Landfall
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Synopsis
Held prisoner by a man bent on avenging the death of a son, Maggie must find a way to save herself and her two children.
No one knows where they are. No one is coming to help. Maggie and her children will have to find a way to survive both the madness inside their home and the madness raging outside.
Two storms that nobody thought were coming just made landfall.
About the Forgotten Coast Series
The first four books of the series, Low Tide, Riptide, What Washes Up, and Landfall, set the stage for the rest of the series. While there are subplots resolved in each book, there is an overarching storyline that is not resolved until Landfall, so readers will enjoy them best if these are read in order.
Subsequent books in the series are both longer (ranging between 200-250 pages) and designed to stand alone, so they may be read in any order.
Praise for the Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series
From Low Tide:
Florida writers need to watch out, or better still read Dawn McKenna's books. She's the real deal......Low Tide is a suspenseful mystery/thriller, beautifully written and perfectly executed. The characters ring true, the scenarios are all plausible, and the dialogue is witty and believable. Dawn Lee McKenna is an amazing and gifted writer.....McKenna is the real deal - a storyteller with a knack for hooking you with characters of depth and intriguing sub plots.
From Riptide:
Even better than Low Tide, this novel had so much depth and heart, mixed seamlessly with the heart-stopping suspense scenes. I'm absolutely hooked on this series......After finishing Low Tide, the very promising entry to the Forgotten Coast series, I was curious to see how Dawn Lee McKenna would follow up.
Not only does McKenna not disappoint, she exceeds already high expectations with this exciting, well-written sequel.......Riptide fulfills the promise of its predecessor, Low Tide, and firmly establishes this author as a force to be reckoned with in the literary world and the mystery/suspense genre.
Release date: September 14, 2015
Publisher: The Sweet Tea Press
Print pages: 182
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Landfall
Dawn Lee McKenna
Chapter 1
Wednesday, August 12th
12:36pm
Maggie laid on the table for two pounding heartbeats, then slid off and onto her feet, and scrambled over to Sky’s chair.
“Mom, what just happened?” Sky asked, her voice near hysterical.
“I don’t know,” Maggie said, squatting behind Sky’s chair and furiously working the ropes that bound her wrists.
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know, Sky!”
The wind was whistling like a train outside, and it seemed impossible that it could be louder than it had already been. Maggie looked up toward the kitchen window as something small but hard hit it, and she caught Kyle’s eye. He was staring at the front door, his eyes wide.
“I’m coming, Kyle,” Maggie said. He looked at her, but didn’t say anything.
Sky wiggled her fingers. “Hurry, Mom!”
“Hold still, baby, please,” Maggie said.
She yanked the ropes free and jumped up as Sky pulled her arms around to the front. They were stiff from hours of being bound behind her, and she rolled them gingerly.
“Sky,” I need you to grab the Glock,” Maggie said, as she squatted behind Kyle and started working on the ropes. His thin wrists were bleeding, and the ropes had left welts on them that made Maggie want to scream.
Sky ran over to the kitchen counter and picked up the Glock, where it lay with the Mossberg and her great-grandfather’s .38. “Do you want me to bring it to you?”
“No, I need it for you,” she said. “Do you remember how to use it?”
“Yeah, but…I guess. Why not the .38?”
“This is not the time for a revolver, baby,” Maggie answered. “Just take it. I want you take it, and I want you to take Kyle, and I want you guys to go in your room, and you don’t come out unless I come get you.”
“Mom, wait—”
“You don’t come out unless I come get you, do you understand me?” Maggie yelled.
“Yes.”
A branch slammed into the window behind Sky, and she ducked instinctively, but the glass didn’t break. The branch fell away again as she straightened up and grabbed the extra rounds from the counter and shoved them into her pocket.
Maggie finally pulled Kyle’s wrists free, and she rubbed them for just a second before she pulled him up from the chair. “Kyle, you go with Sky, and you guys stay in there. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a croak.
“Go!” Maggie barked at Sky, and the kids ran down the hallway. As soon as she heard their steps, Coco started barking and scratching at the door again. Maggie watched Sky open the door, watched the kids go in and slam the door behind them, then she ran over to the kitchen counter.
She glanced up at the front door several times, as she loaded the Mossberg, shoved a couple of extra rounds in her shorts pocket, and then ran over to the door. The floor was wet from when he had burst through, and she slipped and nearly went down before catching herself.
She put an ear to the door, but it was a ridiculous thing to do. On the other side was nothing but noise, and she could hear nothing beyond the pounding of the rain on the deck.
She took a deep breath, slammed back the action on the shotgun, and flung open the door.
Boudreaux was in the yard, a few feet from the bottom of the stairs. He was almost knee deep in water from the river, and the water closest to him was colored a deep, dark red.
He looked up at her, the wind buffeting him and pushing him, his hair whipping wildly.
Maggie raised the shotgun and felt a catch in her throat as she looked into those eyes, so deeply blue even from this distance.
“I wish you hadn’t come here, Mr. Boudreaux.”
***
Tuesday, August 11th
8:10am – 28 hours earlier
Her name was Faye. According to the Tallahassee paper, Tropical Storm Faye had visited herself upon Cuba without too much mayhem, but might be upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane in the near future. If so, she was expected to make landfall somewhere between New Orleans and Biloxi.
Bennett Boudreaux set the paper aside, and poured himself another chicory coffee. He’d moved from Houma, LA to Apalachicola, FL decades before Hurricane Katrina, and he still enjoyed a good hurricane. He hoped they’d at least get some nice thunderstorms from Faye as she passed through the Gulf.
Judging by the sunlight streaming through the twelve-pane windows and the French doors that led out to the porch, it wouldn’t be today.
Boudreaux ran a hand through his brown hair, still thick and with only a touch of silver above his ears to show his age. At sixty-two, he was youthful and slim, and his deep blue eyes hadn’t lost any of their intensity. He smoothed his hair back down and reached for the sugar spoon.
Amelia, Boudreaux’s middle-aged Creole cook and housekeeper, stood at the kitchen island, frying one slice of maple bacon in a cast iron skillet.
“I appreciate you don’t mess with her none this mornin’,” she said to the skillet. “I got to take her over to the hospital for her bone scan in forty-five minutes.”
“What’s the bone scan for?” Boudreaux asked, stirring pure cane sugar into his coffee.
“Make sure she still got bones,” Amelia answered. She used a set of tongs to lift the bacon from the pan and laid it on a small plate next to one over-medium egg and a slice of toast.
Boudreaux watched her, and thought how much more relaxed Amelia seemed since his beloved wife Lily had made her departure for Grand Isle. She’d left three weeks ago, just after the funeral service for his older stepson, Patrick. With any luck, she would find a more appealing husband while she was there. Maybe a more successful crime lord, who took frequent and lengthy trips to Newfoundland.
The French door opened, and Miss Evangeline’s aluminum walker clattered through it, with Miss Evangeline herself in tepid pursuit.
Miss Evangeline was Amelia’s mother, and Boudreaux’s childhood nanny. She was well into her nineties, and often reminded him of a hatchling, tiny and featherless, a creamy yellowish-brown.
Boudreaux got up and walked around to pull out Miss Evangeline’s chair as she made her way to the table, the tennis balls on her walker making a soft swish against the hardwood floor.
“Mornin’, Mama,” Amelia said.
“Mornin’, baby,” Miss Evangeline answered, her voice like dry palm fronds rubbing together.
Boudreaux waited until Miss Evangeline reached the table, then kissed her on each papery cheek. “Good morning, Miss Evangeline,” he said.
“We gon’ see,” she answered, and got settled into her chair with a great deal of care and precision. Boudreaux walked back to his seat as Amelia set the plate and a cup of tea in front of her mother.
“You need to eat and get on with it,” Amelia said. “You still got to change for the doctor.”
“Why I got to change?” her mother asked, tilting her Coke-bottle glasses up at her daughter.
“You ain’t goin’ in that house dress,” Amelia said.
“I ain’t changin’ into somethin’ else just so they can tell me to take it off and put on them paper towel.”
Amelia heaved out a sigh and walked back to the island. “At least put a sweater on,” she said. She took the skillet to the sink and started wiping it out, as Boudreaux opened up the paper again. Miss Evangeline commenced to scrape butter on her toast, staring at the back of the newspaper.
“What in the paper?’ she asked.
“Some intellectual giant called in a bomb threat from the customer service phone at a Walmart in Tallahassee, the Governor says we really are making some real headway on drugs, and Tropical Storm Faye is thinking about becoming a Category 1 hurricane.”
Miss Evangeline stopped buttering her toast and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “I won’t have no hurricane comin’ round here this flat place, floodin’ everything.”
“It’s not going to flood,” Boudreaux said smoothly.
“How you know?” she snapped. “Water come up over here, dump the shark in the yard. I won’t tolerate it, me.”
“We’re too far from the bay,” Boudreaux said. “All the sharks will be downtown.”
Amelia looked over her shoulder at him from the sink. “I got forty minutes now, to take this woman to the doctor.”
Miss Evangeline poked at her lower plate with her little tongue and fastened her magnified eyes on the back of Boudreaux’s paper. “You thinkin’ it’s a good day to sass me some,” she said.
Boudreaux lowered his paper and looked at her mildly. “No, I’m just pointing out to you that a little surge from some Cat 1 out in the Gulf isn’t going to make it all the way over here to Avenue D.”
“You say that now. But when the shark swimmin’ all ’round my mango, I ain’t gon’ put up with it, me. I buzz his face off and make me some gumbo.”
“That’s a good idea,” Boudreaux said, catching Amelia glaring at him. “You stand in your house shoes out there in the flooded yard and start shooting your Taser around.”
“You makin’ fun of me, then,” she said.
“No, I’m simply pointing out a gaping flaw in your offense,” he said.
“Stop talkin’ to her,” Amelia said, and Boudreaux winked at her, then gave Miss Evangeline a sly smile.
“Smile at me again,” she said. “I come there and slap your head right off your neck.”
Boudreaux picked his paper back up, and had a sudden vision of having to ride along with Amelia and Miss Evangeline to the hospital. The local paper would love to report that the town gangster had been beaten up by his hundred-year-old nanny.
***
The florist downtown wasn’t very far from Boudreaux’s low-country plantation house in the historic district, but then, few things were.
Apalachicola had a population of fewer than three thousand people, and while there were some outlying, semi-rural residential areas, most everything was located within the confines of Apalachicola proper, which took up just a few square miles on the bay.
The downtown area put many people in mind of a New England fishing village, and like many New England fishing villages, it had turned most of its old warehouses and industrial buildings into quaint shops, galleries, and seafood restaurants.
Maggie Redmond and her sixteen year old daughter Sky had treated themselves to breakfast at Café con Leche around the corner, and walked the couple of blocks to the florist on Commerce Street.
Maggie and Sky could pass for sisters from a distance. At thirty-seven, Maggie had a youthful appearance, thanks to her mother’s genetic generosity, and she and Sky were both small and slim, with long, dark brown hair. They also shared the same green eyes, though Sky had the longer lashes and a cute cleft chin from her late father.
The bell over the door jingled as Maggie and Sky entered, both of them carrying to-go cups of café con leche. The flower shop was owned by William and Robert, and William, a small, slight man in his fifties with unnaturally-blond hair, was behind the counter at the back.
“Good morning!” he crooned, and looked up from the counter. “Oh, hello.” He looked over his shoulder and called to the back. “Robert, the little sheriff is here.”
Sky snorted just loudly enough for Maggie to hear, as the two of them approached the counter.
“Hi, William,” Maggie said.
“Hidy-ho, Sheriff,” William said.
“I’m not the Sheriff. I’m just a lieutenant,” Maggie said, smiling politely.
“Whatever,” William said, dismissing that with a wave. Then he raised his eyebrows at Sky. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, is this your progeny?”
“Yes, this is my daughter, Skylar.”
Robert walked out from a back room just then, smoothing his black hair and coming to stand head and shoulders over William.
“Oh, look at that, she’s your spitting image,” he said.
“The chin, though, I think,” William said.
“Yeah, the chin,” Robert agreed. “But beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Sky said shyly. She had always been uncomfortable with any kind of compliment.
“So. Tell me you’re not here about something gruesome and bad for tourism,” William said.
“No, I’m just here for flowers,” Maggie said.
“Oh, good, because we’re just getting back on our feet,” William said. “Things have been downright peaceful around here since you shot the guy from GQ.”
“Uneventful,” Robert expounded.
They were referring to State’s Attorney Patrick Boudreaux, Bennett Boudreaux’s elder son, whom Maggie had shot after he had shot the actual sheriff, Wyatt Hamilton.
“Yes. Well,” Maggie said.
“You must be so proud of your mom,” William said to Sky. “She’s like…Rooster Cogburn, but with a uterus.”
“Or Jack Lord,” Robert said, and Maggie wished they’d come up with a woman, or at least a pretty man.
“Yeah, she’s pretty bada—” Sky started, then jerked her head toward her mother as Maggie gasped. “Sorry. Yeah, she’s pretty cool.”
“So what can we do for you today?” William asked Maggie.
“We need a bouquet, something simple. Do you have any wildflowers or something similar?”
“Hm,” William said, tapping a finger on his chin.
“No wildflowers, but how about some pansies and Sweet William?” asked Robert.
“Oh, yes!” William said. “We’ve got some beautiful Sweet William. They’d be very nice with some pansies.”
“Purple pansies,” Robert added, and walked towards the room in the back.
“We should throw some of the orange larkspur in there as well,” William said. “For height.” He looked at Maggie. “What kind of vessel are you putting these in?”
“Um, none, actually,” Maggie said. “We’re just going to the cemetery.”
“Oh,” William said, looking crestfallen. Then he perked back up. “Well, we still want the larkspur.”
“I have the larkspur,” Robert said from the back.
Maggie watched Sky as she wandered around the shop, and stopped to look at bridal bouquets behind glass. The bell over the door jingled again, and a man Maggie didn’t know walked in hesitantly.
Their eyes met, and he seemed surprised to see someone else in the store.
“Good morning!” William sang out behind Maggie.
She watched the man as he approached the counter. He was about five-ten, slightly built, and wore a thin flannel shirt over his jeans, despite the August heat. His dark brown hair was streaked with gray, and hung over his collar. He was probably about fifty-five, but it looked like the last fifty years had been rough ones.
Maggie wandered over to Sky as the man approached the counter.
“How may I help you, sir?” she heard William ask.
“I want some flowers. Nothing expensive,” the man said, his voice quiet, but rough and sandy.
“May I ask the occasion?”
“What? Nothin’ special. Just something for the kitchen table.”
“Oh. Well, how about some mums? They’re just coming in.”
“How much?”
“We can make a nice little bunch for you, with some Gypsophila and a little Dracaena Massangeana. How does that sound?”
“Expensive.”
“Twelve ninety-nine,” William said flatly.
“Yeah, I guess that’s all right then,” the man said.
Maggie started as Sky elbowed her gently in the side. “Mom, that dude’s checking you out,” she said in a whisper.
Maggie looked over her shoulder and caught the man looking over his. She felt a little tingle as the hairs on her forearms bristled. He didn’t look threatening, but there was something about him that she didn’t like. His eyes narrowed just a bit, then he turned back to face the counter. William was at a table on the back wall behind the register, putting together the man’s bouquet.
“Here we go,” Robert said, coming back out to the counter with Maggie’s flowers.
“Oh, that’s nice,” William said over his shoulder.
Maggie walked back to the counter and stood at the register. She didn’t look, but she felt the stranger watching.
“Those are really pretty, thank you,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nine ninety-nine,” Robert said, then glanced at the strange man. “Law enforcement discount,” he said.
The man glanced over at Maggie and she looked down, grabbed her wallet out of her purse.
“Sky?” she called, looking over her shoulder. Sky walked over, and Maggie handed her daughter her coffee. She glanced back over at the man to find him watching Sky, and heat welled up in her chest. It didn’t match the cool look she gave him when he caught her eye.
Maggie handed Robert her debit card, and he began to ring her up. “So are you going to batten down the hatches in case that storm turns into something?” he asked her.
“Well, I might batten them down, but we’ll be across the state,” she said. She felt the stranger looking at her.
“Where are you going?’ William asked over his shoulder.
“My parents took a cruise to the Bahamas for their anniversary. They’re getting back into Jacksonville tomorrow at ten. We’re going to head over there early tomorrow morning to pick them up, then we’ll all go over to Orlando for a few days,” Maggie said.
“Ugh, are you going to Disney?” Robert asked. “It’ll be a madhouse the last week before school.”
“No, just relaxing a little,” Maggie said, feeling a little bad about lying.
“Well, have fun,” William said. “Mind those freaks on I-4. Bunch of heathens.”
“Maniacs, those people,” Robert agreed.
Maggie smiled and took her receipt from Robert. “We will. Thanks, guys.”
“Toodle-oo,” William said.
“Bye,” Robert said.
Maggie glanced over at the stranger as she turned away, but he was staring out the window on the other side of him. She and Sky walked out the door, the bell tinkling above them, and stepped back into humidity that almost required goggles.
“Dude, that guy was totally scoping you out,” Sky said once they were on the sidewalk.
“No, I think he was looking at you,” Maggie said.
“Ew.”
Maggie took her coffee back from Sky and took a swallow. The guy had set off her radar a little, and she was glad to be out of his line of vision. She was glad for Sky to be out of his line of vision.
Inside the store, William handed the stranger his change and thanked him, and the man walked out without a reply. Robert came to stand next to William as they watched him walk out the door.
“We don’t like him,” William said. “Creepy.”
“Skeevy, even,” Robert added.
“And I’ll have you know that the little sheriff was still in here on behalf of a dead person.”
“Always about the dead,” Robert agreed.
Chapter 2
The sun was high and blazing over the cemetery when Maggie and Sky got out of the Cherokee and walked across the brittle, late summer grass. There was a decent breeze off the Gulf, and it rattled the fronds of the date and Sabal palms scattered amongst the Live Oaks.
Maggie led Sky over to the headstone at the edge of the nearest section, the simple bouquet of flowers in her hand. They stopped before the small marker. Grace Carpenter, 1996-2015 was all that was engraved there, and Maggie felt it left so much unsaid.
Back in June, Maggie had shot and killed Grace’s boyfriend, a local meth dealer, just as he was about to shoot her. Grace had been trying to help Maggie and Wyatt put Ricky Alessi away, so that she and her young children could have a better, safer life. But Children’s Services had taken her children away, and Grace had fluttered into the Gulf from atop the bridge that crossed over to St. George Island. Maggie saw it in her dreams.
“Was she pretty?’ Sky asked beside her.
“No,” Maggie answered. “But she was beautiful anyway.” She laid the bouquet on Grace’s grave and straightened back up. “You would have liked her, I think, even though you weren’t very much alike.” She looked over at Sky. “You’re tougher than she was; you don’t scare easily. She was terrified, but she was brave.”
Sky nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “Really sad.”
Maggie looked at her daughter’s profile a moment. “Sky, I know you’re really smart, and you have great friends. But you’re almost seventeen. Pretty soon, you’ll be off at college, out on your own. Please don’t ever fall for some ‘bad boy’ because you think he’s kind of cool.”
“Mom. I can barely talk to a guy,” Sky said, with a slight eye roll. “Unless we’re talking about cars or guns or music, I don’t have anything to say.”
Sky was right; she had a Victoria’s Secret face and body, and the soul of a forty-year old redneck.
“I get that, Sky, but that’ll change,” Maggie said. “Just be careful. Don’t let some guy start controlling you or turning you into something you’re not.”
“Dude. Not gonna happen,” Sky said.
“I’m just saying.”
“Me, too.” Sky looked at the phone that never left her hand. “It’s time to go pick up Wyatt.”
Maggie nodded, and looked down at Grace’s headstone one more time before turning around to head back to the car. Sky followed.
Halfway back to the Jeep, Maggie looked up and across the cemetery, and saw Bennett Boudreaux standing beneath a Sabal palm near his son Patrick’s grave.
He was a good couple of hundred yards away, but he was standing there with his hands in his trouser pockets, looking right at Maggie. Her steps slowed as their eyes met, an uncomfortable moment, even at that distance. His face was almost blank, unreadable.
“Is that Bennett Boudreaux?” Sky asked beside her.
Maggie broke her gaze from Boudreaux’s. “Yes.”
“Awkward,” Sky said quietly.
Maggie glanced back over at Boudreaux one more time as they made their way to the Cherokee. He was still watching her.
She was tempted to walk over there and say something, felt as though she should. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Boudreaux since the shooting. But what could she say? I’m sorry I killed your stepson. It would be a lie. He’d had her ex-husband killed. He’d shot Wyatt. He was going to kill her. She wasn’t truly sorry, and Boudreaux knew her well enough to see through the nicety.
What she was sorry for was his pain, and the fact that their odd relationship was no doubt over, but that was probably for the best. She wasn’t sure she would have ended their strange, budding friendship on her own.
***
Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton thumped somewhat awkwardly down the hallway at Weems Memorial Hospital. At six-four, he was uncomfortable hunching over the aluminum walker, which seemed like it was built for a geriatric dwarf. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he’d gotten fairly good at using his cane, hospital regulations decreed that it was either the walker or a wheelchair. He supposed they were afraid he’d face-plant in their hallway and sue.
It had been almost a month since he’d been shot by Patrick Boudreaux. He’d cursed the smarmy cokehead through two surgeries, one on his lower intestine, one on his left hip, and through two weeks spent going bat-crap crazy in a hospital bed.
He’d been released almost two weeks ago, but had come to the hospital for one more scan of his hip before heading to Orlando for another surgery, this time with an orthopedic surgeon who was considered one of the best in the state.
Apparently, everything looked as it should, and he’d been given the green light to go ahead with the surgery that just might allow him to get by without the cane, and with perhaps just a slight limp to show for his experience.
Now, he had a few minutes before Maggie would be there to pick him back up, and he was headed over to the lobby to grab a Mountain Dew out of the machine.
He rounded the corner into a wide vestibule off the lobby, where there were four elevators, some restrooms, and two vending machines that promised him happiness and sanity for a dollar a pop. As he thumped his way toward them, the ladies’ room door opened, and another aluminum walker thumped through it. The heavy swinging door started to close on the walker, and Wyatt reached out and grabbed it before it could crush the tiny old woman in its path.
She looked up at Wyatt, looked a great distance up, as she couldn’t have been more than four foot ten. She was mulatto, maybe Caribbean, and looked to be about a hundred and fifty years old, but her eyes were sharp and huge behind lenses as thick as his pinky finger.
“Thank you,” she said, in a voice that reminded Wyatt of sandpaper on wood.
“You’re welcome,” he said, and let the door close once she’d cleared it.
She looked him up and down, and he suddenly felt like he should have worn something more businesslike to the hospital, instead of cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He smiled politely and waited for her to proceed, but she just stood there, so they faced each other, walker to walker. He tried not to loom over her, but he felt like a Sandhill crane staring down a baby flamingo.
Finally, she moved aside, her walker gliding smoothly on the tile, and he began thumping past her toward the vending machine. When he got there, he looked over to find her still standing there watching him.
“You need get you some tenny ball f’your walkie talkie,” she said to him. “Make for go better.”
It took Wyatt a moment to translate that in his head, and he looked down at his walker. “Oh, well, it’s the hospital’s,” he said.
He dug out his wallet and pulled out a dollar bill. As he stuck his wallet back into his pocket, she spoke again.
“Why a big strong young man usin’ that thing?”
“Oh. Uh, I got shot,” he said. He slid the bill into the slot.
“Who shoot you?” she asked, as though she were planning to give somebody a good talking to.
“A bad guy,” he said simply, sliding his bill in a second and third time.
“Why he shoot you?”
“I’m the Sheriff,” Wyatt answered, as though that by itself was a reason.
The bill finally went in, and Wyatt almost wept with relief as he punched the correct button and heard the plastic bottle thunk down into the bin. He reached down and grabbed it, and when he straightened up he saw her staring at him, a frown creasing her forehead. He looked down at his clothing, then back up at the old woman.
“No, really,” he said.
The old woman looked at him a moment longer. “Juju got that one.”
“Juju?”
“Done him in.”
He was about to ask her what she meant when a tall woman of about fifty stepped up behind the old lady. Her skin was just a shade darker than the older woman’s, but she had the same high cheekbones. Wyatt knew her from somewhere, but couldn’t place her.
“Mama, you went the restroom yet?” she asked.
“I went,” the old lady said, craning her neck to look up at the younger woman.
“Come on, then,” the younger woman said. She looked at Wyatt blankly as she helped her mother turn around and head toward the lobby.
Wyatt looked after them a moment, then focused on unscrewing the cap to his soda and taking a long pull. Then he sat down on a padded bench in the lobby to wait for Maggie and hopefully drink most of his Mountain Dew before she could whine at him about drinking antifreeze. He didn’t end up with that much time.
“Hey.”
He looked up to see Maggie and Sky approaching.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, Festus,” Sky said with a slight grin.
Wyatt threw her a look. “You remind me so much of your mother,” he said. “You’re both adorable when you’re not talking.”
“So how’d it go?” Maggie asked.
“It went fine,” Wyatt answered. “I’m good to go.”
He stood up, then faltered for a moment as he tried to figure out what to do with his soda. He handed it to Sky. “Here, hold this for me.”
“Mom says this stuff has flame retardant in it,” Sky said.
“I know,” Wyatt said as he started moving along on his walker. “It’s part of my safety regimen.”
They stopped at the receptionist’s desk, and Wyatt grabbed his cane from where it hung on the walker, and turned the walker back in. Then they headed for the front door.
“I just met a Martian, by the way,” he said to Maggie.
***
They got to the air taxi hangar at Apalachicola Regional Airport with a good twenty minutes to spare. Wyatt checked in and gave them his overnight bag, then he and Maggie and Sky sat down on the front porch of the “terminal,” which looked like a beach cottage more than anything else. Wyatt’s plane, a six-seater, was running on the tarmac while the pilot and co-pilot went through their pre-flight checks.
“Dude, you sure you want to get in that thing?” Sky asked, jerking her head toward the plane. She was holding her phone, one earplug in her ear, leaving the other dangling on her shoulder in an effort to be polite.
“What?” he asked defensively. “It flies.”
“Yeah, but does it keep flying?”
“It’ll get me to Orlando,” he said. “Smarty.”
He opened his Mountain Dew and finished it off, then tossed it in a waste can beside him.
“I feel bad that you’re going to be by yourself until Thursday,” Maggie said. Today’s flight was the only one the charter company had available this week, and Wyatt was supposed to meet with the surgeon and anesthesiologist early tomorrow morning. His surgery was scheduled for 7am on Thursday.
“Well, quit it,” he said. “I’m going to spend lots of quality time with myself at the hotel, eating things that are bad for me and watching ESPN.”
“Well, Mom and Dad and the kids are gonna spend the day at Aquatica Thursday, while I wait for you,” Maggie said.
“You should go to Aquatica, too,” Wyatt. “They said I’ll be in surgery for at least four hours, and I’ll be out of it for a while after that.”
“I prefer to wait,” Maggie said.
“Okay, good,” he replied. “I prefer it, too. But I had to be polite.”
Maggie smiled at him and he gave her one of his winks.
The young, blond man who served as the flight attendant came out of the office, trailed by a middle-aged couple in matching red polo shirts. “We’re all set, Sheriff,” he said, as he led the couple down the steps.
Wyatt leaned on his cane and stood, and Maggie and Sky stood up as well.
“I’m gonna go wait in the Jeep so you guys can do your thing,” Sky said. She stepped over and gave Wyatt a one-armed hug. “See you, Lurch.”
“See you later, Wednesday,” he answered.
They watched her jump down the steps and head to the Jeep, tucking her other earplug back in on the way. Then Wyatt turned back to Maggie.
“Well. I guess I’ll see you in a couple days,” he said.
Maggie leaned over to kiss him, and he started to bend down, then put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Hold on,” he said.
He went down the steps, then held out a hand to her. She took it, and he pulled her down to the next to last step so that they were eye to eye.
“There we go. Leaning’s still not my best thing,” he said. He ducked his head and kissed her, slow and sweet and tasting faintly of mint and Mountain Dew. “I’ll see you Thursday,” he said when he lifted his head. “It’s the Quality Suites next to the hospital. They’ve got your rooms reserved.”
“Maybe when you wake up, we can watch a movie in your room and share your morphine drip,” Maggie said. “We can call it our second date.”
“Crap no,” he said. “No more second dates. Let’s skip the second date and go for a third date instead.”
The first time they’d tried to have a second date, Maggie had been shot. The second time, Wyatt had been shot. “That sounds like a good plan,” Maggie said. “I’m tired of waiting for an asteroid to hit me.”
She stepped down to the tarmac and gave Wyatt a hug. “I’ll see you.”
“See ya,” he said, and started toward the plane. Halfway there, he stopped and turned around. “I think I look pretty cool with a cane, don’t you? Kind of dapper, like a retired secret agent or something.”
Maggie grinned at him. “Yep, dapper’s the word I was searching for.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her, then turned and headed for his plane.
Chapter 3
Bluff Road ran northwest from town for about five miles, before it abruptly dead-ended. Just before the dead end, a dirt road led onto Maggie’s five acres on the river. Maggie turned off onto the gravel, and they bumped along through woods for a quarter mile before reaching the cypress stilt house that her father’s father had built.
The back of the property curved outward into the river, so that there was river running both alongside the house on the northwest side, and, several hundred yards back in the woods, also on the northeast. It meant they almost always had a decent breeze, and Maggie was pretty sure Grandpa had positioned the house the way he had to take advantage of that. A wraparound deck made the most of it.
The dirt drive ended in a mostly-gravel circle out front that they used for parking, and Maggie pulled the Jeep in next to the old Toyota pick-up that had belonged to Sky’s father, and now belonged to Sky.
Before Maggie had turned off the engine, their Catahoula Parish Leopard Hound, Coco, came barreling out from behind the house somewhere. She threw herself into the grass at Maggie’s feet and commenced writhing in joyful agony, despite the fact that they’d only been gone a few hours.
As Maggie squatted down to rub Coco’s belly, the sounds of an elderly man having a coughing fit came from across the yard. She looked up to see her Ameraucana rooster flailing toward her at his typical breakneck pace, wings and neck feathers extended to their fullest and most impressive potential.
In his oddly broken crow, he advised her with his usual urgency that she had returned, or that all was well, or that all was not. His reports tended to be vague, but vital.
“Thank you, Stoopid,” Maggie said as she stood up, and then whistled sharply at Coco as the dog chased Stoopid for a few steps. Coco and Stoopid were roughly the same age, and had grown up together more or less, but it amused them to torment each other on occasion.
Coco halted, and Stoopid ran a few more feet, then turned and showed Coco how menacing he looked with wings akimbo, before stalking off in obvious triumph.
“I swear, our animals are like other people’s crazy relatives,” Sky said as they headed for the stairs to the deck.
“Yeah, but they suit us,” Maggie answered as they climbed the stairs. The third step from the top sagged and swayed a bit, reminding Maggie that she and Daddy needed to finally replace the support pole beneath it, or have a professional come do it. She made a mental note to take care of it when they got back from Orlando.
After letting Coco in and dumping her purse on the dining room table that sat just inside the front door, Maggie started packing suitcases for herself and the kids. Her ten-year-old son, Kyle, had gone on a camping trip in Tate’s Hell State Forest with his friend Brian and his family, and would be back around dinnertime. She planned to get them all to bed early, and head out around five in the morning.
Around noon, Maggie’s cell phone rang, and she saw that it was Brian’s father, Jason.
“Hey, Jason,” Maggie answered.
“Hey, Maggie. Listen, we’re going to head on back to town,” Jason said. “I hear on the radio that Faye’s been upgraded to a Cat 1, and she’s beating the crap out of Naples right now.”
“Yeah, I was watching the Weather Channel earlier,” Maggie said. “But they said she was headed northwest, back out into the Gulf.”
“Well, now they’re thinking she might just keep moving straight up the coast,” Jason said. “She hasn’t veered off yet.”
Maggie sighed. As thirty-seven things added themselves to her to-do list. “Okay, thanks, Jason. Are you coming back now?”
“Yeah, we’re breaking camp right now. We should be dropping him off in an hour or so. You home?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here. I think I’ll board up, then we’ll go ahead and leave tonight.”
“You still need us to come by and feed the dog and the chickens while you’re gone?”
“No, I’ll take Coco with me,” Maggie said. She’d take the chickens, too, if she could. “The chickens are going to be put up in the concrete shed, and I’ll make sure they have enough food and water to last.”
“Okay then. We’ll see you in a bit,” Jason said, and hung up.
Maggie sighed again, and headed down the hall to Sky’s room, Coco on her heels, the dog’s toenails tapping against the hardwood floor.
Maggie stopped in Sky’s open doorway. Sky was packing, tinny, obnoxious music leaking from her earbuds. She looked up and spotted Maggie, pulled one earbud out.
“We’re gonna have to go ahead and get ready for a storm,” Maggie said. “Faye might move up the coast.”
“What about Coco?”
“She’s coming with us.”
“Do they allow dogs at the hotel?”
“They will,” Maggie said. “Let’s get the windows boarded up, then we’re going to need to move Stoopid and The Girls over to the shed. Kyle will be home in about an hour to help.”
“Chicken herding. This is gonna be awesome,” Sky said with an eye-roll.
“Yeah, all kinds of fun,” Maggie agreed, and she and Coco headed back up the hall.
***
Maggie and Sky were almost halfway through boarding up the windows when Kyle got home. Jason had offered to stay and help, but Maggie knew he needed to make preparations at his own home, and she and the kids had gotten pretty good at it over the years. Maggie held the sheets of plywood up and Sky drilled them in. With Kyle to help hold them up from the bottom, the rest of the job went more quickly.
Moving The Girls from the chicken yard to the concrete shed went less smoothly. The shed was a small, concrete block affair, which sat on a foundation of even more concrete blocks, that her grandfather had put up to store tools and parts for his oyster skiff. Those had been gone for years, though the skiff itself was still moored to the dock behind the house.
A few years back, Maggie had cleared out the shed and added some perches for the chickens, in preparation for a tropical storm that had gone fickle and decided not to show up. She had Kyle throw some straw down and fill the automatic waterer and the food and grit pans. She and Sky commenced the herding the dozen hens from the chicken pen and to the shed twenty feet away. It was a lot like chasing clowns from one clown car into another one. Stoopid actually helped out somewhat, chasing Miss Mathilda around in circles until she wore out and allowed herself to be yanked up and carried.
Stoopid himself wasn’t that easy. The three of them chased him around the yard until he finally flapped up onto a tree limb just out of reach. Maggie tried coaxing him with feed, lettuce, and finally Cheetos, to no avail. She eventually threw up her hands, tossed him a few choice words, and vowed to catch him later.
By six o’clock, the wind had picked up considerably, the sky had grown steely gray, and the Weather Channel was reporting that Hurricane Faye was still a Cat 1, but had stalled just west of Cedar Key and was picking up a great deal of water to add to the already torrential rains. Panhandle residents were being advised to prepare their homes and move inland.
Maggie and the kids had loaded up the Jeep and were grabbing few last items when Maggie dialed Wyatt on her cell.
“Hey,” he answered. “What’s going on with your weather?”
“Things are starting to get windy,” she said. “No rain yet, though. Kyle came home early, so we’re getting ready to head out now.”
Maggie turned around and looked at Coco, who was growling and pacing in front of the door. She’d been agitated for several minutes. She hated storms, and the wind had started rattling the porch furniture and flower pots and other miscellaneous outside. Maggie slapped her thigh to call Coco, but was ignored.
“How long’s it going to take you to get to Jax?” Wyatt was asking.
“Well, I’m thinking quite a few people are heading inland, so traffic might suck a little. We should be there around eleven or so, though.”
“I’ll probably be asleep by then,” Wyatt said. “I have to be at the hospital at seven-thirty. But call me if you need to.”
Coco let out a low bark at the front window. “Coco, it’s fine,” Maggie said, then turned her attention back to the call. “I will. I’ve gotta run. I need to charge my phone and catch Stoopid.”
“Is he coming to Orlando, too?”
“Maybe in a crock pot,” Maggie said. “Get some rest and I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okee-doke. Be careful.”
Maggie hung up and went to the window by the front door, where Coco stood growling. When she looked out to the yard, Maggie’s heart flipped a bit. Stoopid was in the middle of the gravel parking area, flapping and crowing, leaning into the wind. Coco barked sharply, and Maggie took her collar and led her back to her bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t need Coco outside, too.
As Maggie opened the front door, Stoopid started toward the house, then a gust dumped him onto his butt. He righted himself, only to get blown a few feet through the gravel. Maggie ran down the stairs.
The wind had picked up considerably, and Maggie judged them to be a good 20mph. She hopped over a terra cotta flower pot as it rolled toward her feet, and ran after her rooster, who was rolling into the grass.
Apparently, he wasn’t panicked enough to be sure he wanted rescue, because he flailed away from her when she reached down to pick him up. She cursed him, as she heard Kyle call into the wind from the deck.
“Mom?” he called, his voice uncertain.
“It’s okay,” she yelled over her shoulder. “I’ll get him.”
She ran a few steps, then had to pivot as Stoopid got blown to the side.
“Mom?” Kyle called again, sounding worried.
“Kyle, it’s okay! Wait inside.”
She made one last leap at Stoopid as he flapped on his back, and scooped him up with a grunt. “Peck me and I’ll punch you right in the face,” she growled.
She didn’t want to risk opening the shed door and having one or more of the hens make a dash for it. She was going to have to set Stoopid up in the house and deal with the chicken poop when she got back. She turned around to head for the house, and felt as though all of her internal organs had stopped functioning at once.
Kyle stood at the top of the stairs. The man from the flower shop stood behind him, one hand on the neck of her little boy, the other holding a gun to his temple.
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