"You're from Los Angeles, huh!"

"Obviously," she sulked.

He leaned in again, his eyes flicking from her to Amy, then back. "It true about all you California girls, that you're all sluts!"

"Fuck off," she said resentfully.

He snickered and straightened up.

"Out of the car, baby," he said.

"Why!"

"Why! This ain't Los Angeles, baby. We ain't gonna give you a ticket and then have you tear it up an' drive outa state again."

"But I'm not. We're going to live here, in some place called, uhm Grandon."

"You say. Far as I know you're outa state. That means you gotta come back to the station until you cough up the two hundred dollar fine."

"I wasn't going eighty-five!" she protested.

"You say," he grinned. "Out."

She cursed under her breath and opened the door, then got out of the car. He gripped her arm and turned her around, then pulled her hand behind her.

"Hey!" she cried.

"Gotta handcuff all prisoners," he said. "Thems the rules."

"But she was only speeding," Amy protested, on her knees on the seat now, looking out the side.

"You shut yer yap, girl," the man growled, pointing his fingers at her. "Don't you go inferferin' with a officer in the performance of his duties."

"Why can't just drive there behind you?" Meghan demanded.

"Cause I say so."

"Well what am I supposed to do!" Amy demanded.

"Grandon's not far," Meghan said. "Go and find Mom and Dad and get some money."

"But I only have a learners permit," Amy protested.

The fat officer jerked Meghan around and marched her back to a beat up Chevy with bars on the rear windows. He jerked open the door and roughly shoved her inside, then got in the front.

He stomped on the gas and the car screeched out onto the road, then did a U-turn and headed back the way he'd come. Meghan looked out the rear window until Amy and the jeep disappeared from sight.