Come Morning (33 page)

“Oh, that would be so kind of you.” Relaxing, Irma finally tasted her sandwich. “I heard the news, too. I can’t get around too well with this ankle and the boy I use for odd jobs went back to the mainland to college.”

“No problem. I’ll fix that step, too, and check out the rest. Meantime, you’d better stay off that back porch.”

“I intend to. My house is old, you know. Creaky like me.”

“Irma, stop fishing,” Briana said, mock seriously. “You know you don’t get older, just better.”

Irma reached over to touch her arm. “You’re so good for my ego.”

“Well, it’s true.” She glanced at Slade. “Shall we tell Irma about our latest crisis over here?” It was a slim hope, but maybe the woman who knew everyone on the island would recognize the owner of the raspy voice.

“Not another break-in?” Irma had heard about that all around town. Such incidents were rare on the island.

“Worse.” Briefly, Briana told her, then went to the answering machine and hit the PLAY button. She found herself gritting her teeth as the message replayed and was glad when it ended. “You wouldn’t know him, would you?”

Irma shook her head. “I only wish I did. It’s obvious he’s good at disguising his voice, the bastard. What on earth does he want, calling you like that? And that business with Bobby’s shoe! That’s a sick mind. Did you call the sheriff?”

“Oh, yeah.” Finished, Slade sat back. “He’ll never find the guy with the little he has to go on right now.”

“You need to come stay with me, honey,” Irma said, making up her mind just that quickly. “I’ve got a shotgun that belonged to my second husband. It hasn’t been fired in a while, but I believe it’ll still work. And I still remember how to shoot.”

Briana struggled with a smile. “That’s sweet of you, but I’m not letting some coward hiding behind a disguised voice and no return address on a package scare me out of my home. I’m not denying that he scares me. But I’m staying put.”

Slade drained his coffee and set down the cup. “There’s something here that bothers me, Brie. Never mind how he got in, the man got a hold of Bobby’s shoe. What I wonder is how he knew that cutting up that particular shoe would bother you the most. In order to know that, he has to know you, know about your son dying, and therefore know how to strike a chord in you.”

She sat back, a little stunned. “I never thought of that, but you’re right.”

“I would imagine,” Irma said, joining in, “that nearly every permanent resident of this island knows about your loss, Briana. That doesn’t exactly narrow down the field.”

“No, but I think it eliminates the possibility of this being random, as I’d originally hoped,” Slade said, thinking out loud. “The calls, maybe, but not the shoe incident.”

“Perhaps they’re not even connected,” Brie said, rising to clear the table and top off their coffee.

Slade noticed that although he and Irma had clean plates, Brie had scarcely finished half a sandwich. All this was getting to her far more than she let on. “I know you don’t want to leave this house, so you should stay. But until this is over, I’m staying with you. He’s not going to creep in here again without running into a great big surprise or two.”

Irma looked at her young friend with troubled eyes. “I think that’s wise, Briana. If, God forbid, this man is watching you, stalking you, he’ll not make a move with Slade by your side. Not if he has a few working brain cells left.”

“Hey, guys, you’re preaching to the converted. I have no intention of being stupid about this, nor in minimizing the danger. But I just don’t want him to win. He’s
not
driving me away.”

A gusty wind rattled the back kitchen window, drawing their attention. Briana saw that it looked as if rain might fall any minute. “Look, let’s leave these dishes and get moving. We need to board up the windows before things get really bad out there.”

“You’re right.” Irma rose, cautiously stepping down on her foot. “I’ll drive home and be ready to help when you get around to my place.”

Slade shook his head. “Irma, this is a two-person operation. I hold the sheets in place and Brie hammers home the nails. You’ve got a bum leg. Tromping around on the uneven ground out there is no place for you right now.”

Noticing that Irma was feeling a bit left out, Brie slipped her arm around the older woman’s waist. “You get to stay in and make us one of your wonderful soup recipes for afterward, okay? We’ll probably be chilled all the way through, especially if it rains. And you’ve seen how Slade loves to eat”

“Sounds good to me,” Slade added.

Hobbling to the door, Irma finally agreed. “All right, if you’re sure.”

“Absolutely.” Brie saw her into the car, then hurried to the garage where Slade was already hauling out the first sheet.

“We’ll start with your house because mine will be easy. Mostly just locking down shutters.”

Briana grabbed the hammer and nails. “I’m right behind you.”

It was seven before they finished Irma’s house and after eight when they swallowed their last spoonful of mushroom and barley soup in Irma’s cozy kitchen. The radio kept them updated as the weather bureau tracked Donald, and the news so far was good. The hurricane had detoured slightly, veering into Cape Hatteras, delaying its northerly ascent along the Atlantic coast Speculation ran high that Donald seemed whimsical enough to jump off course and stray far east into the Bermuda Islands.

Sporadic rain buffeted buildings and drenched the shoreline while screaming winds bent younger trees nearly in half. Then the downpour would turn misty and the air almost breezy, giving people a false sense of security before it all began again.

But the actual hurricane hadn’t arrived yet and predictions had it showing up in a wide time range anywhere from midnight to the following midafternoon. Nerves were stretched taut with anticipation as Nantucket waited.

Standing in the doorway of her grandfather’s porch, which was the only place she and Slade could look out with all the windows boarded up, Briana watched the sea behaving as she’d never seen before. She had taken a shower and put on a sweatshirt and jeans and an all-weather jacket. Wrapped in Slade’s arms, she felt safe yet awestruck at the powerful electrical light show.

“It’s unbelievable. Something you have to see for yourself.”

Slade watched the wind-driven water lift the ocean waves to what looked to be easily ten to twelve feet high, then saw them surge onto the sloping shoreline before sucking sand in huge gulps on their return journey. Their houses were off the beach, up a grassy incline and on the other side of the coastal road. Still, he wondered if the sea might reach their yards and even farther.

“I’ve never watched anything like this,” he confessed. “It’s frightening, but it’s also fascinating.”

Above the roar of the wind, Briana could hear a distant loudspeaker, but couldn’t make out the words. “That’s probably the sheriff’s deputies telling everyone to keep off the streets. I only hope that any tourists still here listen to the warnings and stay inside. People have a tendency to want to watch the show, not realizing the danger they’re in. I’ve heard that those waves can get as high as twenty-five feet and actually hurl inland as far as Main Street, dragging all kinds of sludge and mud with it.”

“You saw that happen?”

“No, I didn’t, but Gramp told me he was here during the big one. The next morning, when they finally were able to go out, they saw bridges dangling, cut in half, roads all blocked from uprooted trees, buildings picked up and dropped back down, lying in a heap like so many broken matchsticks. It sounded awful.”

“Lots of people died, I imagine.” He’d seen heavy rains and mud slides in California, but never watched anything like this.

“Yes, and many more were injured. Oh!” She watched a tree just down the street snap in half from the force of the wind, the broken section whirled along down the beach. “See that? Can you imagine what chance a person has out there if a tree can’t withstand that wind?” She shook back her hair but the wild gusts continued to whip the strands about her face.

The sky was an eerie yellow, making the lightning bolts appear vividly orange. The rising wind was slapping moisture against the house now, whether rain or from the sea, Slade couldn’t be certain. “We’d better go inside. I don’t know how solid this porch is.” Taking her hand, he led the way to the door, surprised at how difficult it was to cover the ten feet of space against a wind so strong it felt as if a large restraining hand was holding them back.

Safely inside, he put his back into it and shoved the door closed. “You know, if I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I couldn’t have imagined it.” The keening sound of the wind whirling torrents of water up and around outside made his skin crawl. “The noise. I wonder how long that keeps up.”

Brie shook the dampness from her hair, then shrugged off her jacket. “Until it’s over and the hurricane blows out to sea and goes on to plague some other city. Although there’s a lull that happens when you’re right in the eye of the storm, or so I’ve read. It gets real still and very quiet, but it doesn’t last long. Then it picks up and blows even harder.”

The rain continued to pound and the wind to scream. The electricity had cut off hours ago. One of two oil lanterns Slade had lighted cast a red glow around the kitchen. The other was in the bathroom, otherwise the rooms were eerily dark. Briana had set out several candles and two big flashlights in case they needed them.

She paced to the front even though she couldn’t see out the window. A sudden sound to her right had her jumping. “What was that?”

Slade joined her, cocking his ear, trying to hear above the storm. “Sounded like glass breaking. Maybe one of the shutters on my place blew loose.” He knew it would be disastrous to go out now and try to secure it. Instead, he reached for Briana, thinking that if he didn’t look worried, she’d follow suit. “No big deal. I’ll clean it up later.”

Thank goodness he didn’t want to rush outside as she’d feared he might, Briana thought, placing her head against his chest, soothed by the steady beating of his heart. “I wish we’d insisted on bringing Irma back here, especially with that sprained ankle. What if she stumbles in the dark over there?”

“We lit two lanterns for her, remember? And she has that big flashlight if she needs to walk to other rooms. She’ll be all right. That woman’s survived worse than this.” He stroked her hair gently. “And we’ll be all right, too.”

Briana let him hold her for a while, then became as restless as the storm outside. Returning to the kitchen, she flipped on Gramp’s battery-operated shortwave radio.

“… winds tracked at 123 miles per hour … traffic lights dancing on their overhead wires, two falling to… huge tree limb zinging through the air like a child’s toy … garbage can hurtling past our second-story window as I stand looking out our small peephole … four of our windows have popped despite being boarded up … glass spraying everywhere like shrapnel … advise everyone who can hear me to open your inside doors slightly to relieve the pressure … oh, no! The roof across the street lifted right off and … brick wall two doors down caved in … giant live oak over a hundred years old now blocking Main Street … Hurricane Donald’s a big one, folks.” The interruptive static took over completely.

Swallowing hard, Briana turned down the volume. Her hand to her mouth, she closed her eyes, praying they’d make it through this. All of them. Property could be repaired, replaced. But lives couldn’t. She knew firsthand how quickly a life could be snuffed out, a loved one forever silenced.

Slade did as the reporter had directed, propping their inside doors slightly ajar. He could hear the wind spiraling upward and sideways, the sound like a banshee wail. Thunder seemed to rattle the very foundation of Gramp’s house, one that had been standing firm for decades. He hoped it would hold for decades more.

Returning to Briana, he stroked her back, trying to absorb her fears, to ease her mind, though he knew that was a tall order this time. He knew she wasn’t materialistic enough to be concerned about losing the house because of its value, but rather because of its sentimental connection. He also knew she was worried about the people on Nantucket, the ones she’d known since childhood. “It’s going to be all right, Brie. We have to think positive here.”

She didn’t answer, just held on to him more tightly.

In his own way, he was worried, too. Whatever time the storm moved on, he knew that would be when the real work would begin. Fires were the biggest danger when gas lines were broken and electrical connections severed. If the radio announcer was to be believed, whole buildings were falling. People would be frantic once the wind and rain died down, looking for loved ones.

It would likely still be dark, and rescue trucks from the fire department and police wouldn’t be able to get through on the flooded streets. Would the water be safe to drink, the food spoiled after hours without electricity for refrigeration? Would the hospitals be able to accommodate the injured, the dying? Were there enough medical people available on this small island to take care of a disaster of this magnitude?

He didn’t have answers, just questions.

The sudden silence was ominous and suspicious. Slade got up from the floor where they’d been huddled together in the comer of the living room, and walked to the door Listening, he could hear very little. Was this the respite, the calm during the eye of the storm? Cautiously, he cracked open the door leading to the porch.

Briana leaped up and rushed to his side. “Do you think you should?” she asked, a nervous hitch to her voice.

Not answering, he grabbed his jacket and opened the door wider, then all the way, walking onto the porch. It was still raining, but the wind was almost a gentle, shifting breeze. Lightning streaked down the wall of the night sky, illuminating briefly a tumultuous sea, but not a threatening one right now.

“I’m going to go fix that shutter,” he said, pulling open the porch door.

She grabbed his hand, suddenly afraid again. “Let it go, Slade. The damage is already done. This could all start up again any minute.”

“I read once that this calm lasts about ten minutes, sometimes a little longer. I’ll be back long before then.” He squeezed her hand. “If I’m not, go back inside and shut the door.” He hurried down the stairs before she could stop him.