Chapter 2
Biology Class
Day 2
Five minutes after the tardy bell rang, Dax Miller strolled into biology class, interrupting our teacher, Mr. Gray, in mid-sentence. He wore baggy jeans slung low at the hip, and a tight, black t-shirt. His hair, barely touching the tops of his ears, would almost be sexy, if it wasn’t Dax Miller. On a rocker in leather pants on a stage: yes. It would be sexy hair. Biology class: no.
“Thank you for joining us, Dax,” Mr. Gray remarked dryly.
“My pleasure, sir.” Dax shot him a lazy smile as he made his way toward his usual seat in the back.
“There’s been a change in lab partners,” Mr. Gray said. “Please take your new seat next to Ivy.”
Dax’s eyes found mine immediately, and I stiffened in my seat. I hadn’t been aware he’d even remembered my name for how little we’d ever interacted. After a moment’s hesitation, Dax changed course and moved languidly toward my desk, dropping into his seat with a sigh. Mr. Gray resumed his demonstration, and though I straightened and kept my eyes firmly forward, the picture of a model student, my mind was centered squarely on the body in the seat beside me.
Glancing over, I found that he had turned his head in my direction and was staring at me. Even when I met his gaze, he didn’t look away. Instead, he gave me a smile. The kind of smile that gives the impression that someone is laughing at you. My chin lifted as I looked back toward Mr. Gray. It was another long moment until he finally, blessedly, looked forward.
Apparently, when you wake up in a clinic, confused and having somehow crashed a golf cart into a private business, they send in the big dogs—unless, of course, you’re on a tiny island with little to no crime. Then they send in the only cop on the island, who just so happens to be Beau Palmer, an old friend from high school.
Which wasn’t mortifying in the least.
Within a half hour of waking, I had been poked, examined, and had blood extracted from my body for testing, all while being accused of being drunk or on something by my sweet father.
Even after I denied all of it.
Instead of asking how I was feeling or telling me how relieved he was that I hadn’t been hurt, he’d spent most of the morning pacing the hallway in the clinic on the phone, doing what he called damage control .
“I drank a Coke. Ask Cat. I was with her the whole time.”
“Then what happened?” Dad asked. “People ‘not on something’ don’t crash into buildings.” He held up his fingers in air quotes, causing my jaw to grow rigid.
“What building did I run into?”
“The mechanic’s shop. Crashed right through the huge glass entry and smashed into that big spinning Lego car.”
Suddenly, a few of the puzzle pieces clicked together. The mechanic. The sound of Dax’s voice. I leaned my head back onto my pillow. I crashed into Dax Miller’s shop. Apparently, he wasn’t making license plates in an orange jumpsuit somewhere.
“Remember him?” My dad’s piercing gaze locked onto mine. “ The kid with all the tattoos? I’ll bet you do. We’re going to have to pay out the nose to keep him quiet.”
Thankfully, soon after this, Beau the cop knocked on the door and sent my dad and Angela away so he could grab a statement. It took my brain a minute to get used to the idea of seeing Beau dressed as a cop. He was that classic tall, dark-haired guy that most girls on the island had been in love with. And I couldn’t blame them. He had a sweet, teasing smile that automatically put a person at ease—unless that person was being officially questioned by Beau the COP. Then it was much more difficult to relax. Between thoughts of Dax Miller and now Beau Palmer, it was like having a high school reunion from my nightmares.
After some small talk, he got down to business, leaning back in his chair. “Okay, I want you to tell me what happened last night in your own words, as far as you can remember everything.”
I filled him in on all my flight delays, my headache, and our walk along the beach.
“I was with Cat Keene almost the whole time. She can verify my non-existent alcohol intake.” I rubbed at the dull ache at my temples.
“You said you had a headache?” Beau looked down at his notes.
“Yeah.”
“Did you take anything for it?”
“Just some Tylenol.”
“When did you take the pills?”
I thought for a moment. “When I was on the beach with Cat.”
He nodded and scribbled more notes. “Other than the headache and being tired, did you feel off or strange at any other point during the evening?”
The whole night almost seemed a blur now. I had been so tired. But my limbs had gotten sluggish just after our walk. I remembered wanting to curl up and cry on the stairs leading up to the resort, but in my defense, there were a lot of stairs, so that attitude wasn’t necessarily sleep-related.
“When I returned from my walk on the beach. It seemed to get progressively worse from there.”
“Then what happened?” he continued, his chin resting in his hand, giving me his full attention.
“Angela gave me the keys to my dad’s golf cart, and I started driving to the house. From that point, I just have flashes of random memories.” I thought hard but still came up with a fuzzy picture. “I remember hearing a big crash and a loud voice swearing a lot.”
A slow smile carved across Beau’s face, crinkling the edges of his eyes. “That would be Dax.”
“So I gathered.”
He was quiet as he finished writing his notes. “So, most of what happened after you entered the golf cart is a blur?”
“Yeah.”
More scribbling in his notebook while I sat there feeling like a mouse in a cage while the scientists peered inside. I decided to ask my own questions. “Can you tell me what happened after that?”
“Yeah. Dax was working late at the shop, heard the crash, and came running in to see what happened. He called me immediately. Once he saw that your arms had gotten hit with some glass, he removed as much of it as he could with you swiping at him. He got cut a bit himself before he picked you up and moved you to a couch in the waiting room until I got there.”
I swallowed as I began to understand the havoc I had caused. It was also strange to think about Dax Miller touching me in that way. I blinked, forcing those thoughts to retreat. “Is he okay?”
“Who? ”
“Dax.”
“Oh. Yeah. He’s fine.”
“So, what…happens now?” I asked, playing with a loose string on my blanket.
He met my gaze. “Once we get the blood report, we’ll be able to make an official call.” He adjusted his position in his chair. “I do need to tell you that I took an inventory of the golf cart you were driving.”
“What does that mean?”
“As part of my job, I take everything I found inside and then photograph and document it. We do that so when they tow the vehicle, we have a record of what was inside.”
“Is the golf cart totaled?” My dad had bought it last year and would definitely not appreciate his luxury splurge wrecked.
“Not totaled, but it will be in the repair shop for a while. Your dad wants it ferried to the mainland to be worked on.”
Of course my dad wouldn’t have Dax fix the golf cart.
Why was Beau looking at me like he knew something I didn’t? I had nothing to hide. The most incriminating thing I had in my purse was a tampon.
He cleared his throat. “I found Ambien in your purse.”
I waited for a beat, confused. “It's a prescription. I got it a few months ago to help me sleep?—”
He held up his hands. “It's not a problem that you had it on you. I’m wondering if you could have mixed up the pills.”
My gaze settled on him in disbelief while my mind worked back to the evening before on the beach with Cat. It had been dark. I got stomachaches if I took any other type of pain pill except for Tylenol, so that’s what I always kept in my purse.
Except…I had taken some Ambien after a bout of stress-induced insomnia claimed my life for a short time when trying to line up a new job for next fall. I remembered bringing them with me on my trip to Atlanta to see my mom. Had I mistakenly left them in my purse? Could I have?— ?
Beau was watching me carefully as my face, no doubt, left very little by way of mystery. I hid my expression behind my hands and moaned.
It wasn’t a freak accident. I didn’t faint or pass out for any medical reason I couldn’t have foreseen. I drove behind the wheel after taking not one, but two, very high doses of a sleeping pill. The knowledge of this continued to build, until a hundred-pound weight pressed upon my back, threatening to crush me. I could have hurt someone. What if Dax had been in the room when I crashed inside? What if someone had been walking across the street? A child? I wouldn’t have seen them. My breath came in and out in short bursts as I tried to make sense of this.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I?—”
Beau held up his hands, probably trying his best to ward off the onslaught of tears we both could feel coming. “I don’t think anybody who knows you, Ivy, would ever think you’d do this on purpose. That’s what had me so confused. It sounds like it was an accident. Take a breath.”
I did what he said, pulling air into my lungs, in and out in a rhythmic pattern.
He continued, “It was a bad thing that happened, but it could have been a lot worse.”
I nodded, my head back in my hands, trying to take some comfort in his words and physically stopping myself from replaying worst-case scenarios in my head.
“What happens now?”
He scribbled a few more notes before pulling out an official police notepad and began scratching away at that. “I’m going to write you up a citation and submit this to the prosecutor.” He checked his watch. “Judge Baylor’s next day on the bench is Tuesday, so we’ll hope for a court date then.”
“Wait, what?”
He looked up at my tone, a question on his face .
“I thought you said it was an accident,” I said, the weight on my back now dropping like lead in my stomach.
“It sounds like it was.”
“Why do I have to see the judge?”
“Because you were driving under the influence and crashed into a private business.”
“Okay, but it was an accident, and I wasn’t drunk.” Did it seem like we were circling?
“Once we get the blood test back, confirming you didn’t have alcohol in your system, we’ll be able to prove that you weren’t drunk. But, either way, you were still driving under the influence of medication, and you were obviously impaired. That’s still a DUI.”
My heart dropped at the sound of those letters. Those three letters were found in newspapers and reports under a mugshot. A DUI was for criminals. Didn’t it require criminal intent ? Drinking and driving was something so black and white to me. A no-brainer. If you wanted to have a few drinks, call a cab or a friend to take you home. The Ambien was a mistake. I thought it was Tylenol. That could happen to anyone. I made a mistake. Do people get in trouble with the police because of mistakes ?
Pause.
Okay, I could maybe see the issue.
Panic bubbled up and out of my chest in heaves and bobs. I had just wanted to go home and sleep. One tiny bad decision shouldn’t have to cost me so much. If I shouted those words loud enough, could I get a re-do on last night?
I couldn’t meet with a judge on Tuesday. I was leaving. My exit for this island was set for Monday morning.
“Is there a fine I could pay or something? Just skip the judge. I’m sure he’s busy. I’ll talk with Dax and pay him for the windows.” The thought of talking with Dax gave me minor heart palpitations, but I’d figure it out. Anything to get out of here .
Beau hardly looked at me as he scribbled away, my immediate future currently in his hands.
“There’s a good chance the prosecutor will deem the judge non-negotiable,” he said with a helpless shrug. “The state of Florida has a no-tolerance policy for DUIs—even if it’s not alcohol-related. I’m sorry. It’s out of my hands.”
“My plane leaves Monday morning at ten.”
He stood, handing me the paper. “Your plane will probably still leave at ten. You just won’t be on it.” The words were soft, and his eyes were apologetic, but his policeman tone held zero room for argument.
I’ve heard tourists say that being on a small island for periods of time made them feel trapped. Being completely surrounded by a body of water certainly has the potential to mess with someone’s mind, but it was a feeling I had never understood. I loved the water. Though my family’s property wasn’t exactly beachfront, we were close enough that I used to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean through my open window. I had felt stifled at times. But that was mostly due to the environment in my own home, not because of the island. And I had never felt trapped.
Until this moment.
“I liked you a lot better when you weren’t a cop,” I said, flopping back against the pillow, trying to process my new reality.
“I get that a lot.” He flashed me a smile brimming with sympathy. “Someone will be in touch, Ivy. But until then, you’re not going anywhere.”