“Okay, we’re off,” said Mom in a strange singsong that betrayed her underlying anxiety.
We were all, it seemed, trying to be strong for one another.
“But where will you go after you drop me off?” Miss Gloria asked. “Honestly, I don’t think you should drive in this weather.”
“I’m certain that I read the new town hall has been designated as a shelter. We’ll be back together in no time,” said Sam in a hearty voice. “The hotel insisted all the patrons leave. I suppose they don’t want to be responsible for us if the worst happens.”
Bands of rain began to lash the car, and the wind kicked up strong enough that Sam had to fight to keep it in the right lane. The trunks of the palm trees lining the street bent sideways, their fronds whipping fiercely in the wind.
“It’s a wonder they don’t snap in half,” said my mother.
“They’re built to withstand the big storms. Just like me,” said Miss Gloria. “I don’t feel right abandoning the island.”
I took her hand and held it in mine. “We promised your sons and we’re not going back on that now. They’re already mad that we waited this long.”
Once we’d crossed the island, Sam steered the car slowly toward the airport. The sea to the right boiled, restless and gray.
My mother squawked as a wave broke over the seawall and sloshed across the sidewalk and onto the pavement. “I have to be honest—we shouldn’t be out here. That ocean could wash us away in a New Jersey instant. I can’t believe they are flying planes in this weather.”
Sam said nothing, just gripped the steering wheel tighter and focused his attention out through the windshield. We finally turned into the drive leading to the airport and headed up the short hill to the arrivals. There were no other passengers, no taxicabs, no baggage porters poised to drag luggage into the building. One lone figure dressed in black towing an enormous designer suitcase waved us down.
“Good gravy,” I said. “It’s Chad Lutz.” My former boyfriend, the guy who invited me to Key West on a whim two years ago and dumped me in record time.
“We’d better stop and see what he wants, darling,” said my mother to Sam. He pulled to the curb. As I pushed open the door and stuck my head out, my hair whipped over my eyes.
“All the flights are canceled,” he hollered above the wind, his voice terse. “No one’s going anywhere.”
My mother rolled down her window, strands of her auburn hair whirling out of its bun. “Do you need a ride?”
He hesitated for a moment, but when Sam popped the trunk he hoisted his suitcase in. I scooted over on the seat and put the cat carrier on my lap to make room for Chad, and introduced him around once he’d packed himself in.
“I guess we all waited too long,” Mom said.
“No one really expected the storm to turn back this way,” said Chad. “Though when it comes to hurricanes, you shouldn’t plan on anything, I suppose. Where are you headed?”
“We were going to drive north, but now we’re going to try the shelter at the town hall,” Sam said. “Miss Gloria was supposed to fly out in an hour, but I guess she’s going with us too.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and gave her a smile. “She’s an old hand at weathering storms.”
“They close the shelter on the island with anything above Category Three,” Chad said grimly. “I just got a text that it’s closing. They don’t want people staying—it’s too dangerous.”
“A little late to tell us that now,” I grumbled.
“I believe they’ve been hounding us all week,” Sam said. “Some people didn’t want to believe this was coming.” He glanced back at us and quirked another smile.
“They wouldn’t take animals at the shelter anyway,” Miss Gloria said, patting Sam’s shoulder. She stuck a finger through the grid on the end of the carrier and touched Sparky’s nose.
“If you like, you can come back to my apartment,” Chad said. “It’s a former navy building, as Hayley may have mentioned. They built it so strong that even if this island is wiped flat clean, that building will still be standing.”
“I’m not going anywhere without the cats,” I said, clutching the carrier to my chest.
“Bring them along,” Chad said.
“We don’t have a litter box,” Miss Gloria piped up—which was not the truth. I had to pinch myself to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter. Chad had not enjoyed Evinrude’s brief tenure at his apartment, even with my meticulous attention to the litter box. What a time to test his humanity.
He grimaced, trying to smile. “Then we’ll have to make do. Did you say cats, with an s? As in more than one?”
Miss Gloria snickered. “I don’t think you’ve met my Sparky.” Sparky stuck one black paw out of the other end of the carrier and swiped at Chad’s arm.
We headed south on Truman and then across on Whitehead, finally reaching the Southard Street corner. The Green Parrot bar was shuttered up tight. And the Courthouse Deli’s windows were covered in plywood, the sidewalk empty. Even the famous bench, which had its own Facebook page and had been the subject of thousands of photo ops, was gone.
“Wow, even Benchie evacuated,” I said.
We passed the abandoned guardhouse at the entrance to the Truman Annex and took a right on Emma. Several blocks over in front of the Weatherstation Inn, two large palm trees had crashed across the road.
“I think you’ll have to pull the car to the curb and leave it here,” Chad said, gripping the headrest of my mother’s seat and shouting to be heard over the wind. “We’ll hope it’s in one piece when the storm’s over.”
“It’s a rental,” Sam said. “So there’s insurance. A car can be replaced. The important thing is to get these ladies into the building.”
“I’ll help Miss Gloria,” Chad said. “You take the cats. Hayley can help her mother.”
We flung the doors open and began to run. The wind was blowing hard into our faces, and without Chad’s assistance, I didn’t think tiny Miss Gloria would have made it. She didn’t have enough bulk to fight the gusts. But minutes later, we were gathered in the garage that ran under the length of the Annex building, part of Harbor Place condominiums. The sound of the wind howling and the waves beating against the navy bight was deafening. The canvas covers on the few cars left behind flapped furiously.
“Let’s keep moving,” Sam said. “If it floods here, we’re toast.”
“The garage never has flooded before,” Chad said. “But there’s always a first time.”
When we reached the end of the covered garage, we dashed the final fifty unsheltered yards through the driving rain to the front door of Chad’s building. The windows were dark—either the electricity had been severed, or no one else had been foolish enough to wait the storm out. He unlocked the door and we tumbled inside, panting and soaking wet. Emergency lights illuminated the hallway dimly, showing the tile floor covered in an inch of water. In the distance, a smoke alarm shrieked. Both cats resumed yowling their dismay from inside the carrier, and Sam panted from their weight.
“No point in taking the elevator,” Chad said as he pulled the outer door shut tight, “even if it’s working. I’d be afraid we’d get stuck in the shaft.”
“Been there, done that,” I said, “not ever going to do that again. I’ll take the kitties this time.”
As we climbed the stairs to the third floor, my phone buzzed with a text message. I set the cat carrier down on the landing to take a breather and see who’d sent it. Nathan Bransford. Finally. Where r u? Hope you got the hell off this island.
I texted back, informing him that we were holing up in Chad’s apartment. Where r u? I added.
Took an emergency call with Torrence. On Duval Street, but it’s flooding. A tree fell on the cruiser so we’ll walk back to PD.
I tried to judge how much danger they could be in. Was his text intending to say good-bye?
“Can you squeeze in two more?” I asked Chad, my heart pounding and my hands suddenly clammy. “
Nate Bransford and Steve Torrence are trapped downtown.”
He shrugged. “Why not? We can all go down together.”
I texted Bransford back. Come on!
28
It’s a very uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right up in your throat and you can’t swallow anything, not even if it was a chocolate caramel.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Once we’d staggered inside the apartment, we could see how the storm raged outside Chad’s floor-to-ceiling living room windows. Sheets of rain sluiced across the glass.
“I hope it’s hurricane-proof glass as the condo association promised,” he said.
A plastic deck chair pinwheeled across the small deck and slammed into the window, startling us all. Out in the harbor, waves dashed against the metal breakwater and sloshed across the cement pier and onto the condo property’s lawn. The boat slips were empty, the floating docks pulled out of the water and tied to the cement.
“Aren’t you supposed to stay in a room with no windows?” my mother asked Chad. She had Sam’s hand locked in a death grip. “Do you have an inside bedroom?”
“Both the bedrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows,” I said, then wished I’d let Chad answer. An ancient wave of embarrassment washed in; why did I have to remind everyone how intimately I knew this place?
“The master bath is probably our best bet,” Chad said. “The walk-in closet is smack in the middle of the apartment. Tight quarters, but hopefully not for long.”
He herded everyone through the elegant living room with its granite coffee table and multiple nubby sofas, which Evinrude had enjoyed scratching, and then through the master bedroom to the bathroom. The closet at the rear of the bathroom was roomier than any closet needed to be, but still a snug fit for us. A knock on the door banged and Chad went to answer. Within minutes, my two police officer friends tumbled in and stood at the edge of the bathroom, dripping onto the limestone floor, soaking wet and wild-eyed.
“Go on in,” said Chad. “I won’t worry about getting the carpet wet at this point.”
“Crazy out there,” said Torrence. I hugged each in turn, handed them towels from Chad’s stash under the sink, and explained the plan. “We figured we’d be better off in here, away from the glass.”
Chad shut the outer bathroom door and came into the closet after us, carrying a Coleman lantern and a hand-crank weather radio. From a reusable cloth grocery sack, he took a six-pack of Perrier, two bags of potato chips, a bottle of Cuban rum, and two big bars of chocolate.
“All the food groups,” said my mother. “Smart man.”
He grinned and shut the door behind him.
“This is cozy,” said Miss Gloria as she unzipped the carrier and set the cats free. Evinrude shot out and bolted across the legs and laps in his way and began to frantically claw at the door.
The lights blinked and went dark, and my cell phone made its losing-the-signal chirp. “This is not good,” I said, peering at the dim screen and hoping for a glimmer of bars.
“Cell tower must have gone out,” said Chad. “I’ll get the radio working.” We heard the whirring noise of his crank, and the battery-operated light came on along with a static-y weather report.
“Extreme weather warning: Hurricane-force winds are expected to brush Key West within the half hour. Extreme sustained winds of over one hundred thirty miles per hour are predicted. Take immediate shelter in the interior of a well-built structure. Repeat …”
“I never did talk to my sons to tell them the plane was canceled,” said Miss Gloria in a trembling voice. “They’ll be sick with worry.” She sounded so sad, she nearly broke my heart.
“Use our satellite phone,” said Torrence, handing it to her. “Briefly.”
So Miss Gloria called her sons, who were not happy about the news that she was still on the island. “It’s where I should be,” she said softly. “It’s my home. Your father and I stayed through thick and thin for more than twenty years. It didn’t feel right to leave. And anyway, they canceled all the flights. So I’m here with Hayley and Janet and Sam and two police officers. I love you and I’ll call you once the storm’s gone by.”
Then I called my father, who wasn’t home. But I knew my stepmother would get him the right message, even if I was struggling for words. “He’s so proud of you, Hayley,” she added. “And I am too.”
“Give Rory our love,” said my mother over my shoulder.
And finally Chad put a call in to his mother, and left a mushy message—for him—when she didn’t answer.
“Anyone you want to talk to?” Torrence asked Bransford, holding up the phone. He shook his head. Either he’d said his good-byes, or he didn’t believe we needed to say them, or he couldn’t bear to do it in public.
“Lorenzo might say that Key West had this coming,” I said after a long silence except for the wind howling around the building and periodic unidentifiable bangs. I pictured the feeder bands of the storm wobbling over the condominium, wiping out swaths of the island as they went. “He says this city was born in the sign of Capricorn. Which means it’s hard, and focused on money.”
“How in the world does a city have an astrological sign?” asked Torrence.
“I asked Lorenzo the same thing,” I said. “You look at the date when the place was founded—the time is important too. Plus, Key West is strong in Saturn. If you think about it, Saturn as a planet is cold and distant. But Lorenzo says Key West has got Leo in its moon, and that explains why our town is gregarious and entertaining. Look at all the kings and queens we have in our city. It’s not just Fantasy Fest. Everybody who comes here or lives here wants to be a king and a queen of something.”
“I doubt there’ll be much left for them to fight over when we’re finished with this storm,” said Bransford. He looked as though he wanted to add more, and I could imagine what was going through his mind. He is the least woo-woo person I’ve ever met. And Capricorn, through and through, like Key West, only without the softening effects of Leo. All pure cold judgment, focus on the lessons of the father—at least on the surface.
“We never understand quite how thin the line is between life and death,” said my mom. “I mean, we know it in the back of our minds but we don’t let ourselves know it, if you get what I’m saying.” Then she blinked back a few tears and sandwiched Sam’s hand between hers.
The quiet was broken by the sound of the satellite phone ringing. Bransford answered. “It’s your father,” he said, unsmiling, and handed the handset to me.
“Just called to say I love you, Hayley,” he said gruffly. I told him the same, unable to get anything else out around the lump that had risen in my throat. “Let me speak to your mother,” he said.
“Yes?” Mom asked, holding the phone gingerly, like an overripe banana.
We could hear the loud clearing of my father’s throat. “Are you sure this Sam is going to treasure you?” he asked. “I know you didn’t feel that way all the time in our marriage. And I’ll always regret that.”
“I’m sure,” she said, her voice barely over a whisper. “Thank you.”
“Speaking of life and death and kings and queens,” I said once she’d hung up and I couldn’t bear the tension one more minute, “did you guys find Caryn Druckman’s killer?”
“We have leads,” said Bransford. “Good ones, but nothing that could put someone behind bars. The investigation got pretty well sidelined by this storm.”
“Trying to get everyone off the island and safe,” said Miss Gloria. “And some of us just wouldn’t cooperate.”
“All this talk about the importance of money in Key West,” said Sam, “don’t you think that death had to be about money too?”
“Danielle did say that that woman tried her hardest to stuff the ballot box at the Coronation Ball,” my mother said. “I think she was astonished that she didn’t win. In the end, though, her money wasn’t enough to get the job done.”
“But th
en why did she end up dead?” I asked. “Doesn’t it seem more like she might’ve killed someone else, rather than having been killed herself?”
“Like Danielle,” said my mother, frowning. “She would have been the logical target, if Druckman wasn’t already dead.”
The satellite phone squawked again—Chad’s mother returning his call.
“I’m okay,” he said to her after her torrent of concerned words. “I’m here in the apartment with some friends.”
More questions from his mom.
“Hayley Snow is here and her mom and a few others. We even have a police contingent, so if anyone needs CPR, we’re all set.” There was a pause while he listened to his mother, his face and neck reddening. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Love you too.”
He hung up the phone and turned to look at me. “She insists that I tell you that I should have married you when I had the opportunity.”
“Your chance for that is long over, pal,” Bransford grunted, and then reached over to put his hand on my knee.
I grinned. “Watch out for those wild displays of public affection.” I blew him a kiss.
The lights in the closet flickered on again, and for a moment, the air conditioner ground to life.
“Speaking of getting married, Sam,” said my mother in a soft voice, “I sure am sorry that we didn’t get to our ceremony on the beach.” She looked pale and tired in the overhead light, but her eyes brimmed with love.
“I could marry you right here and now,” said Torrence. “You already have the license. And we’ve got plenty of witnesses.”
Sam took my mother’s hands. “Let’s do it.”
“Would you?” she asked Torrence.
Miss Gloria clapped her hands. “The perfect idea—a hurricane wedding. You can tell this story to your kids for years.”
“I’m her only kid,” I said, smiling.
Torrence nodded and suggested we all take hands. “Dearly beloved,” he said, “we are gathered here in the presence of friends and God and the mighty power of nature to join this woman and this man in holy matrimony.”
Killer Takeout Page 19