The Demon Pool by Richard B. Dwyer

Jim, Kimberly was an enigma. Even while she
flirted with him over coffee, she had offered to talk to Linda on his behalf
and reminded him of Jeff’s offer. However, Linda had been clear about how she
felt and Jim definitely needed a break from their drama. He had smiled and
shook his head. He gave Kimberly a simple “no,” while inside his head his mind
shouted, “Hell no.”
    Kimberly had returned Jim’s smile and gave him
her cell phone number in the event that he changed his mind on either
proposition. He left the resort wondering if the cell phone number might be a
third, unspoken deal.
    Jim slowed as he approached the accident from the
northbound lanes and killed the Charger’s siren. He saw the rear end of a
silver Corvette protruding from the back of a tractor-trailer.
    “Okay, that can’t be good,” Jim said.
    He made a U-turn at a median crossover a short
distance beyond the accident. Coming back around, he stopped the Charger next
to the rear end of the trailer. He notified dispatch that he had arrived,
grabbed his campaign hat and flashlight, and stepped out into the still warm,
South Florida night.
    Placing the hat on his head, Jim walked around to
the rear of the Charger. He pulled out several flairs from the trunk. One by
one, he dropped them in a taper, blocking the lane behind his car. He stood
still for a moment looking at the Corvette.
    The force of the impact had left the Corvette’s
cockpit flush against the bottom of the trailer. Broken safety glass and parts
from the windshield frame littered the asphalt. The trailer was old and it
looked as if the under ride guard had failed completely, allowing the trailer
to swallow two-thirds of the Corvette.
    Jim squatted next to the driver’s door. The
door’s cracked fiberglass panel bulged slightly where the impact had bent the
frame. Jim tried the door anyway. It did not budge.
     Although the crash had killed the Corvette’s
engine, small noises emanated from the engine compartment as damaged and broken
parts cooled. Jim reached out with his flashlight and tapped the driver’s door.
He listened for a moment and tapped the door again.
    “Hey, anybody in there?”
    Nothing. Not that Jim expected an answer. He was
not looking forward to what he would see when they pulled the Corvette out. The
sirens of the EMS vehicles screamed from the south coming up from Naples. Their
lights flashed in the darkness. A man walked toward him from the front of the
tractor-trailer. He looked to be somewhere around sixty, maybe a bit more,
medium height, with a worried look on his face.
    “I am Pedro de la Garza,” he said. He pointed
toward the front of the tractor-trailer. “That is my truck parked in front of
the semi. I have two workers with me. They are sitting in the truck, but they
were asleep when the accident happened.”
    Jim had a knack for sizing people up quickly and
he was seldom wrong. De la Garza looked to be a working man with an honest, if
worried, face.
    “You saw the accident?”
    Pedro nodded as Jim pulled a small notebook and
pen out of his shirt pocket.
    A county heavy-rescue fire truck, followed by an
ambulance, passed by and then turned back south at the crossover, two hundred
yards beyond the accident. The EMS vehicles pulled up behind Jim’s car,
avoiding the flares. Six firefighters jumped from the rescue truck and two
ambulance EMTs soon joined them. The engineer from the heavy rescue truck
approached Jim.
    “We heard this was a bad one.” He shrugged and
looked around. “I don’t see any blood or body parts. Just the one vehicle. Not
counting the trailer, of course.”
    “I think it’s bad enough for whoever was in the
Corvette,” Jim said.
    Pedro spoke up, “I think there were two.”
    As Pedro spoke, a wrecker passed, its amber
lights flashing. It turned around at the crossover and pulled up behind the
tractor-trailer.
    “Two? Two people in the Corvette?” Jim asked.
    “Two cars. I did not see inside the Corvette.
But, I