Storm warning, p.19
Storm Warning, page 19
“Be careful, please.” Jordan grabs my calf and squeezes it.
“I will.”
I make my way past the tangle of legs and feet again. Lloyd’s hushed voice reaches me before I emerge from the hallway.
“That’s it…just another second…”
I stop as soon as I see them.
Lloyd has Catalina rolled onto her side. He’s removed her diaper and is gently cleaning her.
My gaze briefly locks with Catalina’s. She sees me over Lloyd’s shoulder, the candlelight illuminating her eyes.
I step back, wishing more than anything that she hadn’t seen me.
I hear them finishing up.
“Almost done.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed such an act of pure devotion. And to come upon it in the midst of all of this chaos…it’s overwhelming. For a moment I’m transported back to my dad’s final days, his time in hospice. The nurses there showed him the most profound tenderness. Even though they didn’t know him.
I take a deep breath. I’ve got to keep it together.
“There you go,” Lloyd says on the other side of the wall. “Good as new.”
The mattress squeaks and the sheets rustle.
I hesitate a long moment, then emerge from the hallway.
Catalina’s in bed, the covers up to her chin. Lloyd is tying a plastic bag, which he tosses to the side. “Hello, Jake.” He squirts hand sanitizer onto his palms and rubs it in. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to look for Stanley.”
Lloyd’s forehead wrinkles. “In this mess?”
“He could be hurt. I’m going to see if he needs help.”
Lloyd crosses his arms, continues to look skeptical. “I don’t know, Jake. You may want to stay in. Stanley—well, he’s his own man.”
“Are you sure he didn’t say anything else before he left?”
Lloyd’s forehead remains wrinkled. “I don’t think so. Just what I told you.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Catalina’s hand comes out from under the sheet. It flops around clumsily on the nightstand. She knocks the bell to the floor, where it rings just once.
“Does she want to say something?”
Lloyd looks to Catalina, who wears an expectant look, like she does want to say something. She speaks, but her voice is so low I can’t hear it.
Lloyd leans in close, his ear almost pressed to her lips.
He straightens up, shaking his head. “No, it’s not that.”
Catalina looks like she wants to say more, but Lloyd doesn’t lean down again.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s something Stanley said before he left. He mentioned that the eye might be passing over us soon.” Lloyd looks at the ceiling, as if he can see through eight floors to examine the storm directly. “The truth is, it might be calm enough for Tyler’s boat to make it across to the mainland.”
“Will the eye really be that calm?”
“It can be. The current will still be significant, but the storm will have eased to almost nothing.” Lloyd shrugs. “A boat with an engine, even a small one, could make it. Maybe that’s what Stanley has in mind.”
“Is Stanley used to the water? Has he ever driven a boat?”
“No idea. It’s not hard to do, but in a strong current, you’d want someone with experience. Didn’t Stanley grow up in Oklahoma?”
“They have rivers and lakes there.”
“Well, that’s a horse of a different color. But maybe he is plotting his getaway. He did act like a man tying up loose ends. He gave back the gun. He apologized. Not like Stanley.”
I nod, taking it all in. “Of course, he could be lying out there on the landing, knocked down by the wind.”
“Could be. Or by the killer who did for Dallas.”
My eyes trail across the room to the door. It suddenly seems a lot less appealing to go out there—and it wasn’t anything I was that excited about in the first place.
“You don’t have to go, Jake,” Lloyd says, reading my mind. “You’re not getting paid to be a hero. You’re not wearing a cape.”
“You’re right about that. But it seems like somebody needs to do something.”
“Do you want the gun?” Lloyd reaches behind him.
“No, you hang on to it. In fact”—I move closer, speak low enough that only he can hear me—“if, you know, anything happens to me…” I nod my head toward the hall, toward Jordan and Mackenzie.
“Sure thing. I’m good at taking care of people. I never thought I would be, but…”
“When you’re forced to do something…”
“You can surprise yourself.”
Lloyd holds out a hand, and we shake. Rather formally.
“Okay, then,” I say. “Let’s hope I can come right back. With Stanley. And then let’s hope for that eye to get here.”
I cross the room, undo the chain, the lock, throw the door open, and step into the angry wind.
Fifty-Four
2:51 a.m.
Rain pummels my face like pellets of ice.
I struggle with the door. Lloyd has to come up behind me and shove it closed when I can’t close it myself.
I press my body against the building. Where the wind can’t push me any farther. And the rain reaches less of me. I use one hand to brace myself on the exterior wall, soaked with rain.
No one is on the walkway.
I shine my flashlight ahead, tracking the path from Lloyd’s apartment to Alaina’s. There’s no sign of Stanley. The wind, despite its strength, didn’t knock him to the ground.
A ripple of relief passes through me. Part of me feared finding him dead on the walkway right outside the apartment. At least there’s still hope.
My thoughts cycle like the churning storm. Did the Bennets have Dallas killed? Did they target Hazel and Ethan? Is Hazel’s stalker real?
My foot slips on the slick surface of the walkway, and I almost go down. My heart thrums with anxiety. I take a moment to make sure my footing is secure before I go on.
An unwanted thought drifts into my head. My mind travels back to the first moment we knocked on Lloyd’s door, Stanley and I, the moment we learned about Catalina’s existence. That was also when we learned the owners of the building had recently started charging Lloyd more for rent. He blamed Dallas.
Could Lloyd be responsible for Dallas’ death? Lloyd has a weapon, but Dallas didn’t die by gunshot. On the other hand, Lloyd isn’t a small guy. He could overpower any one of us if he set his mind to it.
Is it possible his love for Catalina led to an act of violence? Are love and violence two sides of the same coin?
I know how I’d feel if someone threatened Jordan or Mackenzie. It wouldn’t be pretty.
Something squawks to my left.
From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of an osprey hovering close to the walkway, thrown off course by the wind. After some frantic beating of its giant wings, which stretch nearly five feet across, the bird regains control and whooshes into the night, its screeching as loud as the wind.
Every creature, man and beast, is terrorized by the storm.
Once the bird is gone, I take in my immediate surroundings and see I’m right at Dallas’ door. I press my hand against the cool surface right below the sign that reads Manager. It’s hard to believe Dallas’ body rests on the other side of this door. If only he were behind the door watching a baseball game. Planning his new life in Chicago. Drinking a Jai Alai.
I want desperately to believe that’s what’s happening, but I know it isn’t. Reality has no interest in fulfilling wishes.
I remove my hand from the door, the rainwater running inside my collar and down my back, and continue down the walkway in search of Stanley.
Stanley was by my side all night, trying his best to help. But what do I really know about the guy?
He served in Vietnam, learned how to handle a gun there. And, as he put it, was trained in other things as well. Why did he go into Dallas’ apartment after Dallas was killed? He’d never been in there before.
He pulled Lloyd’s Glock on Tyler and wouldn’t settle for anything less than tying the man up and abandoning him in Alaina’s apartment. I had to dissuade him from sticking a gag in Tyler’s mouth. Hazel says she saw Stanley and the security guy—maybe Tyler, maybe someone else—together in the days leading up to Dallas’ death.
Was Hazel imagining things? Or did that really happen?
And if it did, was it just small talk she saw? Or the hatching of a nefarious plan?
Now Stanley is gone—having departed like a man leaving on a long trip, saying farewell to the life he once knew.
When I get closer to Alaina’s door, I hear a slapping sound. Something hitting the building over and over again. My fingers search my pocket for the passkey.
But I don’t need it.
When I get to Alaina’s door, it’s hanging wide-open, the wind blowing the door back and forth on its hinges like an out-of-control windshield wiper.
Fifty-Five
I take two steps back.
I need to get Lloyd. The gun. I shouldn’t go inside without the gun.
But I force myself to stop and think this through.
The wind picks up, pushing against my back like one of those industrial fans on full power. I’m not sure I could make it back to Lloyd’s even if I tried. At least not without expending a lot of energy.
The most plausible explanation is that the door is open because Stanley is inside, doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing: checking on Tyler.
Or maybe Stanley isn’t inside the apartment, but the wind simply blew the door open.
Of course, other possibilities exist.
Someone has broken into the apartment, though I’m not sure what they’d want from Alaina, who was so broke she hadn’t paid her rent in months. She apparently had nothing to her name, not even a functional car.
But a looter wouldn’t know that.
I can stand out here in the wind and the rain. Or I can go in and find out what’s going on.
“Stanley?” I shout as loudly as I can. “Tyler?”
I creep forward, take a few tentative steps. Like a fool, I brought nothing to protect myself with except the flashlight. What did I think I was going to do? Gong someone over the head with it? Shine it in their eyes?
I edge my body around the doorjamb. “Stanley? Tyler?”
No response.
Tyler wasn’t far inside the door.
But he’s not saying anything. Not even cursing me.
It dawns on me what’s happened. And I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. Tyler worked his way loose from the restraints. He managed to get loose and ran—likely toward the dinghy—and Stanley went after him. For what purpose, I don’t know. The chances of getting hurt running around in the storm are even greater than the chances of getting hurt while piloting a dinghy across the Intracoastal during a hurricane.
But Tyler seems like a desperate man.
Made more desperate when we tied him up.
“I’m coming in,” I say even though I doubt anyone is inside.
I swing my body around the doorjamb, flashlight leading the way.
It picks up murky shapes. An overstuffed chair. Discarded fast-food wrappers. Clothes.
Tyler in his chair.
His chin resting against his chest.
The beam of light exposes the carnage. Blood clotted in Tyler’s thick dark hair. Blood running down the side of his face. Blood dripping off the end of his chin and onto his lap.
Tyler’s skin is ashen and waxy. He’s not moving, not at all.
“Shit,” I say out loud. “Shit, shit, shit.”
I spring forward, not bothering to see if Tyler’s assailant—Stanley?—is still in the room. I reach for Tyler’s wrist, press my fingers above the bindings that rendered him defenseless. For the second time tonight I check for the pulse of a battered human being.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My hand touches his neck.
Nothing at all.
“Good God.”
I helped tie this man up, left him here. And someone came along and killed him while he was completely defenseless.
A strangled cry of rage and helplessness pours out of my mouth. “Fuck!”
I’ve failed in so many ways tonight, failed to keep the people around me safe.
My cry is so loud, so visceral, that even above the storm I hear it echo off the walls of the small apartment, bouncing down the hallway to the bedroom and back to me.
It lingers in my ears.
“I’m sorry, Tyler,” I say to my lifeless audience. “Shit, I am so, so sorry.”
My cry reverberates again, but it sounds more like a choking cough.
I freeze in place next to Tyler’s body. Listen.
I hear screaming wind. Driving rain. Crashing waves.
And then…I hear it again. An anguished cough—like someone is choking—comes from the bedroom.
“Stanley?”
Why would Stanley still be here?
Did he just kill Tyler? Tyler’s body was warm to the touch.
It hasn’t been long, not long at all.
“Stanley?”
I aim the beam down the hallway to the open bedroom door.
Listening.
I hear the same noise again. The cough that sounds more like choking.
“Stanley? Is that you? Are you okay?”
An unseen force compels me forward. I care less about my own preservation than about learning what’s going on. And keeping the others safe.
I can’t lose anyone else.
As I approach the open bedroom door, an odor reaches me. Something you wouldn’t normally smell inside an apartment. Something muddy and dank. Earthy.
But not just earth—
“Stanley? Hello? Who’s there?”
Something almost like—
The beam illuminates a figure on the bed, covers pulled up to their chin. Clothes lie scattered on the floor. Wet, soaking, muddy clothes.
The beam finds a face. It’s young. Pale. A woman’s.
Her eyes pressed tight. She doesn’t seem aware of the light on her.
She coughs violently, a body racked by spasm.
Holy shit.
“Alaina?”
Fifty-Six
I place my hand against her forehead.
Clammy.
She turns her head away from me, but her eyes remain closed.
I scan her face, her head. She’s dirty, her hair wet and matted against her sickly pale flesh. But there are no obvious signs of injury. No cuts or bruises.
The rest of her body is covered by a beat-up Little Mermaid comforter, so I can’t see if anything else is wrong. I’m not even sure she’s dressed.
“Alaina? Can you hear me?”
“Mm-hmm…”
“Alaina?”
“Mm-hmm.” She turns her head back my way. Her eyelids flutter open. Then she squints against the brightness of the flashlight. “Who…”
I flip the light away. “It’s me, Alaina. It’s Jake. What happened?”
“Jake…I don’t know….”
“Alaina, we saw you try to drive across the causeway. The car went into the water. How did you get out?”
She remains silent a long time. Her eyes, brown and bloodshot, look glassy. I worry she’s lapsed into a semiconscious state again. Or has suffered a concussion.
But then the eyes open wide, as if she’s just remembered something.
“Oh, Jake.” Tears spill onto her cheeks. “The car…your car…Oh, I’m so sorry….” She pleads until the coughing starts again.
“You don’t need to apologize, Alaina. I don’t care about the stupid car. I care about you. I’m just so fucking glad you’re okay. You have no idea. Stanley and I saw you go into the water. We thought you were dead. And now here you are. How did you…I mean…the current…Are you hurt?”
Alaina cries softly, her body shaking beneath the covers. She’s always kept a steely wall up. This is the most emotion I’ve ever seen from her, which tells me how truly terrifying it must have been to go into the dark swirling depths of the Intracoastal in my shitty Hyundai. Of course it was terrifying.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She cries a little harder now. Everything in me tells me I need to pull her into my arms. That’s what I’d do with Mackenzie. But I don’t with Alaina. Would she want someone she doesn’t know to hold her?
I settle for putting my hand on her shoulder. It feels like cold comfort, but I’m not sure what else to do.
“I thought I was going to die.” She’s talking between sobs now. “I thought I was dead.” She pulls her hand out from under the covers. It’s tiny, smaller than Mackenzie’s. More like a child’s. She wipes her eyes. A nasty scrape nearly three inches long is slashed across the back of her hand. Her knuckles look red and raw. Mud and dirt encrust her nails. “I thought there was room to get by, but then the tires were slipping…. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was like a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry, Alaina. I’m so, so sorry.” The same words I said to Tyler. I swivel my head, instinctively looking behind me. Down the hallway and toward the rest of the apartment, where Tyler’s dead body remains beaten and tied in the chair. Is there anyone else here? “Can you tell me—”
“The water just…it poured over the windshield. Like the blackest night. Like I was sinking in ink…And then it came into the car. Fast…I could feel the car moving in the current like a boat…. I actually thought, I’m going to be swept out to the ocean…. I’ll be floating in the ocean in this crappy car…. But do you know what saved me?”
