Going Once (Forces of Nature) (15 page)

“We had a visitor,” Wade said.

Tate looked startled, then glanced at Nola.

“Who?”

“A volunteer from the gym. I worked with him that night I handed out water bottles.”

“What the hell was he doing here?” Tate asked.

Wade sighed. “Laura found a sack of stuff under the cot Nola had been sleeping on. I guess we missed it when we picked everything up. I guess she knew the guy was staying out here and sent it with him.”

“Do we know him? Did we clear him the night she was attacked? What came up on his background check?” Tate asked.

“He’s the one who was sick when we went to interview him. He wasn’t faking. Thought he was going to pass out on us just standing there talking. As far as I know, nothing popped on his background check.”

“He’s not scary, but Leon Mooney was helping out, too, and he sure was. I guess now we know why.”

Tate’s eyes widened. “Shit. Pardon my French. Mooney said he recognized the Stormchaser when he attacked you, and he obviously knew this guy pretty well if they were working together. Are we damn sure he wasn’t there that night?”

“Well, I watched him leave,” Cameron said. “Although that doesn’t mean he didn’t come back. But there you are. He got sick pretty damn fast afterward
if
he
did
come back.”

Tate couldn’t let go of the connection.

“Everything is a clue and nothing is an accident,” he muttered.

“Eat your hamburger now, detect later,” Nola urged.

As their meal progressed, the tension eased, and finally Tate was laughing with them, until his phone signaled a text.

The men stopped in midsentence, looking at each other with an expression Nola didn’t understand.

“What?” she asked.

Tate’s eyes narrowed as he pulled out his phone. He saw the number, then looked up and nodded.

Nola was beginning to get scared. “What, damn it?”

“It’s from the Stormchaser,” Cameron said.

Shock rolled through her.

“It’s part of how he gets his kicks,” Tate muttered.

“So what did he say?” Nola asked.

Tate opened the text and felt the skin crawl on the back of his neck.

I am not the fly you swatted. I am the eagle you cannot see. I hunt not for food but for justice and revenge. You do not deserve joy when mine is gone. I will prevail.

Clearly the Stormchaser felt threatened and was trying to reassert himself because Tate had killed the copycat.

Tate shoved the phone across the table to let them read for themselves, then took it back and, within moments, was talking to a tech at Quantico. He gave him both phone numbers, his and the killer’s, and ordered a trace.

“Get back to me ASAP.”

“We’ve done this countless times before,” Wade said. “We know he’s in our area. He’s always right under our noses. It won’t be any different this time.”

Tate was stone-faced. “And I’ll keep doing it. Damn me for slacking before. Eventually something has to click.” He looked at Nola. She was pale and very quiet. “Nola?”

She looked up with a glint in her eye. “I’m fine. Just find the bastard.”

Tate moved back to the murder board and began going over the evidence again out loud as she got up and cleared the table.

“Okay. Even though this has been part of our profile on him, it’s the first time he’s come out and used the word revenge and if we put Hurricane Katrina into the equation, it leaves us all kinds of possibilities.”

Cameron picked up the conversation. “If he and his wife were waiting to be rescued and it didn’t happen in time...”

“Who would he blame?” Wade asked. “He’d blame the rescuers. Maybe the government. He’d want them to look bad. He’d want to pay them back.”

Tate added. “He uses a lot of biblical references in his texts. He could be angry with God for not saving his wife.”

“But why kill people who would most likely have survived?” Nola asked.

Tate began to pace, ticking off the potential reasons one by one. “If he felt let down by God for not saving his loved one, then he could have convinced himself that he’s getting back at God for taking people He would have saved. Or maybe he’s angry with the government for not responding quickly enough to save whoever he loved and then helping now. He resents other people for surviving when his loved one didn’t, or something to that effect. We need to put research on this. They can do it faster and much more thoroughly than we can.”

“I’ll call it in,” Wade said. “So what all do we need? Reports of people who were angry about not being rescued?”

“And coverage on anyone who might have made threats against the authorities in the aftermath of Katrina,” Tate added.

“Any particularly tragic stories about couples getting separated, a spouse or child dying, that kind of thing,” Cameron added.

“I’m on it,” Wade said, and headed back to his bedroom to start the ball rolling.

Tate scooped Nola up in his arms and kissed her soundly. Before now, they’d had nothing but hypotheses as to the reasoning behind the killings, but now they knew for sure that the motive was revenge, and maybe that Hurricane Katrina was involved, as well.

Her lips were still tingling after he’d put her down, and she could tell by the conversation and the phone calls being made that she needed to entertain herself for a while. She grabbed a cookie, traded her water for a cold pop and headed for the living room.

“Will the television bother you?” she asked.

Tate shook his head and went back to working.

* * *

Don Benton regained consciousness in complete confusion. The last thing he remembered was looking at the flowers in his front flower bed. And he hurt. To the point that he was one giant ache. Something was beeping. He turned his head, saw the IV in his arm and the heart monitor hookup, and realized he was in a hospital.

But why?

All of a sudden the door to his room opened and a nurse came in.

“You woke up!” she said. “Welcome back, Doctor Benton. You are one very blessed man.”

“What hap—” he started to ask, then realized it hurt to talk, too.

“You were in a car accident.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the cobwebs in his memory, but nothing came to mind.

“My fault?”

The nurse’s smile disappeared. “No, not your fault. Are you in pain?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get you something. Be right back.”

“Wait... Who?”

She left without answering, which made him anxious. What in the world had happened?

A few minutes later she came back, accompanied by Aaron Tuttle. She emptied a syringe into his IV port while the doctor began an exam.

“Good afternoon, Don. You’ve had quite a day. I want to check your incision before we do anything else, so just lie still and I’ll do all the work.”

Don didn’t have to be told to stay still. He hurt too much to move. He watched Tuttle’s face, guessing by the man’s changing expressions that all was well.

“Looks good,” Tuttle said. “The meds she just gave you will work shortly. That should give you some relief.”

“What did you repair?” Don asked.

“You had a ruptured spleen, broken ribs, quite a few cuts and contusions, and a concussion. You’d lost a lot of blood by the time we got you into surgery. If it hadn’t been for your son, your prognosis would have been a different story.”

Don frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Tate donated the blood that saved you.”

Don’s mouth opened, but no words came. Tuttle kept talking. “Rare blood types like yours can be an issue in small towns like this, especially during emergencies, although I’m sure you know that. Anyway, crisis averted, thanks to him.”

Don’s head was spinning. It was extremely unlikely that Tate had the same blood type he did. Julia had said Tate wasn’t his. He’d heard it with his own ears. No woman in her right mind would lie about something—

The minute he thought the words, the truth hit him.
In her right mind.
But Julia hadn’t been in her right mind, it was just that he’d been in denial. He’d been so shocked by what she’d said that it had never occurred to him that she might have been delusional.

Then he remembered that the nurse hadn’t answered his question about the wreck.

“Wreck wasn’t my fault?”

Tuttle nodded. “That’s correct. It wasn’t your fault.”

“What happened?”

Doc Tuttle frowned. “Mrs. Coffee broadsided you. God rest her soul.”

Don shuddered. “She’s dead?”

“On impact.”

“Dear God,” Don whispered, and closed his eyes.

Tuttle patted his knee.

“Get some rest. Barring unforeseen complications, you’re going to be fine. I’ll be back to check on you when I make rounds in the morning.”

Moments later Don was alone, but rest was impossible.

Mrs. Coffee was dead, and he had been party to that, even if it hadn’t been his fault. And he had denied his son a thousand times over because of a grandiose ego and a coldhearted refusal to nurture another man’s child.

His head hurt.

His body hurt.

His heart hurt.

God help him, but he should have been the one to die.

Fourteen

I
t began to rain again in the night. Tate heard it first on the roof and then blowing against the windows, and groaned. Dear God, this whole section of the state was going to wash away if it didn’t stop. The river had been predicted to crest sometime in the night, and now that prediction no longer held true.

The wind rattling the trailer sounded like rocks in a can. Either that or it was Jonesy’s ghosts. Whichever, it still made him antsy, and the agent in him would never be able to go back to sleep until he did a recon of the place, just to be sure.

He picked up his handgun and left his bedroom, using the intermittent flashes of lightning and the night-light in the kitchen to light the way.

Once he reached the living room he stood at the window in the dark, waiting for the flashes to scan the area. The security light at the edge of the street was out. He frowned, certain it had been on every other night, and chalked it up to the lightning shorting out the wiring. After checking the door, the dead bolt and the security chain to make sure they were secure, he rechecked the windows, then the back door.

All was well.

Cameron came out of his bedroom on his way to the bathroom and saw Tate standing in the hall.

“Everything okay?”

Tate nodded. “Just antsy about what this new rainfall will do. In the wake of the copycat, I’m wondering if the killer will take advantage of it to pull the attention back to him. It’s crucial for him to establish himself as top dog.”

“I know.”

Cameron went into the bathroom as Tate headed for the kitchen. He couldn’t sleep. Hopefully Quantico would have some new stats for them by morning and they would finally have some facts to work with.

He heard the door shut as Cameron went back to bed and was thinking about getting a snack when the door opened again. He thought it was Cameron and then heard Nola’s voice.

He found her standing in the open door to her room, wearing that LSU T-shirt and a pair of panties, and she’d taken down the braid in her hair. It hung around her shoulders and down her back like a dark veil. After thinking about ghosts earlier, her appearance and her silence were slightly eerie.

“Honey, is everything all right?”

She answered, but in a monotone.

“Mama said run.”

“Nola?”

“She told me. She said, ‘Get up, Nola! Get dressed. Get food. Get water. Run.’”

The hair stood up on the back of his neck. Her eyes were open, but she was walking in her sleep.

“Mama?” she said.

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had her mother actually come to her in a dream and saved her life? Damn. This was seriously heavy stuff. He didn’t want to scare her, but he knew better than to wake her too abruptly, so he took her by the hand.

“Come with me,” he said, and led her back into her room. “It’s safe now,” he said softly. “You don’t have to run anymore. Lie down, baby. It’s time to rest.”

She crawled back into bed, lay down on her back and pulled the covers up beneath her chin. Her eyes were still open, but she didn’t react to the flashes of lightning that were clearly visible through the curtains.

Tate frowned. She was still in sleepwalk mode and fully capable of taking another walk out the door. Rather than worry, he just pulled back the covers and crawled into bed with her.

She let him pull her closer, and when he slid an arm beneath her neck and pillowed her head on his shoulder, she sighed. He watched her face until her breathing eased and her eyes finally closed.

“Poor darling,” he whispered, and brushed the tangles of hair away from her face. “Everything and everybody washed away and you watched it happen, didn’t you, honey?”

* * *

Nola woke up in Tate’s arms and thought about waking up that way for the rest of her life. Emotion welled within her, blurring his features. Even in the dark, the strength in his face and his body was evident, and she loved him so damn much it hurt.

She didn’t know when he’d crawled into bed with her or why, but she wasn’t going to complain. She glanced at the digital clock. 4:45 a.m.—the perfect time for making love.

She shifted to accommodate her stitches, slipped out of her panties and then leaned over his chest to kiss his cheek before kissing her way across his face to his lips.

He woke with a sigh and tightened his grasp.

“If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up,” he whispered, and cupped her backside with both hands. He felt the bare skin and rolled over, turning her beneath him. Without a second of foreplay, he slid inside her and began to move, pushing hard and deep.

Nola moaned. She’d been right. It was the perfect time to make love.

The security light outside her window sent a faint glow into her room, casting shadows of their bodies onto the wall. She watched, fascinated by the image of what she saw combined with the lust of what she felt, then closed her eyes, meeting him thrust for thrust as their lonely years apart fell away.

Time was no longer measured by seconds but by the building waves of rushing blood. One moment she was riding the waves of ecstasy, and then the climax slammed into her so fast she forgot to breathe.

Tate felt it, heard her groan slip out from between her lips and lost control. His body was on autopilot and his mind had already shattered as he rode his climax to the end and then, conscious of her stitches, rolled onto his back, taking her with him and pulling up the covers. The next time they woke, sunlight was spilling into the room and they could smell coffee.

“Good morning, pretty lady,” Tate said, and combed the tangles of her hair away from her face.

“What happened?”

He smiled. “You mean besides us making love?”

She nodded.

“You were sleepwalking. I was afraid you’d get out of the trailer and I wouldn’t know it.”

She frowned. “I used to do that when I was a kid.”

He sat up and combed his hands through his hair. He started to get out of bed and then stopped. After what he’d heard her say last night, he had to know.

“You said you’d been sick for days and didn’t know about the flood. So when the river got to the house and you woke up in the dark, how did you know to get up?”

“I was dreaming. Mama was running through the house, going from window to window. I could see the frantic look on her face. And then all of a sudden she started yelling at me, telling me to get up and get dressed. She said to get food and water and run, so I did. When I stepped out onto the porch in the dark, I felt water up past my ankles. Even as sick as I was, it scared the hell out of me.”

“Lord, Lord, baby. Your mama’s spirit saved your life. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Yes. I knew it the moment I saw all that water.”

He just shook his head, and handed her the panties and shirt.

“I’ll go get dressed. I don’t hear the shower, so you can go first if you want.”

“What’s going to happen today, Tate?”

“What do you mean?”

“The river is still rising, isn’t it?”

“It has nowhere else to go but to spread farther.”

“Is Queens Crossing in danger?”

“I seriously doubt it. I think it’s high enough to keep it dry, but this latest storm is bound to bring in even more people who’ve been flooded out.”

“Will the Stormchaser kill again?”

“Who knows what the crazy bastard will do. We’re expecting some data to come in from Quantico. Hopefully it’ll give us a new angle on the investigation.”

“Okay. I just wanted to know.”

“And you
should
know. You’re just as involved in this as we are, just for a different reason.”

“I’ll go shower. I won’t be long.”

“Hey, Nola.”

She paused as she threw back the covers. “What?”

“Love you.”

She shivered. They were words she’d thought she would never hear him say again.

“Oh, Tate, I love you, too.”

He winked and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Moments later she went into the bathroom with a hairbrush, a hair band and some clean clothes. She paused to look at herself in the mirror. Her lips were slightly swollen and her hair looked like she’d been in an orgy.

She smiled. The look was a good one for her.

* * *

Hershel hadn’t slept all night. Once the rain began, he’d started pacing. Louise had been on his case nonstop, telling him to lie down and get his rest, but he’d had a meltdown on her like he’d never had before, and now she was silent and it was worse than her harping had ever been.

This was how it had been right after she died, and it had been his guilt and the silence that pushed him over the edge. He needed to regain control, and the only way he knew to do that was to resume his quest. Living witness or not, there would be new people in need of rescue. He was saving the boat for Nola. They would be watching for it and him, by land and probably by air, so he didn’t dare use it again more than once.

So how could he make this happen? He didn’t know. What he
did
know was that the answer wouldn’t come to him in here. He needed to get out among them and the answer would come. It always did.

The first thing he did was select a different disguise. First he packed clothing, then a wig and makeup. He decided to opt for his rifle rather than the pistol today, because he wouldn’t be in the boat, which meant he wouldn’t be able to get up as close. He listened to the local news reports as he gathered his things, pinpointing the areas along the river that were now in danger. They were announcing more refugee centers being set up farther downstream as well as new ones here in town, but he didn’t care. Today he was not a volunteer, he was the Stormchaser, and he had a need for control.

Louise was still keeping quiet, and it was making him nervous. Everything was off-kilter. As soon as he got the Feds away from Nola, he would rectify his mistake and be on his way.

The day was still overcast, even though the rain had passed, leaving a slight chill in the air. The jacket he had on felt good as he headed out the door. He tossed his duffel bag in the front seat of the truck, checked to make sure his rifle and ammo were still secure behind the seat and got in. He glanced toward the trailer where the Feds were staying. The SUV was still there, and most likely they were, too. He smiled. He was about to scatter them like a covey of quail.

With the news reports in mind, he drove out of Queens Crossing and headed east for ten miles, then cut back south toward the flood zone to scout for prospects. It would be more difficult doing it from land than from water, but it also made his quest that much more interesting.

As soon as he got to a secure location, he changed into his disguise. Black pants and a black leather vest later, he was halfway there. He added a fake tattoo on his arm, some chains hanging from his belt loops into his pockets and more chain bracelets around his wrists, and he looked like a street thug. A shaggy black wig brushed the back of his neck, a handlebar mustache tickled his nose and his baseball cap touted a popular beer. There was nothing he could do about his vehicle, but he changed his license plate to a stolen one from Oklahoma just in case.

The first location he spotted was an older two-story frame house about a quarter of a mile from the road. Even from where he was sitting, he could see two men madly filling sandbags to reinforce the dam they’d build around their house. The water was shallow but had already encircled them. But for their dam, it would already have invaded the house. It was obvious their efforts were futile, and it was a good place to begin. In a way, he was doing them a favor, saving them from pointless labor and a world of grief.

He took the turn down the road, drove as close as he dared and walked along the edge of the woods until he reached the water. They never looked up from their task, and even though he was only a hundred feet from their house, they never saw him.

He stood for a few moments, watching the old man and the younger one work in a well-coordinated routine and scouting the best spot to take his shots. He had no way of knowing if there was a woman inside the house, but he would find out soon enough when the men went down.

The old man moved into position first, but Hershel waited. He needed to take the young one down first. A couple of minutes later he got his opportunity, sighted him through the rifle scope and fired.

The young man dropped without making a sound. A muscle jerked in Hershel’s jaw as he waited for the older man to turn. He saw the look of shock on his face. Saw, rather than heard, the cry of dismay, and then took his second shot. He saw blood splatter out behind the old man’s head as he went down. Then he stood, waiting to see if anyone came out. Nothing moved except the water. He slipped the rifle into the crook of his arm, pausing long enough to eye the river as it continued to swallow the land, and headed back toward his truck.

* * *

By the time she heard the shots and got to the window, her husband and his father were down, and the shooter was staring at the house. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her scream and watched as he walked away. As soon as he was out of sight, she ran for her cell phone, sobbing as she went.

* * *

Tate was in his bedroom, on the phone with the director, filling him in on the new direction they were exploring. The data they’d requested from Quantico had come through, and the techs who’d sorted it had done an amazingly thorough job, especially given how little they’d had to go on. But because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the length of time it had taken before real help ever arrived, there were literally hundreds of stories to look through.

“Damn,” Cameron said as he began scrolling through the online report. “I need this stuff printed out to be able to sort it. I’ll print, if one of you guys will separate the copies into three sets, and then we can see if there’s anything in there that fits what we already have.”

“I’ll do it,” Wade said.

Nola was doing her part by staying out of the way. They had every tabletop, as well as the kitchen island, covered in files and papers, and from the sound of their conversation, they were about to make it worse.