I screamed curses and fought with my twisted seat belt. The belt snapped back into its holster and I dove for the door. I stopped. If Gina wanted to die out here, that was fine, but there was no need for me to join her. Scrabbling behind the wheel, I put it in drive and started forward. But before I’d gone ten feet I braked. Why couldn’t life be simple?
The wind caught the door, smashing it back against the hinge, and dragged me from the car. I launched myself sideways as the door crashed shut above me.
I got to my feet. Ragged landscaping hid the house. I didn’t seem to have any choice but to go after Gina. In my three-inch wooden platform heels, one step forward, one back and one sideways, I stumbled towards the house. Particles of biting sand scoured my face and filled my nose and eyes.
At the house there was still no sign of Gina. I clung to the railing and pulled myself up the front steps through sand that obscured the risers to a big wraparound veranda bare of furniture. Either the owners had put the tables and chairs away or they’d blown out east to Lake Okeechobee.
I turned the knob and rattled the front door. It was locked. Plywood had been nailed over the windows. I went left around the house to the side facing the gulf. My platform sandals sunk in the six inches of sand covering the floor. I stepped out of them, hugging them to my chest with my left arm while my right hand tried to keep my hair out of my eyes.
On the gulf side, sand was piled a third of the way up the raw plywood covering sliding doors. I searched the sand at my feet, like some ancient Indian scout looking for tracks. How long would it take the wind to bury any sign of another person? A minute? Two seconds? No way anyone had gone in or come out this entrance. So where was she?
The wind bounced me along the house to the north side. Here a large Australian pine, uprooted from the property line, had crashed down onto the veranda. Back the way I came, past the front door and around to the north corner of the house to where the same great pine tree stopped me. There was no sign of Gina, no open doors, no tracks and no Gina. Was it possible that the tree had fallen as she stood here? Screaming her name, I searched under the branches. Not a scrap of blue denim or pale skin.
I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my life. I called for God and my mother. Only the wind answered.
I was done looking for Gina, done waiting. I stumbled back to the front of the house. Not even guilt could keep me there any longer. The storm carried me down the steps, carried me around the circle to the car. But there was no car.