Found Missing: Day 19

 Word Count: 114,101

Summary of Events:

Dallas was one of several RCMP officers who attended the funeral of Mrs. Hardwick; unfortunately Dallas was discovered and yelled at by Mrs. Hardwick's second daughter, but S/Sgt. Colvin told her that she had no right to blame Dallas, of all people. A couple days later Dallas was back at work on a speed trap, but going to grab lunch when he was approached by Mrs. Hardwick's second son, Kim, who asked him if he'd been told about the wall in the basement, pleased that his suspicion about the basement had been vindicated, Dallas went with Kim to find out which wall it was before telling Det. Sgt. Nash and heading outside to eat his lunch while waiting for Det. Sgt. Nash and others to arrive . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

He followed Kim up the stairs and out the back door before heading toward his SUV, hearing, as he walked, the sound of a nearby vehicle slowing down.

Coming past the corner of the house to where he could see the full driveway, Dallas startled to see a sporty red SUV pulling into the driveway, behind whose wheel was a dark-haired man.

Immediately alarm came over the man’s face and he started reversing.

Dallas ran over to his SUV as the man reversed out of the driveway and took off toward Highway 4.

Climbing into his SUV, Dallas started it and took off, flicking on his lights and sirens while putting his foot to the floor, as he was sure the SUV ahead of him had done, since it was already a long ways ahead of him.

“Sorry Hammy, I’m not getting back to the trap anytime soon, I am pursuing a suspicious man in a red Nissan SUV,” Dallas said over the radio as he gained on the SUV, which was stopped at the intersection with Highway 4 and signalling left, only to turn right — probably because he saw Dallas gaining on him quickly and the traffic coming from the north was too close for him to chance it while nobody was coming from the south.

“Why is he suspicious?” someone asked.

“I was at Mrs. Hardwick’s property with her son, he was showing me something in the house, and when we came out this SUV pulled into the driveway, only to panic at the sight of me and take off,” Dallas replied. “He’s heading north on the Four.”

Dallas took the corner wide and fast in hopes of gaining back what he’d lost once the SUV had turned and accelerated. He would be able to catch up to the SUV, and probably be able to use his PIT bars to, well, execute the PIT manoeuvre.

The man ahead of him passed slower traffic ahead of him recklessly, prompting several vehicles coming from the north to swerve out of the way to avoid colliding with him, while those same vehicles he passed pulled over quickly for Dallas’ flashing lights and shrieking siren, allowing him to maintain speed without inducing nausea.

Dallas saw the blinking amber lights of a tractor ahead, likely someone who was doing hay harvesting, as nothing else was suitable to be harvested yet, and watched as the SUV pulled out to pass it right into the path of a semi.

Just as swiftly the SUV driver swerved to drive on the opposite shoulder while the semi driver blasted his rail-engine-like horn in indignation at the recklessness.

Instead of making the tractor pull over, Dallas engaged the four-wheel drive on his SUV and took off to the right-hand side of the road, flying past the tractor on the grass and climbing back onto the road to find the red SUV was still in front of him, and had regained its place in the appropriate lane.