Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum Series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
Challenge: 100_Prompts Challenge, table 100B
Characters: Stephanie, minor Eddie
Rating: Suitable for all ages
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Over The River...
by TT

You know that old song “Over The River And Through The Woods”?

I don’t think this is what they meant.

My name is Stephanie Plum. I’m a bounty hunter with a tendency to lose cars. I’ve had cars explode, catch fire, be stolen, crash into things, had other crash into them, die of engine failure and a bunch of other things.

Drowning would be a first.

With any luck, I wouldn’t be drowning with it.

Why would my car be drowning?

Well, it was currently hovering half-over the side of a bridge, teetering back and forth.

If you thought these sorts of things only happened in the movies, guess again. I just know that if I ever took the time to write down my misadventures, I could sell them to Hollywood for big bucks.

But that doesn’t help my current situation.

Right now I’m praying my skip, who is handcuffed and unconscious in the back seat, stays that way and that nothing happens to disturb the delicate balance that is keeping my car from plummeting to the not-so-warm waters below.

I would give 911 a call, but my cell phone was on the floor by my feet and I wasn’t about to lean forward to get it.

Of course, I also knew there were other people on the bridge.

See, as I was driving back to the station, I found myself watching in horror as two cars in front of me failed to realize they were on a collision course with each other.

The crash was somewhat spectacular. Airbags deployed in both cars as hoods crumpled into want-to-be accordions.

I was already slowing down so I wouldn’t become part of the mess when my skip decided to try and escape.

Naturally, he was uncoordinated enough that he smacked me in the back of the head with his elbow.

I’m not entirely clear on what happened next, but I remember spinning, hitting something, bouncing around and hitting something else before hearing a sick sort of grinding sound and coming to a stop.

Now, here we were.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, I wasn’t surprised to see the number of people gathered behind me gawking and on their phones.

I knew that some of those people were already spreading the story through the Berg and that my mother would be ironing in no time at all. Then she would call and I’d get the bad daughter lecture. “Martha Sims’ daughter Eilene never has her car balanced precariously over a river, why does mine? Can’t you think of my poor nerves? When are you going to grow up, get married and have children like a normal person?”

Almost right on queue, my phone started ringing.

No way was I going to answer it. I might not get pineapple upside down cake for a few months, but at least I wouldn’t be putting my water treading skills to use either.

I was still staring at the phone when I felt the front of the car suddenly rise.

There was no way I could stop the small shriek that escaped as I realized the car was moving.

It took a few minutes to realize that the car was not falling forward to the water, but headed backward to safety.

The horrible grinding/shrieking sound came again and I realized it was a combination of the undercarriage scraping against the edge of the bridge and the railing that had broken scraping the sides of my car.

I didn’t care. I just wanted out of there and promised to kiss whoever it was who was dragging me to safety.

When I felt the front tires thud onto the bridge, I couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that escaped.

I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

Eddie’s familiar face appeared at my door. “Just hold on, Steph. We’re going to need the jaws to pry the doors open,” he explained.

“Thanks, Eddie,” I said, or tried to say. Words didn’t seem to want to come out, so I just nodded. He smiled at me as well.

Naturally, now was when my skip decided to begin to come to. At least, that was my assumption based off of the groans I heard coming from the back seat.

Before I could say anything or turn to check on my skip, my phone rang again.

Now that I no longer had the excuse of dangling over a rushing river, I leaned down and grabbed the ringing device. “Hello?”

“Stephanie Plum! This is your mother!”

She rattled on saying exactly what I knew she would and asking over and over again “Why me?”

I tuned her out as I watched the people outside the car. The rescue workers appeared and asked me to move to the passenger side of the vehicle. I interrupted my mother’s tirade and let her know I had to go before hanging up.

It was just another day in my life.

End

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