"Where did you find the batteries?"
"In a box at the back of one of the cabinets." She worried her bottom lip. "They're not new. I don't know how old they are or how long they'll work."
"Long enough to let us know what's happening, I hope. Did they give the weather forecast or say where they're concentrating rescue efforts?"
"Not yet."
He pulled out a chair and straddled it, his face so intent that a flutter of panic hit Carly's stomach. He was more worried than he'd let show earlier. She attempted a swift mental calculation, trying to compute how far the river had risen during the night, how far it still had to go before it reached the house. She gave up in frustration after the second or third attempt to divide hours into feet. There was a reason she'd loaded her college schedule with liberal arts and pre-law courses. Some people called it math avoidance. Carly called it math anathema.
"Residents of Wetumpka are still without water or electricity," the announcer informed them. "Firefighters have put out the blaze sparked by shorting electrical systems last night at the regional high school. Homeowners threatened by rising water are cautioned to turn off all electrical systems and throw the circuit breakers."
"Flood and fire," Carly murmured. "As if one wasn't bad enough."
"Quiet!"
McMann took charge of the volume control. The announcer continued.
"... air and river patrols are working those sectors in Autauga and Lowndes counties where the worst flooding occurred. According to the director of emergency services, the farms below the Jones Bluff Reservoir had already been evacuated. Rescue officials state that there are always a few who ignore the evacuation order, however. Stranded residents should display a distress signal—a red or other bright garment tied to a pole or television antenna is suggested—and be prepared to take to upper stories, if necessary."
The announcer's voice took on a solemn intonation.
"With more storms moving in from the north, it could well become necessary. Forecasters are predicting rain throughout the afternoon and early evening."
"Hell!"
"At this time, we'll return to our regularly programmed broadcast. Stay tuned for updates. We will, of course, interrupt with any new bulletins from the governor or the director of emergency services."
McMann clicked off the power and pushed out of his chair. "We'd better save the batteries. Come on, Carly, let's get this stuff upstairs."
She didn't need any further urging. Snapping open a paper sack, she headed for the cupboard. She dumped the contents of two shelves into bags when her worried gaze flitted to the window above the sink. Sure enough, the clouds scudding low across the sky looked noticeably blacker than they had before. Suddenly, she froze. "Oh, no!"
Her low, muted cry spun Ryan around. "What? What's wrong?"
"It's gone."
"What?"
"The barn. It's gone."
He crowded beside her at the sink, his black brows slashing together as he stared at the empty stretch of water. Through her almost paralyzing dismay, she sensed the tension that coiled through his body.
"We didn't even hear it go," she whispered.
The ragged edge to her voice brought Ryan's head around. He saw the way her skin stretched tight across her cheeks, the hollowness in the eyes that stared across the water. Shoving his own, gut-clenching thoughts aside, he summoned a lazy smile.
"I'm not surprised, given what occupied us for the past half hour or so. The house could've gone, too, and I wouldn't have noticed."
"Oh, that's reassuring to know!"
His smile slipping into a grin, he tucked a strand of tangled auburn behind her ear. "The sun could have exploded, Carly, and I wouldn't have noticed. The sky could have dropped into the sea. The..."
She gave a little huff that came close enough to a laugh to satisfy Ryan. "If you're trying to say that the earth moved for you, I get the message."
He waited. "Well?"
"Well what? Oh."
The fear that had darkened her eyes a moment ago was harnessed now, put in check for a few moments, a few hours perhaps. Ryan only hoped they had that long.
"All right," she admitted with a cool lift of one brow, "it moved for me, too."
He lifted a hand, slid his palm around to cup the back of her neck. "Want to make it shift again?"
Her head cocked. Those cinnamon brown eyes took his measure, stripped away the forced playfulness, found whatever she was looking for.
"Yes."
The soft reply had Ryan wondering what had happened to the air in the kitchen. One moment, he was breathing. The next, he was sucking for oxygen. He still hadn't found it when she pushed up on her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips.
"Let's get this stuff upstairs, and we'll talk about it."
"Talk, hell."
She was the one with the grin now. "I'll take the grocery sacks. You bring your cats."
"They're not my cats. Hey! Carly!" He snatched up the box with the kittens, two more plastic water jugs, and the radio. "They're not mine!"
They were on the third trip ferrying supplies when McMann went still. Her arms full, Carly turned in surprise to find him frozen halfway up the stairs.
"I hear something."
He dumped his armload on the stairs and raced back down. Carly unloaded hers and scrambled over the bags after him. The screen door was bouncing on its hinges when she got to the kitchen. She rushed outside, her heart hammering, and cut through the pecan trees that surrounded the house to what was left of the sloping front yard. There she heard the faint drone that had caught McMann's ear.
"It sounds like a plane. A small one. Single engine. Coming from... Yes! There!"
She pointed to a speck that was either a very large hawk or a very small plane making circles in the darkening sky.
"Looks like a spotter aircraft," Ryan muttered. "Too light for rescue."
"It's probably a Civil Air Patrol bird. Their national headquarters is at Maxwell. They've probably got the whole staff in the air in addition to the local wing."
She gnawed on her lower lip, willing the speck to grow larger, swing closer. It did neither.
"They're too far away," she wailed. "They won't see us or the S O S on the roof."
"They'll see this." His jaw tight, Ryan tore open the slender box of traffic flares he'd snatched from the kitchen table on his way out and extracted one. "Here, hang on to these. Don't let them get wet."
Carly clutched the box to her chest, breathing in cordite and heavy, still air while he yanked at the tape and twisted off the cap. It took several scratches of the cap against the exposed end to ignite the flare. Within seconds, the narrow red stick was spitting bright sparks.
"There should be a metal holder in the box," Ryan told her, keeping the flare at arm's length.
"Here!"
He slipped the holder onto the cylinder and ordered her back. "This thing could explode and ignite the other flares."
Hastily, Carly backed away from the shower of sparks. Her heart in her throat, she searched for the distant aircraft while McMann waved the incandescent wand in a slow half circle. To her dismay, she couldn't find the plane again against the dark clouds.
She could hear it, though, that faint, steady drone audible even over the spit and sizzle of the flare. It was up there, dodging the clouds she guessed. Chewing on her lip in earnest now, she checked the box to see how long the flare would burn.
Fifteen minutes! Surely, the pilot would bank his aircraft, look this way, spot the bright white/red light within the next fifteen minutes!
The time slipped by, one agonizing minute after another. Two, three, five, each one feeling like a year or more. The flare burned lower and lower. Cautiously, Ryan pushed it forward another inch in the metal loop.
Neither of them could say afterward whether it was the last sputters of the flare that finally caught the pilot's eye or the lightning that sliced through the sky out over the water. The flash came out of the clouds a go
od distance away, several miles if the old saw about counting the seconds until thunder boomed was right, but Ryan dropped into an instinctive crouch. Carly wasn't as proud. She went flat, spread-eagled on the ground.
"He's spotted us." Grim relief laced Ryan's voice. "He's turning."
Carly lifted her head a cautious few inches and held her breath while the small plane banked. Not until the plane was clearly visible did she raise up off the ground and wave like mad.
The pilot made two circuits over the house, coming in so low the second time he almost skimmed the tops of the pecans. Carly danced in a circle, waving furiously, and had to swallow her bitter disappointment when he wagged his wingtips and flew off.
Obviously, he couldn't land. He'd mark their location and radio for helos or river craft to come in. Still, it gave her an odd sensation to watch the dark clouds swallow the tiny single-seater.
"How long do you think it will be before we can expect a rescue craft?" she asked McMann.
He eyed the evil-looking sky. "If they don't get here before the storm breaks, they won't risk flying through it. My bet is they'll either send a river craft or wait the storm out."
Carly nodded, resolutely refusing to sweep a look over her shoulder at the empty spot where the barn had stood. The farmhouse was higher, sturdier, anchored to a concrete foundation. It would weather one more storm, defy one more attempt by the river to claim it.
It had to.
The rain hit almost as soon as they got back in the house. A soft patter against the windows at first, it quickly gathered both force and volume. Within minutes, a steady torrent drummed down on the roof.
They waited it out in the kitchen. A half hour passed, an hour. The rain eased to a drizzle, but the black clouds hanging low over the farmhouse promised more, and soon. Ryan took advantage of the brief respite to check the river's level. When he returned, he wore a mask of unconcern, but Carly knew him well enough now to spin around on her heel and head for the living room. Grimly determined, she went through the shelves one by one. Ryan followed, frowning at the jumble she'd collected.
"What are you doing?"
She shoved a stack of photo albums into his arms. "Trying to save the things that insurance can never replace. We owe the owners that much, at least. Take those upstairs."
"Yes, ma'am."
She gathered framed photos, a family portrait from what looked like the '40s, a display of World War II medals, a basket of souvenir matches, a cross-stitched Lord's Prayer, anything and everything that might have sentimental value.
She sent Ryan up and down the stairs six times before she admitted defeat. Every worn area rug, every needlepointed throw pillow, every old, comfortable piece of furniture would be a loss to the people who had lived with them for years. Sighing, she joined Ryan in the kitchen for another meal of tuna, canned peas, and cold beans.
The cheery room was dark, far too dark for mid-morning. Or was it afternoon? Carly had no idea what time it was. She pushed the beans around on her plate and tried to count back, to fix the hours and events in her mind. There was the plane. The shock of finding the barn gone. Those incredible moments with Ryan here in this same room.
She slanted him a quick look. The lean, stubbled cheeks, the black hair looking like it hadn't seen a comb the past month, the blue eyes startling against his tanned skin. They all seemed so familiar to her now that she couldn't remember a time when they weren't part of her life.
With a shock, Carly realized that she felt as though they'd spent a week here together instead of a mere, what? Eighteen? Twenty hours? How many more would they have together before they abandoned their precarious sanctuary.
She got her answer as soon as Ryan checked the boom box for a situation report. The announcer's voice jumped into the dim, quiet kitchen.
"... advising all persons south of the Jones Bluff Reservoir to evacuate immediately. Those above the reservoir are advised to move to high ground. More than three inches of rain has been recorded at Danley Field in the past two hours. Flash flooding north of the city has brought the Alabama to within a foot of its banks."
Carly felt the cold beans congeal in the pit of her stomach.
"Stay tuned for further instructions from the director of emergency services."
While the announcer ran down an updated list of shelters, Ryan moved to the window to survey the encroaching water. Without a word, he gathered those emergency supplies they hadn't yet moved upstairs. The rope he looped over one shoulder. The box of flares he jammed in his back pocket. With the flashlight tucked under his arm, the rubber hip boots in one hand, and the snake-bite kit in the other, he gave Carly a smile she was sure he intended as reassuring.
"Bring the radio, will you? We'll keep it on as long as the batteries last."
Nodding, she reached for the box's plastic handle. A silence settled between them as they walked down the dim hallway, broken by the steady stream of announcements.
"The Alabama National Guard has been put on Code Two status. All members are to report to their companies. Units from Maxwell Air Force Base have joined the search and rescue effort, augmented by helicopter crews from Fort Rucker and Hurlburt Field, Florida."
If she'd had anything on her to bet with, Carly would have taken odds that Jo West was out there in that black soup. The helo pilot wouldn't miss out on the fun. A strained smile played at her lips as she took the stairs.
"In a related story, a ham radio operator intercepted a transmission from a Civil Air Patrol pilot. WHYK has learned that the pilot reported sighting two people. One fits the description of Air Force Major Carly Samuels, daughter of Congress-woman Adele Samuels, reported missing yesterday afternoon."
Carly jerked to a halt at the top of the stairs. "Did you hear that?"
Ryan crowded past her. "I heard. Turn it up."
She fumbled for the volume control.
"... the description of Ryan McMann, a former inmate at the Federal Correctional Facility at Maxwell, currently wanted for questioning in connection with the brutal slaying of Fayrene Preston, assistant warden at the prison."
"Oh, my God!"
Ryan ignored Carly's stunned whisper. His eyes, his whole being were focused on the boom box.
"An eyewitness allegedly saw McMann bludgeon Preston with an iron rod when she confronted him with evidence linking him to the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Elaine Dawson-Smith. Our sources confirm that McMann's prints were found on the murder weapon."
Carly felt her lungs squeeze painfully. Unable to choke out a single word, she stared at the stark, unremitting face of the man opposite her.
"The former hockey great then reportedly abducted Major Samuels with the intent of using her as a hostage. A prison spokesman would confirm only that McMann is wanted for questioning, but warned that he is considered extremely dangerous. Congresswoman Samuels could not be reached for comment.
"Turning now to an update on the situation in Chilton County, on-scene disaster relief..."
The rubber boots dropped with a thump. Ryan reached out and stabbed the power switch. An awful, suffocating silence descended, broken only by the rattle of rain on the roof.
Chapter Nineteen
"Would confirm only that McMann is wanted for questioning, but viewers are advised that he is considered extremely dangerous."
Her flight helmet dangling from one hand, Jo West gaped at the picture of Ryan McMann that filled her TV screen. Stunned, she listened to the tail end of the story she'd just walked in on after three long, grueling missions.
"Congresswoman Samuels spoke with reporters only moments ago. We take you now to channel nine's Tara McKinley at the congresswoman's residence."
Gripping the chin strap of her helmet, Jo watched a small, elegant woman who looked remarkably like her daughter hold up a hand to quiet the reporters throwing questions at her like hand grenades.
"At this time I can only say how relieved and thankful my family and I are to know Carly's alive. I have every confidence the auth
orities will bring her and the man with her in safely. I'm sorry, I can't take more questions now."
As if they hadn't heard her, the news people launched another barrage.
"What about reports your daughter's being held hostage?"
"Are you in contact with the authorities mounting the rescue attempt?"
With the skill of a longtime politician, the congresswoman kept a smile on her face as she turned away from the lights and cameras.
"Representative Samuels! Aren't you worried by the fact that your daughter's alone with a murderer?"
She stilled. For a second, only a second, the camera caught the strain in her porcelain features. Then her chin came up and she looked the persistent newsman square in the eye.
"At this time the allegations that Mr. McMann murdered anyone are just that, allegations." Her delicate nostrils flared. "And, yes, I'm worried about my daughter. But Carly's a remarkable woman. She can handle herself in any situation. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have work to do."
She swept out to a chorus of strident questions. Jo's teeth ground together as the camera swung back to Tara McKinley, who solemnly recounted the startling developments.
"Murderer, my ass!" Jo muttered.
She refused to believe any of it. Her brother, Jack, paralyzed from the waist down and still active in hockey thanks to Ryan McMann's Ice Buddies program, sure as hell wouldn't believe it, either.
Nor was Jo about to remain glued to the TV when a friend was down. Snatching her helmet bag from the chair where she'd just tossed it, she ran for the door. Rain pelted her with stinging force as she dashed from the BOQ to her car.
Damn this front! It hung over the base like a mean-tempered dragon, spitting out the wind gusts and lightning strikes that had made her last mission a flight through a black hell. As she tore around Chennault Circle headed for base operations, Jo shook off the mental fatigue that had come from intense concentration and constant division of attention between instruments, visual coordination, and the various communications ongoing during flight. By the time she rushed into base ops, helmet and bag in hand, her adrenaline had fully recharged.
River Rising Page 21