The Wicked Storm
Page 1
CASS TELL
Cass Tell is the author of eleven novels, numerous short stories, and novels for young readers.
Find out more at his website at: www.casstell.com
For more information on The Adventures of Amy and Jack go to:
http://www.casstell.com/amy-and-jack.html
The Wicked Storm
The Adventures of Amy and Jack,
Book 3
CASS TELL
Destinée Media
Copyright Page
Copyright © 2017 by Destinée Media
The Wicked Storm
The Adventures of Amy and Jack, Book 3
By CASS TELL
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Author’s website, www.casstell.com
Published by Destinée Media, www.destineemedia.com
Illustrations by Val McCall, www.valmccall.com
All rights reserved by Destinée Media
ISBN 978-1-938367-34-2
DEDICATION
To Emilia who helped with this story.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
DEDICATION
Table of Contents
A Proverb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Preview of The Insidious Hope, Book 4 of the Adventures of Amy and Jack:
A Note from CASS TELL
About the Author
A Proverb
The evil are ensnared by the transgression of their lips, but the righteous escape from trouble.
Proverbs 12:13
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Chapter 1
Hard driving rain stung their faces as Amy and Jack ran from the bus to the front door of the fancy first class hotel. She wondered if they would be safe in this building.
She and her brother Jack were in Tallahassee, Florida where their bus had to make an unexpected stop. A hurricane was coming in from the Gulf of Mexico heading straight toward them.
The highway patrol had redirected traffic off the freeway in preparation of the oncoming storm. Weather experts classified it a low-grade Category One hurricane. Even so, they were sending people to safe areas as a precaution.
Amy grew up in California where they did not have hurricanes, so she was not sure what to expect.
After leaving the freeway, the bus had gone past an airport and some golf courses and then stopped in the parking lot of a large first class hotel. The bus driver said they would need to wait out the storm over the next twenty four to forty eight hours.
Amy and Jack were the only ones on the bus, as all the other passengers had decided to get off at Lake City, the previous stop.
When they got to the hotel the driver said “Better get going if you want a room. There’s gonna be to be a flood of people coming into the hotels around here. If you don't get a room, then they’ll take you to a gym or community hall where you'll sleep on the floor. I’m staying with relatives.”
Once inside the lobby they walked to the front desk in their wet clothing. The check-in took time, because of computer problems, but eventually the receptionist assigned them to a room on the top floor.
They took the elevator to their floor, found the room and Amy passed the electronic key in front of a reader above the door handle. A green light went on, she opened the door and Jack followed her into the room.
“Wow,” Jack said, “Look at this.”
The room was large with one gigantic bed against a wall. It had multiple decorative pillows and a bed cover that looked like it came from an expensive shop.
“And, look at that,” Jack exclaimed, pointing to a television that seemed to fill half the wall.
There was a bowl of fruit on a table and a mini bar and the bathroom had a Jacuzzi bathtub and a shower.
Rain pounded against the window and Amy questioned if being on the top floor made sense. The full force of a hurricane would hit at eight o’clock the following morning.
“This place is so cool,” Jack said.
“Wait,” Amy said. “What’s that?” On a stand next to a long desk was a suitcase. In addition, a cupboard door was open and hanging in it were several suits and shirts.
Jack walked to the suitcase and opened it.
“Stop,” Amy cried out. “That belongs to someone.”
“Maybe it comes with the room,” he said.
“No way. There’s someone already assigned to this room.”
Jack opened the suitcase, turned to Amy and said, “No way! You’ve got to see this.”
“Leave it alone,” she firmly stated.
“No, take a look. It’s some guns and knives.”
Amy walked across the room and looked in the suitcase. “We better get out of here,” she said.
“And, a bunch of those plastic handcuff things, and duct tape,” he said. “Why would anyone need that?”
“Come on, let’s go.” She shut the suitcase, then grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him away from the suitcase and toward the door.
They stepped outside the room and as she shut it a deep voice behind them said, “Hey, what are you doing in my room.”
Amy turned and in front of her was a large man in a dark suit with a white shirt and no tie. “They gave us the wrong room,” she said.
The man peered down at them with narrow eyes. “Get out of here and stay away,” he commanded.
Chapter 2
While taking the elevator to the ground floor, Jack said, “What was that?”
“I don’t know but it was scary,” she replied.
“Maybe he’s a police officer. They carry handcuffs.”
“The police carry metal ones, not plastic. Why so many, and why did he have a roll of duct tape? And why the guns and knives?”
“That’s weird,” he said.
“Let’s stay away from him.”
The elevator doors opened and they went into the lobby where a long line of people waited at the reception desk.
Amy said, “Oh no, we’re not going to get a room. We’ll have to sleep on the floor in a gym.”
“Give me the key,” Jack said.
She handed the plastic key-card to him and he went around the line and walked up to a hotel employee who was stacking suitcases and golf club bags on a trolley.
Jack angrily said, “They gave us a room with someone already in it.”
“You mean already occupied?” The man asked. He had a badge with his name, ‘Robert’ and underneath it was engraved, ‘Porter’.
“Yeah, whatever you call it.”
“Then get in line,” Robert the porter said.
“No way,” Jack responded. “We were here b
efore all those people and now we may not get a room.”
Robert took the plastic key and said, “Our computer system is messed up and it’s been double booking rooms. Wait here and I’ll see what I can do.”
Robert went behind the reception desk and talked with one of the receptionists. The receptionist looked in the direction of Jack and Amy and then shook her head. Robert said something and the receptionist shook her head again. Robert’s hands waived in the air and he pointed at the computer screen in front of the woman and then pointed at Amy and Jack.
Then the receptionist slightly nodded her head. She typed something on the computer keyboard and with a frown, she handed a new plastic key-card to Robert.
Robert returned and gave the key to Jack. “You’re lucky,” Robert said. “With the golf tournament this place was already almost full. None of the people in the line over there will get a room. I told the receptionist we can’t leave a couple of kids out in the cold. The hotel would get sued.”
“Thank you so much,” Amy said.
“No problem. I’d take you up to your room but I need to distribute these bags and stuff. Just go to the top floor, number 420.”
“We were lucky to find you,” Jack said with a smile.
Robert looked at them and asked, “Where are your bags?”
“Ah . . . they were stolen,” Amy answered, knowing the last bags they had were a couple of old army surplus backpacks containing a few pieces of worn out clothing from thrift stores. They had left them behind a bush next to a country road in Raleigh.
“Maybe our security guy can help you find them.” He pointed toward the entrance door at a man in a dark suit. He had a badge with ‘Security’ on it. The man’s eyes focused on his cell phone and he tapped on it with his index finger.
“Our bags are a long way away and I don’t think he can help,” she said.
“There’s a clothing shop down that way in case you need anything.” He pointed toward a hallway on one side of the lobby.
Amy and Jack walked to the elevator and Amy pushed the button. They waited. Next to the elevator was a large sign that said, “Tallahassee Select, Golf Tournament’.
When the elevator door opened a number of people exited it, so Amy and Jack stood to the side. The last person to leave was the large man in the dark suit who occupied their previous room. His eyes scanned the lobby as if he was looking for someone. They were not happy eyes.
Across the room, the security man stood in the same place by the entrance door and he still tapped on his cell phone. The man in the dark suit looked at the security man for a moment and then he glanced at Jack and then Amy. A subtle menacing glare crept onto his face and Amy felt a cold shiver roll down her spine.
Chapter 3
“He’s creepy,” Jack whispered.
“Maybe just weird,” she responded.
“No, I mean creepy.”
The man made her uneasy. The guns and handcuffs in his room and the way he had looked at them unsettled her. She and her brother had enough frights in Raleigh and Miami, where the two mobsters, Larry and Nalf, had chased them.
In Miami the police failed to catch Larry and Nalf, so her plan was to get far away so that she and Jack could start a new life. They had decided to go to Houston and find a medium sized town somewhere in Texas, and a place to live. Jack had a crazy boyish dream to ride bucking horses in rodeos, but she just wanted to be a normal teenager. Waves of nostalgia and longing for her mother gripped her heart, but she had to be brave for Jack.
The detour to Tallahassee had delayed that plan. Now, they would quietly wait out the storm.
As they entered the elevator, two men joined them. The men were talking and one of them hit the button for the third floor just after had Amy pushed for the fourth floor.
“Looks like we won’t have the tournament,” one of the men said.
“I’d leave now, but I need to do some business deals. Anyway, my plane is gone. My pilot took it north to get out of the storm. I couldn’t see an expensive airplane being destroyed. What about yours?”
“My pilot flew my plane back to Houston.”
“So it looks like we’re stuck with no airplane and no tournament.”
The other man laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll make the most of it. It’ll be one big party for a couple of days and we might get some deals done.”
They arrived at the third floor and the men left the elevator as one said to the other, “See you in the bar.”
The door closed and the elevator continued to the fourth floor and Amy and Jack went to their room. It was next door to the first room they had been in, the one occupied by the man in the suit. Only this one had two big beds.
Jack said, “Those guys must have a lot of money to own their own airplanes.”
“You better believe it,” she replied.
Jack picked up the remote for the television, turned it on and began flipping through the channels.
“Wait, stop there,” Amy cried out.
“No. That’s the boring weather channel. I’m looking for something fun.”
“Just give me a minute.”
He left it on the channel.
The weatherman was talking about the Hurricane and he pointed at a map. It was the first one of the season and had started out as a tropical storm. The storm had gone past Cuba and the original prediction was for it to end up in Mexico. However, it had gained force over the warm waters of the Gulf and then turned into a swirling hurricane. Then it had made a sharp turn and headed north off the east coast of Florida.
From the projection on the map, it looked like the center of it would pass over Tallahassee.
Amy walked to the window of the room and looked down at the golf course, now soaked by pounding rain. It was night and lights illuminated the grass and trees. The trees rustled from the high wind.
She again questioned if the fourth floor of a hotel would be safe in a Hurricane.
Then she looked at a parking area on the side of the hotel where there was a cover over a walkway. The large man in the suit was talking with several people.
Because of the darkness and force of the rain, she could not make out their details.
Chapter 4
Amy and Jack left their room and went down to the ground floor to the clothing shop. It was closed and she felt disappointment. At that moment she heard the squeaking of a wheel. She turned and saw Robert the porter pushing an empty trolley.
She walked up to him and said, “Thanks for helping us get the room.”
“No problem. I’d hate to see you two stuck in some community shelter.”
“The clothing shop isn’t open. Is there anywhere else?”
“What do you need?” Robert asked.
“Anything. Maybe t-shirts to sleep in and underwear, and jackets. This is all we have.” She pointed her finger up and down at what she was wearing.
Robert looked both ways and spoke softly, “Come with me.”
They walked down the hallway and came to a door that said, ‘Employees Only’. He opened it and motioned for them to come inside. Then he led them to a room and they entered.
The room was full of racks of clean sheets, pillowcases and towels. He pointed to a large metal box, about half the size of a dumpster. It was full of clothing.
“Go ahead and take what you want. This is clothing left behind by guests. If we can’t find out who it belongs to, then it ends up here”
“We can take it?” Jack asked surprised.
“The hotel gives it away to charities and needy people. Your clothing was stolen, so I figure you are needy.”
Jack went to the box and dug through the clothing. Most of it was adult size but he found a shirt and handed it to Amy. “This might fit you,” he said.
Amy tried it on over her clothing and said, “It’s perfect.”
Jack found a shirt for himself and several t-shirts for both of them.
Then he found jackets, a bit too big, but they would do.
&n
bsp; Amy said, “We can stop. I’m sure we can find something tomorrow in the clothing shop, but thank you so much.”
“Well, at least that gives you a start. Where were you two headed?”
“Houston,” Amy answered.
“Going home or on a visit?”
“Home.”
“It’s too bad about the storm,” He said.
“I know. How long do you think it will last?”
“They’re saying up to forty-eight hours. It’s not a strong one but you never know.”
“I saw the sign for the golf tournament and we heard that it was cancelled.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad. Every year a bunch of rich guys come here for a few days to play golf. This hotel is full of them and you were lucky to get a room.”
“In the elevator we heard a couple of them talking,” Jack said. “They owned airplanes.”
Robert laughed. “They own a lot of stuff. All I know is that the tips are crazy-good when they are here. Now with the storm they’ll be leaving early and we won’t be making as much.”
“I’m sorry for you,” Amy replied.
“It’s okay. You win some and lose some. At least they are prisoners of the hotel for the next day or two. They won’t be on the golf course so will be forced to spend more money here.”
“Then maybe it’s not so bad,” she said.
He chuckled, “We’ll see. I better get back to work and you better get out of here.”
“Thanks again,” Amy said. “You’ve been a great help.”
“Happy to help.”
They went back to the public hallway and Robert pushed his trolley toward the reception area. Amy and Jack went to the restaurant where it was noisy. They found a table for two and sat down.
Well-dressed men and women sat at the tables laughing and talking loudly. It seemed like many people knew each other, as they talked across one table to another.