Like standing too close to an Impressionist painting. It was only when she’d backed up that her life came into focus.
A few more memories had flooded in after the storm. Little bits like ephemera. Dancing on her mother’s feet. Playing in clothes drying on a line. Her father spinning her around until she was drunk with dizziness.
They weren’t all happy glimpses. She had one terrifying memory of Tuck that had brought on a panic attack.
He’d been angry, stumbling, his words not making sense.
Her mother had sent her away to her room, hiding her from her father’s drunken rampage.
What would’ve happened if she’d had these memories her whole life? Would she have grown used to them? Numb?
“I understand,” Elaina said. “And, yeah, I can be kinda bratty.”
Connie laughed. A beautiful sound like chimes blowing in a gentle, loving breeze. “Have you thought about hiring an investigator?”
She shrugged. There were no missing person reports for a Beth Tucker, but that was assuming Tuck’s real name was Robert Tucker, something she’d questioned due to a lack of history on the man.
There was a Jane Doe recovered from a collapsed motel at the time Elaina was found, but no one claimed the woman’s body, and the old proprietor of the motel told police he only remembered a man renting the room.
When Tuck’s battered body was found, his fingerprints provided no clue into her family history. There was no doubt he was a criminal; he just happened to have been one of the kind who was never caught.
The best Elaina could tell, her parents had lived a nomadic life, moving from state to state, chasing storm after storm.
“I think I have everything I need.”
Her mom’s eyes filled with tears, causing a lump to ride up her throat. It had been in her throat so much over the past week, she’d threatened to charge it rent.
It had first emerged when her phone dinged with a voicemail, as soon as she’d gotten back to an area with cell towers still standing after the storm.
Her mom had woken up, and aside from some slurred speech and a little weakness on her right side, she was mostly okay.
“You sure you’ll be okay without me?” Elaina asked. “I can stay with you while you do your therapy.”
Connie smiled, one side of her mouth a little higher than the other. “We’ll be at each other’s throats by the end of the day.” She squeezed her hand tighter. “You deserve some time off. Go get your dog and enjoy life.”
She kissed her mom’s forehead and promised to check on her every day.
Elaina looked for her old truck in the hospital parking lot, temporarily forgetting that the screaming metal sound she’d heard during the tornado had been her truck getting tossed upside down. She’d quickly picked out a used Jeep, choosing it because Nimbus would love the ragtop.
Nim. She ached for her companion like a missing limb. The vet had been kind and understanding when she’d called after the storm, explaining why she needed to leave her dog with him for a few more days. Now it was time to bring him home, back to her.
She burst through the door at the clinic, doing all she could to not shout his name. Elaina tried to listen as the vet talked through medicine, what she needed to look for, but she kept her ears peeled for the jingle of his collar, his happy panting or sniffling nose.
Finally, when she was no longer able to nod in agreement any harder, the technician retrieved her dog.
Nimbus burst through the door, tearing the leash from the young woman’s hand. His coat was shaved from his collar to his mid-back. A straight line of puckered skin glistened under the fluorescent lights.
Elaina knelt on the floor, but her happy, bouncing dog quickly knocked her down, his big, pink tongue covering her face in kisses and his high-pitched yelps echoed around the room. “Nimby, I missed you.” She inhaled his warm, corn chip scent that now mingled with antiseptic gel on his back.
“This goes without saying,” the vet said. “But, dogs that’ve been in storms like him aren’t the same after that.”
She rubbed his ears.
Nim squinted his eyes and groaned.
She understood.
The same was true for people.
Nimbus trotted beside her as they walked out of the clinic. He paused, looking around the small parking lot, then pulled toward the blond man standing by her Jeep.
“Nice ride,” Seth said. “Nimbus, buddy. What d’ya think? We’ll have matching scars.”
Elaina peered at the stitches at the reporter’s temple. “Too bad you don’t have as much fur to cover it.”
He laughed and ducked his head. “You’ve been avoiding me again.”
She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.
“It’s okay. How’s your mom doing?”
“Good, getting discharged today.”
An awkward silence settled over them. Seth looked away and squinted, his jaw tight. “What about you?” he finally asked.
“I’m good.” Elaina exhaled and nodded, hoping to convince herself that she really was, but the lie fell flat. “Okay, I don’t know. Right now, I’m great, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. What about you?”
He flashed her a smile that stole her breath.
“I think viewers will find my scar sexy,” he said, but then his face grew serious. “So, what’re you going to do?”
It was a question she’d asked herself a million times. Go back to the university, finish her research so Heath could get his degree posthumously? Or, spend more time searching for her birth mother’s family? Or, maybe just get a job teaching yoga somewhere far from tornado alley?
She simply shrugged her answer. “Are you going back to Atlanta?”
Seth shuffled and looked at his feet. “Pensacola, actually, hurricane season is about to start.”
Elaina chewed on the inside of her cheek before letting a slow smile spread across her face. “I’ve never seen the ocean.”
He reached out and twirled one of her curls around his finger. “Well, let me be the one to show you why hurricanes are better than torn—”
She cut his words off by slamming her mouth on his. “I could use a few boring, sunny days,”she whispered into his lips, and Seth took over the lip-lock, making her hard kiss into something softer; something that mattered.
The End
Note to my Readers
Thank you for reading Vortex! Elaina is my spirit animal, and I hope you enjoyed spending time with her and Seth … and Tuck as well.
If this is your first book of mine to read, thank you and welcome! If you liked Vortex you might enjoy my Phoenix series, a story of a woman’s journey to clear her name of her ex-boyfriend’s crimes. You can check out the first chapter of Phoenix in the next section.
If you’ve enjoyed Vortex, I would greatly appreciate if you’d take the time to leave a review on the store where you purchased it, on BookBub or on Goodreads. (Writing a review in sea shells on a beach works for me as well)
If you want to find out about my next novel, sign up for my newsletter. Don’t worry. I won’t spam you. I forget it exists half the time (plus, spam is gross!).
Until next time!
K
Phoenix Preview
Amanda Martin didn’t believe in casual Fridays.
Sloppy dress, sloppy work, she thought as matching golf-shirt-clad tellers ignored the growing line.
Amanda paused at the door as she weighed her options. How long would it take her to deposit eighty hundred dollar bills into the ATM? Why didn’t Josh have HR cut her a check? Should she just wait it out for a teller? Why did Josh clean out his office? What is in El Paso? Or, who? And, what’s her bra size? The thumping headache from polishing off a bottle of wine alone jumbled her usually decisive thoughts.
“Dammit, Josh,” she murmured.
The line curved back on itself twice and each of the three tellers had four customers before it would be her turn at the window. The envelope of money poked at her c
ollarbone from its haven in the interior pocket of her coat. No matter how she tried to maneuver it to a more comfortable position, the corner of the envelope continued to jab her.
She sighed, it’s probably a sign. Quarterly bonuses were standard for her at the mid-sized investment firm where she worked. But, this was different. It felt like a payoff.
After days of being avoided by Josh in every sense of the word—text messages unanswered, emails neglected, voicemails unreturned and his assistant running interference for him—Amanda strode into his office the previous evening ready to end their relationship. As CFO, Josh kept their office relationship professional, but Amanda found it difficult keeping his behavior at the office from bleeding into the bedroom.
“Who is she?” Amanda didn’t bother knocking; she wanted the element of surprise to catch him with his pants down, literally or figuratively. Instead of finding Josh, either with or without a junior trader, Amanda found his office devoid of the stacks of files that reminded her of a childhood fort. She often teased that he used the piling system, with his desk stacked with an endless amount of paper. It looked naked now. The top of the heavy wood desk sat empty except for a single manila folder that looked out of place without its brethren, like a lost sheep left for the wolves.
Amanda was just able to read that the top sheet was a boarding pass for a flight to El Paso before she heard Josh’s voice outside his door. She snapped the folder shut and marched to the door just as he hurried into his office. No matter how mad she felt, the first sight of his wavy blond hair and light green eyes made her feet go cold.
“Eh, Amanda, what are you doing here? How long have you been waiting?” He pushed past her to his desk and put the folder in his briefcase.
“I just got here. So, what’s in–” Her question about El Paso was smothered by a sudden kiss.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. Amanda glanced behind her shoulder to check his open door for snooping colleagues, but he gently turned her face back to him. “Don’t you think everyone here already knows about us? Anyway, I’ve been distracted with a problem client and haven’t been attentive. Why don’t you pick up some wine and take-out? I’ll be over in a couple of hours.”
Amanda nodded. I’m just being paranoid. He wasn’t avoiding me, he was just dealing with work.
“One more thing,” Josh said, going back to his briefcase. “I almost forgot to give you this. Go buy some shoes and lose the receipts.” He handed her a bulky envelope. She knew without looking that it was filled with cash, lots of it.
“What?” She couldn’t get her question out before his phone rang.
“I’ll explain later. Oh Amanda, please close the door behind you. Thanks, babe.”
After midnight and a bottle of wine, Amanda went to bed with no word from Josh despite the numerous calls to his cell and office. She woke up hung-over and ready to give him her iciest treatment.
Amanda stepped towards the ATM, the line for the tellers having grown in her moment of indecision. Her BlackBerry buzzed as she reached into her purse for her debit card. With her throat cleared, she put on her best professional voice.
“Amanda Martin,” she answered.
“Hello, love, Roland Burrows here with Financial News.”
The smooth British accent of her favorite reporter put her at ease. Her shoulders drooped as she dropped her act. The envelope jabbed into her collarbone.
“How are you darling?” Her animated voice echoed in the cavernous bank lobby. “We need to meet up for martinis soon.”
“Listen, Amanda,” he started, but she was distracted. She loved the way he pronounced her name ending in an ‘er’ rather than an ‘a’ and launched into a catnap of a daydream imagining herself with a British boyfriend after Josh. Her trance soon ended, catching only his last sentence. “So that’s why I was calling, to see if you had any comment.”
Her heart thumped against the envelope when she realized this was a serious business call and not their usual banter.
“I’m sorry Roland, can you say that again? I’m getting horrible reception in here.”
“Right. I just got a tip from someone inside the SEC that they’re pursuing indictments against several executives at Jefferson Williams Investments: chief legal counsel Keith Cooper, CFO Josh Williams and you, Amanda.” He paused. “I’m breaking this story in a few minutes and wanted to see if I could get a comment.”
Amanda tried to breathe, but her throat closed as tight as her French twisted hair. “Roland, I’m going to have to call you back.”
Amanda didn’t wait for a response. She ended the call and dashed out the front door.
The late March freeze accosted her with a burst of cold air as she pushed through the door. BlackBerry still in hand she dialed Josh’s number while navigating the busy sidewalk. The line didn’t ring—it went straight to voicemail. She tried it again. Same result. Third time was no different. Amanda didn’t leave a message. I’m not giving him any opportunity to come up with excuses. I want to hear his reaction. She dialed her office number.
“Diane, it’s Amanda. Transfer me to Josh,” Amanda said, cutting off the receptionist during her greeting.
As soon as the receptionist transferred the call, Josh’s voicemail picked up. Amanda looked at her watch. It was past nine in the morning; Josh was always in early to get a start on the day.
“Dammit,” Amanda screamed at her phone, punching the end button with such force it lodged in the down position for a few seconds before popping back into place.
She moved out of the flowing traffic of pedestrians and leaned against the side of an office building. The smooth granite chilled her through her cashmere coat, the cold reassuring and frightening.
“Think, think,” she whispered. “Ten … nine … eight …” she counted backwards, a trick her anesthesiologist father taught her as a child when thunderstorms scared her in the middle of the night. The raw power from above and the inability to control her surroundings terrified her as a young girl, and even now as an adult, a particularly booming shock of thunder caused a pulse of fear down her spine.
When Amanda got to one, she still faced a catastrophic news story and indictment, but she could breathe. Her BlackBerry buzzed with her office number flashing on the display.
“Josh?”
“No, it’s Liz. What is going on? Roland Burrows just called me, something about indictments. Where are you?”
Liz was going to be her next call, but it would also be her toughest. Friends since college, Amanda recommended Liz for a job in the legal department. “I’m on my way in. Can we talk? I’m going to need some help.”
“You’re going to need some help? What the hell is going on Mandy?” Amanda winced at her nickname. “I’m sorry. You’re on your own with this one. I have to comply with investigators. I can’t risk going to jail, especially now that I have Jackson to think about.” Amanda couldn’t fault Liz; the woman threw herself into motherhood the same way Amanda did her career. “I’ll give you the names of good attorneys. I can do that for you, but nothing more. I can’t risk getting dragged into this,” Liz added, softening her voice as if sensing her friend’s defeat through the phone. Amanda heard someone speak rapidly to Liz in the background. “Crap. The story posted.”
“Dammit,” Amanda said, letting her body fall back against the side of the building once again. She wished the building wasn’t there, that instead it was just a gaping abyss that allowed her to fall into nothingness. “What is it I’m being accused of?”
“You manipulated the market through media announcements with false information. A lighter offense than Keith and Josh, but nonetheless, you’re in trouble.” Amanda heard the phone shuffle in Liz’s hand. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke again. “I shouldn’t ask you this, but I need to know. Did you know what you were doing?”
If bad judgment was a crime, I would be guilty as charged. Amanda knew better than to get involved with her boss, but they were a classic power couple; attractive,
blond, wealthy and successful. Three years earlier, when her former boss abruptly quit and Josh asked her to dinner to offer the vice president job, she thought her life was on the fast-track she longed for. There she was, at the tender age of twenty-four, given the responsibility heading communications for the company. Initially, she thought Josh’s dinner request was simply a professional courtesy, but after his second invitation she realized it was much more.
Only recently did Amanda suspect something was amiss with the investment firm’s business practices. She remembered innocently asking, “How is it the firm and our clients continue to turn a profit when our competitors are losing money?” She shuddered at the memory of his enraged reaction, “You should never question me, as my girlfriend or my employee. You got that?” he yelled. By the end of his outburst, she feared he would fire her or break up with her, or both.
“I trusted Josh.”
For the remaining ten minutes of her walk, Amanda tried to reach Josh on his cell phone, but each call went straight to voicemail. She left no message, but composed one in her head. What the hell did you drag me into? Is it true? Why did you do it? Where the hell are you? When I find you, I am going to kill you.
Rather than board the elevator to her office, she sank into one of the fashionably uncomfortable, contemporary armchairs in the building’s spacious lobby and stared out the soaring glass wall. The weather outside was clear and bright, completely wrong for the way she felt.
Her ringing cell phone alternated between displaying her office number and various media outlets. After sending the twelfth call to voicemail, she shut her phone off. What did I do? Amanda went over her press releases and statements in her head. All the information came from Josh. Keith had the final approval before she sent out anything over the wire. The long hours she put in to get everything right, the dinners with friends and family she canceled to answer to the media’s beck and call, and the lies she inadvertently told—they only lined the pockets of Josh and Keith. And, mine. That’s the reason for the bonuses, to keep me happy. No amount of blinking could stop the fresh tears from springing.
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