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Clay stared at her through the rain. Her clothes were plastered to her body, showing every curve she had. She was alive. For a moment, he hadn't thought she was. When he’d looked over to her seat and seen how damaged her side of the Tahoe was, he had stopped breathing. "Bailey..."
Clay reached for her. Thunder and wind howled around them. It was all that kept him from yanking her into his arms and showing her exactly how he felt. "Come on. We need to get to shelter."
The tornado was still visible in the distance. It could shift and come right at them again at any moment.
"Where? There's nothing out here for miles." Her fingers tightened on his shirt. "We could be walking for hours. In this."
"I know." He was hoping it wouldn't come to that. There had to be a structure somewhere between where they were and Value. He thought the edge of the Barratt Ranch was a few miles away. But that still left a vast expanse of land they'd have to travel.
In one hell of a storm. They didn't have much other option.
Barratt County was prone to flooding. Not only did they have to watch for the storm itself, but the flooding could be just as deadly.
They weren't TSP right now. They had to be more concerned with their own survival for a while.
He grabbed Bailey by the hand. Both because he wanted to touch her and needed that connection—and she was limping. He’d carry her if he had to.
The wind battered them. The rain washed the mud from their clothes. There were downed trees in the road they had to navigate around.
Bailey was limping.
But they kept going.
"Where are we?" Bailey asked.
"Near the Barratt Ranch, I think. There should be supply cabins along here somewhere. At least, that's what I remember. I didn't spend much time out here as a kid. My mother...was not overly close with the rest of the Barratts."
They didn't speak for another few minutes. Just kept walking. Until she pulled on his hand. "I have to stop for a minute."
Lightning cracked the sky, illuminating her face. The pain on her face told its own story. Clay scooped her up. "No, you don't. I'll carry you."
He expected her to fight, to argue. Bailey argued everything with him. But she didn't. One skinny arm slipped behind his neck. Her sopping-wet blond head landed on his shoulder. He felt the shudder go through her.
Clay just kept walking.
There was bound to be shelter for them somewhere. Until he found it, he would just hold her close and keep going.
An hour of carrying her later, and Clay wasn't so certain.
"Put me down. I'll walk for a while."
"I've got you, Bailey. I'm not putting you down until we get to where we're going." He didn't know what would be faster, her walking or him carrying her. The storm had switched to just rain for now. He wasn't stupid. Another storm could damn well be coming up behind the one that had probably destroyed anything in its path.
He pushed aside concern for the people he knew and loved in Value and Finley Creek.
He couldn't help any of them now. And it wouldn't do him and Bailey any good to be worrying about things that couldn’t be fixed or prevented.
Not yet.
When they found shelter, would be soon enough. Maybe by then they'd have cell signal.
She squirmed. “Put me down. You can’t carry me forever.”
Clay reluctantly set her on her feet. An hour carrying her had left his arms tired. He would have kept going, if he’d had to. “The first instant your leg starts hurting again, I’m carrying you, honey.”
“You’ll end up hurting yourself. Then what?”
Clay took her by the hand. It was getting even darker, and he didn’t want to lose her in the night. “We need to keep going.”
“We’re just going nowhere.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’ll find shelter somewhere soon.”
She didn’t say anything.
They kept walking.
Until he saw it. Metal. In the distance. “Come on. There’s a house up ahead.”
***
Clay had his flashlight, and Bailey waited while he looked around the old homestead. The place had to have been built in the mid-1800s. It was bigger than it had looked when they'd first come up on it. Two stories, but dilapidated.
The wind could blow it over on them at any moment. It may have only been her imagination, but Bailey thought the house listed to one side. And that might have been a ghost in the upstairs window. If she was being a big wimp, anyway. "What is this place?"
"I think we may still be in Finley Creek County now. This may be the old Wharton place. I've seen it once or twice. Family legend has it that an ancestor was kidnapped and brought here before her lover rescued her." He shouldered open the door, then stepped aside. "After you, my dear."
"Of course. Send in the deputy first. I'm the sacrificial victim. This place is probably haunted.” She wouldn’t let him see that this place really did creep her out. She was tougher than that.
But in the dark like this, with the storm welling up behind them again...yeah, Bailey was a big wimp. And she’d probably always be afraid of the dark.
"If you'd like, I could go first. But if the floor collapses, you'll have to pull me out all by yourself."
Bailey stepped into the old house.
It had obviously been abandoned. Probably sometime back in the seventies, if the decor was anything to go on.
But it was dry.
And the floor only sank a little when she stepped on it. "What if there are snakes in here?"
"Big, brave Deputy Bailey afraid of snakes?" He was practically on her heels. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I’ll keep you safe. Anything that happens here will be our little secret. I promise."
Bailey shivered.
There had been something suggestive in his tone. They both knew exactly what he meant. For the first time, it occurred to her that she was going to be alone, most likely all night, with the man next to her.
She might have made a decision for her professional future, but her personal life was still in a period of uncertainty.
His fault; she’d put the blame for that exactly where it was due. On those broad shoulders.
There was an old wooden rocker in the first room they entered. Clay grabbed it for her. "Head to the center of the place. Away from any windows."
Bailey understood. The wind was continuing to howl. They wouldn't have any way of knowing what the weather was bringing until it hit.
A second tornado wasn't out of the realm of possibility. "Is there electricity?"
"I don't know." Clay stepped over toward the wall near where he'd set the first chair. He flicked the switch. "Hey, look at that."
Bailey took a good look around. "Someone still comes here."
"Very little dust. If it was abandoned, there'd be inches of dust and dirt. And no electricity." Clay's voice was quiet. "Yet someone is not living here."
"Something's going on here, though." He had his gun. She had hers. Bailey swallowed. She hoped they hadn't walked out of the fire and into the frying pan here. There could be a squatter somewhere on the premises, but that didn’t explain the electricity.
He nodded. "Let's just take a look around really quick."
Bailey reached for her holster. Her TSP-issue handgun was right there.
They spent ten minutes searching the house. When they entered the laundry room at the rear, she pulled up.
"Governor Deane's missing Opal Joy," she said, almost in awe. She heard there were still possible shipments of the deadly, addictive drug on the streets somewhere. Fourteen boxes with little green-and-white packets inside were stacked neatly next to the back door. "I wasn't certain it existed."
"Oh, it exists. I took part in the second raid, at Claireson Pharm. The first stockpile was found in Garrity. I thought Deane had said they’d found all of it. This will be news to him. Don't touch anything. We'll call this in when we get signal again." Clay was grim. "Whoever has been using this place to cook this will have left evidence behind."
"We need to stop contaminating the scene." She was far too familiar with what had happened at Claireson Pharm. She hadn’t taken part in the raid where the owner’s body had been found, but one of her friends from W4HAV had been there when the owner had been murdered. Had almost been killed herself.
That friend was now the governor’s wife. Talk was Governor Deane was taking the retrieval of all Opal Joy very, very personally.
"We've now been in every room. It’s too late for that. Good news is, I don’t think anyone will be coming here tonight. Not in this storm."
"But we haven't touch much. Just doors and a few things." Bailey mentally retraced their movements from a forensics perspective. They should be ok. They hadn’t touched much. They’d just have to make certain that any elimination samples from her and Clay were well-documented. And that they did their best to not do any more damage to the scene.
"Back downstairs. Our first priority is safety from the storm. We'll handle this later.”
"Extenuating circumstances." Bailey pulled her cell and started taking a few photos. Just because they were out of service range didn’t mean the phone couldn’t come in handy.
"I hope that'll hold up. If not, we'll just call in a tip to Chief Marshall and let him know how we discovered it. Hell, that's all we'll be able to do, as it is."
"Back to the kitchen? There's that radio in there. Maybe...maybe we can get a station. Find out what is going on out there." Bailey thought the storm had turned toward Finley Creek after it had knocked the Tahoe over like a matchbox car. If it had touched down, there were going to be injuries. Damage.
Fear for the people she cared about in the city filled her for a moment. "Let's get in there. I want to hear what's happening."
"Grab the radio. We'll go to the hallway. I didn’t see an entrance for a basement. I want away from any windows. Until we know what's going on."