The Breathtaker

by Alice Blanchard

  Stop it, you’re killing him…

  Charlie gave a sudden leap inside and stumbled to his feet. Humiliated. Furious. Hands trembling with this newfound knowledge. How terrible to discover your own basest instincts. Horrible, horrible. He looked at the sky ribbed with clouds, at the nearby hills where the mesquite and blackjack had been scorched from the burning trash. Self-control. Hold on.

  “Charlie?” his father gasped, some massive struggle going on behind his eyes. The cowboy hat was gone, white tongues of hair licking at his withered cheeks. “Help me up.”

  Charlie pulled him to his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he said in a husky whisper. “You stupid bastard, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Charlie, seriously… would it’ve helped?”

  They stood wrapped in tangled strings of air, a dark knowledge passing between them. A halting strangeness to the air.

  When his cell phone rang, Charlie felt the pain in his head like a bundle of knife points. “Hello?” he barked into the receiver.

  “Charlie?” came a hesitant female voice. “It’s me, Peg. Listen, I’m at your place now…” She sounded vaguely out of breath, and he could picture her leaning against the kitchen counter in her blue and yellow jogging suit, even though she’d never gone jogging a day in her life.

  “What is it, Peg? I’m right in the middle of something.”

  “Sophie isn’t here. She’s supposed to be, but she isn’t.”

  A nervous shiver straightened his spine.

  “We were supposed to go shopping this afternoon. It was all arranged.”

  He avoided his father’s eyes. “You checked out back?”

  “Out back, upstairs, downstairs. I found a note.”

  “What kind of note?”

  “It says she went storm-chasing.”

  “Storm-chasing?” he almost shouted. “All by herself?”

  “It just says she went storm-chasing. Period.”

  He could feel the heaviest kind of apprehension, the kind that only visits you when something totally unexpected happens. “Did she take the car?”

  “No, it’s still parked in the driveway,” Peg said irritably. “And I gave up a bridge game for this.”

  Fear trilled like an alarm bell inside his head. Boone Pritchett. She must’ve gone storm-chasing with Boone Pritchett. His leg was broken, so he wouldn’t be the one driving. Sophie had left the Civic parked at home. Boone’s casino-pink pickup truck was totaled, but his father owned a full-size rust-red pickup truck that Charlie had pulled over many times. Sophie knew how to drive a stick. Would she honestly do that? He knew she was mad at him, but would she disobey him like that and leave a note? Was she that completely lost to him?

  “Stay put,” he told Peg. “Call you right back.” He hung up and dialed Willa’s number at the wind facility but got the machine instead. Impatiently he tried her on her cell phone.

  Isaac hovered restlessly nearby. “What is it, Charlie? What’s going on?”

  He got Willa’s voice mail and left a message. “Hey, it’s me. Call me on my cell soon as you get this.” Then he dialed Rick Kripner’s cell phone with clumsy fingers.

  “Yello?”

  “Rick? It’s Charlie Grover.”

  “Hey,” Rick said warmly. “What’s up?”

  “I think my daughter’s in a bit of trouble. She went out storm-chasing without my permission, she was grounded… I think she might’ve gone off with Boone Pritchett,” he said with the faintest tremor in his voice. “I need to find her right away.”

  “Hm. They’re probably headed west,” Rick said.

  “West?”

  “A red box just went up for East Texas this afternoon.”

  “What’s a red box?”

  “Tornado watch. It means conditions are favorable.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Where’s Willa?”

  “Inside the boundary-layer tunnel doing wind inversions.”

  “Would you tell her I called?”

  “Yeah, sure. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Maybe. Are you going storm-chasing this afternoon?”

  “Actually I’m on the road right now. Why?”

  “Okay, good. Could you keep an eye out for her?”

  “Sure, what’s the vehicle?”

  “A rust-red Ford pickup truck with Oklahoma plates.”

  “Gotcha. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Call me if you spot it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He hung up. Eyes frantic.

  “Is Sophie in trouble?” Isaac stood blinking the rainwater out of his eyes. “Are you gonna let me in on this thing, or what?”

  He pocketed his cell phone. “Come on.” He grabbed the old man by his musty-smelling raincoat and hauled him back up the hill.

  “Where in the blazes are we going now?”

  “You’re taking me storm-chasing, Pop.”

  16

  COLD?”

  Sophie shivered. “A little.”

  “Want my jacket?”

  “No thanks,” she said politely. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Just a chaser buddy.” Rick Kripner looked at her with intense interest, his eyes both intelligent and caring behind his wire-rim glasses. “Sure you don’t want my jacket?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.” She tried to keep from shivering.

  His flannel shirt was tucked neatly inside the waistband of his jeans, and his hair was disheveled from the wind blowing in through the open windows. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, fingers circling the reddish bands of skin on either side. He was better-looking without his glasses on, she thought, with his big brown eyes and nice smile, and that surprisingly muscular body beneath the L.L. Bean outfits. Just good-looking enough, in fact, to make Boone blow his top.

  He’d broken up with her three days ago and hadn’t bothered to explain why. Just told her it was over. She’d been going crazy trying to figure it out. She hadn’t cried this much since her mother had died. He wouldn’t return her phone calls and refused to talk to her at school, and she suspected that her father might have something to do with it. When Boone hadn’t shown up for school today, she figured he’d gone chasing with one of his buddies. So when Rick dropped by the house and invited her to go storm-chasing with him, she’d practically leaped at the chance. If they ran into Boone and he saw her with Rick, he’d really freak out. Then maybe he’d realize how much he loved her.

  Sophie couldn’t stop shivering. It was spitting rain on the interstate, and in all the excitement back at the house, she’d forgotten to bring her sweater. Now the cold air whistling into the truck was giving her goose bumps. They were in Rick’s GMC Sierra, a black all-wheel-drive pickup truck virtually bristling with antennae, and already she was having regrets. Her father would be furious. But then she remembered it was all his fault to begin with. Good, let him think the worst. Let him suffer the way she’d been suffering lately.

  “So what’s with all this equipment?” she said.

  Rick’s chest puffed with pride. “This here’s what you’d call your basic weather-weenie-mobile, fully loaded and ready to roll. You’ve got your C-band Doppler radar with three hundred fifty thousand watts… you’ve got your ham radio… this Icom 2100’s great. It’s got tone encode/decode/scan and plenty of memories, alphanumeric memories. Great performance. There’s an in-motion satellite tracking system, a Nokia cell phone with laptop link for real-time Nexrad, a satellite phone for remote weather data access from anywhere in Tornado Alley that doesn’t have cellular coverage. Eggbeater antenna for omnidirectional polarity at the horizon. A mini-DV camcorder on a Morganti mount that allows for steady video recording during the chase… Let’s see, what else? A GPS satellite downlink navigation system so you can find your way through any unfamiliar territory. A Cassiopeia PDA for wireless Internet access, a fifteen-inch flat LCD and”—he took a deep breath—“plenty of nifty software.”

  “Wow,” she s
aid with a laugh. “You really are a nerd.”

  “That’s ‘severe weather aficionado’ to you, kiddo.”

  She giggled. “Okay, Mr. Aficionado.”

  “See those transverse rolls?”

  She squinted at the sky beyond the blurry, rain-washed windshield, where the clouds had a feeling of whispered density.

  “You’re witnessing… right over there… the birth of a megatornadic supercell.”

  “A mega what?”

  “Megatornadic supercell.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Wise guy. See that string of mammatus clouds trailing behind the supercell?”

  “Platypus clouds?”

  “Mammatus.” He shot her a crooked grin. “Did you know that weaknesses in upper-level flow allow a storm to recycle precipitation particles, thereby turning into what’s known as an HP blob?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s a scientific term? Blob?”

  “So shoot me.”

  “You really are a geek.” She gave him an apologetic glance. “But don’t worry. I’m a geek, too.”

  “So I’m in good company, huh? Hey,” Rick said, “you’re shaking like a leaf. Take my jacket. No more arguments.”

  “But then you’d be cold,” she protested.

  “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” He removed the navy wool peacoat while keeping one hand on the wheel, shrugged his other arm out of the sleeve and handed it over. “Go on,” he said.

  “My grandfather’s got one just like this.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  The jacket’s cool blue lining wasn’t itchy at all, and the sleeves smelled faintly of pinecones. As she drew it on, she could feel the silver chain of her necklace catch on the fabric. She reached for her locket, but to her surprise, it came off in her hand. “Oh, no,” she gasped.

  “What’s up?”

  “The clasp just broke.”

  “I can fix that.”

  “You can?”

  He nodded. “We’re headed there now.”

  “Headed where?”

  “To the wind facility.” He held out his hand. “I’ll duck inside and fix it real quick. You can wait in the truck. Only take a second.”

  She gave him a small worried look. “I’ve never taken it off before,” she said. “Not since Mom died. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost it. So thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  She handed him the necklace and could feel her whole body beginning to relax to the quiet hum of the engine, while the rain streamed out of the sky in vertical pen strokes.

  TWISTED

  1

  CRADLING HIS cell phone in the crook of his neck, Charlie sped west on the I-40, doing eighty. The storm clouds were gunmetal blue, scorched bronze along the horizon. He couldn’t read the sky. As a cop, he could read body language and faces, but not skies. It was muggy out, an awful kind of mugginess that made your clothes stick to your skin. A black curtain of rain dimmed the distant air like a flurry of gnats. He was on the phone with Mike, trying to sound rational. “Boone Pritchett took off with my daughter after I explicitly told him not to. They both disregarded my feelings.”

  “You want us to pick them up?”

  “Yeah, ruin this guy’s day.”

  “I’m all over it.”

  Charlie hung up and drove along in worried silence.

  Isaac took a swig from his Thirst Buster travel mug. “She’s with Boone Pritchett?”

  He glanced over. “You know him?”

  “Smart-ass punk.” Isaac scowled. “Sophie told me about the accident. Nowadays, any yahoo with a set of wheels can become a chaser. There’s no licensing or certification, and some of these amateurs think they own the road.” He glanced at Charlie as if he had something else he wanted to say, something pressing he needed to confess, but Charlie wasn’t in the mood. He was consumed with thoughts of his little girl. “That first night at the hospital, they wouldn’t let me see you until I’d washed up good.”

  Charlie watched the road, not wanting to hear it.

  “I had to wash my hands and face, put on a paper gown. They said your chances of survival were about fifty-fifty. I remember going into the ICU, and lying there on the bed was this unrecognizable little person. Skin peeling away. Tubes going in and out. Noisy equipment. And all I could think was, ‘fifty-fifty… fifty-fifty…’

  “I sat glued to your bedside, holding your hand… the hand that wasn’t burned.” He cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do you remember any of this?”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “They wouldn’t allow anything inside the room because of the risk of infection. No flowers, no toys, no food. There was one exception. Balloons. Don’t ask me why, but balloons were allowed.” He smiled faintly at the memory. “So I went out and bought you a whole bunch of ’em. Every color of the rainbow.”

  He eyed his father, remembering the trunk, the withered balloons. You learned to live with the scars, but not the grief you harbored in your heart.

  “I’m sorry for all those years I can’t take back,” Isaac said hoarsely. “And I’m sorry I hid the truth from you.”

  Charlie’s cell phone rang just then, interrupting this remarkable confession. “Mike?” he said, picking up. His hand tightening on the phone. “Is she okay?”

  “I just talked to Boone Pritchett, Chief. I called over to the house, and he swears up and down he hasn’t seen your daughter today.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “I sent Tyler over to check it out.”

  “No, send Hunter with backup. And tell them to be extremely careful. This is my daughter we’re talking about. And call me the second it goes down.” He hung up, feeling a cold rush of air against his face.

  “What was that about?” Isaac asked as Charlie hit the brakes. “What’re you doing?”

  “Turning around.”

  “What for?”

  “She didn’t go storm-chasing. It was a ruse.”

  “A ruse?”

  “She’s still in town.” He dialed Rick’s number.

  “Yello?”

  “Hey, it’s me again. Looks like Sophie didn’t go storm-chasing after all, just so you know.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “No. So don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay, big guy. If you say so.”

  “Thanks, Rick.” He hung up.

  “Who was that?” Isaac asked.

  “Rick Kripner.”

  “You mean, Miracle Boy?”

  Charlie glanced at him. “What?”

  “That’s his handle. Miracle Boy.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Seventeen, eighteen years ago in Wewoka, this kid survives an F-5… so they called him Miracle Boy in all the papers.”

  “In Wewoka? Don’t you mean Pixley?”

  Isaac shook his head. “I used to buy horses from a rancher down in Wewoka, that’s how come I remember the name of the town. It was in all the papers. A hundred houses were destroyed that day. Thirty-six people died, including Rick’s father.” He cracked a perplexed smile. “Rick went flying out of a house and landed unhurt in a field.”

  Charlie stiffened. “That’s not what he told me.”

  “Yeah, well… he’s probably ashamed to admit that his father was a thief.”

  “What? Wait a minute. Back up. Run it by me again.”

  “Rick Kripner’s father was a house burglar, it turns out. Back in the seventies and early eighties, all across Tornado Alley, he’d ride the storm track in search of homes to rip off. He’d waltz right in, brazen as could be, since most folks would be huddled in their basements or holed up in their closets or what-have-you, too scared of the impending storm to do anything but hide. He’d take off with the silverware and whatnot. I guess he took the boy along with him, too, because one day, while he was robbing this house in Wewoka, the tornado struck dead-on. Six people were killed, only the boy survived. Press always gives
them a moniker,” Isaac said. “Miracle Boy. Not that anyone remembers.” He tapped his head. “I keep a lot of trivia up here.”

  Breathing shallow and fast, Charlie activated his cell phone and dialed Rick’s number again, but all he got was the voice mail. Mind racing, he called Peg Morris back.

  “Charlie?” she complained. “I’ve been sitting here on my keister waiting for you to call me back again.”

  “Read me the note, Peg,” he interrupted.

  “What?”

  “The note. Read it.”

  He could hear her fumbling for her glasses. “It says… ‘Gone chasing.’ ”

  Fear gripped him. “That’s it?”

  “Just two words. ‘Gone chasing.’ ”

  He remembered the clutter in Rick’s office, the hand-written note that said “Gone Chasing” in black Magic Marker.

  “Do me a favor and stay put, Peg.”

  “Charlie, you sound upset. Is she all right?”

  “Just sit tight.” He hung up and called Mike back. “Listen, something’s come up. I need you to put out a BOLO on a black GMC Sierra, full-size pickup truck. Owner’s name is Rick Kripner. You can get his plates from the DMV, or else maybe the Wind Function Facility at Dryden Tech…”

  “What’s up, Chief? What’s going on?”

  “I think she might’ve gone storm-chasing with him instead.”

  There was a puzzled pause at the other end of the line. “Did she go voluntarily?”

  “Look, if this is what I think it is… then he came to my house uninvited.” The thought pulled taut as piano wire inside of him. “I don’t know where they went. I don’t know what’s going on. I need to locate her ASAP. The guy’s like thirty years old… what business does he have hooking up with a teenage girl?”

  “Okay, Chief. Not to worry. I’m on it.”

  “Follow both leads and call me back.” Charlie pocketed his cell phone.

  His father shot him a sidelong glance. “Is she gonna be okay?”