And after plenty of feedback, votes, and a few pitches of your own—we have a winner.
Randy Pike had once envisioned a different kind of life for himself, one that did not involve standing in a musty cart barn, cruddy cup of coffee in hand, shuffling side to side to keep warm on this frostbitten morning. It was 5:06 AM and in front of him were exactly 29 less golf carts then had existed the night before.
Next to him, Ernie Baxter, the course superintendent, chuckles, "Welp, we're kicking ourselves now for not ponying up for those GPS enabled carts, eh?"
Randy breathes deeply, the last thing he needs right now in his life is a joker. "Ernie, the last thing I need in my life right now is a joker."
Ernie chuckles again, "You can take Randy out of the cops, but you can't take the cop out of the Randy."
Randy closes his eyes, "Jesus, Ernie."
Ernie, oblivious (or maybe not) to his effect on Randy, "Twenty nine carts. Not one, not two, not even thirty. Twenty-nine. Peculiar, eh?"
Randy sighed and rubbed his temples, he had faced far more "peculiar" challenges—real crimes with real criminals. But here he stood, a security guard for a sleepy country club in Canada. And today, his case was 29 missing golf carts and the closest thing he had to a partner was Ernie.
And yet, as much as Randy wanted to shrug it off and return to his ill-fated coffee, something in the pit of his stomach twisted. There was something about the way those carts were simply gone that made this feel off. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew one thing: this was going to be a long day, filled with questions he didn’t want to ask and answers he definitely wouldn’t like.
End of Chapter 1
