Detective Sergeant Kathryn Aneesha Miles slammed her foot on the brakes and felt her body recoil, the seatbelt digging taut and tight into her chest. The car came to a shuddering halt, inches away from a zebra crossing.
She had not seen the walker. Her body had reacted unconsciously to something her eyes had not yet fully registered. He had been right in her dead spot directly behind the pillar dividing the windscreen from her driver-side window. A car horn beeped and onlookers stared. Sickening heat rose through her body and she felt light-headed at the thought of what could have been.
The pedestrian, a young man in a worn and paint-splattered hoodie and work pants that marked him as a tradie, death-stared her before continuing along the crossing. She could feel the outrage of the bystanders. A mother in immaculate office clothes herded her rugged-up offspring away from the road and waited pointedly for the car to pass. Kate drove on, rigid at the wheel, her eyes fixed ahead, not meeting the stares of the passers-by. Stopping the car at the first opportunity, she fought a wave of nausea.
Her hands shook as she gripped the wheel, fighting to regain control, goosepimples prickling her skin. Outside along the verge, silvery-grey eucalyptus trees thrashed against a brisk late-August wind; a cold spell bearing uncharacteristically bleak winter conditions to the north coast. A political candidate on a poster for the upcoming council election grinned inanely down at her from an electricity pylon.
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