Virtue Falls (6 page)

“I wish…” She paused, startled and confused, and stared at the rocking chairs.

They were rocking by themselves.

The resort shivered, as if the old building felt a chill wind. The deck bucked beneath her feet. She stumbled against the table, dropped her glass. It shattered, sending red streamers of wine flying through the air.

What reason? Why?

Her panicked mind immediately seized on her greatest fear.

Stroke!

She couldn’t get her balance. She was hallucinating. She must have suffered a stroke.

What other explanation could there be?

Yet it wasn’t merely her glass that broke. The glasses on the table, the open bottles, flew into the air, creating a havoc of shards and red wine and white wine.

Someone shouted, “Earthquake!”

Margaret sagged with selfish relief. It wasn’t her old system betraying her. She wasn’t yet condemned to lie in a bed, drooling and helpless, until the Grim Reaper came to take her to her reward.

This was merely an earthquake.

She—and the resort—had lived through them before …

The earth gave a giant shrug, rolled, and rolled again.

Harold caught Margaret’s arm to steady her. Then he stumbled away, staggering on his artificial leg, driven by the power of the buckling earth.

She needed to herd her guests inside, to follow the well-rehearsed program for earthquake survival. But her staff had never rehearsed for
this.
No one had ever imagined
this
, an earthquake so massive the inn rose and fell like a ship in a storm off the North Sea, sending the staff and guests lurching, slamming against the sturdy outdoor iron furniture.

The resort groaned and complained at the unnatural stresses put on the structure, but oddly, the guests were wide-eyed, in shock, and preternaturally quiet.

And the earthquake went on. And on. Never in all of Margaret’s long years on the coast had she experienced anything so violent, so extended, so terrifying.

Still holding the table, she turned and shouted, “Inside! Stay calm and get inside!”

White-faced and paralyzed with terror, the guests stared at her.

But she had already established her authority over them and the situation. She gestured.

They headed toward the open French doors.

Margaret’s cane was gone, she realized, knocked from her arm by the violent rocking. She couldn’t risk leaving the table. She wasn’t steady enough … yet she didn’t dare stay.

If the deck fell, it was a long way to the ocean.

Harold recognized her dilemma, but he couldn’t assist her; he was in the same trouble.

Margaret aimed herself at the open door.

Josue Torres suddenly stood between her and the resort. With the same charming, unruffled smile as before, he said, “I spy a chance to hold this lovely lady in my arms. If I may…?”

He didn’t wait for her assent—as if she would deny him—but scooped her up and headed into the great room.

Margaret looked back and saw the wine maker take Harold’s arm and help him inside.

As they stepped inside the great room, the moose head over the fireplace crashed to the floor. The narrow side table fell over, taking the tall antique Chinese vase with it. The vase exploded; water and chiseled ceramic chips flew across the room. The smell of crushed lilies filled the air. Yet the resort rocked and rolled as one piece, all four floors moving like the forecastle of a sailing ship.

Good damned thing, because the seismic retrofit of the resort had cost Margaret a fortune.

The staff shouted instructions at the guests, yet like sheep in a farm truck, the guests milled around the middle of the room in panic.

Margaret pointed Josue toward the Japanese gong bolted firmly to the wall.

The clever young man understood. As the floor rolled beneath his feet, he staggered over and stopped by the velvet-wrapped mallet.

The mallet flopped about like a dying fish, and it took Margaret two tries to grab the handle and unhook it. She slammed the mallet against the swaying gong, and above the cacophony of shattering glass and creaking timbers, the gong sounded loud and true.

Desperate for leadership, the guests turned to face her.

She shouted, “Follow the staff up the stairs!,” and pointed toward the great staircase.

“No!” Aurora staggered out of the crowd. “This place is coming down around our ears. Outside!”

Stupid and spiteful, with a grudge against Margaret for cutting her down to size.

Margaret hit the gong again.

And as she did, the earthquake at last began to die.

She lifted her voice. “This building has withstood ice storms, raging winds, torrential rains, eclipses, bad portents.” Margaret smiled. “It will withstand this, too. If you would please follow the staff, they’ll take you up to a viewing window where you will be above the reach of the tsunami and can view its approach.”

That
got their attention. Most of them had not thought beyond surviving this moment.

As if to give emphasis to the need to hurry, the earthquake roared back to life, buckling and rocking.

The guests groped toward the stairs.

Josue followed, holding Margaret in his arms.

She considered telling him she could walk.

But he seemed unbothered by her weight, moving with the ease of a healthy young beast. They moved to the second floor, then the third. The breeze off the ocean swept down the corridors; the windows had been shattered.

At the third floor, the staff directed the guests toward the viewing decks, warning them to be careful of the broken glass.

“Go up to the fourth floor,” Margaret told Josue, knowing full well some of the others would follow.

Three of them did: Mason Turner and his parents, who seemed willing to accept Margaret’s authority. She could only hope her actions justified their faith.

As they got to the top, the last of the swaying subsided.

Josue put her on her feet and offered his arm.

She took it and moved toward the door that led out to the narrow viewing platform.

He stepped back. “I don’t want to go out there,” he said.

Yes. This put them ninety feet over the water, and he was squeamish. It happened.

“Stand where you are. You’ll be able to see.” She walked to the edge and grasped the railing tightly.

Mason and his parents joined her.

“Are you sure there’ll be a tsunami?” Mason asked.

“There’s a fault out there.” Margaret nodded toward the ocean. “It rattles us occasionally, and we always get some sloshing, a low run of water headed for the cliffs.”

“This time, it won’t be a low run of water, will it?” Mrs. Turner’s voice trembled.

“No.” In her mind’s eye, Margaret could see it. “This time, the sea floor cracked and bounded up, creating underwater cliffs, triggering a tsunami. Poseidon’s horses race toward shore…” She stopped herself.

Her guests stared at her, wide-eyed in horror and confusion.

She was in storytelling mode, and these people needed reassurance. In a return to her sensible voice, she said, “But here the cliffs drop straight down into very deep water. If the geologists are to be believed, and I hope they are, we won’t see more than an impressive wave crash against the cliffs.”

“Then why did we come up so high?” Mr. Turner asked.

“That’s what the geologists think will happen,” Margaret said. “With my guests’ safety at risk, I’ll not take a chance of them being wrong.”

“Look.” Fear forgotten, Josue joined them. “Look!”

A long, giant swell raced across the blue ocean, lifting the sparkling water north and south as far as the eye could see.

“It’s a big one.” Margaret crossed herself. “God help us all.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Paperwork was the bane of Dennis Foster’s existence, and in the twenty-one years he’d been sheriff, the load had doubled. Worse, most of this crap had nothing to do with law enforcement. He had environmental reports. Racial integration reports. Reports to the state police, the county commissioners, every little town council in his jurisdiction, every self-righteous state senator who wanted to stick his or her nose into local law enforcement. Computers were supposed to lighten the sheriff’s workload; instead the Internet made it possible for everyone and his dog to lean on him for information. He wished the whole damned world would mind its own business.

He wished he could mind his own business, and ignore that mess in San Francisco. But the details preyed on his mind, kept him awake at night, chewing at the edges of his consciousness, forcing him to make choices he didn’t want to make.

When the computer screen rocked backward, he thought the lack of sleep had finally caught up with him.

Then his office chair rolled forward. He caught at his desk and stood. The chair rolled out from under him.

And he heard it, the creaking of the earth as it turned to Jell-O.

Thank God.
Thank God.
He was saved from making a decision about that vicious serial killer. He had an excuse, a good one: earthquake. The big one.

As if he could stop the shaking, Mona started shouting at him, demanding he take charge, that he do something.

God, that woman was stupid. Couldn’t she hear the sound of gunfire on the street? Had some crazy fool decided the world was ending? Was he using his pistol to send people to their heavenly reward?

As Foster ran through the old town hall, the ceiling disintegrated, and chunks of white plaster turned to pellets and rained down on him. He grabbed the massive wooden front door, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it open; the quake had wedged it tightly into the frame. Then the earth shifted and the door flung itself open.

He staggered back, arms flailing, then forward, pulling his pistol. He stepped onto the high concrete steps—and discovered what he heard wasn’t gunshots.

The bricks were popping off the façade of the town hall, hitting the sidewalk and exploding in puffs of red dust. Some hit the street so hard they buried themselves into the warm asphalt.

A huge crack opened in the pavement, then as the wave rolled on, the crack slammed shut like the giant’s mouth. Over and over it happened, and each time, dust and water flew into the air.

One car was halted in the middle of the street. The driver sat inside clutching the steering wheel as if she could somehow control the wild motion. Behind it, another driver honked his horn, perhaps imagining that if she got out of his way, he could drive to safety.

There was no safety. Not anywhere. Not in this disaster.

Citizens Foster recognized, tourists he did not, clung to lampposts or squatted with their arms over their heads, protecting themselves from flying debris. A five-year-old stood alone on the sidewalk, face raised to the sky, crying his fear to the heavens.

Foster holstered his gun and ran out.

One whole brick smacked him in the back, knocking the air out of him. Another one, lighter and broken, struck his ear, and he felt a warm stream of blood gush down his neck.

He reached the child and scooped him up, and carried him into the middle of the street. He pointed his index finger at the honking driver.

The driver stopped that infernal noise.

But the infernal noise didn’t stop. The church bell on the old Episcopal church across the street rang wildly, and when Foster looked up, the steeple toppled in slow motion into the roof.

Behind him someone yelled, and he turned to see the town hall’s concrete scrollwork drop straight down onto the street. It smashed three parked cars; one was a county patrol car.

Someone else shouted to him, and he saw the woman step out of the shelter of her car.

“Give him to me,” she yelled, and extended her arms to the child.

Not her kid, but she saw the child’s need, and his.

He thrust the boy at her and ran toward the crushed vehicles. God knows why. Anyone inside was dead.

But no one was inside, and now people knew what to do. They all scrambled toward the middle of the streets, falling, crawling, away from the buildings and the traffic lights that snapped up and down on wires that cracked like whips.

Other cops joined him, running through the increasing destruction.

Good men and women. They would risk their lives for the people of this county. Even while the earthquake still tore at the town with its vicious teeth, ripping the roads, the homes, the buildings, he sent them fanning out across Virtue Falls.

He knew that before the day was over, this calamity would take all his attention, all his energy, all his knowledge, and no one could blame him if for the moment he forgot the events in San Francisco and did the duty for which he was hired.

No one could blame him at all.

CHAPTER NINE

Kateri raked in the pile of chips and rose from the table. “I’ve got to pour me a cup of coffee. Anybody else want some?”

“No, I want liquor,” Sánchez said.

“You’re on duty,” Kateri retorted, and grinned at him.

Sánchez was kidding. She knew that. He was responding to the first-class poker ass-whupping she had just delivered on the whole crew … but especially on him and Adams. Sánchez would never cause her trouble, but Adams was sulking big time.

Of course, the teasing the rest of the guys had given him hadn’t helped, and as she turned away from the table and headed for the coffee pot, she wondered whether he was the kind of guy who would try to foment trouble for her, or if he’d be pulling strings to get transferred out of here.

But she wasn’t expecting a physical attack, so when he slammed her in the back and knocked her to the ground, she landed hard, then rolled and came up, fists raised, instantly ready to fight—and stumbled like a drunken fool.

The earth rocked like the deck of a ship in a storm.

An attack, yes. But not an attack from Adams. An attack from the earth itself.

Kateri’s mother’s tribe had legends, that a giant frog monster-god crouched off the coast and when it woke and hopped up to taste the sun, the earth broke apart. They had other legends; that here on the coast, in this particular spot where the river met the harbor, the ocean would periodically rise to eat the land. Her tribe spoke of the government’s stupidity in putting the Coast Guard station in Virtue Falls Harbor; the elders predicted a day of disaster.