Storm Force

by Meredith Fletcher

  “Back with me, Ms. Garrett,” Jolly said, pulling her deeply into the shadows of the cypress grove where they’d be hidden from sight. “If they find us, you’ll never live to be rescued.”

  Helpless, scared and cold, Kate watched the helicopter search for a few more minutes, then it broke off the search pattern and flew east, probably toward Miami. Either it had gotten a call or Tyler Jordan’s condition was too bad to stay and risk.

  Tears filled Kate’s eyes as the fear came crashing down on her. She looked at all the water that had surged in over Everglades National Park. If it was this bad here, this deep, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like in Everglades City.

  Where Steven and Hannah were.

  Then she realized Jolly was talking to her. She focused on him, swallowing and pushing the panic away from her as far as she could for the moment. If she was going to help her children she had to stay alive.

  “What?” she asked.

  Jolly frowned. “I said, we need somewhere we can go to get clothes and some kind of transportation.”

  Kate thought. The storm surge had to be fifteen or twenty feet deep even after it had leveled off. There weren’t many that had ever reached that depth.

  “Do you know somewhere we can go, Kate?” Shane spoke in a calm voice, almost cordial. He didn’t act like the guy who’d only a few minutes ago kept her from swimming away.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s about a mile from here.”

  Jolly cursed, looking at the huge expanse of water all around them. “We can’t swim a mile in this.”

  The alternative is to drown, Kate wanted to tell him. And she thought about adding that she’d stay and watch him when he did.

  “Jolly! Jolly!”

  Looking around, Kate spotted Ernie and Deke swimming through the water. The cousins made their way through the trees, swimming a short distance, then catching hold of the next tree and resting for a moment. In minutes, they’d joined them, looking like bedraggled rats. Both of them were scared, but Deke looked terrified.

  “There’s ’gators in this water,” Deke said, climbing out of the water to sit in the tree where they’d all gathered. “I kept expecting one of them to get me any minute.”

  “The ’gators won’t be doing much right now,” Kate said. “With the water this active, they’ll seek out a dry place and wait till it calms a little. Then they’ll hunt. Even then, they won’t have to hunt much. The water’s going to be full of dead birds, deer, pigs and other animals.”

  She’d seen similar circumstances before. Floodwaters killed everything in their path, and a lot of the casualties were wildlife. If the brackish water stayed too long, the salt could kill the freshwater trees and plants too. It would take Everglades National Park a long time to recover from the flooding.

  “We’ve still got to swim a mile,” Jolly said.

  Deke shook his head. “Not me. I can’t swim no more.”

  “You’ll swim,” Jolly ordered, “or I’ll leave you here.” He paused. “And I won’t leave you alive, Deke.”

  The young man nodded and looked away. “Okay, Jolly. Okay. I’ll swim.”

  Feeling compassion for the young man even though she knew she shouldn’t, and feeling exhaustion set into herself, Kate said, “We can fashion a makeshift raft.”

  “How?” Shane asked.

  Kate pointed at the trees. “We’ll top the trees. Take branches we can cut off and weave them together in a bundle.”

  Shane tested the branches. “Tying a bunch of branches together that are no bigger than our fingers is going to take all night.”

  Kate looked at Ernie. “You took my camp knife.” Actually, Deke had been the one to find it under the truck’s seat, but Ernie had claimed it from his younger cousin. “I’ll need it back.” She held out her hand.

  Ernie grinned like he knew he was getting tricked. “You ain’t gettin’ no knife.”

  “I need the knife,” Kate said. “It’s got a saw cord in it.” She kept her hand out and stayed patient.

  After a moment, Jolly said, “Give her the knife.”

  Ernie scowled but did as he was told.

  The knife was a serviceable survival knife in a thick-bladed Bowie style. For just a moment, Kate thought about diving under the water and taking her chances on swimming out in the darkness of the storm.

  “You’d never make it,” Jolly told her, grinning.

  Letting out a tense breath, Kate opened the knife’s handle and took out the metal saw cord and the tiny compass. She quickly attached the two rings, one at either end so she could pull the saw, then handed the knife back to Ernie.

  Turning her attention to the tree, Kate picked the nearest good-sized limb—a little thicker than her wrist because they needed the flotation capabilities—and started sawing. Wet sawdust looked white and stark against the dark bark, and it fell to the swirling water in clumps.

  She concentrated on the task at hand, but her mind kept reaching for an escape route.

  Almost forty minutes later, knowing she was losing body heat to the water, Kate tossed down the last branch. She’d taught Shane how to weave the limber branches together, forming a roughly flat rectangle in the water. They’d had to jam it into the tree to keep the heaving tide from taking it.

  “Can we ride on it?” Deke asked as Kate climbed down out of the tree.

  “No.” Kate lowered herself into the water and didn’t like the fact that the water felt warm after being out in the wind. Her wet clothing had contributed to that. The warmth of the water was a dangerous illusion because the elements were still at work leeching her body heat. Continued exposure might kill them all. “It’s not that kind of raft.”

  “What the hell are you sayin’?” Ernie demanded.

  “It’s a flotation aid,” Kate answered. “We can swim with it. Hang on to it and rest in shifts while everybody else swims. If we do this right, we shouldn’t lose anyone.”

  “Enough jabber,” Jolly said. “We’re wasting time. Is this thing ready?” He slapped the clump of tree branches with the pistol.

  “Yeah,” Kate said. “It’s ready.”

  “Then you take the lead. A mile to this guy’s house, you said?”

  “About that,” Kate replied.

  “I thought you knew.”

  “I know how far it is when this area isn’t flooded,” Kate responded. “Things look different with all the water.” She walled away the fear and confusion, dealing with the convict like he was one of her dissatisfied clients. Until he pulled the trigger or destroyed the flotation raft, she was going to claim the leadership role.

  That would change, she knew, as soon as Jolly felt safe again. But by then she’d have time to think and plan.

  “About a mile,” Jolly repeated.

  “That’s my best guess,” she told him, sticking to the answer she’d given.

  Jolly frowned, started to say something, then just nodded.

  Kate took the tiny compass out of her pants pocket, grateful that it was waterproof, got her directions straight, then grabbed hold of the flotation raft and started swimming. She thought about Steven and Hannah, and hoped that Megan had had enough warning to get them out of the house before the storm surge hit. She had no doubt that Everglades City was at least partially submerged.

  Chapter 8

  “That’s it.” Kate lifted an arm out of the water and pointed at the trailer house moored high in the trees. The winds rocked the tree and the house back and forth, threatening to spill it into the churning water. She was surprised at how happy she was to see the home. After swimming nearly an hour in the floodwaters, dodging displaced snakes and shoving aside drowned deer, rabbits, rats and other wildlife, the trailer in the trees looked inviting.

  Thankfully, the windows were dark.

  Kate felt a knot in her stomach loosen. Woodrow Barnes was a true swamp rat. He’d made and run moonshine out in the swamp for years, and he poached as often as he hunted legally. Over seventy years old, Woodrow was o
ne of those men who looked like he’d shrunk inside his own skin over the years. But he’d been a friend to Kate and her dad.

  The fact that the lights were off suggested that Woodrow wasn’t home. More than likely, he’d be in Everglades City keeping track of all the excitement with the volunteer disaster relief crews.

  “I still don’t see why in hell anybody would stick a mobile home in the trees,” Ernie grumbled.

  “You’re looking at the reason,” Jolly said. “We’re near to drowning, and that trailer looks as dry as can be.”

  “Yeah, well, all I’m saying is it’s a long way to fall if it ever does.”

  “It’s still there despite this storm,” Kate said. “It’ll be all right for a little while longer.” She turned the flotation raft in the mobile home’s direction and kicked out again.

  The sign in the window beside the mobile home’s front door said: Premises Guarded by 12-Gauge Shotgun 3 Nights Out of the Week. Do You Feel Lucky?

  Kate grabbed hold of the doorknob and started to twist it.

  “Wait,” Jolly directed, taking a step to put himself behind Kate on the narrow porch. “Knock on the door.”

  “Woodrow’s not home,” Kate said calmly as she could.

  Jolly put the pistol barrel to the base of her skull. “Knock on the door,” he repeated in a slow, deadly voice.

  Kate knocked.

  There was no answer.

  At Jolly’s direction, Kate knocked again and called out the old man’s name. The house remained quiet. Only the gurgling of the floodwaters ten feet below them sounded. Knowing how high the mobile home was, Kate guessed that the flood level had reached about twenty-five feet. There had never been a storm like Genevieve in Floridian history.

  After Katrina and Andrew, the evidence of the escalation of the storms and the predictions of meteorologists and storm chasers, Kate knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. But she was. It was always astonishing to see how merciless nature could be when it wanted to be.

  “Okay,” Jolly said, “open the door.”

  Kate did. It wasn’t locked. Woodrow always claimed that he took everything of worth with him whenever he left. That included whatever cash money he had, his guns, and his bloodhound, Ike. The dog had been his constant companion for the last twelve years.

  She started to walk in but Jolly grabbed her arm. She briefly considered trying to break away from the big man and take her chances inside the house. Maybe Woodrow had taken his guns, but there were knives in the kitchen—if she could find them in the dark—and there was a back door that led to the boat landing behind the trailer that the convicts hadn’t found yet. Woodrow always kept three or four boats with outboards and an airbuggy or two around in the creek that ran behind his place. All he had to do was climb down and get in a boat.

  That was all Kate thought she had to do, too. But that was if they weren’t flooded and sitting on the bottom now. And if she could tell which ones were operational and which ones were in a state of disrepair. And if she could get one of them started before Jolly killed her.

  She let out a tense breath and waited.

  Jolly pulled her back out of the doorway. “Ernie,” Jolly called.

  “Yeah.” Ernie came forward.

  “Check out the house.”

  Ernie balked. “Why do I have to check out the house?”

  “Are you just carrying that scattergun to balance out?” Jolly asked. “Or can you use it?”

  “I can check out the house,” Shane volunteered. He reached for Ernie’s shotgun.

  “Ernie can do it.” Jolly waved Shane back.

  In that second, seasoned by a nearby lightning strike that hammered sparks from the crown of a bald cypress a short distance away, Kate knew that Jolly didn’t really trust Shane. That was something to know.

  Back at the trees, Jolly had asked about Monte Carter. Shane had spoken up at once, saying that neither one of them had seen the man. Kate had agreed.

  At first, Kate had thought Shane had said that to protect her from Jolly’s wrath. Or maybe to protect himself. But now, realizing the two men were each relying on the other only as much as he had to, a whole new and ugly thought entered her mind.

  Phil Lewis had turned up mysteriously dead. Shane had chosen to kill Monte Carter, not realizing Kate had already done that very thing. Just maybe, her new line of thinking told her, Shane was killing his way to the ransom money Jolly claimed to be after.

  Ernie took out one of the flashlights he’d gotten from Kate’s truck and entered the house. He returned a few minutes later. “Nobody’s home,” he announced. Then he wrinkled his nose. “It’s dry inside, but this damn place smells like wet dog.”

  As the convicts tore through Woodrow’s home, Kate sat on the threadbare couch and felt guilty for bringing them here. The old man didn’t have much, and Jolly and his men ransacked thoroughly what Woodrow did have. The prize Jolly seemed most excited over was a GPS unit.

  Since the GPS unit had a map of the area, there was some discussion as to whether Kate was still necessary to their escape. She listened, their quiet voices more threatening than the storm partially blocked by the trailer’s thin walls.

  The Global Positioning Satellite unit could access twelve of the twenty-four geosynchronous satellites orbiting above the earth at any given time. With it, Jolly would know where he was. However, Shane pointed out that none of them knew the area, and even if they did, the flooding would make everything different.

  In the end, Jolly decided to keep Kate along.

  The mobile home was only twelve feet wide and had a seven-foot ceiling. Jolly looked like he filled up the living room all by himself. Ernie found the small generator Woodrow used to power the trailer on the back porch and fired it up. Within minutes, the lights were on and they weren’t in the dark any more. The vibrations of the generator warred with the jerky swaying set up by the high winds Genevieve continued to bring.

  Ernie and Deke stuffed themselves on the dry goods and junk food Woodrow kept. There was milk in the small dorm-sized refrigerator in the tiny kitchen, and some deer meat Woodrow had evidently taken lately. In minutes they had a frying pan going on the propane stove and were cooking deer steaks.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Shane asked. He offered her a can of peaches.

  Kate just looked at him. Her stomach rolled at the thought of eating. She didn’t know if Steven and Hannah were all right, didn’t know if Tyler Jordan was still alive, and she didn’t know if she would even live to see morning. What she did know was that she did not want to eat, and she despised the men that had taken her.

  Of them all, she thought she despised Shane most. She realized it was because he was the one she would most likely believe wasn’t involved in a life like this, even with the bullet-hole scars and the knife scar his granny had sewed up. It didn’t help that she couldn’t forget how lean and hard his body had looked when he’d taken his T-shirt off to make bindings for Tyler. Bryce had gone to the gym, but he’d never looked that cut.

  “You need to eat,” Shane said, pushing the peaches at her.

  “No,” she told him, ignoring the proffered can.

  “You’ve got to keep your strength up.”

  She returned his level gaze. “I want to go to the bathroom.”

  Shane took the can of peaches back. Deliberately, he stuck a fork in a peach half and popped the fruit into his mouth. He chewed, then smiled.

  The smell of peaches and Shane’s natural musk filled Kate’s nose. Both were wonderful, and both made her hungry.

  “Raymond,” Shane said.

  “What?”

  “She needs to go to the bathroom.”

  Jolly didn’t say anything for a time. He’d been lost deep in his own thoughts, barely responding to Deke and Ernie’s comments about how they were soon going to be living it up on the ten million they were going after.

  “All right,” Jolly said finally, comfortable in the role of commander. “Take her.”

&nb
sp; “Let’s go,” Shane said gruffly, nodding to the back of the mobile home.

  Kate stood and walked back to the miniature bathroom. It was tiny, the sink, toilet and shower stall rusted from hard water, and foul in ways that she didn’t even want to think about. But it was dry.

  Shane stepped inside and surveyed the bathroom’s contents. He took the straight razor next to the shaving soap cup and slipped it into his pocket. “Don’t want anybody getting hurt, do we?”

  Kate didn’t respond. When he pulled back out of the bathroom, she looked at him. “I’m going to wring my clothes out, so it’s going to take a while.”

  Shane speared another peach. “Okay.” He stepped back out and closed the door.

  Kate quietly slid the small latch closed. She knew Shane could easily break it, but just that slight movement made her feel like she had some privacy.

  At the sink, she looked into the mirror. Dark hollows showed under her eyes. She looked tired. She looked, as her dad had told her once lately, “like a woman who didn’t smile too much.” He’d apologized at once, saying he hadn’t meant to tell her that. At the time, she hadn’t known what he meant, but looking at her somber reflection, she thought that she did.

  Then she threw up. Her stomach churned and emptied itself in a rush, leaving her shaken and weak.

  “You okay?” Shane asked through the door.

  Kate wiped her mouth with a tissue, but the sour taste of bile haunted her. “I’m fine,” she replied.

  “Sounded like you were getting sick.”

  For a moment, Kate thought she heard concern in the convict’s voice. Then she remembered how easily Shane had snapped Monte Carter’s neck and let the floodwaters take the body. But he’d also shown regret, hadn’t he? She wasn’t certain.

  “If you’re sick—” Shane began.

  “I said I was fine,” Kate told him more forcefully. Angry now, she turned the faucet on and washed the vomit down the sink. She found a bottle of mouthwash and used it to rinse her mouth.