There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (73 page)

             
Josie’s fist dropped like the Hammer of Fucking Thor. Squarely on Bidwell’s once patrician nose. Cartilage crunched and nostrils flattened, as the blood gushed forth.

             
Payback…it really is a bitch.

             
                          *******

Tubby’s eyes goggled when Josie strolled out of Bidwell’s office with her clothes in hand, sporting only a pair of hip hugger panties. She waved him over from the payphone, where he was still waiting for the other line to pick up. He dropped the receiver and rushed over to Josie, who had just slipped on her bra and was now sitting on the floor, putting on her socks. He tried looking away but it was next to impossible. His eyes kept returning to her bare flesh. Finally, he turned his back to her. “What happened in there?” he asked her breathlessly. “Did he hurt you, Joe?’

“Nothing happened, Ralph.”

“Then why didn’t he answer the phone?”

“Because he was too busy holding on to his nuts.”

“Gee,” Tubby said, blinking. “You kicked him in his guy parts?”

“Even better. I cracked ‘em together like a couple of pecans. You took the photos? We heard a loud thump.”

Tubby gawped in wonder.
Jeepers!

“Um, yeah, that was me. I knocked over this world globe he had sitting on top of his file cabinets.”

“File cabinets? What on earth were you doing looking in there?” Josie held on to Tubby as she put on her sneakers. Tubby liked the feel of her hand on his shoulder. “Okay, I’m dressed. We better skeedaddle before he decides to come after me.”

Tubby explained what happened as they jogged down the once again rainy street. “When I went into the office, the report I saw yesterday was gone.”

Josie groaned.

“So I had to bust into his file cabinet.”

“Please tell me you found some incriminating evidence to photograph!”

Tubby handed over her father’s Nikon camera. “And then some. There were other folders in there, like the one I saw yesterday, and I used up every bit of that ten minutes you gave me photographing them. Used up every bit of that film on the roll, too. I didn’t have time to read anything. The pictures will have to tell the story. I almost made a clean getaway, but then I knocked over the globe when I was tidying up. Jeepers, Josie. I sure hope these pictures are worth it!”

Josie, who could still feel that bastard’s nuts popping in her hand, started to laugh. “Oh, yeah. It was worth it all right!”

             
                            *******

By two o’clock, the hurricane’s path seemed almost certain to run straight through the island of Moon. It was a massive storm, and even though the eye-wall was still more than 24 hours away, the inhabitants of Moon were already feeling Jack’s awesome power. Ham, seeing an earlier departure was going to be necessary, managed to make one call to Frank Tolson before the lines went down. Ten minutes after that, the electricity went off as well, the power being a fragile commodity this far out to sea.

              The sustained winds were already up to twenty-five miles-an-hour and the seas were choppy. It was time to go. In fact, he had waited too long.

He turned to Rusty. “Son, I need you to hurry next door and get Josie and Joel ready to go.”

“Joel’s gone over to Beaufort with Shayna. Josie’s over at the Browns’ helping them sandbag the doors.”

Ham frowned. He knew how bad it was going to be in Beaufort the next few days, and he was worried about Joel being out on the mainland so close to shore. Then again, even if he could call over there, which he couldn’t now, Joel wasn’t his child. He had no right to tell Shayna what to do with him. He cursed under his breath. Jack was turning out to be one mean son of a bitch. Packing winds up to 150 miles per hour, it was a strong category four, bordering on a catastrophic five. And as far as Ham knew, Moon Island had never received a direct hit from anything greater than a cat three. The storm surge alone from a four would completely wash over the island! Lord only knew what a five would leave behind.

Rusty interrupted his father’s morose train of thought. “Dad, you want me to go over to the museum and tell them we’ve got to get going?”

Ham nodded. “Jump on your bike and pedal like the wind. Tell ‘em we’ve got to cast off in one hour, tops. Your mother and I will meet you down at the
Betty Anne
in twenty minutes. Now, don’t make me come looking for you, boy! I got enough to worry about.”

“I’ll be there, Dad. Where’s Mom?”

“She’s out in her garden, taking in what she can and covering up the rest. I tried to tell her it was a waste of time, but you know how she loves that little patch of earth.”

They shared a quick uneasy laugh, and then Rusty was off. He walked his ten-speed down the front porch steps and used the middle riser to hop onto the seat. As long as there were some steps handy, it wasn’t so hard getting on. Getting off the damn thing was the tricky part. Half the time he just kind of fell off the adult 10 speed. The way Rusty looked at it that indignity didn’t compare to riding around town on a children’s Schwinn.

His feet barely able to reach the pedals, Rusty rode the bike through the open picket gate and made a wobbly left on Huggins Way. He turned around briefly to wave at his mother, on her hands and knees just then in the garden. She was too focused on her work to notice her son.

             
            *******

Josie wiped her brow with the hem of her polo shirt and stretched her aching back. The last of the sandbags now in place, she and Bud took a breather. As everyone had predicted, Bill Brown had decided to stick it out inside his museum. He was now dragging his most beloved gadgets and tools up from the cellar and into the lobby in case the basement flooded. Josie and Bud had certainly done their part to keep that from happening.

              Sandbags now covered both the front and rear entrances. All the way up to the handles on the doors.

“Thanks for the help, Red,” Bud said, handing her a cold Fresca. She popped the top and chug-a-lugged it. A most un-lady-like belch was the carbonated result.

Josie pointed up the street, where Rusty was battling the wind to try and stay upright. “Here comes Gnat on that overgrown bike of his. Och! He looks ridiculous on that feckin’ thing!”

“Ham’s probably ready to boogie,” Bud said. He took a seat on the curb. The rain had been intermittent all day. At the present, a fine mist was blowing straight in from the south, cooling his flushed face.

“I’ll be right back,” Josie said, standing up.

“Gonna try and call Joel again?”

“Yeppers. Maybe the lines are back up.”

By the time Josie remembered to call her Aunt Sissy’s it had been too late. The phones were dead. No dial tone at all. Bill’s cell phone had been no better—what with the lousy weather. Much as Josie hated to admit it, Joel would have to tough it out with Shayna. Even so, Josie kept at it all day. Picking up the phone every half-hour or so. Praying she’d hear a dial tone. Praying she’d hear her brother’s voice on the other end.

              Bill Brown was putting up the last plywood board inside the box office when Josie walked in.

             
“Hey, Bilbo. Don’t you think those steel shutters on the outside are protection enough?”

“You can never have enough protection, Joey.”

Josie blushed; she hadn’t missed the real meaning in Bill’s icy blue stare. The same intense eyes as his son’s.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” she said, refusing to look away. She was reaching for the phone when she remembered the roll of film in her pocket. “Och, I almost forgot! If you’re gonna be sticking around anyway, do you think you could develop this film for me?”

Bill took the roll of film and placed it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll take it right down to my darkroom. What’re they of, Ralph’s little shindig last night?”

“No, sir. They’re pictures of Bidwell’s personal files. Linking him directly to The Research Center. I think you’ll find them most interesting.”

Stunned, Bill dropped his hammer. “Josie! What the
hell
were you thinking?!”

“What’s done is done. Just don’t tell Bud, okay?”
              Bill paused long and hard, thinking it over; his eyes appraised her, cold and furious. Finally, he agreed, baring his canines. “All right…I won’t tell Bud. As long as you promise me you won’t get further involved.”

Josie smiled and nodded her head. Thinking that was the end of it, she picked up the phone.

Bill took it from her and dropped it back into its cradle. “No, ma’am. Not good enough. Not
nearly
good enough! I need to hear you promise me out loud, Josie O’Hara.
Promise
me you won’t take any more foolish chances like that again!”

Josie trembled before the fierce look on Bill Brown’s face. She had never seen him so angry before. Now she knew where Bud got his god-awful temper. “Yes, sir. I swear to you, this is the end of it. No more foolish chances. Honest Injun!”

Bill smiled again. It was astonishing how quickly the Browns’ could switch gears. Like a grizzly bear. Funny one second, ferocious the next. “Good to hear. Just remember, Joey…Bud’s lost a lot in his short life already. I don’t think he could bear to lose you, too.”

He left Josie to think that one over. She picked up the phone and listened to the dead air talk to her.

                                        *******

Tubby and his dad waited outside on the front porch for Emma to come out. It was time to go. They had done as much as they could. Everything they owned of sentimental importance was in the hold of the
Betty Anne
. Everything they’d left behind: furniture, groceries, anything not nailed down, ended upstairs on the second floor. In case the storm surge rose above their porch, which, according to Ham, was looking more and more likely. Emma was dragging her feet, though. Not at all eager to leave. This was her first real home as Mrs. Emma Tolson, and a bad feeling had stolen over her that she was never going to set foot in it again. She took one last look around and put her hand over her mouth. “Goodbye my little yellow house.”

             
Frank took her by the elbow and led her out the front door. “You’re saying goodbye to the house? Come on, dear. Don’t be so silly. We’ll be back soon enough.”

             
Emma nodded and smiled, as though she really believed that. In her heart, though, she knew it wasn’t true.

             
                          *******

Betty Anne Huggins was pulling the last of the tomatoes off the vines when the rabid raccoon lunged out at her from underneath the crawlspace. She jumped back, receiving the tiniest of nips on her wrist, barely even drawing blood.

             
Betty Anne threw the tomato she’d had in her hand at the scruffy little animal, barely bigger than a squirrel, sending it scurrying underneath the cabin, where it chattered away spastically. They’d had problems with the pesky critters before, making their homes in the crawlspace, but this was the first time one had ever attacked her. Well, maybe
attack
was too strong a word.

The storm’s got it all riled up
, she reasoned to herself. She took her baskets into the kitchen and set them down on the counter. When they got back, she would can what vegetables she could. Give away the rest. It wasn’t in her to let them go to waste in the wind and rain. Like so many before her, it never occurred to Betty Anne that the animal might have had rabies. She washed the small scratch in the kitchen sink but didn’t even bother with a Band-Aid.

She was right, of course.

A Band-Aid was of no use whatsoever.

                           
Secon
d
Interlud
e:

5:53 p.m. Monday:

The thing that had once been Lester Noonan watched its prey jog on the far side of the dirt road, across from the Pines, where he lie hiding in wait. Too far out into the caustic sunlight to make a grab for her. Lester, now more than fifty hours into his incubation, no longer recognized people and places he’d known before. The swelling in his brain had taken care of all that, erasing whole sections of his gray matter in a matter of hours.

              Josie O’Hara ran right past him without a glimmer of recognition on his part.