is .08. According to the Zero Tolerance law, the
limit for minors is nothing.
You’re under arrest.”
***
