Landfall

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Then he had walked over to look at her bookshelves again, and she’d gone back to her rope.

  Maggie hadn’t realized that she’d dropped off again until the noise woke her. The plywood was wrenched violently from the kitchen window, then banged against the side of the house as it was blown away.

  Apparently, the man had fallen asleep at some point, too, for both he and Maggie jerked their heads up, and he jumped out of his chair. He looked just as surprised as she was to see daylight. Somehow, Maggie had started to believe it would always be night.

  As the man looked out of the kitchen window, the kids roused, and Maggie checked her rope. She had managed to dig herself a ragged little hole in one part of the overhand knot, but she hadn’t yet managed to pull the knot any looser. She dug what was left of the nail of her middle finger into the niche and went back to work trying to pull it loose.

  Her best hope was that once she did loosen the ties, she would have a moment while he used the bathroom or was otherwise occupied somewhere else in the house. He seldom left the main room, but he had wandered on occasion. If she were quiet enough, and fast enough, she might get to one of the weapons that he had left strewn on the kitchen counter last night. His .22 was still in his waistband, and she wondered why he didn’t just switch it out for her Glock. She would.

  He turned away from the kitchen window and wandered down the hall to the bathroom, walked in without shutting the door. Maggie’s stomach turned a little as she listened to him urinating a night’s worth of Dr. Peppers.

  She picked at the rope furiously, and almost stopped breathing for a moment when she felt the knot give just a bit. It was almost imperceptible, but it was movement. She couldn’t help but huff out a little breath, and when she did, she met Sky’s eye.

  Wyatt shifted uncomfortably in a chair that felt as though it were made of recycled shopping carts. He’d already done his pee test, and was waiting for the nurse to draw his blood. Apparently, all of this was to save time tomorrow, when he had his surgery, but he failed to see the logic of that.

  His phone vibrated in his shirt pocket, and the nurse gave his a disapproving look over her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll turn it off after this call.” He pulled out his cell. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Wyatt, it’s Gray Redmond,” Maggie’s father said.

  “Hey, Gray, how was the cruise?”

  “It was great, but I was wondering if you’d heard from Maggie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they’re not here,” Gray answered. “We got in about half an hour ago, but there’s no sign of them.”

  Wyatt frowned and looked at his watch. “Did you call her?”

  “Yes, but it went straight to voice mail. I called the kids, too. Same thing.”

  “Maybe there’s a problem with T-Mobile,” Wyatt said. “They might be overloaded with the storm.”

  “Maybe,” Gray said. “I was hoping you’d heard from her though.”

  “Not since last night. She called to tell me that Kyle came home early, so they were going to head out. That was about six or seven.”

  Gray was quiet for a minute. “Maybe we should rent another car and drive home,” he said finally.

  “No, don’t do that,” Wyatt said. “I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe traffic on I-10 sucked with everybody headed inland. They may have stopped somewhere for the night and gotten behind. She’s headed your way, so you should stay there.”

  “All right, we’ll wait a bit longer. I don’t suppose you could get the Highway Patrol or somebody looking for her?”

  “I’m planning on it,” Wyatt answered. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s fine. I’ll call you as soon as I hear something.”

  “Same here,” Gray said.

  Wyatt hung up and thought a minute. He’d talked to Deputy Dwight Shultz earlier, and he knew that what remained of the Sheriff’s Office and the Apalach PD were people who were busy helping with the evacuations and taking emergency calls. The National Guard had been in Apalach since before sunrise, and Apalach was being evacuated, along with several other coastal towns between Cedar Key and Biloxi.

  Hurricane Faye hadn’t made landfall, but she wasn’t heading out to the Gulf, either. She’d just been sitting off the coast, collecting and dumping more and more rain. Between the rains and the wind, storm surges of up to six feet had begun flooding the streets along the bay.

  Wyatt opened his contacts list and began scrolling, then found the number he was looking for and tapped it. It was answered on the second ring. “Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Capt. Burrell speaking.”

  “Hey, Paul, it’s Wyatt.”

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?” Paul answered cheerfully. “If you’re looking for your old job back, I think the Sheriff’s ready to let you have it.”

  “No, I’ll keep the one I’ve got, thanks,” Wyatt said. “But I need a favor. It’s important.”

  “Shoot.”

  “One of my people was supposed to have driven over to Jax last night, and she never showed. I need you to check the accident reports.”

  Five minutes later, Wyatt called Gray back and at least let him know that Maggie’s Cherokee hadn’t been in a reported accident. After reassuring Gray that Maggie was bound to turn up shortly, he tried her number himself and got the same result Gray had. He hung up and frowned at the cracks in the tile floor for a moment.

  He looked up when the nurse approached with a small tray containing a hypodermic and a couple of glass vials. He leaned on his cane and struggled to his feet.

  “Mr. Hamilton? Do you need to use the restroom?”

  “Actually, I’m afraid we’re going to have to reschedule.”

  “Sir, we can’t reschedule. Your surgery is tomorrow at seven.”

  “Yeah, we’re gonna have to reschedule that, too.”

  Wyatt limped out of the room and went to find a taxi.

  Maggie was picking at the threads of her rope, trying to get it to move again, when the man’s cell phone rang from the kitchen counter. She actually jumped when it did, and she froze while the man ran over to the counter from the kitchen window.

  “Hey!” he said when he answered. “What do you mean, where have I been? I been trying to call you all night and I couldn’t get nothin’ to go through.” He paused and listened for a moment. “I’m at her house, with her! Her and her kids.” He listened for a few seconds. “Because they were here, dammit. Now you listen to me. You get over here, and you bring me some jumper cables.”

  He rubbed at his face as he listened for a moment. Maggie started picking faster and harder. When she glanced across the table, she saw that Sky was watching her.

  “I don’t care about no evacuations,” the man said. “My truck is dead and I need you to get over here now, and bring me cables! How many—” He glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice a little. “How many times did you say you wanted payback for your son? Well, I’m handing it to you. So get over here.”

  Maggie stared at him as he slapped the phone shut and leaned on the counter. She even stopped picking at her knot for a moment.

  She glanced over at Kyle. He looked out of it, dazed. She didn’t know how much of that was exhaustion, hunger and dehydration, and how much of it was resignation and fear. Sky’s demeanor had also become more fearful. It was amazing how fast a person’s spirit could be worn down. The teenager’s chin wasn’t quite so high, and her eyes were still watchful but no longer defiant.

  The man turned around and walked lazily over to the table and leaned on one hand. Maggie could feel the warm air from his mouth and she tried not to breathe anything of him into her lungs.

  “I’d do some praying, if I was you,” he said, grinning. “It looks like your comeuppance has come up.”

  He patted her on the head like she was a neighbor’s puppy, then walked back into the kitchen. He stood with his back to her at the kitchen sink, and watched as the branches on the tree just outside be
nt at impossible angles.

  Maggie was staring at a spot between his shoulder blades when the rope gave again, just a tiny bit, but enough to dig her nail into. She cut her eyes over to Sky. The girl was staring at the table, and Maggie sniffed.

  When Sky looked up, Maggie touched her chin to her right shoulder. Sky just stared, and Maggie did it again. Sky eyes moved to Maggie’s shoulder, and Maggie lifted it. Just barely, but visibly. She saw Sky blink a couple of times, then Maggie tried winking at her, and she could see that Sky finally got the message that Maggie was either loose or working on it.

  Maggie glanced over at the man’s back again before looking at Sky and nodding. She almost came undone when Sky’s eyes filled with tears.

  Boudreaux closed his cell phone when he heard the call disconnect, then turned it over a few times in his hand as he stared at the stone surface of the kitchen island.

  “Who the phone?” Miss Evangeline snapped from the kitchen table. It took Boudreaux a moment to hear her, and he turned around.

  “Something’s come up,” he said.

  She pointed her thick lenses at him, and the flame from the hurricane lamp on the counter reflected in both of them. “I know somethin’ come up,” she barked. “Hurricane come up, like I done told you.”

  Boudreaux looked over at Amelia, who was toasting a slice of bread for her mother over one of the gas burners. “I’m going to have to go out for a bit,” he said quietly.

  “What you mean, go out?’ Amelia asked. “Ain’t no ‘out’ out there.”

  “Flood come up, too, like I told you,” Miss Evangeline piped up. “Water come all up Mr. Benny yard like I say.”

  Boudreaux turned around and looked at her. “Yes, Miss Evangeline, you were right,” he said politely. “I was wrong. Again.”

  “Wrong, right don’t matter, no,” she said, but she looked satisfied anyway. “Matter that the shark gon’ be in the yard, eatin’ all the drown cats and messin’ round my mango.”

  Boudreaux sighed. It had taken him hours yesterday to convince Miss Evangeline to come stay in the house with him. The house was elevated on a brick foundation, while the cottage in back was not. Miss Evangeline had wanted to stay back there and guard her TV set against sharks and looters. The only reason she’d finally come was that he’d pointed out how much dear Lily would hate the idea of Amelia and Miss Evangeline sleeping in the guest room.

  He looked back at Amelia, who had turned off the burner and was sliding the toast onto a saucer. “I won’t be long,” he said. “Just stay put and you’ll both be fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “But where you goin’?” she asked.

  “Who go?” Miss Evangeline snapped.

  “He say he goin’ somewhere,” Amelia said.

  Boudreaux sighed as he heard Miss Evangeline’s chair bumping against the floor. He turned around to find her grabbing onto her walker and standing.

  “Mr. Benny ain’t go nowhere!” she said. “I ain’t gon’ tolerate no nonsense, me.”

  “I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” he lied, trying to sound soothing to someone who hadn’t been soothed once in almost a hundred years.

  She jabbed a bent finger at him. “Where you think you got to go in the hurricane?”

  He took a breath and let it out slowly. “To Maggie Redmond’s.”

  “No. I won’t have none of this,” she said, and started inching toward the hallway that led to the front door. “You need stay right where you at, and you get your mind off that girl. I told you leave it alone, me!”

  Boudreaux watched her head out the kitchen doorway at what would have been breakneck speed for someone whose neck was already broken. Boudreaux supposed she was going to head him off at the pass. He looked at Amelia. “Go make sure she doesn’t unlock that door,” he said.

  Amelia sighed and put down the saucer, then went after her mother. Boudreaux dropped his cell phone into his trouser pocket and heard it tap against the switchblade he’d carried every day for forty years. Then he headed for the back door. On his way, he could hear Miss Evangeline in the hallway.

  “You think you go somewhere,” she was saying. “You try and I put my foot to that Cajun ass.”

  Boudreaux saw with some frustration that the few remaining late season mangoes had been stripped from the full-size trees, and that the wind was beating the hydrangea, bougainvillea, and hibiscus bushes to death. The smaller, potted mangoes had been moved to the brick potting house, and he hoped they were faring better.

  The water in the yard was shin deep, and branches, small garden pots, and unfamiliar debris from other yards swept across his path as he made his way to the garage.

  He had to use the key to open the door to the garage where he kept his hunting truck, a Ford F450 that had been lifted and set upon oversize tires for mucking through Tate’s Hell Forest. It was overkill, but he occasionally enjoyed a little overkill.

  It took him a minute to work the key underwater, then he pulled up the door. The garage, too, was flooded, and he sloshed to the truck, glad for a brief respite from the wind and the rain. He was already soaked, despite grabbing his yellow raincoat and, at 45mph, the rain felt like broken glass.

  He started the Ford and pulled to the end of the driveway as a five-ton National Guard truck with a green cargo cover pulled to a stop just in front of him. A blond soldier in his early twenties leaned out the open passenger side window. Boudreaux rolled down his window and winced against the rain.

  “Sir, can I ask where you’re headed?”

  “Well, I was a little too stubborn last night, but I’m evacuating now,” he answered.

  “Is it just you, sir?”

  “Yes, sir,” Boudreaux said pleasantly. “The rest of the family left yesterday.”

  “Well, there’s bad flooding all along 98 on the bay, so we’re directing everyone left to take 12th Street to Bluff Road and on to the airport,” the man said. “We’ve got shelters set up there for you.”

  “That’s where I’m headed,” Boudreaux said. “Bluff Road.” Lying was always easier when it was mostly truth.

  “Very good, sir. Good luck,” the man said, and the truck moved on, slowly making its way along Avenue D.

  Boudreaux pulled out onto the street and turned left, away from the Guard truck, to head for 12th Street and Bluff Road. Maggie’s road.

  Wyatt waited at the checkout counter at the car rental agency, leaning on his cane for balance as the young redheaded girl with the impossibly bright smile tapped away at her keyboard.

  “And you’ll just be using the car locally?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he lied, and felt bad about that, but he was pretty sure that if he said he was driving over to the Gulf Coast, she wouldn’t give him the keys.

  She tapped a few more keys. “Okay, we can give you the Florida resident, local only rate of $29.99 per day, with a free upgrade to a mid-size sedan. Does that sound good?”

  “That sounds great, thanks,” he said, and looked at his watch.

  “Here’s your license, Mr. Hamilton, and I’ll just print out your agreement for you to sign.”

  Wyatt put the license back in his wallet and tried Maggie’s cell one more time. Nothing. He slid the phone back into his shirt pocket.

  “Here you go, Mr. Hamilton,” the redhead said. “If you’ll just sign where indicated and check the boxes that are highlighted, we’ll have your car brought around front.”

  Wyatt got everything signed and checked, and smiled and said “thank you” where indicated as well, but he had a hard time not rapping the cane against the counter and asking her to speed things along.

  Finally, she handed him seven copies of his rental agreement in three different pastel colors, and pointed at the glass front doors. “There’s your car now,” she said. “We’ll see you back here tomorrow.”

  “Okee-doke,” Wyatt said, and lurched toward the doors.

  He knew that, most likely, Maggie had had car trouble or some other minor issue that h
ad prevented her leaving Apalach as scheduled. He also knew that, given the fact that one of them had been shot every time they tried to have a real date, it wasn’t that outrageous to assume she’d simultaneously had phone trouble. He just wasn’t sure he was buying it.

  If he drove through hell and high water, pissed off his doctors, and was popping Percocet tonight all because she forgot to gas up the Jeep or something, he’d go ahead and yell at her for a while, then make her cook him a steak. Maybe he’d even take her dog.

  Until then, he was going to assume that there was a good reason for him to be doing what he was doing.

  When Maggie felt the rope actually give, truly and without question move, she immediately broke into a sweat.

  It wasn’t that she was exerting herself any more than she had been; it was the almost instantaneous supply of adrenaline her brain provided her heart and muscles as soon as it perceived that she had a reason to need it.

  Her mouth opened just a bit, and her eyes widened, and she saw immediately that Sky noticed. Sky had been watching her for the last half hour, alternating staring at her mother with glancing over at the man, who seemed newly enervated by the promise of the new arrival. He had been walking around the main room without purpose, occasionally stopping to check his phone, get a drink of water, or watch the storm out the kitchen window.

  Maggie purposefully and with great effort kept her breathing slow and even, and kept her butt in her chair and her arms back, though every instinct but the smart ones pushed her to leap from her chair.

  What she wished was for the man to go to the bathroom, go anywhere that would give her half a chance at getting to one of her guns on the kitchen counter. But she knew that she would be unlikely to have enough time to get there, reload one of the guns he’d emptied, and be ready before he shot her in the back.

  The man walked over to the front door and laid his ear against it, listening. Maggie heard nothing but the incessant wind and rain.