by Terry Spear
As she closed the door to the bedroom, she heard Dave say to Charlie, “Is Deidre scared that he’s out there?”
“Wouldn’t you be, if you were a fragile little thing like she is?”
She chuckled as she hurried to change into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Charlie. You never cease to amaze me.
Dave cleared his throat. “Yes, well if she feels insecure, let me know.”
“I never figured you’d be putting the moves on my sister like this, but I want to say—”
Oh, Charlie, shut up. Deidre hurried out of the bedroom. “Is there some kind of game we could play?” She grabbed Charlie’s arm and led him downstairs as she glanced over at Dave’s wet bathing suit to see he hadn’t changed yet.
Two of the men slept on sofas in the living room, and Deidre walked past them into the dining room. “Bill, have you got any games we could play?”
“Some in the cupboard in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.”
She found a Monopoly game and set it on the table. “Wanna play, Charlie? We haven’t played this in years.”
He sat down next to her.
“Where’s Marilyn?” she asked.
“Getting some sleep. She has to stay up tonight and pull guard duty.”
“Ah.” Deidre leaned over to speak to him in private. “Listen, Charlie, there’s nothing between Dave and me, so don’t worry.”
“I know when I guy has his octopus arms wrapped around a girl and has that look in his eye, what he’s all about.”
“Don’t worry. I’m returning to Fort Hood after this is all over, and I guess you’ll teach the Feds a thing or two. Dave’s going to—”
“Beat you at a game of Monopoly.”
Her face flaming with heat, Deidre looked up to see him wink at her, then pull a seat out on the other side of her. “Anybody have dibs on the little sports car yet?”
Ricky pulled up a chair on the opposite side and grabbed the hat. “My lucky charm.”
Deidre faced the sunroom full of glass window. The sky had turned dark green. She threw her dice. “Guess it’s going to be a little stormy for a swim later.” So much for the weather predictions here. They were as bad at predicting it here as they were in Texas.
For half an hour, she concentrated on the game, but when she landed in jail, her attention switched to the redheaded man’s face pressed against the glass. She knew he wasn’t there, not really. Instead, he waited for her in the jungle. A trickle of fear spread through her.
The winds whipped about the house, making ghostly howling sounds as Deidre rolled her dice again, attempting to block out the panic rising in her stomach.
“You can pay to get out of jail, Deidre,” Charlie said.
“And waste all of my money? Not on your life. I’m going to have my first hotel soon.”
Minutes later, the rains started…lightly at first with a soft pattering on the glass, then in ragged, raging torrents. Lightning flashed across the sky in a blitzkrieg of jagged bolts and then in satin sheets.
“I’d forgotten how electrifying Florida storms were,” Deidre said. “Ah-ha, doubles.” She moved her shoe four places.
Dave nodded. “Florida has the most lightning strikes of any state.”
“Hey, Boss,” Bill shouted, “they’ve changed the forecast slightly. Winds are averaging seventy-five miles per hour.”
“Bit of a jump.”
“Yeah, they’re saying it’s a category-one hurricane now.”
“Why don’t you bring a lantern in here?”
Deidre yawned. “Storms make me sleepy.”
Dave touched her arm. “Did you want to rest?”
Her sand-dune climbing exercise in the middle of the night made every muscle in her body feel like she’d aged forty years. “Did you want to take my place, Bill? Make sure I win against Dave?”
Bill chuckled. “Got storm duty.”
“All right.”
Johnson shoved a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table. Deidre eyed him in amusement. “Did you bake these fresh?”
He grinned and shrugged, then left the room.
“Hmm.” Deidre bit into the still warm soft cookie dough sprinkled generously with dark chunks of melted semi-sweet chocolate. “I love a man who can cook.”
Dave smiled back at her. He held up a glass of milk in salute.
After devouring the cookies, they returned to the game.
Deidre leaned her elbow on the table while she rested her head in her hand. When she rolled the dice, one landed on the floor. “Sorry, fellas.” She stood. “I think I’m going to lie down for a while.”
“Sure,” Charlie said. “We’ll call when supper’s ready.”
“Have a nice rest,” Dave said.
Ricky rolled the dice. “You want to give me your other utility so I can have a monopoly, Miss Roux?”
“Sorry, I want to still win the game.”
The men all chuckled as she hurried upstairs.
She knew she had to sleep. Night hadn’t even fallen. Yet, she was certain with the storm raging and the redheaded man lying in wait for her, the night was going to be incredibly long.
Lightning flashed all about the red-haired man in her vision, illuminating his freckled features as rainwater drizzled down his face. He wasn’t afraid.
She wouldn’t be either.
***
As it drew close to suppertime, Deidre heard the men shouting to one another. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stared into the darkness. She stumbled to the wall and felt for a light switch. Up went the switch, but the room remained dark.
She ran her hands over the wall until she found the door and pulled it open. Downstairs, beams from flashlights penetrated the dark as the men hurried to illuminate the house the best they could. Deidre didn’t mind the dark. She often stumbled around in it rather than turn a light on if she woke in the middle of the night so she wouldn’t wake herself up too much. But in an unfamiliar house, she gingerly walked toward the stairs. Suddenly, a light flashed into her eyes.
“Deidre?” Dave said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Hand on the railing, she jogged down the steps. “I couldn’t find my way in the dark.”
“Electricity’s out. Some of the guys are lighting hurricane lanterns. Luckily, supper’s already done.”
She smiled at the table washed in candlelight. “Kind of romantic.”
“Not the time for romance,” Bill grunted.
Dave sat down at the table. “He’s worried.”
“Damn right. Two tornadoes have been spawned off this one hurricane.”
Deidre buttered a roll. “Where are you from, Bill?”
“Oregon. No tornadoes or hurricanes there.”
Ricky chuckled. “He’s a little jumpy.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Another crack of thunder shattered the air, and Bill dropped his butter knife on the floor. “Damn!”
The other men laughed.
Dave shook his head. “Best the force has got…except in a storm.”
Deidre rubbed her temple, then saw Charlie watching her. She looked back at her roll.
“Anything wrong, Deidre?” Charlie asked.
Charlie knew not to ask her that question in front of the others. She tried to avoid rubbing her forehead when the visions plagued her. The action always gave her away with her family. Family conversation side-skirted the issue for a while, but invariably it drew back to the visions she was having.
Her response to Charlie had to satisfy Dave, too, because she knew he watched her. Just prolonging the silence didn’t help either because by the time she looked up from her meal, everyone sitting at the table waited for her answer. “No, nothing, Charlie.”
The others may have been satisfied with her response but not Charlie, and now Dave sensed something was wrong as well. She smiled. “Who won the Monopoly game?”
Ricky shook his head. “I would have if you’d sold me the other utility.”
“I
won. Told you I would.” Dave’s dark brown eyes twinkled in the flickering flame of the candlelight.
Sitting in the soft glow of the light, he was truly a handsome dinner companion. She only wished she didn’t have so many other men around to distract her. And the damnable visions. She wanted to tear the red-haired man from her thoughts. Having him take up space in her head angered her. She was ready to be done with the matter.
Another crack of thunder, and Bill dropped his fork on his plate. “Damn thunder!”
More chuckles.
Marilyn called out from the living room, “Hey, Bill, take a valium!”
And then a bang, as if one of the tanks from Fort Hood fired a missile into the backyard, rattled the house.
To learn what had happened, the men all ran into the sunroom.
“No!” Deidre screamed. “Get away from the window!”
They ran away from it only seconds before the tree struck. Cracked in two by a bolt of lightning and still smoldering in the rain, the massive oak slammed into one of the sunroom’s expansive windows. The glass shattered. Wind-driven rain poured into the room. Everyone jumped to secure the back room.
Everyone…but Deidre. The front door blew open with the gale force and when she ran to close it, she saw not only the redhead, but another, darker-haired man. She’d never envisioned him before, but he could have been raccoon-man’s twin brother in appearance.
“Deidre!” Dave shouted as he hurried to close the front door. “Go upstairs!”
No one had been at the front door. Not a soul. Just a vision of the evil lurking nearby.
Lighting the way with a flashlight, Marilyn grabbed Deidre’s arm and yanked her up the stairs. “When boss man says you go upstairs, you do as he says.”
Deidre jerked her arm away. “I can walk on my own.” She ran up the stairs, then pulled the bedroom door shut behind her.
As soon as she did, she knew she’d made a mistake. The curtains blew in the wind. The glass from the windowpane lay shattered on the floor crunching under foot. She grabbed the doorknob, but before she could twist it, a hand clamped over her mouth.
***
Dave turned from his task of nailing a board over the window to see Marilyn return to the sunroom. “Why aren’t you with Deidre?
“She’s a big girl, Dave. You want to baby-sit her, you can. I’ll help with the men.” She grabbed a hammer and pounded a nail into a board Bill set against the window frame.
Ricky hurried into the room. “Headquarters says to stay here temporarily until the storm subsides.”
Dave shook his head. They should have retreated to Oregon. No hurricanes or tornadoes, just like Bill said.
“We’ll be all right, Dave,” Marilyn shouted over the noise.
He realized then his brow was creased in worry. “Yeah, let’s just get this window secured.”
He didn’t want to alarm his team, but a trickle of fear nagged at him. Deidre and her brother weren’t safe here any longer. They’d have to uproot them again, and soon.
***
The dark room precluded Deidre’s ability to see what the man looked like, but his onion-tainted breath was heavy when he spoke. “I couldn’t have asked for better leverage than getting you in my grasp, missy. I won’t hurt you, if you tell me where your brother hid the manuscript.”
It was a manuscript. Charlie must have separated them somewhere along the line. The one these men looked for undoubtedly hadn’t been with the others.
She didn’t believe for one minute he didn’t wish her harm though. She couldn’t tell if he had a weapon or not, but figured he must have to come into a house filled with armed Feds. In response to his question, she shook her head.
He poked her in the ribs with a jagged blade. A knife. If only she could see well enough to disarm him.
“The manuscript?”
She tried to speak through his hand.
He loosened his grip.
“If you could tell me what you’re looking for—”
She’d been given a pop quiz, but she hadn’t given the correct answer. As soon as she said it, she knew she was going to die. Now it didn’t matter how well she implemented her martial arts form or whether he cut her in the process…all that mattered was she hurt him worse.
Before he knew what hit him, she kneed him in the crotch. He bent over in pain. She jabbed him in the nose with a quick knee punch. Tougher than the raccoon man, this one tried to stick her with the knife as he moaned in agony.
Lightning lit up the sky and the room, and she jumped out of the knife’s path. In the next instant, she grabbed his hand and slid the knife across his belly. The brute collapsed on the floor and writhed in pain in front of the door. His bulky body blocked her escape.
She hollered to the men, but no one could hear her for all the bluster of the storm.
With the knife in hand, she ran to the window. From here, she could see a narrow ledge leading to a flat part of the roof over the garage. She would have to chance it, then work her way back to the sunroom and get the agents’ attention from there.
The men nailed boards against the broken windows, while the driving wind and rain hampered their efforts. Between the howling wind, booming thunder, and heavy rainfall, she couldn’t make them hear her cries for help as she made her way along the roof.
The soles of the tennis shoes slipped on the wet tile, giving her heart added fright. She landed on the top of the garage, easing her panic a bit.
With the rain pelting her, she could barely see. Then a shadowy form silhouetted by the intermittent lightning strikes caught her eye. The red-haired man climbed into her bedroom window. Were gunshots fired? She couldn’t be sure.
She ran around the top edge of the roof, looking for something to shimmy down, then found a water spout. It might not hold, but it would help her make it part way. Yet somewhere in her subconscious she felt she’d already come this way before, like in a dream.
She grabbed the spout and the metal creaked. Not a good sound to hear. Sliding down it the rest of the way, it pulled away from the house as she landed on her feet.
The lightning flashed overhead. The dark-haired man stood only a few feet away. She ran toward the backyard, but a chain-link fence surrounded the property. Of course, fencing was required for the pool. Why hadn’t she noticed it before?
With one hand gripping the metal links, she tried to get a toe grip in the fence. A ragged bolt of lightning nearby made her heart nearly stop, knowing the metal she had her fingers linked through attracted lightning. Then her arm was jerked aside. She whipped around and slashed at the menace with the knife.
Screaming in pain, he dropped to his knees. She pulled herself over the chain-link fence into the shrubs on the other side. With superhuman effort, she dashed for the sunroom. Banging on the door, she tried to get anyone’s attention.
The men were too busy trying to secure the windows. No longer an opening between them, only wooden slats being pounded in place. In the raging storm, no one heard her cries. She turned as the dark-haired man ran across the backyard toward her. His left arm dangled useless at his side.
She darted to the other side of the house and struggled with the locked gate. The only way out was the canal. She dashed for it.
The brackish water appeared pitch black. She hesitated for a second. All kinds of menacing creatures lived in water like this. Water moccasins, alligators, snapping turtles. She didn’t have a choice. With her heart pounding, she jumped in.
As she swam to the other side, water splashed behind her. Her blood chilled. Was it him, or something else?
When she reached the other side, she dragged herself through the reeds. After stumbling over a hard object, the sky turned as white as day, revealing the remains of a tortoise, three-feet in length. She tripped through the sand-bur matted ground and ran for the road.
Lightning zig-zagged to the ground, striking near the sand dunes. Thunder rolled across the night and a car’s screeching brakes permeated the air. She
turned to see the dark-haired man stuck to the grill of the car between the glaring beam of lights.
She dove into the jungle as the car swerved, hydroplaning on the wet road behind her.
The odor of dead fish filled her nostrils as she tumbled through the tangled mass of vines. The car plowed through several saplings, breaking them in two before coming to a stop inches behind her.
Steam poured out of the hot engine. But there was no sign of the dark-haired man. She clawed her way back to the car, the headlights nearly blinding her.
For several seconds, she yanked at the jammed door. With her frantic effort, she hadn’t noticed the car sinking in the muck. When she managed to pull the door open, she fell back, her own feet stuck in the swampy mud. She struggled to stand and called to the driver, “Sir, are you all right?”
Behind her a deep, dark male voice spoke, “Kind of a nasty night to be out, isn’t it?”
Chapter 15
Deidre jerked her head around, instantly causing pain to shoot across her back and neck. The redheaded man stood several yards away, the headlights providing an eerie wash of light. His wet curls dripped against his pale face lighted even brighter by the lightning display overhead. Her hands clenched. Her weapon was gone. In her struggles with the car door, she’d lost the knife.
The redhead waded toward her in the muck as she crouched and shoved her hands into the muddy water, searching for the knife. “You and your brother will be dead by morning, but I have to say, the boss is mighty anxious to hear that you go first. And I aim to please.”
Deidre’s fingers probed frantically through the muddy silt, attempting to feel the handle of the blade. She barely breathed as her mind raced as to what to do next.
“Deidre!”
Dave?
“Dave!” she screamed, hoping to alert her knight somewhere in the dark searching for her.
“Deidre!”
Was he the only one to come to her rescue? Could he hear her cry in the windswept night, the rains still pouring down? “Here, Dave, here! It’s Red!”