Just then a resounding groan reminded us why we had come upstairs. It was as if the building was in agony. We entered the living room area just in time to hear the unmistakable sound of snapping lumber above us. Justin looked up and said, “The roof’s coming off.” The room was dimly lit by the one lamp being powered by the generator, but I could see a steady drip of water in the far corner.
We turned and started downstairs, but Justin stopped me and said, “Maybe this will work to our benefit.” No doubt I looked bewildered, so he added, “Maybe we can get the rats to leave the ship. Follow my lead.”
We hurried back into the bar and Justin exclaimed, “The roof’s coming off. We’ve got to get out of here before the whole place collapses on us. We’ll take your car, Moe. Your truck still run, Ty?”
Ty and Mooch were both now on their feet. Neither was very steady, the bourbon no doubt taking its toll, but they were moving toward the door. Mooch had the heavy duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Ty said, “Yeah, we’ll take our truck. You take your car. But where the hell we going? The streets are flooded.”
Moe was looking confused. He started to ask, “How can we get . . . ,” but Justin cut him off.
“Don’t worry, Moe, just do what I tell you. Ty, there is a cement parking structure a couple of blocks south of here. Head for that. Find a spot where the wind is blocked on the second or third level. Wait it out in the truck. We’ll be right behind you.” As if on cue, another loud groan resonated through the entire building.
Moe had his arm around Julia and was herding her toward the door, but Justin grabbed his arm and held them back. Moe’s face spoke volumes. The condensed version being, “What the hell’s going on?”
Ty and Mooch were now at the door. Ty was struggling to push the door open into the howling wind. Twice he got it started, but a gust slammed it shut. It was as if the storm was saying, “I’ve got you right where I want you.” Mooch dropped the duffle and put his mountain man shoulder against the door and pushed it open a couple of feet. Ty looked out and said, “What the . . . ” He never finished his sentence as a wave of water crashed in the door and knocked both of them off their feet. The door slammed shut.
After struggling to his feet on the wet floor, Ty turned and said, “The damn water’s clear up to the door. It’s up to the hood of the truck. We’re not going anywhere.” He turned and trudged back toward the center of the bar, dragging the heavy duffle bag across the wet floor by its shoulder strap. Mooch, looking a little dazed, slowly rose from the floor and followed. The building emitted another loud moan and the lights went out again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
PJ had temporarily given up on sleep after several hours of restless tossing and turning. She was seated at the kitchen table having a cup of Sleepy Time tea in hopes that would help her relax enough to get at least a couple of hours of decent sleep. She just hadn’t been able to quiet her mind enough to drift off. Certainly she’d experienced this problem when she was a cop, but this was the first time since shortly after she left the department. Oh, there were the nightmares, but not the whole nights of sleeplessness.
She knew the reason her mind wouldn’t shut down—she was too worried about Jack. There was a time when she couldn’t have imagined worrying about a guy. Angela was correct, she hadn’t dated much since Bill’s death. And Angela was accurate about the reasons—well, partially accurate. In the beginning, the pain of Bill’s death had been too raw to allow her to even consider a relationship with a man. Besides, there was too much to do to care for little Angela while starting a previously unanticipated new career in law enforcement. Once she got her feet on the ground in the new job, and the grief began to heal, she discovered that her entire social circle involved cops. Who else worked the screwy hours she did or understood the things she experienced every day? Yet, the last thing she was going to do was pursue a serious relationship with another cop. That world had already taken one husband, and Angela’s father, from them. She wasn’t going to put herself, or her daughter, in that situation again.
The memories of her few attempts to date guys outside the law enforcement world were a mixture of mirth and disappointment. Angela was also correct that most men were intimidated by a woman in law enforcement. And if PJ was completely honest, she found that she was more than a little disappointed by the lack of spine she found in those she had met. Another female officer once told her that when you spend all day with men whose testosterone level is off the charts, a normal male just doesn’t measure up. PJ wasn’t certain that she subscribed to that theory, but her experience didn’t contradict it either. Still, her sample had been damn small.
There was something about Jack. He had an aura about him that prevented her from being objective when she assessed him. In some ways he was reckless, but in others he was overprotective. Sometimes he seemed uncaring about other people and other times he was bending over backwards to help someone. PJ had first met Jack during the time he stepped in to protect Sissy from threats on her life. He was totally clueless about what he was doing, but that didn’t stop him from jumping in to protect Sissy.
She’d first heard stories about him from Sissy. Stories about his love ’em and leave ’em approach to his social life. Later, she had even watched from afar as Jack and Sissy engaged in a short dalliance. Then she had seen him get himself into an entanglement with the daughter of a reputed Miami mobster. Somehow he’d walked away from that mistake unscathed. Something about the guy, he gets himself in unhealthy situations because he doesn’t look ahead, but he always manages to come out whole. Well, with the exception of the divorce that originally brought him to Cap’s Place. PJ only knew what Sissy had learned from her conversations with Jack’s Uncle Mickey, but it sounded like whatever happened to his marriage in Michigan had really knocked the wind out of him. It seemed that somewhere out there was a woman who had gotten the best of Jack Nolan and he wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Somehow over the course of watching Jack’s antics, she had found herself more and more attracted to him. She felt as if she was a small nugget of iron and he was a large magnet. As she approached she could feel the draw becoming stronger and stronger. She knew that at some point she would’t be able to resist. He’d have her locked in his magnetic field. Who was she kidding, she’d already passed the point of no return, or she wouldn’t be up in the middle of the night drinking tea.
At one point she had easily resisted his attraction. With all of the stories that swirled around him, and the escapades she had observed herself, it wasn’t difficult to resist. Then on some occasion she had made the fatal mistake of looking into his eyes, or more accurately, allowing him to look into her eyes. It was as if he was looking deep into her soul. Every time he locked her in his gaze, her resistance further eroded. Then it became like a narcotic, she was addicted. She wanted him to mesmerize her, she wanted him to erase her resistance.
On more than one occasion on the path of their recently intertwined lives, PJ had thought, even expected, that they would end up in bed together. Each time something out of their control had intervened to prevent it. Maybe it was fate shielding her from his grasp. If so, it was a cruel fate. The cumulative impact of the lost opportunities had left her body with a yearning like she hadn’t felt in more years than she cared to count. Why couldn’t he have gotten out of Hollywood in time? Why couldn’t he be here right now, in her bed? Why?
Slowly, a dark cloud passing through PJ’s mind obscured the warm thoughts of what could be with Jack and further fueled the worries that had gotten her out of bed. Mark’s description of Jack’s car pointed to only one conclusion. He was attempting to leave, but he didn’t make it. What didn’t make sense was the assessment that he hadn’t been in the car at the time of the impact. The car could have stalled in the water and he abandoned it prior to the tree falling, but if so, why didn’t he take his overnight bag with him? Even though he had abandoned the car didn’t mean he couldn’t have answered or returned her calls,
some type of communication. Get a grip, PJ, cellular communication was likely down and where can you find a landline phone these days? Still, it seems like Jack would have contacted her, through one means or another, by now. Unless something had happened to him. She clearly understood that people would be killed and injured during Hurricane Ella, she just didn’t want to think of Jack being one of them.
In an effort to rationalize away his lack of contact without thinking something serious had happened to him, PJ began to focus on another explanation. Maybe Jack hadn’t really committed to come up here. Maybe she had read more into their conversation than was actually said. She tried to clarify the memory of their last phone conversation. It was clouded by her expectation that he was coming. Yet, was that what he said? Did he really say he was coming? She was certain that he had said if evacuation was ordered he would come up to Gainesville. Obviously, evacuation had been ordered, so why wasn’t he here? Even if he hadn’t intended to come, he would have returned one of her calls. It wasn’t like Jack to ignore her. Especially on something as significant as this. No matter how hard she tried to find another theory, PJ kept coming back to the same conclusion, something bad had happened to Jack. The tea had done nothing to quiet her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Using the flashlights we’d been carrying in our pockets, Moe and I got Julia into one of the corner booths. It was on an inside wall and we hoped it would afford her some protection if things got worse, and I had every expectation that they would. Justin found the two battery-powered lanterns and put one on the table that Ty and Mooch were slumped at. They thanked him, but I knew Justin’s motive was as much so that we could see them as it was to help them see. Moe said he would go outside and see if he could get the generator started again. I told him it was suicide to go out there and the generator was likely flooded by sea water. It sits on an elevated stand, but if the waves are cresting at the height of the back door, they have probably flooded the generator.
Moe and I were arguing when Justin walked up and said, “It could be that something just tripped the main. Why don’t you go in and check, Jack?” It sounded like a very plausible theory, maybe a bit overly hopeful, but possible, so I turned and headed for the kitchen.
I tripped the main breaker back and forth a couple of times, but nothing happened. As I was walking back across the dark kitchen, I suddenly slipped and nearly fell, barely catching myself on the edge of a counter. I shined my flashlight down and saw water on a large area of the floor. I followed the water with my light to the back door. I could see the water near the door undulating with the slightest motion. The crashing waves outside were evidently driving water through the doorway. Then I remembered that Mickey’s checklist had us applying caulk to the door jams before closing and shuttering the doors. Until this minute, I had completely forgotten that step. My only solace was that evidently Moe had forgotten as well.
When I got back into the bar, I looked around but didn’t see Moe. I asked Justin, “Where’s Moe?”
“He went outside to check the generator. You know how he is when he gets something into his head.”
“Damn, you let him go?”
“Jack, he’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions. He wanted to go. He went.” He paused a couple of seconds and said, “For what it’s worth, I agree with you. Generator’s probably flooded, but Moe wanted to see for himself.”
Another loud groan upstairs caused all of us to look at the ceiling. I half expected to see the ceiling collapse to reveal the entire roof of the building ripped away. The noise outside, and now inside, had gotten to a level where we needed to nearly yell to be heard. The sounds of the structure straining against itself had become almost constant. Screeches of metal components rubbing together and groans of lumber straining against fasteners was like being in some horrible spook house at Halloween. Only there was no way out of this one.
Several minutes had passed and Moe hadn’t returned. I was starting to fear the worst, afraid that my words that it was suicide were ringing true. I said, “Damn it, he should have been back by now. He should never have gone out there.”
Justin sucked in a deep breath and said, “You’re probably right. I’ll go out and see if I can find him.”
“What? That doesn’t sound like a good idea. What makes you think you’ll fare any better than Moe?”
“No, I let him go. I’ll go out and look for him.”
Before I could say more, Justin was at the door. He put his shoulder against it and got it open in the face of a small wave of water. A second later he was gone as the door slammed close. I turned and found Ty with his head resting on his crossed arms on the table. Mooch was slumped in his chair, but he had turned it to face Julia in the far booth. Even in the dim light of the lantern, I could see the lustful smirk on his face.
I slumped onto a bar stool and looked around the room. I had an almost overwhelming feeling that my world was coming apart. Physically coming apart. It looked as if the walls were actually flexing like the torso of a living creature. I didn’t know if they would implode or explode, but I knew that in either case we were all going to be dead. Moe probably was already dead, and maybe by now Justin. For the rest of us, it was only a matter of time.
My attention was drawn to a rhythmic pounding sound. It was as if a window shutter was loose and banging against the side of a house. The pounding repeating every few seconds. It was somehow different than all of the other grinding, moaning, and pounding around us. I stood and listened. It was coming from the area of the back door. Someone was pounding on the door. I turned and started for the door, slipping on the wet floor and falling hard on my back. The flashlight I held went skittering across the floor.
I finally regained my breath and rolled over to my hands and knees, attempting to ignore the screaming pain in my back. I crawled in the dark to the door and utilized the door handle to pull myself into a standing position. I put my shoulder against the door and pushed. It came open much easier than I anticipated, but only opened about a foot. I realized Justin was standing on the other side, pulling and blocking the door at the same time. He screamed, “Hold the door from that side, so it doesn’t get away from us. I’ve got Moe, but he’s hurt. Hurt bad.”
As Justin stepped aside, I forced the door open but held firmly to the handle to prevent it from blowing completely open and possibly ripped off. Justin backed in. He was pulling Moe with both hands under his arms. Moe looked to be unconscious and blood was running down one side of his face from a gash on his head. As soon as Moe’s feet cleared the door, I slammed it shut. I scrambled down alongside him and helped Justin drag him into the room.
I could see Moe’s huge chest heaving, so I knew he was still alive. He began to moan and his eyelids fluttered a couple of times as his eyes slowly opened. I said, “Moe, talk to me. What happened?” His eyes drifted closed again. I turned to Justin and asked, “Do you know what happened?”
“I don’t know. I found him draped over what’s left of the railing on the back deck. A boat from the marina has ridden clear up onto, and through, the deck. That’s what’s pushing into the shutter. Damn near got into the bar. I’m guessing that Moe tripped, or got knocked down, and bashed his head. We need to clean up that gash and keep him from going to sleep. I’m afraid he’s got a concussion.”
I got the first-aid kit from the kitchen and we cleaned up the laceration on Moe’s head. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. We got the bleeding stopped and a bandage in place. He opened his eyes every couple of minutes and moaned, but didn’t say anything intelligible. The water that had come in from opening the door, coupled with the water starting to come in even with the door closed, found its way to our spot on the floor. Justin and I decided the best place to put Moe was on the bench of one of the booths. We considered putting him on a couple of tables pushed together, but didn’t think we could lift him that high. It took all the strength we could muster to get him up and on the bench. We laid him on his back and propped hi
s head with a pile of kitchen towels. He was still muttering unintelligently. Julia had come to try to help us and Justin told her to sit with Moe and keep him from drifting off to sleep.
As Justin and I stepped away from Julia and Moe, Ty called to us, “What happened to the big guy?”
Justin replied curtly, “Don’t know. Took a bad wallop on the head, though. He’s not going to be much help from here on out.”
Ty just nodded and put his head back down on the table. Mooch was still leering in the direction of Julia, having shifted his chair from facing the direction of the booth she had been in to now face where she was sitting on a chair in front of Moe. We had moved the table out of the booth to get Moe onto the back bench and she had pulled a chair up right in front of him, so that she could talk to him and prevent him from rolling off the bench. Julia had her back to the room, but that didn’t deter Mooch from staring.
I leaned in as close to Justin as I could in order to talk without being heard by the others. I still needed to nearly yell for him to hear me. I asked, “How bad do you think he’s hurt?”
Justin walked a few more steps away, pulling me along with him. He said, “To tell you the truth . . .” He was cutoff in mid-sentence by a shrill scream that could be heard even over the roaring din.
We both pivoted toward the sound and saw Julia on her feet pushing at the hulking Mooch, who was attempting to wrap his arms around her. She had gotten the chair between them and that was keeping him from getting close enough to complete his bear hug. As she shrieked, Moe was slowly raising to a sitting position. Justin and I started moving toward them as fast as we could on the wet floor.
Suddenly Ty roared, “Mooch, get your ass back over here and leave that little lady alone.” Mooch dropped his arms to his sides and slowly turned, looking first at us approaching from his right and then at Ty standing a few feet to his left. Ty pointed at Mooch and then at a chair. “Get your ass over here, Mooch, and sit down. Leave these people alone.”
Chaotic Be Jack Page 12
