28

 

I struggled to control my racing thoughts and panicked breathing as we drove to the far edge of La Foudre. The wind rocked the SUV and I asked the agent sitting in the backseat with me where we were going, but he wouldn’t even look at me.

I guessed we were going to the New Orleans field office, but when we got to the pontoon-bridge that led out of La Foudre, we discovered it flooded. Impassable. Being the only way out of La Foudre outside of a boat, we had to turn back into the parish.

We showed up at the sheriff’s station and Sheila met us in reception area, her eyes wide with surprise. She took in my muddy clothes and pursed her lips.

“Did you strap her to the roof?” She rushed around the counter and attempted to put her sweater over my shoulders, but the agent who cuffed me shook his head. “Please don’t touch Ms. Drake.”

Toughie walked up, looked at me from head to toe, an angry look on his face. “What is your name, agent?”

The one who cuffed me cleared his throat. “Agent Harris.” He nodded to his partner. “This is Agent Stubecky.”

Toughie nodded to the other agent. “Well, Agent Harris, if she gets sick it’s on you. I’ll write up how you dragged her in here wet and shaking, and wouldn’t let us help her.”

Harris sighed, nodded to Sheila, and let her cover me with her sweater. “We need to call into the New Orleans office, ma’am,” he said to Sheila. “Your phones work? We can’t get service on our cells out here.”

“That’s ‘cause the nearest cell tower blew down two hours ago.” She picked up her phone and wiggled the receiver. “Phones are down all over the parish.”

Agent Stubecky checked his watch. “We can wait it out, drive out of here when the water recedes.”

Sheila chuckled and put her hand to her mouth when the agents looked at her with frowns.

“You don’t seem to understand, gentlemen,” Toughie said to the agents. “Waiting it out isn’t really an option. We’re expecting Erin to hit landfall in less than twenty-four hours.”

“So?”

“So once they issue a hurricane warning you need to be well underway with your storm preparations and figuring out where to be when it hits.” He looked at them with disbelief. “You going to stay here? ‘Cause you have at most, thirty hours, probably less ‘til she hits La Foudre. The weather service just announced a change in Erin’s trajectory. She could hit sooner.”

Harris ran a hand through his gelled-back hair and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Regardless of your weather forecast, Deputy…” he squinted at Toughie’s name plate and raised an eyebrow. “Toughie…I need to secure Ms. Drake and call in to my superior.”

“How’re you going to do that with no phones?” Sheila asked, but Harris ignored her.

Instead, he nodded to his partner.

They looked like dual copies of the same former small-town quarterback gone thick with age.

“Can we count on your cooperation, or are we to understand that she didn’t just pull the wool over your sheriff’s eyes? That she has all of you fooled as well?”

The mention of Jake’s name and the fact that his association with me caused him trouble changed the vibe of the room.

Suddenly, Sheila wouldn’t make eye contact with me. She fussed with the phone despite it not working. Down the hall, towards the back, near a cluster of old wood desks, Dan stood with his thumbs in his gun belt, glaring down at me.

Toughie seemed to be the only one who could find my eyes. He held my gaze and nodded slightly, reassuring.

“Put her in back. We got a spare holding cell.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Thank you, Deputy,” Harris said crisply.

“Back there.”

They left me in the holding cell staring at the rusty bars. I sat on the cot and wrapped the scratchy pea-green blanket around my shoulders.

Please don’t leave me here, Lord. This can’t be the end.

My mind wandered, and I ignored the din of office work, the radio squawks, and hushed conversations. The storm railing at the sheriff’s station’s walls was the only sound that mattered. Everything, Randy’s death, the attack in my room, the storm and Jake, all of it hit me and I felt suddenly exhausted. Out of fight, I sat trembling on the bed, my arms around my legs as tears dropped onto my dirty jeans.

Everything was out of control, nothing seemed to make sense.

I stifled a sob, watching the hallway. This was my fault. I knew that. I remembered the image of a new believer from earlier when I thought of myself as a construction zone, as a broken and dysfunctional mess, and my heart ached, crushing the breath from my lips.

I cried silently and prayed as the thunder roared and rattled the tiny building. Fear and anger, sadness and despair roiled in my chest. Randy, Jake, everything I held dear slipped further and further away, destroyed in a fury of fire and wind.

In the midst of my despair, I heard my name called. Soft and strong. I heard it so close, so clear…

Get up, Riley.

I gasped, my eyes snapping open. The noise and movement of my tortured thoughts were suddenly gone. I sat up on the tiny holding cell’s cot, panting.

Toughie’s voice and Sheila’s echoed down the hall and I looked around, rubbing my eyes. The heaviness of sleep still pulling at my arms. I stood up, paced the cell. I grasped the bars with both hands, my forehead resting between two cold columns. Frustration and fear still filled me. Alone, I felt so alone.

I’m so sorry for not trusting you, Lord. For trying to go my own way again, for hiding Randy’s things and all the other mistakes I’ve made. I was so sure I knew what I was doing, so arrogant that I was smarter than everyone else, I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen to your warnings. Please, Lord. I feel so alone…so lost. Please don’t leave me to wander out here in this storm…

Desperation flooded over me and I cried against the rusty bars.

I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough, Lord. I’m not…

Hands, warm and strong, covered mine, and I heard Jake’s voice, his quiet prayer merging with my own words.

He whispered words of strength and faith to me, words of thanks.

I took in a ragged breath, my eyes opening to see this wonderful man, his head against the bars looking back at me.

“You’re not alone, Riley,” he murmured. “Not anymore.”

“Jake,” I searched his face, tears blurring his features. “I’m so sorry…for everything. For coming back and ruining your life…for all the trouble—”

“Hush, ma cher,” he murmured. Reaching in through the bars to smooth my hair behind my ear, he smiled. “I’m not sorry you came back. I’m not sorry at all.”

I tried to smile, to be brave, and noticed he was wet and muddy, his eyes tired. He stroked my cheek with his fingers, and I stopped his hand with mine, worried.

I strained to look down the hall. “Where is everybody?”

“Rick took Sheila home to be with her family. Dan’s still out, too. We’re trying to keep people calm. Get them safe.”

“Did something happen?”

“Erin shifted, the hurricane will hit soon.” Tension played across his features and my heart ramped up.

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“We’re looking at less than twelve hours. Weather service is predicting we’ll be hard hit.”

I gulped audibly. “How…what time is it?” I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the wall clock over Jake’s desk. “It’s been four hours? I’ve been here for that long?”

“It’s almost four in the afternoon.”

The lights overhead flickered and buzzed on again.

I gasped and grabbed at his hands. “Am I going to be left here in this cell during the hurricane?”

Jake held my gaze, concern pooling behind his handsome features. “Easy, Riley, we’ll be fine.”

I strained against the bars. “Where’s Agent Harris?”

Jake leaned away, looked down the hall. “He and the other guy are trying to get hold of New Orleans via the radio in my squad car. I can’t talk for long, but I wanted to make sure you were OK.”

I whispered, my lip trembling. “They won’t tell me what’s going on, Jake. I asked the whole ride over and neither of them said anything.”

“Someone tipped them off to the evidence you, ‘secretly borrowed’ from Randy’s room. They showed up at Verona’s and took your stuff. She called me, madder than a cat in a bathtub. Said they questioned her about audio files and a sketchbook…Randy’s letter.”

I sagged against the bars. “I don’t have anything anymore, that guy…” I gritted my teeth. “That guy took them when he tried to kill me.”

“I know.” His brow furrowed with frustration. “They can’t keep you on an unsubstantiated tip.”

“If they know they have nothing, then why keep me locked up?”

“Because you made the FBI look like idiots, Riley.” Jake whispered. “They cleared that scene and you waltz in and find evidence they overlooked in what appears to be a domestic terrorism case? The fact that you kept those things hidden only makes you look guilty of being a part of what Randy did.”

“Yeah, but if they served a warrant and didn’t get anything, then they have to either show cause to keep me, or let me go.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“My father is a lawyer, remember?”

Jake nodded down the hall. “Well, they look worried. They’re waiting to find out what to do, but this storm…”

“Jake, who told them I had those things?” I caught his gaze. “Is it Susan…or someone else?”

“I don’t know, Riley,” Jake said softly. “I know you think it was Citrine, but I can’t—”

“Of course you can’t.” I threw my hands up. “I know that you two have a history, that you two go way back but it seems pretty obvious to me what’s going on here.”

“You can’t be sure, Riley.”

“Who had access to all the information Park Davis wrote about in his articles? Who knew where I was, that I was at Dauby’s? Who could have…” I remembered my broken necklace and opened laptop after my shower. “Who could rifle through my things in my room without arousing suspicion, Jake?”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

Something occurred to me, something that had been tugging at my mind since visiting the plant. “Randy was involved with some sort of safety commission before he left college.”

“I don’t understand.”

I bounced on the balls of my feet, the thoughts fitting together like puzzle pieces in my mind. “Randy’s involvement with safety would include equipment. He was an engineer.”

“Do you think this has something to do with Susan’s father? His accident at the plant?”

I nodded, excitement welling in my belly. “I wondered about that when her mother mentioned it, but I just can’t figure out how everything is connected…”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll find this Susan, Riley, I promise.”

“Jake—” I started, but the lights flickered off. I stood there holding my breath hoping the tiny sheriff’s station could withstand hurricane force winds. “Jake?” I cried, and heard the panic in my own voice.

“I’m here, Riley.” I felt his hands cover mine again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Howling outside sent a shudder over me, and I gripped Jake’s hand. The wind whirled through the great oaks and along the buildings, the hollow moan more frightening than the dark that crowded around me. Trying to calm down, to breathe through the terror clawing at my mind, I squeezed my eyes shut, praying desperately.

I don’t want to die here. Not in the dark, not it a cell.

A jagged slash of bright white tore across the front window, an electric whoosh that set my hair on end and blinded me.

“Get down, Riley!” Jake yelled and he shoved my shoulders, sending me flying backwards.

I screamed, flailing in the dark, falling against the cot and banging my head. Overhead, a great ripping sound, like the cracking of a huge stone, raked over us, and then there was cold rain and chunks of the ceiling falling down on me. I scrambled backwards, and flattened against the sink now twisted away from the buckled wall. Thunder shook me, rattled my teeth and took my breath as it roared. I trembled in the dark, too scared to cry, too terrified to move.

“Riley,” Jake yelled, panic in his voice. “Riley, where are you?”

I stared up at where the ceiling used to be, to the smoldering tree trunk and ruined roof, the wind whipping dirt and leaves at my face. Another white vein sizzled across the dark purple sky, and I felt the crackling static whoosh over me. I held my breath, waiting for searing pain, sure that the lightning would get me this time, but an explosion to my right rocked me to my feet.

I stood in the ruined cell, exposed to the outside over a fallen wall, and blinked, dumbfounded at the sparking transformer down the street.

The loose wires snaked, spitting fire across the mottled sky.

A figure standing under the sparks and I shook my head, sure it was an illusion; the fire and shadows playing tricks on my too-tired eyes.

Jake pulled me close.

Rain poured over us as he wrapped his arms around me, his face in my neck, breath ragged. He held me tight, wouldn’t let me go.

“I thought…” He stumbled over the words, a relieved laugh escaping his tense features.

I looked at him wide-eyed and breathless. “That’s not going to happen again…right?”