by Amy Gamet
He’d have to work quickly.
He was struck by the realization that none of this was random. There was a reason he’d ended up in Hannah Fielding’s apartment, one that defied coincidence or simple happenstance. Something had brought her into that bodega at just the right moment for him to find her. He’d come to the island desperate for answers, ready to face the harrowing storm outside.
He glanced to the window and the darkness beyond. Maybe that was exactly what he’d been given.
He gathered the papers into a pile and shoved them into his go bag.
6
Hannah stared at the jagged bits of glass that clung to the frame of her bedroom window, the howling of the wind outside making her feel like Dorothy being lifted by the cyclone.
If she could have shimmied down the side of the building with Brady on her back, she would have done it in a heartbeat, but unfortunately such heroics were a sheer impossibility.
She wasn’t sure she believed Noah would hurt her if she refused to come with him, even though he’d pulled a gun on them at the corner store, and she wasn’t sure if that made her insightful or ridiculously stupid. The Navy SEAL garbage was probably a line of crap, but she couldn’t put her finger on what his real story was. He was certainly built like he was in the military, with legs like tree trunks and arms that could wrestle all day long.
She shook her head to clear it. He was built, all right, and he was desperate. And desperate people did desperate things.
She ought to know.
She’d felt that way for nearly a year now. Joe’s death had shattered her world as surely as the storm had broken her window. Where she’d once been strong, she was weak, where she’d once been confident, she was full of self-doubt. Joe had been her rock, anchoring everything she did and even who she considered herself to be. Without him, she was just…drifting.
An odd light shined on the ceiling, and she moved to the window to see what caused it. There, just steps from her building and next to the parking garage, stood a man in the glow of a camera’s lights. If he were closer, she could call out to him or signal him in some way, but as it was, he’d never hear her above the roar of the hurricane’s winds.
“Mommy, can I bring all my stuffed animals?”
“No, baby. Just Mr. Bojangles, okay?”
“But Bunny and Big Dog are scared of Oscar.”
“Okay. Bring Bunny and Big Dog, too.”
“I wish Daddy was here.”
“Me, too.” She turned and stroked his soft little-boy hair. This boy was everything, the most important person on the face of the earth, and she prayed she’d be able to take good care of him.
There was a knock on the bedroom door. “We need to go now.”
She looked to Brady. “Go potty.” She moved to her dresser and selected a pair of leggings covered in cartoon mice. “One size fits all,” she muttered to herself, then opened the door to Noah. “Here.”
He cocked his head. “Is that the best you can do?”
“They’re very comfortable. You’ll never wear anything else, I swear it.”
He stepped past her into the bedroom, instantly making her uncomfortable. “Are your husband’s clothes still here?”
“No.”
He opened the top drawer of Joe’s dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans. “What do you call these?”
Her throat was tight. “You can’t wear his things.”
“I need them.”
She snatched the pants out of his hand and stuffed them back in the drawer. “I said no.”
“He can’t wear them anymore, Hannah. He’s gone.”
She moved to slap him and he caught her arm in midair. “Fuck you,” she ground out quietly. He was so much stronger than her, so much taller and bigger. Everything about him dominated her and there was nothing she could do about that, but damned if she was going to let him hurt her soul, where she was already bruised and bleeding.
“I’m sorry I have to take them, but I do.” His eyes held hers as tightly as his big hand clenched her wrist, their steely-gray depths arresting. The air between them was charged, her skin heated at the point of contact, and for a moment she was certain it was hatred in its purest form. But then his gaze slipped slowly down her features, caressing her face with interest so intense she could feel it like a touch, until it landed on her parted lips and she froze.
She couldn’t breathe, the moment stretching out between them. She wanted him to kiss her.
What the fuck was the matter with her?
She jerked away from him. “Take the damn pants.”
The bathroom door opened, Brady skipping out. “I’m ready.”
Noah was standing there as if waiting for her to say something, and she turned her head sharply to the left to avoid him, her eyes going to the picture of her husband she kept on the nightstand. The frame had blown over in the wind, water from outside pooling beneath it, and it was surely ruined—just another blow to her well-being.
She and Brady followed Noah down the stairs, the wind grabbing the metal fire door and slamming it against the building. It was so windy it was difficult to walk outside, Brady unable to move forward despite his hand in hers. Noah picked him up with one arm, leaving Hannah wanting to protest, but Brady was too big for her to carry. It was Noah or no one at all.
Brady smiled at her over Noah’s shoulder.
Great. My son’s getting attached to a psychopath.
She followed a step behind them through the parking garage. They rounded a dumpster and the TV crew came into view in the distance, lights on and the man out in front of the camera.
This was her chance to get away.
She looked from Noah to the TV crew. Did he still have his weapon within reach or had he put it in his bag? The camera crew was recording. He wouldn’t hurt them on TV, would he? If he really was dangerous, she was better off to take her chances now with an audience than to go with him to God knows where.
The parking garage was a veritable wind tunnel but it was headed toward the TV crew. Knowing her voice would carry on the air and echo in the garage, she felt confident a hearty scream would reach them. Uncertainty clawed at her insides.
Don’t let this opportunity get away.
She took air deep into her lungs and yelled as loudly as she could. “Help!”
Noah spun around instantly, grabbing her with his free arm. “What are you doing?”
“Help!” she screamed again, as loudly as she could. This time, the lights changed direction, pointing at the three of them.
“Stop it,” said Noah.
“Put down my son.” She tried to pull her arm away from him. “They’re watching you. They’re probably recording this right now.”
Brady was holding him tightly. “But I like Noah, Mommy.”
“He’s a bad man, baby.”
Brady frowned and stared at Noah. “Down.”
“Just a second,” Noah said to the boy, then looked back at Hannah. “Listen to me. My sister worked at the hospital. She was an accountant. Lizzie Ryker. Did you know her?”
Noah was Lizzie Ryker’s sister?
There was a resemblance. Those gray eyes that were so intimidating on Noah were striking on Lizzie. And the dark hair. Yes, she could see it now.
She and Lizzie were barely more than acquaintances, but they’d worked at the same hospital for years. “I know the name. She died recently.”
“She had your husband’s obituary on her refrigerator.”
Surprise had her jerking her head back. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. There’s more. In your husband’s desk I found a whole folder about discrepancies with the drug supply accounting—”
“You went through my husband’s desk?”
“Listen to me! He discovered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs missing during the accreditation. He wrote a letter to the head honchos the week before he died, all but pointing the finger at someone in the administration.”
But you knew how stressed he was. Something was wrong and he wouldn’t tell you what it was.
She figured it was the long hours he was putting in to finalize the accreditation. It was a massive amount of work and he was under a lot of pressure to complete everything on time, on top of all the work he was doing to get his consulting firm up and running.
In her mind she could see him sitting at his desk when she’d gone in search of him in the middle of the night. Her hands had squeezed his shoulders, the muscles tight and knotted, her heart going out to the man she loved, so overworked and tired.
Had there been more to it than that? If Joe really discovered thievery of that magnitude, he’d have been compelled to find the source. That was her husband. Hardworking and honest to a fault, never passing the buck on to the next person.
An investigation like that would have put him in danger.
Her throat constricted. In her memory she was clutching the autopsy report, the paper crinkling beneath her fingers, her head throbbing with the need to understand something that defied explanation.
It doesn’t make any sense.
The TV crew was only forty feet away, fighting the wind with every step. Their lights pointed at the triad, Noah’s face in shadow as he looked back at her.
“How did he die?” Noah demanded.
A pit opened up inside her, threatening to take her down. It was filled with nagging doubt, the kind that reached up when you weren’t looking and pulled you beneath the inky surface.
“A heart attack.”
“At thirty-four?”
She looked from the news crew to Noah and back again.
You’ve known for months there was more to his death. Isn’t that why the microscope is sitting in your car? Prepared slides of your husband’s organs tightly wrapped in plastic inside your purse?
“I don’t…I don’t know…”
“My sister hated guns,” said Noah. “I’m a sniper, for God’s sake, but she would never touch one no matter how many times I tried to teach her. They want me to believe she shot herself in the head. There’s no way in hell she would do that. Someone else killed her.”
Hannah squeezed her eyes shut. What he was suggesting was unthinkable.
“Is it possible your husband’s heart attack could have been something else?”
Her lips were trembling. “Joe had a procedure in July to fix a heart murmur. They said his arteries were pristine.”
“Not exactly heart attack material.” His fingers dug painfully into her arm. “Come with me. We’ll find out who did this together.”
The camera crew crossed the last of the distance that separated them from Hannah. “Ma’am, are you okay?” a man asked.
She opened her mouth and closed it again.
Am I all right?
7
“Smile,” Noah said into her ear.
“Ma’am?” the man asked again. The camera lights were blinding, the force of the wind making her feel like she was standing in the path of an oncoming train.
Noah pulled her against his side like they were a couple. “We’re fine, just getting blown away out here,” he said. The men’s eyes moved to Hannah.
She hesitated.
This was her chance to get away from Noah. She remembered the fear she’d felt when she found him in the backseat of her car. How he’d wrapped a gun inside Brady’s sweatshirt and forced her to take him home with her. The dead body of the police officer on the side of the road, for God’s sake, and the realization that Noah had killed him.
But she remembered other things, too. Lizzie Ryker at the hospital, always smiling, even laughing at lunch with her coworkers. Hannah had been shocked to learn of her suicide. Noah’s version of events almost made more sense.
And she remembered her beloved Joe as she performed CPR, her movements practiced and efficient even as her heart seemed to rip from her body. The autopsy report that added to her confusion instead of settling her mind. The hundreds of nights afterwards when she skirted the abyss of doubt.
This was her chance to find out the truth.
Her stare went to Brady, then Noah, beseeching. Would her baby be safe with this man?
“I’ll take good care of him,” said Noah. “I promise.”
Her mouth opened in shock. How many times had Joe used those exact words? Her husband and his little buddy off on some adventure, a quick wink in her direction.
I’ll take good care of him. I promise.
She knew what she had to do.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry I worried you,” she yelled to the men. “The wind is so strong.”
She was struck again by how physically fit Noah was, the muscles of his arm and chest wrapping around her body, and she prayed she had made the right decision.
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions on camera?” asked the man.
“I don’t think—” she said.
“Sure,” said Noah.
“Why didn’t your family heed the mandatory evacuation order?”
She was about to correct his assumption that they were a family when Noah said, “Just go along with it.”
She met his eyes, that same steely stare she’d first seen in the corner store that had shot a bolt of longing through her body. She wasn’t sure what was happening here, who he was or how his story related to hers, but his question about how her husband died might have been the first honest thing she’d heard in more than a year, vibrating in tune with the piece of her that had known something was terribly wrong.
She would help him now. Play along if need be. She turned toward the camera, a smile on her face. “I’m a physician. I wanted to stay in the area in case I was needed.”
“Where are you going?” asked the weatherman.
“Higher ground,” said Noah. “You can’t be too careful with a storm surge like this one’s packing.”
The weatherman looked to Brady. “What about you, little guy? Is your daddy taking good care of you?”
A wide smile burst onto his face. “Yeah.”
A little piece of Hannah shriveled up and died. Brady was so desperate for a father, he’d clung on to this stranger after a bullet wound and one ride on his shoulders. She must be doing a terrible job as a stand-in dad if that’s all it took to replace her.
“How much longer do we have until the worst of it comes on shore?” asked Noah.
“This parking garage is your saving grace at the moment. Out there are sustained winds of eighty miles per hour. I’d say we’ll be up to ninety in the next twenty minutes, and into the eye wall where it’s currently a hundred and thirty miles per hour.”
“Wow,” said Hannah.
“Then the eye of the storm after that,” he continued. “Maybe half an hour, thirty-five minutes until it will be quiet for a little while, then the other side of the eye wall will hit.”
“We’d better be on our way,” said Hannah.
They reached the car, Noah putting the boy down and holding out his hand for the keys. It was a small gesture that seemed much more profound. A shift in their relationship. A token of trust.
She put them in his palm and moved to the passenger side, the wind blowing the car in gusts and waves as they drove along the roads she’d driven all her life, things that should have looked familiar now strange and frighteningly new. The hurricane tugged at the landscape, ripping trees from their roots and tossing branches and palms everywhere.
He pulled in behind the pickup truck they’d passed earlier with a cab cover over the back and two flat tires, and Hannah made a point not to look at the dead body on the ground.
Noah got out, angling his body against the wind as he made his way in front of the truck. He came back carrying two large gas cans and she popped open the trunk, a strange sort of numbness taking over her mind. It was too much to absorb—all of it. Especially after she’d had so little sleep.
The sudden depth of her returning fatig
ue seemed to alter her consciousness.
She watched him make several more trips until all the gas cans were stowed away, then he filled her tank. How long had it been since a man had done the hard work while she stayed safely inside? Joe had always done the heavy lifting while she stayed dry—literally and figuratively—and she didn’t realize until that moment how exhausted she’d become from doing everything herself.
She was mother and father to Brady, the wage earner, the grocery shopper, the laundry doer, the homework helper, the playmate, the car mechanic, the every-fucking-thing doer. And she was so damn tired it hurt.
He climbed back into the car, a wet wind whipping through the vehicle until he slammed the door. “All set.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“My sister’s place. It’s not far.”
“Is it really on higher ground?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t we get away from Oscar like you told the camera crew?”
“I think that ship sailed a while ago. With so much debris on the road and in the air, we’re better off just to batten down the hatches and wait out the storm. I have plenty of supplies at her place for all three of us.”
“Were you close to your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It hasn’t had a chance to sink in yet. I got angry when I found out. Mad at the whole damn world. I made some bad choices and probably lost my job.”
“HERO Force.”
“That’s right. I’ve only been there about six months and I don’t think they’ll put up with that kind of shit.” His eyes went to mirror and Brady. “Sorry. I have to watch my mouth.”
“That’s okay,” said Brady, cheerfully.
“I think you’re walking on water right about now,” she said quietly.
“I noticed that.”
“Sorry. It’s been hard for him.”
“I like it.” He turned to her and smiled, a killer grin that made her insides dance. “Only standing next to a kid can you feel like you’re ten feet tall.”