Southern Storm

by Terri Blackstock

  But he was so tired . . .

  Then he heard voices. Distant, muffled voices coming from the vent over his head. Somewhere in another room of the house, their voices carried.

  Sleep tried to pull him under into a swampy haze, but he fought to stay awake.

  “. . . told you I should have killed him . . . never wanted to bring him here . . .” It was Ann Clark’s angry voice. “He didn’t tell him. . . .”

  “. . . stupid phone call . . . why didn’t you think?” a man’s voice said. “We can use him. . . .”

  “. . . too dangerous . . . ,” he heard Ann say. “What if they do search again . . . ?”

  The sounds became more muddled, confused, and the words blurred and flattened in his head as he drifted deeper. . . .

  Just before he went entirely under, he thought he heard a baby cry.

  “Lord . . . please . . .” No clearer plea would form in his mind. He couldn’t make his thoughts evolve into words, and soon his brain released those thoughts as blackness overtook him again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Blair sat on the porch at Hanover House, watching Joe McCormick’s car pull away. He had come to update them about the search, and his news—or lack thereof—had left her numb.

  She’d had such hopes that the search of Ann Clark’s house would lead them to Cade.

  Morgan sat down in the rocking chair next to Blair, but didn’t rock. Silently, they both stared out at the ocean lapping against the beach across the street.

  “He’ll be all right,” Morgan said. “He has to.”

  Blair couldn’t answer. He wasn’t all right. It was a knowledge that came from the deepest part of her heart. Cade was in trouble, and no one was able to help him.

  “I have to feed Oswald,” she whispered.

  Morgan looked over at her. “Cade’s cat?”

  “Yes,” she said, “someone has to feed him.”

  Morgan touched her arm. “I don’t want you over there alone. It could be dangerous. I don’t want whatever happened to Cade to happen to you too.”

  “I’m not going in,” she said. “I’ll just feed him outside.”

  “Well, I’ll come with you then.”

  Blair was glad Morgan had offered. As she waited for her to go tell Jonathan, Blair walked to her car and leaned against it, looking out at the beach. How many mornings had she seen Cade out there in his kayak, rowing as the sun shone down on him?

  She wondered if, perhaps, he had done that the morning of his disappearance. Maybe he’d gone kayaking again, and had an accident in the water. Maybe he’d drowned . . .

  Panic rose inside her, and she tried to think whether she’d seen his kayak in his utility room either time she’d gone in for the key. She couldn’t remember.

  “I’m ready.” Morgan hurried down the steps and got into the car.

  As they drove across the island to Cade’s house, Blair was pensive. The thoughts of all the things that could have happened to Cade stirred new grief in her soul. She hadn’t entirely gotten through the grief over her parents; she couldn’t imagine dealing with Cade’s death too.

  He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

  A tear rolled down her scarred cheek, and she wiped it away.

  Morgan noticed. “Jonathan’s getting a prayer chain activated,” she said quietly. “They’ll all be praying for him.”

  Blair nodded. “Good.”

  Morgan smiled. “I expected you to come back with something cryptic about sending empty wishes up to the sky.”

  Blair swallowed. “I have to at least consider the possibility that I could be wrong about prayer. If there’s any chance at all that it works, then I want it done for Cade.”

  Another tear. She smeared it away.

  They pulled into Cade’s driveway. His truck still wasn’t home. It sat where he’d left it.

  She got the bag of Cat Chow she’d bought and the jug of water and went around to the backyard. Before looking for the cat, she stepped into the utility room. The kayak hung in its place on the opposite wall.

  She wilted with relief. “The kayak’s there. I had started to think that maybe he took it out and drowned.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Morgan whispered.

  The cat meowed and came toward her. Blair bent over and picked him up. “Hey, there, Lee Harvey. How’re you doing?”

  “Lee Harvey?” Morgan asked with a smile. “I think he named him after Oswald Chambers.”

  “Whatever.” Her relief quickly turned to sorrow, and she realized that this abandoned cat was a symbol of Cade’s vanishing. He might not be dead in the ocean, but he could be dead somewhere. She felt her mouth trembling, and those tears spilled over again. Slowly, she went to one of the patio chairs and sat down.

  Morgan sat down beside her. “Honey, are you all right?”

  “No, not really.” Blair buried her face in the cat’s fur. She could feel Morgan’s soft gaze.

  “Your interest in Cade is deeper than friendship, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

  Blair looked up at her. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Just a sense I have. I’ve always thought he was interested in you.”

  Blair caught her breath. “Interested in me? How do you figure that?”

  Morgan took the bag of cat food and tore the top open. “The way he looks at you. You know it and I know it, Blair. You two have gotten close over the last few months, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  “We’ve become good friends, Morgan. That’s all. I’d feel this way if any of my friends suddenly disappeared, so you don’t have to make more of it than there is, okay?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Okay.”

  Blair put the cat down, filled his bowls, then sat back down and watched as he ate. “I don’t get God.”

  Morgan just looked at her. “I didn’t think you believed in God.”

  Blair shook her head. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But if there is one, I don’t get why he would let this happen.”

  “We don’t know what happened, Blair. Maybe nothing.

  Maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding. Maybe Cade will come riding back into town with some perfectly good explanation.”

  Blair shook her head. “You and I both know that’s not going to happen.”

  “Well, don’t blame God before you even know what to blame him for. God’s the only one who knows for sure where Cade is.”

  “God and that Clark woman,” Blair said.

  “You still think she was involved?”

  “Joe said she admitted that she called him.” Blair closed the cat food and put it into the storage room. “All she had to do was slap on a wig and sunglasses, and show up here intent on doing Cade in.”

  “But why would she want revenge if it’s clear her husband tried to kill himself first? She couldn’t blame Cade.”

  “Maybe she’s really the one who shot him. Maybe she thought Cade knew. Or even if it was a suicide, maybe she just needed to blame somebody.” Blair knew that was why she’d entertained the possibility of God existing. It was handy, when she needed someone to take the blame for Cade’s disappearance.

  Pulling herself together, she got up and wiped her tears on her sleeve. “Well, let’s go,” she said. “I have some computer work to do at the library. I’m going to find out everything I can about Ann Clark today.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Slowly, gradually, Cade emerged from the mire of his unconsciousness and realized that he still lay in the dark basement room. The two-liter bottle he had drunk from earlier lay empty on the concrete floor.

  He didn’t remember finishing it off. He remembered drinking it while he’d racked his brain for a plan to escape, and then he’d grown so sleepy that he’d hardly been able to think. Had the woman drugged his water?

  He squinted up in the direction of that small vent above his head. He’d heard voices coming from it. A man’s and a woman’s. . . .

  He forced himself to sit up and looked aro
und in the darkness. He got up and stumbled drunkenly to the door. He felt a light switch next to it and turned it on.

  The bulb at the center of the ceiling cast the place in a yellow glow, revealing exposed studs and tar paper, like a room that had never quite been finished.

  He tested the doorknob and found that it was locked. It was a metal door, not something he’d be able to kick through. He banged on it with his fist. He had to get out of here.

  But the door would not budge.

  Giving up, he leaned back against the wall and tried to think. The room had no windows through which to escape. The vent in the ceiling over his cot was no more than six by eight inches.

  He turned to the wall and wondered if he could kick or beat his way through the Sheetrock. He peeled back the tarpaper but saw only cement beneath it.

  There was no way to break through.

  Weary, he went back to his cot and sank down. It was hot, sweltering, and he was thirsty again. His stomach burned with hunger.

  He wondered where his cell phone was. He’d been wearing it the morning he’d met with this woman, even though he couldn’t get a signal on the island. He had planned to drive in to Savannah that day to confer with the Savannah police about possible missing person reports.

  She must have taken it, along with his gun.

  He spotted the tank on the toilet lid and stumbled toward it, lifted it, and slipped it between the cot and the wall. Maybe if she came back, he could use it to knock her off guard, and somehow get the gun out of her hands.

  He heard the scraping sound again and knew his banging had alerted her that he was awake.

  He waited, every muscle in his body poised in readiness.

  Her face was hard as she stepped into the room. She held the gun in one hand and a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the other. In her apron pocket, she carried another bottle of water.

  “Just so you know,” she said, “if you try to escape, I’ll kill you.”

  His fingers closed over the tank lid. “What do you want from me?”

  She didn’t answer, just thrust the box at him and set the bottled water down on the floor beside the door.

  “Go ahead and eat while I’m feeling generous. I don’t want you dead just yet.”

  He needed her to come farther into the room. Just a little closer. . . . “Look, if you think you’re going to get ransom for me or something, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t even know anybody with money. Not anybody who’d put a dime out for me. Most of my family members are broke.”

  “It’s not ransom we want.”

  We? Of course. He’d heard another voice through the vent.

  “Then what do you want?” he asked. “Revenge?”

  He had heard vengeance in her voice that morning she’d called. The idea of meeting with her had worried him, which was why he’d picked a public place.

  He had gone to Numbers 35 to read of the cities of refuge, then had prayed that God would be his emotional refuge from a bitter, grieving widow who blamed him for her husband’s death. He’d prayed for words to comfort her in her suffering.

  But she must have drugged him and brought him here.

  “You’re our scapegoat,” she said. “A distraction.”

  “Scapegoat? For what?”

  She didn’t answer, only smiled coldly at him. His hand slid over the toilet lid. He had to make her come closer. Softening his voice, he said, “Look, you seem like a decent person who was motivated by grief and shock when you abducted me. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time. Revenge and all that. Maybe you even planned to kill me. But surely now reality has set in, and you must see that this is crazy.”

  From some distant part of the house, he thought he heard a baby crying again. She and William must have been new parents. Now the husband and father was dead. No wonder she had snapped.

  She stared at him then, her eyes dull and unmoving, as she seemed to process his words. Blocking the tank lid with his body, he started to slide it out of its hiding place.

  “I think I have a fever,” he said. “I’ve been having chills, and my head is splitting.”

  “Your head hurts because you fell down the basement stairs.”

  “Fell?” he asked. “How?”

  “We dropped you.”

  She said it so coldly that he wondered for a moment if she was a psychopath.

  “We?”

  “You’re making me tired, Chief Cade. I didn’t come here for an interrogation. You’re the prisoner, remember?”

  She wasn’t going to come closer. He was going to have to go to her. Pulling the lid behind his back, he scooted to the end of the cot and opened the box of chicken. She still held his gun on him, but he knew that one carefully aimed swing with the tank lid would be enough to knock it out of her hand.

  He feigned interest in the chicken, judging her distance from the corner of his eye. If he didn’t still feel drugged, he’d be more certain of his chances. But he had no choice but to act now.

  She pulled a writing pad and pen from the pocket that had held the bottle and tossed it to his cot. “Here, take that. I want you to write a letter.”

  “A letter?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Address it to Joe, your second-in-command at the Cape Refuge Police Department.”

  He glared up at her. “What do you want it to say?”

  “Copy what I’ve written on the second page of the pad.”

  That gun was still on him, but he realized that if he did as she wanted, when he handed it to her, he might have the chance to get the gun.

  And just in case his attempt to escape failed, maybe he could plant clues in the letter.

  “Write it word for word. No tricks, Chief. I’m warning you. Don’t change a thing. Make it look natural.”

  He read the letter.

  Joe,

  Just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know that I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. I was just a little depressed after the accident, so I decided to take some time off. The truth is, I’d been seeing a girl from Savannah, and we decided to get married.

  I know it sounds crazy, and I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when I get back, but I’ve never been happier. Let everyone know that for me, will you?

  I’ll call as soon as I know when I’m coming back. Meanwhile, I know Cape Refuge is in your good hands.

  He closed his eyes. “They’re never gonna believe I got married.”

  “I’ve done my homework, Chief. You’re an eligible bachelor in your town. Very quiet about your private life. There’s a lot of speculation about you. They’ll believe it.”

  Cade wasn’t going to argue. If they didn’t believe it, maybe they’d realize the letter was fake. The more unbelievable it was, the better.

  He started to print.

  “No, that won’t do,” she said. “That’s not how you write.”

  He looked up at her. “How do you know how I write?”

  “I’ve seen your handwriting,” she said.

  “On what?”

  “I told you, I’ve done my homework.” She raised the gun. “Do it right, Chief. Do it right or lose that hand.”

  He knew she meant it, this desperate, crazy woman. He tore off the paper, and started on the next sheet. Think. Think!

  He changed his ds, looped them bigger than he normally did.

  “Try again.” She was getting angry now, holding that gun aimed at his forehead. “I’m warning you! I know how you write. This is your last chance, Chief. You’re just as good to me dead as alive.”

  He wiped the sweat dripping into his eyes and tore off the top sheet, and began to write again. He wrote it just as she’d typed it, in his regular handwriting, conscious of that gun pointed at his forehead. It wouldn’t be mailed anyway, he thought. He was going to get out of here any minute now.

  But just in case, he signed it “Matt Cade.” Joe would realize it was a fake as soon as he saw the signature. Cade had never gone by Matt in his li
fe.

  He handed the pad back to her, hoping she’d move one step closer. She still hadn’t seen the tank lid at his back.

  She read over the letter. “Good. That one should do.”

  He turned the lid sideways, brought it to his side, watched her stick the letter into her pocket. Slowly, he stood up . . .

  . . . and swung.

  The lid knocked the gun from her hands and sent her reeling back. She screamed as he grabbed her arms and flung her around, picked up the gun, and jabbed it into her ribs.

  “Let go of me!” she screamed. “I’m not alone in this house! Let go of me!”

  He threw his hand over her mouth and pulled her small body back against him. Keeping the gun in her ribs, he walked her through the door, out into the larger part of the basement. He looked around, saw the empty bookshelves that had been in front of the door. That was the scraping he had heard. Each time she left, she slid them back, so that if anyone came down here they wouldn’t know a door was behind them.

  He shoved her toward the stairs and forced her up. He still felt dizzy, weak, drugged, but he could do this, he thought. As long as he had the gun. . . .

  They were halfway up the stairs . . . when the door at the top creaked open.

  Ann flung herself out of his grasp, and Cade raised his gun.

  A gunshot blasted him back. Pain cracked through his leg, hurling him back down the stairs, smashing him on the concrete floor. Another shot . . . his body jolted . . .

  Voices . . . a man’s yelling . . . Ann Clark hysterical . . .

  Agony in his leg . . . his side . . .

  He felt his arms being lifted over his head, his body being dragged . . . a door closing . . . that scraping sound.

  He thought of the wall being bricked up with Edgar Allen Poe evil, someone discovering him forty years from now, nothing but a skeleton in a dark hole.

  Blood loss drew him into its mire, and finally, he succumbed to the dark.

  CHAPTER 17

  The air conditioner hummed from the large vent overhead, and Sadie shivered and tried to get comfortable in her desk. Her English teacher waxed poetic about the lessons one could learn from Shakespeare, but Sadie’s gaze drifted across the room to a cluster of girls, busily engaged in note writing—not on the merits of Shakespeare, but probably on something much more important, like what Sadie had worn to school today.