Parking Space Vigilantes

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Stacy calls herself a Parking Space Vigilante. As a member of the city's program to ticket able-bodied drivers who park in handicapped spaces, Stacy believes she serves as protector for her small corner of the world from the insensitive, the stupid, and the just plain ignorant.

But when she discovers her nemesis, the driver of a Suburban who insists on parking illegally every time he comes to her neighborhood, Stacy vows to stop him…if he doesn't stop her first.

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch's crime stories are exceptional, both in plot and in style."

—Mystery Scene Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386127628

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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Parking Space Vigilantes

Parking Space Vigilantes

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing Inc.

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Parking Space Vigilantes

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Parking Space Vigilantes

Stacy crouched beside the Dumpster and watched as the dark blue Suburban, license number AOB 445, made its way through the crowded parking lot. She couldn’t see the driver behind the tinted glass, but she knew he had to be searching for her, knew he had to be watching.

She was wearing her jogging shorts and her Bay to Breakers T-shirt. Her ticket book was in her fanny pack, along with her pen and her I.D. She clutched a bottle of Gatorade, and waited.

The faint odor of rotted meat blew across her. The nearby Price Choppers wasn’t supposed to use this Dumpster, but often did when theirs was full. She hated those days. Usually she could crouch here, waiting for the Suburban, and smell only the paper waste from the various storefronts in the strip mall. Today was clearly different.

The Suburban slowed in front of the Mongolian barbecue, and her breath caught in her throat. There was an open parking space—narrow, but possible. Maybe, after fifteen tickets, he had finally learned.

Then the Suburban swerved and took its usual place in the handicapped parking space right in front of JoLe’s Stitch and Sew. The passenger side faced Stacy and, although she could hear the driver’s side open, she couldn’t see the person who got out.

Not that she was supposed to. The city’s police department had instructed the volunteers not to get into confrontations with drivers. It’s dangerous enough for police, Chief Danvers had said when he was introduced to the new volunteers. You’re untrained. It had been obvious that he didn’t approve of the new program, mandated by the Legislature, which allowed volunteers to write $250 citations to any able driver who parked in a handicapped spot.

But the moment Stacy had heard of the program, she’d signed up. She went through the training, which included a daylong self-defense course, and she had been on the street ever since. In the past five months, she had issued seventy citations, most of them spotted on her morning run.

Of the seventy, fifteen had gone to good old AOB 445. He had become her private nemesis. There had to be a number of citations at which even 445 would pay