Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Good luck with that, meh son,” Rashidi said.

  Everybody was laughing when a BOOM rocked the house. It literally shook the walls, which was a mighty trick since they were an eight-inch-thick mass of cement poured into concrete blocks. Dust flew. I heard the flapping of wings and saw through the rear window hundreds of bats take flight in broad daylight from under the eaves.

  In the aftermath, I saw that everyone had crouched to take cover but me. I’d run and put my ear to the wall. Annalise’s wail was unmistakable, and painful to hear. What in the hell was happening?

  “Everyone all right?” Rashidi asked from the floor.

  In the background, I heard male voices answering him, but I blocked them out. Nick’s face appeared close in front of mine, and I held up one finger. I put my forehead against the wall and felt waves of anguish shoot through me.

  “What is it, Annalise?” I whispered.

  Movement, on my right. There. There she was. I turned to follow her through the great room, catching a glimpse of a flash of skirt and the bottom of a bare and dusty foot as she ran out the open front door. I ran, too. Footsteps pounded behind me, but I didn’t look to see who they belonged to. I stumbled at the threshold and caught myself just before I tumbled headfirst down the steps—hands to the ground in a bear crawl—then resumed my flight.

  At the bottom of the front steps, I searched for her. She was halfway up the entrance lane to my left, her white blouse sailing behind her. I kicked my flip-flops off and tried to match her pace, but she was as fleet as one of the tiny island deer. The distance between us increased. The scarf she wore over her hair flew off and tumbled in the air through the avocado trees on the side of the road and into the brambly tan-tan beyond, and she stopped and turned to look back at me. She motioned with her arm toward the gate and pointed. I looked ahead a hundred feet and saw sparks shooting from the utility pole by the entrance. I looked back at her for confirmation, but she was gone.

  I ran again, harder, toward the entrance, a yellow masonry structure with no metal spindles yet where metal spindles one day soon would be. And, for that matter, there was no actual gate across the opening where one day soon a gate would be. A work in progress, like the rest of Annalise.

  “What is it?” Nick’s voice, right behind me.

  “I don’t know,” I panted, and pointed ahead.

  We were almost there. Nick outpaced me now and Rashidi outran him. Rashidi reached the pole first. By then, I could see Crazy’s old patchwork pickup truck parked outside the fence. A green quarter panel here, a maroon tailgate there, and a black hood; a tribute to his thrift and resourcefulness. Beside his truck was a white truck with a decal that said Water and Power Authority, better known as WAPA.

  Two blue-uniformed men were kneeling between the pole and the trucks, looking down into the tall grass on the side of the road. WAPA employees. Rashidi was with them, and now Nick. I was only yards away. Rashidi was crouching with his hands outstretched. Finally, finally, I was there, too. Crazy lay in the tall grass with his right arm twitching and his index finger pointing. His mouth was moving.

  “Crazy!” I cried, throwing myself down beside him and grabbing his left hand. “Did someone call an ambulance?”

  The WAPA men looked at each other.

  Rashidi pulled out his phone. “No signal. I run back to the house and call.” We had cell reception at Annalise, but only at the house. It was fifteen minutes to get back within range once you left her hilltop.

  “Hang in there, Crazy Grove,” I said, squeezing his hand.

  “What happened?” Nick asked the workers.

  The heavier one spoke. “We start to connect the electrixity for the house. Mr. Wingrove stand at the pole with us. The transformer blow. He fall to the ground.”

  I looked at his name tag. “Did he get electrocuted, Mr. Nelson?” I asked. I put the cool backside of my hand on Crazy’s brow. His eyes locked onto mine as he continued to work his lips and jaw. If he was trying to speak, I couldn’t make out the words.

  Nelson said, “I don’t think so. We standing right here, too, and we feel no shock. He just fall.”

  My mind raced through the possibilities, but my medical knowledge was limited to back episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. I looked up at Nick. “A heart attack?”

  “Maybe. Or a stroke, or an aneurysm.” He closed his eyes, then rubbed his hand through his hair.

  Rashidi was back. “I call for help. They say an hour to get here.”

  “An hour? He can’t wait an hour,” I said. I looked up at Nick. “Can you bring my truck? We’ll take him to the hospital ourselves.”

  He nodded. “Keys?”

  “In the ignition.”

  Nick sprinted toward the house. Rashidi knelt beside Crazy and me again. A croaking noise escaped Crazy’s lips. I leaned my head closer to his mouth. “Lotta,” he rasped.

  “Lot of what?” I asked.

  Rashidi snapped his fingers. “Not ‘lot of.’ Lotta. He wife. Carlotta.”

  Crazy closed his eyes. His right arm stopped twitching. I put my fingers against the inside of his wrist. He still had a pulse. “Do you know her, Rash?”

  “Yah. I call her.” He leaned over Crazy. “Crazy, mon, I borrow you phone and call Lotta.”

  Crazy’s head moved. Just a tiny nod, but enough. Rashidi gently patted Crazy’s front pockets, then reached under his hips to his back pockets. Nothing. He ran to Crazy’s truck and climbed inside, then jumped back out holding Crazy’s cell phone as Nick pulled up in my truck.

  Nelson and his partner, a thin gentleman with a beard and Graham embroidered on his chest, gently lifted Crazy as Nick opened the door to the bench seat in back. He got in on his knees and held out his hands for Crazy’s shoulders.

  Rashidi said, “I meet you at the hospital. I gonna call Lotta from the house, tell men dem what happening.”

  Nelson and Graham slid Crazy as Nick pulled him into the cab. Crazy groaned.

  I shuddered. Poor, poor Crazy. I climbed into the driver’s seat and the guys shut the back doors. Nelson leaned in my window.

  “We make a report. I pray he OK.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Nick buckled into the passenger seat and reached for my hand. I let him give it a quick squeeze, but then pulled it back to the steering wheel. Crazy was in for a bumpy ride.

  We didn’t speak as I navigated the twists and turns of the overgrown rainforest road. I drove as fast as I dared. Cars on St. Marcos are from the US and have left-hand drivers’ seats, but they’re driven on the left side of the road, and the fast-growing foliage crowds both sides of the road, tending to push drivers toward the center. It’s nerve-racking, especially around blind right-hand curves. As I turned the corner to the right past a hilltop outdoor church, an ancient Range Rover barreled down the center of the road at us.

  “Look out!” Nick yelled.

  I screamed and hit my horn. The Rover didn’t flinch or change course. I broke hard to my left and we crashed into the underbrush as I mashed the brake. As we slowed to a stop, the front bumper connected with something solid and low, something impossible to see with the thick undergrowth around it. I put the truck in park. Nick and I looked at each other.

  “That was close,” he said.

  I exhaled. “Hang in there, Crazy. I’m sorry,” I said.

  I put the truck in reverse and pressed the gas, but softly. The truck whined, unwilling at first to back up the hill. I pressed harder. The passenger’s side wheel spun without making contact, but the driver’s side bit into the ground and threw us up and over the first large bump. The bumper scraped loudly as it bid the obstacle adieu. Small trees and large bush grabbed at the undercarriage and scratched at the doors. I let off the gas when I judged the back bumper had reached the edge of the road.

  “I’ll direct you,” Nick said. He jumped out and ran into the center of the road. He checked both directions, then signaled with his hand for me to back out. When I had maneuvered into my lane,
he hopped back in. Rashidi pulled up behind us and tooted his horn. I waved to him. Explanations could wait.

  “That was exciting,” I said to Nick as I hit the gas and lurched forward.

  Nick’s head slammed against the headrest. “Still is.” He turned to look back at Crazy.

  “Is he OK?”

  “Fine. The same.”

  Five minutes later, we broke out of the rainforest and onto clearer, more level ground. Nick’s phone dinged four times in rapid succession. He pulled it out of his back pocket and checked the screen.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he said.

  I was pretty sure I knew who those messages were from. I gritted my teeth. I could grow to resent the rivals for Nick’s attention pretty easily. I forced myself not to let it show. “What is it?”

  “I told her not to go to my place, but she didn’t listen.” He slammed his hand against the dashboard. It wouldn’t have taken much more force to activate the airbag.

  “What did she say?”

  “Derek trashed my condo.”

  “Oh my God.” I heard a groan from the backseat and whipped my head around for a quick glance at Crazy. I changed my tone. “Crazy, you hang in there. I’m getting you to the hospital as fast as I can.”

  Nick’s phone rang. He picked it up on one ring. “Teresa?”

  A sneering male voice answered him. Either that or Teresa was awfully masculine.

  “Asshole,” Nick yelled and clicked off the call.

  “What was that?”

  “Derek. He said, ‘You still think you can hide that bitch from me,’ and then I didn’t listen to any more.”

  I immediately felt guilty about my green-eyed envy.

  “He was in my place. And if he found my cell number, he probably found a lot more than I want him to. I keep a lot of passwords and numbers in the same file. He could be hacking into my bank accounts for all I know right now. Getting into client confidential files. Changing my alarm codes at the office. Son of a BITCH.” His voice cracked and his eyes flashed. He pushed a speed-dial button. “LuLu, I need your help,” he said. He explained to his assistant what had happened and set her to work.

  We had reached the hospital by this point, and I pulled into the turnout for the emergency room. Nick hung up and ran into the ER entrance. Rashidi was right behind him.

  I opened the door by Crazy’s head. His eyes were closed. I checked his neck and found his pulse. Still there. I smoothed his wiry hair. Please God, let him be OK, I prayed. Unfortunately, I had to trust God and the staff at the hospital to save him. I looked over at the building, which didn’t inspire confidence. It looked more like Joliet than a hospital, with walls built of gray cinder blocks no one had bothered to paint and an actual barbed-wire fence around its grounds.

  I heard the clatter of wheels behind me as emergency-room attendants rolled a stretcher out to the truck. I joined Nick and Rashidi on the sidewalk. A heavyset woman trotted up to us. Her peppery curls hugged her face under a red Sunday hat that matched her linen dress. Rashidi stepped toward her.

  “Oh, Mr. Wingrove, poor Mr. Wingrove” she said in the genteel island way.

  “Lotta,” Rashidi greeted her, and she fell into his arms. “I so sorry.”

  The attendants wheeled the stretcher past her toward the ER and she collapsed over it. Crazy lifted his right hand a few inches, and she took it. She righted herself and walked beside him into the emergency room. Rashidi followed with a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  I started to go after them, but Nick grasped my arm.

  “I am so sorry to do this, Katie, but I have to get to the airport. It’s already one o’clock. I was supposed to be there now.”

  I started to swallow, but my throat closed and stopped the motion midway, giving me a choking sensation. I bore down and forced it to completion. Of course. Nick had to get home.

  “Let me tell Rashidi,” I said.

  “I can take a cab,” he said, pointing at a taxi parked at the curb. The driver was talking on his cell phone, the radio blasting “It’s car-nee-val” out of the open windows. It struck a chord with me. Every day of my life on St. Marcos had a crazy Carnival feel—one minute a merry-go-round and the next a house of horrors. Today more than ever.

  I looked back into the emergency room, then at Nick again. “Rashidi is all the help they need for now. I’ll come back here after I drop you. I won’t be a second in there.”

  Nick was already in my truck when I returned a moment later. This time I let him hold my hand while I drove. Halfway to the airport, I spoke.

  “Look, I know there’s a lot going on, and this is going to sound selfish, but please try to understand. Crazy being sick, it changes everything. Not just for him. For me.” A tear welled up and threatened to spill. Don’t do it, I ordered. Don’t you dare roll down my face.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “It seemed like the work was going so well. You’ll have to find a new general contractor, I guess.”

  “Maybe. I hope not. Crazy was trying to finish before summer, because all his workers take off weeks at a time then. We won’t make it now. This sets us back, way, way back.” The tear spilled. Dammit. “Bad things happen to empty houses here. Just last month a property was burglarized and torched when the owners were off island. I invested all my savings, and I’ve given up my job until I finish the house. I can’t afford for things to blow up now.” I hated to sound weak, but I blurted out, “I wish you could stay.”

  Nick frowned and sighed. “I wish I could, too, but I have to get back. Teresa’s leaving for basic, and I have to find a safe place for Taylor and me.”

  The road crossed through a deep cut in the hilltop. Man-carved cliffs of white stone faced us from either side of the road. When we crested the hill, I saw the airport below us on the other side. “What do you mean?”

  “For us to live. Taylor and me.”

  “He’s living with you? Why?”

  “Because Teresa asked me to keep him.”

  I was so confused. “Start at the beginning. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is she going to be, and why does she want you to keep him?”

  Nick dragged his fingers from the front of his hair across his scalp to the back and sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought I told you the first night I was here.”

  I thought back. He had talked about Teresa and Taylor, then Annalise had thrown a dust devil at him. That had started some hanky panky, and we had never resumed the conversation. “No.”

  “Oh, God. OK, well, Teresa signed up for the Marines. She has to go to basic training in California. She asked me to keep Taylor for a few months until she’s done.”

  “Why not your parents?” I asked. I didn’t shriek it, but close.

  “Because of Derek,” he said. “For a lot of reasons. And because I’m his uncle.”

  I kept my mouth shut by sheer force of will, but only barely. When I trusted myself, I said, “OK.”

  “I have to keep him available for Teresa to visit while she’s in training. It will be a few months before I can leave Dallas.”

  “It will be a few months before I can leave St. Marcos.” I bit my lip to keep him from seeing it tremble.

  He put his hand on my leg. “It’s going to be OK, Katie. We’ll figure this out. I’m all in when it comes to us, I promise.”

  I turned in the gate to the airport. Too soon. We were already there, and there was so much left to say. Yet I knew he had to hurry, had to leave. I parked at the curb beside his outdoor gate. The line to check in for American stretched to the street under the open-air pavilion. We jumped out of the truck.

  Nick hefted his navy Nike carry-on bag out of the back of the truck and dropped it on the sidewalk. He barely had time to open his arms before I lunged into them and smashed my face into the Stingray logo on his shirt. I gulped in the scent of him. I committed the feel of his shoulder blades and back muscles to memory.

  “Just a few months. It sounds like a long time, but it’s really not,” he
said.

  It sounded like forever to me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Things didn’t get better any time soon. Work on Annalise ground to a halt for a few days while we all waited and worried about Crazy. Finally, the doctors diagnosed a stroke. They said his right side was partially paralyzed and his recovery would be slow and uncertain. I was torn up about it for the both of us.

  To make matters worse, later that week Ava and I had a gig at a bar called Trudy’s, which was right next door to Fortuna’s. I dressed carefully. The risk of a Bart encounter was high and Ava’s producer friend was coming. I donned a white sleeveless dress with a round neck that skimmed my collarbone and a skirt that fell from a nipped waist to below my knees.

  Ava was at the bathroom mirror doing her makeup when I wedged in to get my hairspray. She took one look at me and said, “That dress ain’t gonna save you, Sandra Dee. You ready?”

  What did she know, anyway? She was rocking an eye-popping yellow two-piece outfit, midriff baring and curve-clinging. I couldn’t imagine where she found her clothes. Maybe I just needed to shop somewhere besides Nordstrom’s online.

  “Nearly.” I went back to my room and grabbed my keys and purse, but a search for my iPhone bore no fruit. First my keys, now my phone. I needed to Velcro my hands to keep from losing things. I shouted, “Ava, have you seen my phone?”

  “No, but we gonna be late. You can live without it for one night. Let we go now.”

  Um, no, I couldn’t. I was a victim of a love so new I hadn’t even taken off the price tags yet. I might die if I missed contact. But the iPhone remained unfound, so I had no choice, and away we went.

  The bar was packed. We shoved our way through the noticeably white East End crowd to the stage. Trudy’s reminded me of a stateside club. It had no water access or even an open area, just a bar and a dance floor enclosed by four walls, with a disco ball and piped-in air conditioning. We had cut it pretty close due to the search for my phone, and the natives were restless. We set up quickly and I started to go for a water, but Ava shook her head. She pointed at my spot beside the microphone. Just to drive her point home, she hit Play on the music for our first number. Not an auspicious beginning.