“What?” Nora said.
No one answered. Another boom of thunder shook the floor. Rachel ducked her head between her shoulders and Lee drew in a sharp breath. “Dear Lord,” he began, his words edged in razors of tension as he jerked his head toward Nora. “Cut her loose,” he said to Rachel.
Rachel was too shocked to move.
“What’s happening?” Nora said.
Lee shouted at Rachel. “Do it. If this house is swept away, she deserves a fighting chance!”
Icy sweat sprang out on Nora’s face. “The house can’t get swept away. We’re on a flat plain.”
Lee’s fiery eyes turned on her. “A plain in a valley with mountains on each side. This house sits in a channel—a flash flood wash.”
Rachel hadn’t moved from the door. Her lips were a white line.
“Just cut her loose!” Lee bellowed.
Rachel sank to the floor, her eyes vacant, as if she’d retreated to some dark place for protection against the storm.
Lee rushed across the room. He reached into his pocket and fished out a knife. It took him only seconds to slice through the tape.
Nora leapt to her feet and sprang for the door. She had to shove Rachel out of the way before she could open it and run onto the porch. Even under the protection of the porch roof, rain pelted her face. The deck vibrated and she slipped on the inch-deep water that seemed to blanket the wooden surface.
Two inches.
Three.
Oh my God. Nora understood the roar, the shaking house, the wet deck. A flash flood raged in the black night just beyond the cabin. They were trapped here amid the swirling, roiling sea of mud and frenzied water.
She fled back inside and slammed the door, dripping with icy rain. How would she get away to help Abigail?
She stared at Lee. His grim expression met hers. Now there was no escape. He’d kill her. Gun, knife, garotte, bare hands—it was dealer’s choice.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow in response.
She pressed him. “Do you really believe space ships are coming to take you away?”
His shoulders drooped. “Is it so impossible to believe in life on other planets? So many things are unexplained. All the ancient religions mention people from the sky, even the Bible. Look at the rock art from thousands of years ago.”
A shiver ran over her skin, the rain raising goose bumps on her arms. “Maybe, but how can you be sure they’re coming back? And then pinpoint an exact day?”
His perpetual scowl deepened. “That’s not for me to say. Uncle Warren has accomplished things that should have been impossible. He started out with nothing. How could he have risen so far without the hand of God interceding?”
“What has God and Mormonism got to do with space people and ancient Hopi prophecy?”
“We are all one,” he said softly.
These words she knew. Lee could be reading from Benny’s phrase book.
“The truth is there, and people from all nations, all corners of the Earth, know it. Why else would so many pilgrims follow the true prophet and gather in the desert?”
“What about the people in the bunkers who change their minds?”
“Sometimes their doubts overcome them.”
“So you kill them to keep their money?”
His mouth opened in shock. “We don’t need their money. We simply keep them with us until they calm down again.”
“You lock them in so they can’t leave?” Nora was horrified.
“They’ll leave when the Sky People come for us. They chose freely. They come from all over the world and they’ll be the seeds of the Fifth World.”
The walls creaked and the din from the raging water made it nearly impossible to hold a conversation. Nora’s fingers cramped from clutching the chair and Rachel still huddled on the floor, but when she raised her eyes, Nora could see the focus coming back into them.
Lee strained to see out a window. The wind howled like an air raid siren. Rain blasted against the windows like bullets. The river attacked them, battering the house, rocking and crashing as debris smashed against it.
A deafening explosion erupted at the north wall. Rachel screamed again as the house shuddered. It sounded like cannonballs impacted against the cabin.
Rachel sprung from the floor to the kitchen. She clung to the counter as if it were a lifeboat. “The cabin is going to break apart! We need to get out!”
Lee left the window and hurried to Rachel. He grabbed her hands in a rough grip and pulled her close to him. He focused on her face, meeting her terrified eyes. “It’s okay. We’re safer in the house than in the water.”
Lee was probably right. The raging swirl of mud and freezing water could sweep them away. It might only be a few feet deep, but they’d lose their footing in the swift current. They could get wrapped around a fence, pinned against a building, be bashed by debris, or get sucked under until their lungs burst and they drowned.
Rachel clutched Lee’s hands and concentrated on his face. Gradually her jaw unclenched and control seeped into her eyes.
The windows bowed and rattled while the wind roared with fury. Tree branches scratched against the house. The water rampaged as if sent to claim them for its own. Nora inched ever closer to the edge of control. The roar, accented by flashes of lightning and the boom of thunder, shredded her nerves.
Abbey whined and panted, lost in his own hell.
The house jerked and tilted. The lights died with a sizzle and a pop, the smell of ozone heavy in the air. Both women screamed as the scant light from the window limited their vision.
Rachel’s face betrayed her battle to stay calm. “At least we’ll be able to take care of her.” She pointed her chin at Nora, her fingers still gripping Lee’s.
“Darrell can’t get to her in this flood,” Lee agreed.
A shadow fell across the floor and Nora jerked her head toward the stairs.
“Unless he’s already here,” Darrell said. He stood midway up the stairs.
Thank God! He’d been here the whole time. Why hadn’t he intervened earlier as Lee shoved Rachel behind him and leaped toward the stairs.
Darrell pulled his arm up, a gun clutched in his hand. Without hesitating, he fired at Lee. It happened so suddenly Nora hardly had time to register the shot. Lee cried out as he crumpled to the floor, blood blossoming across the shoulder of his plaid shirt.
“No!” Rachel threw herself at Darrell, knocking into him. He dropped the gun as he grappled with her. Nora flew to Lee and bent close to him in the gloom. Color drained from Lee’s face as he gripped at his shoulder. Nora jumped up and raced to the kitchen. She grabbed a dish towel and ran back to him. She pulled his hand away from the gushing wound. Behind her, Darrell and Rachel grunted, still struggling. The house lurched and Nora thought she felt it slide a few inches. She pressed the towel to Lee’s shoulder.
He opened his eyes. With surprising speed and strength, he gripped her hand. “Darrell … ”
A terrible crashing interrupted him. Did Nora scream? Did Rachel? Or was it the chaos of the storm and the shriek of the cabin as it tore from its tenuous mooring? Timbers cracked and popped as dishes shattered. The kitchen window blew open and icy water, mixed with clay and grit in a swirling stew of mud and sticks and weeds, surged from the office into the living room.
Suddenly, Rachel appeared at Nora’s side and together they heaved Lee from the water to the couch. The water was rapidly rising as the house jerked again. Nora scanned the room, looking for Darrell. She saw him sprawled out on the stairs. He had either fallen or had been knocked down by Rachel.
The gun rested a few steps above him and he reached for it as he pulled himself up. Rachel shoved Nora out of the way and leaned in close to Lee. He appeared weak and in pain. Nora knew the burning agony of being shot, but ha
d no idea if it was a shallow wound or if it would prove to be fatal. She hoped Lee would survive, but he needed to get to a hospital.
The house convulsed again, coming to rest at a sharp angle. Something upstairs banged and the ceiling sounded like it might cave in. More glass shattered. Nora stood above Lee and Rachel, watching as Darrell pushed himself up another step and reached for the gun.
A hand grabbed her arm, yanking her backward. Rachel tried to tug Nora out the front door, now unhinged and hanging open. They struggled in the mud now blanketing the floor, each step proving to be a slipping struggle. Rachel shouted something at her but the rush of the flood and the rain and thunder masked her words. Nora tugged back, fighting to stay in the house.
With a deafening crash, one of the ceiling beams dislodged. The vibrations rocked the whole house and Rachel used the momentum to throw all of her weight against Nora. The perfect storm of motion knocked Nora off balance and she pitched headfirst to splash in the water on the floor. Rachel pulled on her arm again, dragging her through the front door.
Nora slid on her stomach, her arm wrenched high over her head. Rachel tugged her across the pitching front porch. With one last lunge, Rachel propelled them both off the porch and into the roiling waters. She lost her grip on Nora’s arm and disappeared as the black rush of the freezing flood stole her away.
thirty-four
The confidence and power that had rushed through Warren earlier seeped away, leaving him frail. He huddled in the passenger seat of his Caddy, coughing and wheezing, fighting for every breath. His body burned with fever and he’d shed his expensive toupee hours ago, even though he hated for Abigail to see him bald.
He longed to give up, let his earthly body finally rest. But Warren knew God expected him to keep going. He had prepared a reward for Warren and he needed to show strength of spirit and mind. God hadn’t made Warren’s path easy, but He’d always rewarded him. He couldn’t succumb to weakness now that the end grew near.
Abigail leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering into the inky night. The wipers slapped at high speed. She squinted. “I can’t see anything.”
He labored for breath. “Keep a light hand on the wheel. God will guide us.”
She tightened her lips. “I’ve had enough of your God and His ridiculous plans. You’re crazy. You’ve always been nuts, since the first moment we met you.” She looked like his Abigail—the sweet, happy young girl without a harsh word—but she sounded more like Christine, who, despite having every advantage, felt disappointed with what life had given her.
“What happened to you to make you so hard?” he asked.
She frowned. “I had to get hard in a hurry. It’s not easy to survive a rape, lose my dearly beloved husband, and raise a baby on my own.”
He pushed himself to sit. “I loved you.”
She said nothing, but her jaws clenched. Eventually she spoke. “Your nephew said Nora would be at the cabin?”
“She was on her way back from the reservation.”
The rear of the Caddy fishtailed so she pulled her foot off the accelerator and coaxed the steering wheel in the opposite direction. They righted and she pressed the gas pedal. “You’re sure?”
“My nephew wouldn’t lie,” he assured her.
He grabbed a plastic grocery bag and leaned over to wretch. Specks of blood and a tiny stream of foamy bile oozed from his heaving belly. His throat burned and his abdominal muscles ached with effort, but his stomach contained little. He heaved again, the sweat puddling in his armpits and filming his cold face.
He fell back on the seat and pushed the button to roll down the window. Warren forced the nearly empty bag through it and it was swept away by the rush of wind and rain. He rolled up the window and lay panting.
“What are you going to do with Nora?”
More questions. He closed his eyes, the effort it took to speak exhausting him. “I want to see her.”
“You’ve already seen her.”
He heard the weakness in his own voice. “I want to see her with the eyes of a father.”
“You aren’t her father. And even if you were, she wouldn’t do what you want her to do.”
He opened his eyes. “And what do you think I want her to do?”
She didn’t take her eyes from the road or loosen her grip on the wheel. “I don’t know. Take over your businesses? Be some grand poobah of the Mormon Church? I can’t imagine what you want with her, but I know Nora and she won’t have anything to do with you.”
“I can offer her more than wealth,” he began.
She frowned again. “It doesn’t matter. I told her what you did to me.”
Warren had been dragged through every bit of muck throughout his very public life. When a person acquired as much success as he had, it made him an easy target for resentment. Yet, no accusation hurt him the way Abigail’s lies now ripped at his heart. The daughter he longed to see hadn’t been conceived in anger or by force. Why couldn’t Abigail realize that?
She slowed to a crawl and leaned so far forward her nose practically rested on the dash. She turned the wheel and they started up the road to Castle Valley. “Oh. Oh.” She sounded so distressed Warren pulled himself up on the seat to see what was going on. He strained to see through the darkness outside his rain-streaked window, but finally he understood.
The valley below roiled and raged in a flash flood. What was once a peaceful sprawl of scraggly trees and homes was now a vengeful river, the red of the mud lightening the water so the flood’s violence was even more obvious in the moonless night.
Abigail drove along the road to the turnoff that led down to Castle Valley. Of course, the road had been washed away. “The cabin … ” It sounded like she wanted to say more but couldn’t form words.
He gripped the door handle and fought the terror pooling in the pit of his stomach. God wouldn’t give him a daughter only to take her away at the last minute. Be calm and believe.
Abigail gasped. She pointed down the road where the headlights caused the raindrops to spark in the reflected glow. He squinted and saw a figure staggering in the rain. He reached for the glove box to pull out the gun he kept there. He prayed it was Nora but needed to prepare for the worst.
Abigail shoved her door open and scrambled into the storm, running toward the person. What if it was a looter or someone intending to harm them? A second passed before Warren identified it as a man making his slow progress in their direction. Warren gripped the dash as the man came into focus. Darrell.
This didn’t feel right. He expected Lee, but hoped to see Rachel. He prayed Nora was safe. But he didn’t know Darrell was out here.
Warren closed his eyes and summoned strength. There was so little left. His deepest desire was to lie down and stop fighting, let the good Lord have mercy on him and take him home. But it wasn’t his time yet. First he needed to leave the kingdom in good hands. He pushed the door open. It felt like a stone blocking the entrance to a tomb. His legs shook trying to support his own meager weight, but he forced his feet to move. The rain dripped onto his bald head, cooling his fever but chilling him so that his teeth chattered.
Darrell shifted his focus from Abigail. Warren expected the man to rush to his side at the frail state of his leader. Instead, he waited as Warren staggered into the peripheral glow of the headlights.
Darrell’s shirt clung to his chest, the tattered sleeves rippling in the wind. Blood and mud dripped from long scratches on his arms and his face was peppered with scrapes and bruises.
The storm was losing steam, but the flood continued roaring. The frenzied water surged past with destructive energy.
“Where’s Nora?” Warren managed to ask.
Darrell’s shoulders slumped as he looked at the ground. “I don’t know. Rachel and Lee had her when the house collapsed. I only hope she survived.”
Abigail gasped. “Oh
my God! She’s trapped in the flood?”
“I tried to save her. We would have been safe if we’d stayed in the house, even though it was badly damaged. But after Lee was injured, Rachel forced Nora into the water.”
“Lee is injured? How bad?” Warren needed Lee. The colony needed his survivalist instincts, his faith, his intimate knowledge of the plan.
Darrell dropped his shoulders even more, his face a picture of sorrow. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. But I shot Lee.”
Abigail let out an alarmed gasp.
Warren stepped back a few paces to lean on the Caddy.
“He had Nora and he planned to kill her. I knew you needed Nora to carry on your legacy. There was no other way.”
The firm grasp Warren had on the plan, the future, slipped from his fingers. Everything was spinning out of control. “You’re brothers, a team. Together you were going to lead the faithful. You’ve always been my sons!”
Darrell’s head shot up. “None of that is true. Now that you have a true heir, you plan on leaving it all to her.”
Warren’s knees buckled and he rested his bony rear on the bumper as the rain streamed down his face.
Darrell stepped forward, following the beam of light toward Warren. “Not brothers. Half-brothers. You know what that’s like, don’t you, Uncle Warren?”
Abigail stared at Darrell’s sudden transformation. Warren should have known Darrell would break under the pressure. He usually had perfect instincts with people. But somehow he’d missed Darrell’s weakness. And now his nephew was turning on him.
Darrell’s feet sloshed in the muddy road as he continued his rant. “To be the son whose mother is not the favorite. The ugly mother. The one with the harsh tongue. The mother whose only son is kicked out when he’s fourteen because there’s only room for the favorite son at the homestead.”
How could the situation be unraveling like this? “I took care of you. You never had to go through what I did. I paid for your college and law school and got you the best clerk positions. I helped you.”
“Why? Was it because you loved me? Because you wanted what was best for me?”
Tattered Legacy (A Nora Abbott Mystery) Page 24