Small Town Secrets

by Molly Kate Gray

  The group reached the lowest floor and the employee wrestled with the unwieldy doorknob before herding the guests into the main hallway.

  Josh surveyed the mass of humanity surrounding him and decided this must have been what the hull of the Mayflower was like — far too many people crammed into much too small a space. Giving a cursory glance at the number of people in the corridor told him the manager had allowed more to seek shelter in the hotel than occupancy rates allowed. Now listening to the walls groan in protest against the gusts from the storm, he wondered if they might have fared better simply waiting it out in their cars along the packed freeway.

  It was too late to second-guess their decision. Like he and Tara, many of the other guests appeared to have been caught in the midst of attempting to leave the path of the storm when they took refuge in the shabby roadside hotel. Judging by the smell, more than one had been laboring to protect their homes before they fled north. The knot of evacuees from the sixth floor wormed their way through the crowd until Josh found himself standing far closer than he’d like to the wall of windows in the lobby.

  Drip. Drip. A rusty stream of water flowed through the ceiling and ran down the back of his formerly starched collar. As a peal of thunder rattled the plate-glass window, Josh reached up and wiped the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. Squinting at the ceiling, he noticed a series of discolored areas.

  The familiar bleat of the emergency alert system rang out over the radio located on top of a table in the foyer. “Hurricane Lizzie has been downgraded as the storm made landfall. Now classified as a category three, please be advised the storm is still dangerous. Winds in excess of 110 miles per hour may be associated with this storm. For those in its path, please take shelter within a strong building, standing away from windows and doorways.”

  Creak. The wall behind him vibrated in time with the wails from outside. Josh studied the movement of the ceiling and began to wonder how strong the hotel actually was.

  The wind picked up speed, and Josh wondered how that was even possible. He was glad he wasn’t experiencing the full category five storm the forecasters had projected.

  As uneasy cries came from the travelers around them, Josh looked up and watched as the ceiling appeared to be alive — each gust of wind making it bow up and retract as if it were breathing. A flash of green and a boom rattling the floor beneath his feet drew Josh’s attention away from the tiles overhead. Peering through the window, the palm trees lining the parking lot were bent low at the base; he didn’t understand how they’d kept from snapping in half. The walls creaked and groaned with shifting metal. The oversized window closest to the front desk shattered, shooting tempered glass into the front foyer.

  • • •

  “Mommy!” A shrieking toddler attached herself to Tara’s leg.

  Tara peered down at the frightened young girl. A stream of tears ran down her face as her tiny golden pigtails shook from her cries. “Oh, no, I’m not your mommy.” She stooped over and pulled the little one onto her hip. “But I’ll bet I can help you find her.” Wiping the child’s tears away with her fingertips, Tara stepped over an elderly man apparently asleep in the middle of the floor. Definitely has his hearing aid turned off. Tara gave a half-smile as she studied the man napping peacefully amid the chaos surrounding him.

  At times like this, she wished she were a few inches taller. She stood on her tiptoes to give the little girl the best chance of finding her mother. “Look around,” she asked. “Do you see your mommy?”

  The little girl’s lip trembled as she shook her head no. In the gray half-light, it was difficult to see anything in the hallway. More tears threatened to spill from the vivid green eyes.

  “Don’t worry, she’s here.” Tara patted her charge’s back.

  “Leigh-Anne! Leigh-Anne!” A frantic cry carried through the din of the crowd.

  A glimmer of hope rose in Tara’s chest. “Are you Leigh-Anne?” She sighed in relief at the answering bob of the pigtails. Tara snaked between those clustered around her in the direction of the woman’s voice.

  “Mommy!” Leigh-Anne practically leapt from Tara’s arms as they drew closer to her mother.

  Tara smiled in the young mother’s direction. “Missing someone?”

  Relief washed over the smaller woman’s face. “Leigh-Anne.” She reached out to take her little girl in one arm as she shifted an infant into the other. “I told you to stay with Mommy.”

  Oversized tears filled Leigh-Anne’s eyes as she glanced at Tara. Studying Leigh-Anne’s mom, Tara immediately realized what happened. Both women had long brown hair flowing down their backs. Each wore lilac shirts with dark blue jeans. “I think she thought she was.”

  Leigh-Anne’s mother looked Tara up and down and frowned. “Oh, Leigh-Anne. I’m sorry. Did you think she was Mommy?”

  Leigh-Anne nodded before she buried her head in her mother’s chest.

  Tara watched as the woman tried to juggle the two little ones. At the same time, she noticed a preschool-aged boy clinging tightly to her leg. “Here.” Tara reached for the sleeping infant. “You look like you could use an extra hand.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t ask you to hold her.”

  “It’s not a problem. I could use the practice. I’m about to have a new niece.” She pulled the tiny pink bundle into her arms just as the emergency lights flashed, causing the little boy to climb his mother like a jungle gym. “I’m Tara Sullivan.”

  “Brooklyn Maddox,” the exhausted mother said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My husband said we’d have plenty of time to get to Savannah.” She slid the boy back onto the ground and ran her fingers through his dark hair. “He’s a police officer. He couldn’t leave with us.”

  • • •

  Sirens sounded outside. Josh looked around, realizing he no longer saw Tara. Finding anyone in the corridor was proving to be difficult, but searching for her dark hair made it virtually impossible.

  “Max, what’s your baby sister’s name?” Josh heard that voice through his earpiece every night. “Kenna? That’s lovely. Did you help pick it out?”

  Josh threaded his way through the crowd in search of Tara. When he found her, he stared in surprise. The frightened young woman from the hotel room wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Tara had transformed herself into reporter mode. A sputtering wail came from the bundle in Tara’s arms, and she began to rock back and forth. The way she moved hinted that she was familiar with soothing babies. Did she have a niece or nephew? They’d worked together for weeks and he realized he knew almost nothing about her.

  “Shh.” Tara lifted the baby to her shoulder. “Do you mind if I walk with her, Brooklyn?”

  Helping with the baby seemed to be taking Tara’s mind off the storm. If only something could do the same for him. Josh felt the building strain against the wind through the soles of his shoes.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Oh, she’d love that.” Brooklyn stepped back and slid down the wall to have a seat on the floor with Leigh-Ann clutching tightly at her shirt. An arc of lightning struck close by and the room was filled with an otherworldly purple glow. “Max, it’ll be all right.” She ran her free hand over her son’s back.

  “Mommy!” Max’s cry of terror echoed off the walls. Tara watched him push his sister to the floor as he claimed his mother’s lap for his own.

  “See, that’s better. Walking always does the trick,” Tara cooed to the baby just as a man bumped into her from behind.

  Josh began to wade through the crowd in an attempt to get to her side. When he’d spoken with his father on the phone, he’d promised to watch over Chuck’s favorite reporter.

  Tara stumbled as another refugee elbowed her in the side. She tightened her grip on the little one as she worked to extricate herself from the crowd in the center of the hallway.

 
The man flinched. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. It’s kind of a tight squeeze.” Tara wiggled past an older woman who was trying to sleep through the storm. “Ah, that’s better.” She took a single step into the lobby just as a thunderous noise rang out and the building began to vibrate.

  “Tara!” Josh wasn’t even sure why he called out her name. The walls felt like a semi had slammed into them, but it wasn’t a truck.

  It was Lizzie.

  Time moved in slow motion.

  In one instant, Josh watched as Tara paced with a stranger’s baby. Her profile framed by the flashes from outside, she could have easily been mistaken for a life-sized shadow puppet. A hint of light streaming from a hole in the ceiling battled with the darkness as if the storm itself wanted the hotel occupants to have a better view of the chaos outside. Sirens continued to wail as the sky turned a deep purple. A gust of wind thrust a park bench against the front door. Metal screamed overhead as if unseen hands were tearing it apart.

  Then everything went horribly wrong.

  Chapter Two

  The emergency lights sputtered and the room fell into total darkness just as the ceiling collapsed, and Tara disappeared from view. Josh stood helplessly a few feet away.

  “Tara!” Josh ignored the startled cries of the others around him. Tara and the baby were simply gone — buried under the mound of rubble in the foyer.

  Water poured through what was left of the ceiling as Josh dug through the twisted metal and tangle of wires. “Somebody help me!” He glared over his shoulder at the stunned crowd. “Tara! Come on, you have to be okay.” Digging her out of rubble wasn’t what his father meant when he’d told Josh to make sure Tara made it back to Miller’s Grove safely. Jagged metal tore into his palm as he pulled a wooden beam off the pile. A baby’s muffled cries could be heard through the debris; finally, something that made the other men in the room snap into action.

  “Is she your wife?” The sleeping man Tara had stepped over just a few minutes earlier came to Josh’s side. He knelt next to Josh and threw a chunk of pink insulation over his shoulder.

  Josh shook his head and orange-tinged water ran into his eyes. “No. I just work with her.” He tugged pieces of ceiling tiles off the pile. He flinched as his hand sliced against a shard of glass. Until now, he’d forgotten about the large skylights that once were overhead. Lightning flashed again, and he was rewarded with a glimpse of chocolate brown hair.

  Josh grabbed a teenager’s arm as the boy tried to roughly pull Tara onto her back. “Careful,” he warned. He worked his way deeper into the pile of metal and eased Tara’s unmoving form onto her back, gently taking the screaming baby from her limp arms.

  “Tara?” A wire caught on the hem of his pants as he shook her arm, prompting a groan of resistance from her. A wave of relief washed through him. She might be hurt, but she was still breathing. Her clothes were soaked through from the rain, but it wasn’t just water staining her shirt and pants.

  • • •

  “I need a light over here!” the elderly man called out to the cluster of hotel workers standing ineffectually in the middle of the hall.

  “Josh?” Tara blinked weakly as the rainwater streamed into her eyes. Confused, she tried to sit up to get away from the flow, but an unfamiliar hand reached down to stop her.

  “You need to just stay still.” The older man held firmly onto her shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze to reassure her. “Where’s that light?” he snapped at the hotel workers. “Don’t you work here? Get me one of those lamps you were handing out earlier.”

  The young man who’d been working behind the front desk shook his head. “We’re out. We gave them all away when everyone checked in.”

  “Well, go into a room and find one.” The man spoke with the authoritative tone of someone accustomed to having his orders followed. He brushed aside enough remnants of the ceiling to give him a clear space at Tara’s side. “I’m Doctor Phillips.” He pushed down more firmly on her arm as she continued to struggle to sit up. “I need you to stay still right now. You took a bit of a fall.” He chuckled to himself. “Actually, the roof took a bit of a fall onto you.” He leaned closer to her and placed two fingers on the pulse-point at her wrist, frowning at the results. “Does anything hurt?”

  Tara fought to keep her eyes open. A far better question might have been what didn’t hurt. “Kenna.” Her voice squeaked in alarm and she once again attempted to push herself up on her elbow. “Where’s the baby?”

  Josh pushed her back down firmly. “She’s fine. Her mom has her.” Josh glanced at Brooklyn standing a short distance away. “How are you?” He reached out and took a portable lantern from the hotel security guard.

  Tara’s forehead furrowed. To be honest, everything felt a little fuzzy. With the rain from above still sprinkling on her face, she felt caught up in some type of seriously twisted dream. Surely she’d be waking up soon.

  “What hurts?” Josh prompted, bothered by how long it took her eyes to focus on his.

  She narrowed her eyes in concentration. Did anything hurt more than anything else? She attempted to shrug her shoulders and bit down on her lip. “My arm.” She squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

  As the eyewall of the storm began to pass over the city, more light from outside filled the room. Still, it wasn’t quite enough. Josh held the lantern close to her arm. His stomach lurched as he realized why his hand came away sticky. The back of Tara’s upper left arm was torn open.

  Once, after losing a bet with a co-worker at the station, Josh was forced to watch a coroner do an autopsy when a serial killer was on the loose. His friend in the coroner’s office had taken a little too much enjoyment out of pointing out exactly what everything was. Josh had never forgotten that lesson. Now he was reminded of standing in that cold, sterile room. Much to his dismay, he recognized muscle, tendons, and even the whitish gray bone in her wound. Trying to keep a neutral expression on his face, he motioned to Tara’s arm.

  Dr. Phillips finished his examination of Tara’s limbs and gave a terse nod in reply. Satisfied her back wasn’t injured, the doctor addressed Josh. “Let’s get her out of this mess. Can you help me carry her over there?”

  “I can walk.” Pushing off with her good arm, Tara attempted to stand, but quickly discovered that wasn’t the best idea as her knees buckled beneath her. Josh caught her in his arms as she lost her battle with gravity.

  • • •

  “Is it bad?” Tara took in the sea of shocked faces surrounding her. Despite the dust and debris from overhead pouring into the room, no one else appeared hurt.

  “No. You’re going to be fine.” Josh’s words said one thing; however the worried look in his eyes told her otherwise. As she studied him more closely, she noticed the vivid red stain running down his shirt and pants. She didn’t have to ask where it came from.

  “Don’t you want to cover the story?” Tara asked, flinching as Dr. Phillips tore a bed sheet into strips. She fought against the urge to watch as he wrapped it tightly around her arm. “In the eye of a category five hurricane — definite fast track to the big chair at the network material.”

  Josh shook his head and did that flirty thing with his eyebrows. “I’ve been behind the big desk at the network. Not interested right now.” He wiped some of the dirt from her forehead. “Besides, they downgraded the storm. It’s just a category three. No one will remember this one by the time September rolls around.”

  “Of course not.” Tara thudded her head against the wall.

  “Category three’s kid stuff, don’t you know that?” Even in the relative darkness of the room, Josh’s eyes sparkled. He relaxed against the wall and pulled her head into his lap.

  Tara managed a weak laugh as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Despite the noise around her, she was fighting a losing battle.

  “Try to
stay with us.” Dr. Phillip shook her shoulder. “Can somebody get me more blankets?” His face took on a concerned expression as he watched the blood continue to flow freely from her arm.

  Try to stay with us. Definitely a harder request than it should have been. Her eyes refused to focus on either of the faces closest to her. A low buzzing sound rang in her ears. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She reached blindly for Josh’s arm.

  “You’re going to be fine.” He was using his fake voice, the one he used when reporting on a disaster while trying to pretend to be calm.

  “I’m scared.”

  A hand took hold of hers. “I know.” She could hardly hear him over the ringing in her ears. Everything around her faded into blackness.

  Chapter Three

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right? Bryce is flying in? I can leave if you need me to drive home.” Josh paced in front of the window of Tara’s private room as he waited for his father’s reply. He absently rubbed the bandage covering his palm. Whatever the physician’s assistant used to numb the cut before giving him fifteen stitches was wearing off, and he could feel every beat of his pulse in his throbbing hand.

  The pitch-black night hid the damaged town from view. He pivoted and leaned against the wall, staring at the activity in the hallway. He toyed with the blue band on his wrist signaling he was allowed to be in the hospital since he was linked to a patient. Somewhere out there was likely a survival story that would make any reporter’s career, and he was just too tired to find it. He’d had less than five hours sleep over the last twenty-four hours. The plastic-covered rocking chair in Tara’s room was beginning to look very inviting. Once he finished the phone call, he planned to make the chair his home for the rest of the night.

  It had taken name-dropping to get the private room, and he hadn’t been ashamed to let the attending physician know he was on a first name basis with half the senators in Florida. If the hospital administrators liked the current level of state and federal funding, then the staff would find a way to keep Tara from sharing a room with anyone.