Road Trip by Jan Fields

their things. It didn’t take long to see that everything inside was undisturbed.
    “Looks like we got here before they could steal anything,” Mary Beth said. “Even my MP3 player is still here in the front console—not that I paid all that much for it, but I’d definitely miss my music collection.”
    A police car arrived quickly, and an officer took down the details of what each woman had seen. Mary Beth mentioned that she thought the men had eaten in the hotel restaurant earlier, and the officer dutifully wrote that down.
    Then the policeman looked carefully at the lock on the driver’s side door. “I can see scratches around the lock. Would you check, please, to see if the car will lock?”
    When they saw that it would, the officer took Mary Beth’s cellphone number and promised to call her if they turned up anything on the car thieves. “We’ll send a car to drive through the parking lot a few times through the night. That should keep things quiet.”
    The women thanked them, and then made one last check to see that the car was locked.
    “You know, I think I’d like to take the box of Gram’s things back to the room with me,” Annie said. “I know that no one breaks into a car for needlework, but I’d just feel better.”
    “I can understand that,” Mary Beth said. “Besides, with what your grandmother’s work is selling for, someone would cheerfully steal it.”
    “Not that they’d know it was in there,” Kate said. “The box isn’t labeled or anything.”
    She opened the back, and Annie checked the box quickly. Everything was still inside. She knew it was silly to worry, but she still felt a rush of relief. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep if she hadn’t checked.
    “You know,” Kate said as she looked around the parking lot, “there are several cars that are much fancier than this one. I wonder why the men skipped them.”
    Mary Beth shrugged. “Maybe they thought a bigger vehicle would have more stuff in it. Or they saw Annie’s cardboard box and thought something valuable could be inside. Who knows?”
    Annie nodded, but somehow she wasn’t convinced. The keypad for the alarm was clear on the door, and the crooks clearly didn’t know how to disarm it. That meant whatever they did had to be done quickly, before anyone came outside to quiet the horrible car alarm. “Still, why go to a car that clearly had an alarm?” she asked.
    “Well, I guess if they were smart people, they wouldn’t be crooks,” Mary Beth said. “And if we’re smart people, we’ll grab the few hours sleep we have left.”
    The three women trooped back into the hotel. Stella stood up from the wing chair next to the lobby fireplace. She looked curiously at the three of them, but clearly wasn’t going to ask questions.
    “We scared them away,” Mary Beth said. “They didn’t steal anything.”
    “Oh, that’s a relief,” Stella said. “I saw the police car arrive.”
    “I don’t think the policeman had high hopes about catching the crooks,” Kate said as the women filed toward the elevator. The hotel manager hurried out from behind the front desk.
    “I’m so sorry you ladies had such a horrible experience,” he said. “I want to give you these vouchers for a free full breakfast at the restaurant in the morning.”
    “How nice,” Mary Beth said smiling. “So, nothing missing and free breakfast. At least we had a happy ending.”
    “I’ll be happier when I’m back in bed,” Kate said, yawning. “Nothing like ending our first day with an adventure.”
    As they headed to their rooms, Annie looked down at the cardboard box of Gram’s things and hoped the rest of the trip would be a little less adventurous.

6
    The next day passed uneventfully, though slowly. As the states grew larger, Annie missed that feeling of making rapid progress that came from changing states so quickly. Everyone stayed in good humor throughout the day, however, and they chatted pleasantly.
    Annie most enjoyed