“I’m sorry, Nimby,” she cooed. “I worried you, but I’m okay.”
Her dog answered with a deep sigh.
“What did you see?” Heath’s question pulled her away from Nim. “You were really close. What was it like?”
Elaina wiped her face with the back of her hand before facing him. Her eyes darted to that place in the field where the tornado had dipped its tentative tail on the ground. A menacing greenish gray, it’d danced around before moving away, making room for the face of a man she’d never seen before, in a place she’d never been before.
Or, had she?
Growing up in central Oklahoma, she’d seen her fair share of tornado warnings and even spotted a few twisters in the distance. This one was different. This one had felt like it was meant for her. Within it was a message.
She shook her head. Nonsense. Tornados don’t come with messages from beyond.
“I felt like the air in my lungs was being sucked out,” she said. “That the tornado wanted everything around it, including my breath. I kept my head down until it moved, then it just went away.” Elaina busied herself with putting away the last of their gear.
Heath looked at the map on his phone and back to the open plain. “I think it followed the Highway 33. Textbook northeast pattern. If it did,” he paused, his fingers moving across the screen. “If it did, then there’s a little town right in its path.”
Her heart dropped to her feet. This was the worst part of meteorology. The part where she’d see lives torn apart by Mother Nature’s haphazard whim. It was the part she dreaded.
It was the part that made her face the worst weather warnings. To get in the path of a twister.
They finished packing their gear in silence. Nim lay down in the truck. His eyebrows quirked up, first right, then left, every time Elaina opened the door. He shared their unspoken concern.
Ahead of them they could find a town breathing a sigh of relief, or they could find a town ripped apart at the seams. With the finicky nature of tornados, they could even find one half of the town pristine, and the other half in shambles.
The sky behind them was clear, denying any trace of the earlier storm. The musky scent of upturned earth wafted through Elaina’s open windows. Faint at first, the smell grew stronger until it was so intense her eyes watered.
“You know, we’re really lucky. Over,” Heath spoke over the radio. The slight quake in his words told her he was as nervous as she was about what they might find.
“Because we’re alive?” She glanced up in the rearview mirror, trying to read her friend’s face.
“Always that, but because this is our year. All signs pointing to one hell of a tornado season and it’s all for us.”
She laughed. “Us and all the other chasers, scientists, rubberneckers and don’t forget the tourists. It’s going to get crowded—”
The shriek of a siren cut her off. Red lights danced across the windshield as the speeding patrol car flew past her.
“Look to the right,” he commanded.
Elaina had noticed the withering barn earlier. Faded wood that’d once held someone’s livelihood forgotten and left to fend for itself. Now it was a mess of broken boards that looked like a bomb went off inside. “It intensified,” her throat closed around the words.
More police cars flew past her. When the town came into view, her stomach curled. The glass windows of the grocery store were shattered, some panes hung in sharp, snaggletoothed points, and a small sedan was parallel parked in front of the door.
A pickup truck had punched through the front door of a hardware store. The bricks on one side of the church were shorn off, and the roof of the school sat in the parking lot of city hall.
She pulled off to the side of the road. “Stay,” she commanded Nim. “There’s too much debris,” she added against his whimpering back talk.
“We were out in the field taking storm data.” Her partners’s voice was steady against the pounding in her ears as he spoke with an officer. “What can we do to help?”
“How about a little warning next time,” the officer snapped.
Elaina winced at the acid in his words.
The officer took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Just help us find all the people,” he said, softer but still with edged with worry. “We need to figure out who has to go to the hospital and who can be treated here.”
People streamed out of the various buildings. Some were crying, some shaking glass out of items strewn across the ground, and others had a vacant, confused look. It was Saturday afternoon, so the school was locked up tight. An older couple walked out of the church, the man helping his trembling wife climb down through the slippery bricks.
Elaina rushed to help them. “Is there anyone else inside?”
The man shook his head. “Another couple of hours, and the whole town would’ve been here for potluck.”
“Are you hurt?” She tightened her grip on the woman.
“Just a little sur-surprised,” the woman finally spoke. “I’ll be fine.”
She jogged to the grocery store, glass and branches crunched under her boots.
Heath and another man were knocking the shards of glass from one of the windows with an audience of people looking out from the darkened store.
The thick glass that’d crumbled against the tornado wouldn’t budge and the muffled cries grew louder.
“Let me see if there’s another way out from inside,” Elaina said. A window broken from the bottom had a gap just wide enough for her petite frame to crawl through.
The inside was dark, but the fading daylight streaming in the windows lit up the chaotic scene of downed shelves and hanging fluorescent lights.
Grocery carts were tossed upside down and water poured down from the back corner where the roof was peeled back.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, using its light to illuminate the darker corners. Finally she found it, the emergency exit. With a gentle push, the door opened, freeing the trapped shoppers.
A quiet sniffle caught her ear, drawing her back inside.
“Hello? Is anyone else here?”
A soft sob answered.
“Are you trapped? Can you tell me where you are?” Elaina paused, giving the person a chance to answer. “Are you bleeding? Hurt? Just make some noise and I’ll find you.”
She walked down the beverage aisle. Plastic soda bottles were flung about like downed bowling pins.
The dry goods aisle still had one shelf in pristine condition, but all the others had been raked clean. One large shelving unit in the cereal aisle fell forward, propped up against the shelf across from it, blocking her path.
She squatted down and flashed the light. Big blue eyes framed by dirty blonde hair stared back.
“Mr. Bear is stuck,” the little girl said matter-of-factly. To prove her point, she tugged on the bear trapped beneath the shelf.
Elaina exhaled when it appeared that only the stuffed animal was imprisoned. “Is he now? What about you? Can you climb out?”
The girl nodded.
“Good, come with me, sweetie. I promise we’ll find a nice fireman to rescue Mr. Bear.”
She patted the bear’s head. “Don’t be scared, Mr. Bear, we’ll save you.”
She wrapped the child in her arms and carried her out the store. “I’m Elaina. You’re safe now. Were you at the store with your mommy?”
The girl shook her head. “My meemaw,” she turned in Elaina’s arms as she looked out across the crowd. “There she is,” she added, pointing to a woman with a red streak cutting across her white hair.
The grandmother sank into the ground sobbing when they approached. “Oh Amy, my angel, I couldn’t find you, baby.” Bloodshot eyes the same color as the little girl met Elaina’s. “Thank you.”
She smiled and backed away, suddenly feeling like a voyeur to this reunion. The once-chaotic scene eased into counting friends and family members, then patching up the wounded. Elaina raised to her toes, searching th
e crowd for her research partner’s tall frame.
Heath leaned against his van, laptop in hand and head bent with a fireman over the computer screen.
Nimbus poked his head out her open window, beckoning her back to him.
She rested against the door, stroking her dog’s head. The image of the little girl in the grocery store battled with what she’d seen in the storm. Was it a premonition?
No, the perspective was all wrong. She very clearly saw it as the little girl. Maybe it was a dream?
Elaina closed her eyes and played the image back, trying to freeze it to study the surroundings. It was dark. Very dark. She felt wet. The noises scared her. Metal crunching. Voices. So many voices. Shouting. Crying. Water. Even now, dirty water stung her eyes.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”
She jumped at Heath’s question. “What?”
“I’ve been talking to you for the past few minutes.” He chuckled and wrung the back of his neck. “Everyone accounted for. Nothing more than a few minor injuries.” He paused again, his brown eyes studying her through his glasses before looking back over the damaged town. “They’re lucky, not much warning with this one. It’s why we do it, isn’t it?”
Elaina opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come out. She nodded and followed his gaze over the town. Just hours after the twister had gone through, people were already sweeping up the glass, patching up roofs and dragging tree branches away. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises, families were still intact.
That was why she did this. Not everything broken could be fixed, but she’d do her damnedest to stitch it back together.
3
Solitaire was made for monitoring weather radars on calm, clear nights. Seth Maddux stared at the empty United States map in the dark room of the studio. It was in that dead zone, between when the evening anchors of the Forecast Channel had gone home, and when the morning desk anchors were just rising to their ridiculously early alarms.
He wasn’t made for the early shift. He wasn’t made for the overnight shift either, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Neither could disgraced-nearly-fired-TV-personalities.
The screen refreshed and a green dot popped up in the middle of America.
“Topeka, Kansas, look at you having a party in the middle of the night.”
Seth watched the little storm move east and fade into nothing. It felt oddly reminiscent of his career. Appear out of nowhere. Look like you’re going to be something and move up to bigger storm status and then, poof. You’re nothing.
Worse than nothing.
The overnight radar watcher.
He should ask to have that printed on his business card. Of course, that would assume they’d let him have a card to claim that he was on their payroll.
The newsroom started to stir. Seth’s sign that it was time for him to disappear, like the phantom newscaster. If someone saw him, they might drop their coffee cup and stain their chinos. Then there’d be the murmurings all day, “Did you see Seth Maddux?” “I heard it’s bad luck to see him.” “It’s a clear sign you’re going to experience career death.”
As much as his coworkers annoyed him, he wouldn’t wish career death on anyone.
Well, most of them.
Okay, there was a handful he liked.
He loaded his thrice-read golf magazines into his messenger bag and logged off the terminal. Then hurried past the office of oppression, holding his breath. Seth didn’t want to accidentally inhale any air Julia breathed.
“Hey, Seth,” the station director called out.
The door leading to the garage, to his freedom, was just within reach.
“Got a minute?”
Seth plastered on his best TV-smile. Armando Wolfe was one of the good guys. Maybe the only one he didn’t wish career death on. “Sure, Armando, just a minute, I got this thing,” he let his voice trail. He didn’t have a thing. What thing could he possibly have this early in the morning? The gym. Then a shower. Then mindless daytime television until he fell asleep.
The boss waved him in and closed the door behind him. “It won’t take long.”
He eased into one of the chairs. The last time he’d been in there, there was no waving him in or sitting. There was no gentle click of the door.
Seth studied the stacks of paper spread haphazardly across Armando’s desk. The last time he was in there, everything on that desk had gotten raked onto the floor.
He cut his glance to the corner. The putter was still there. The one he was pretty sure his boss would’ve used as a weapon during the fight that’d followed his on-screen meltdown.
“How you doin’, Seth?” Armando perched on the edge of the desk and took a sip of coffee. “How’s the overnight?”
He broke his stare with the putter and looked up at his boss, nodding. “It’s great. I really feel like I’m in this unique role to connect the station. You know, I see some before they go to bed, and see the others as they start their day.”
“I’m glad to see you’re keeping your bullshit fresh, kid.” Armando winked and took a seat behind the desk. “I’m in your corner, you know that right?”
“Look, Armando, if this is about—”
The older man crinkled his nose and looked out the window. The rising sun glinted off his silver hair. “Nah, kid, we’re not going back there. This is about moving forward. About getting you back in front of the camera.”
Seth sat up straighter. He enjoyed being in front of the camera. Not because he needed to stroke his ego. Being in front of the camera talking about the weather served a deeper purpose. There, he could teach children what to look for in the sky. He could tell mothers how to dress their kids for school. He could warn grandparents to make their way to their safe rooms. “Did Julia quit? Get abducted by aliens? Sacrificed to angry gods?”
Armando grunted and shook his head. “No, and truthfully, this doesn’t concern her.”
He shivered. If his grandmother were sitting there with him, she’d say someone walked across his grave.
In Julia’s case, she would’ve danced across it. With an open bottle of champagne. Hell, she’d probably even take her bra off and swing it over her head while gyrating her hips.
“Okay…”
“Don’t give me that look, kid.” His boss laughed into his coffee. “I swear, I’m not going to send you to the Arctic or into a bubbling volcano. It’s a concept for a new show, one that I think is right up your alley.”
Seth rubbed his palms on his thighs. He’d accepted his role beneath the bottom rung of the corporate ladder at the Forecast Channel. It was nice down there. No pressure. No expectations and no one watching. Could he handle moving up a rung? What if it happened again? What if he slipped? Could he survive another fall?
Could Grandma and Gramps handle me falling again?
He swallowed back the lump and looked Armando in the eye. “All right, tell me what you’ve got.”
The older man jumped up from his desk. “It’s called ‘Riders in the Storm.’ Get it? It’s part weather forecast, part field reporting and part reality show,” Armando paced as he spoke, his words gaining momentum. “We will plop you right into the hotbed of seasonal weather, where once a week you’ll file a packaged half-hour show, and then of course be on call for live coverage.” The station director drained his cup. “Advertisers are lining up, so we’re feeling good about this. We want someone young, charismatic, energetic and fearless.”
Seth’s neck ached from watching his boss move back and forth.
Armando stopped and gripped the sides of Seth’s chair. “We want you, Seth.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. This had to be more exercise than the man had gotten all week. “What do you say? ‘Riders in the Storm with Seth Maddux.’ Sounds good, right?”
He inhaled coffee breath.
Field work. He’d done that briefly after college, but it was grueling, and he never felt like he could get the perfect shot or capture the essence of the story.
“Are
you sure you want me?” Seth scooted his chair back. “I’m a desk jockey.”
“Yes, we want you.”
“I’m too picky in the field, I don’t have enough control.”
“You’ll have a week to put a show together, and live shots are live shots. Get what you can get.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. This was it. A chance back. But…he couldn’t do it. This had to be a joke. Julia was behind this.
Why would Armando play along?
“I need a teleprompter, computers, I can’t just do all this with a cameraman and a live truck.”
Armando reclined on his desk and crossed his arms, smiling down at Seth. “Kid, I get it. It’s like riding a bike, sure you may be a little wobbly at first, but you’ll be fine. Did I mention the show is Thursday prime time?”
He pushed himself up and paced like his boss had. He ran his fingers over his face; the stubble on his cheeks scratched his palms. If he went back on-air, he’d have to shave daily. Seth made another pass across the office, rubbing the back of his neck. He’d need to get a haircut, too. “Okay, okay,” he said, as much to himself as to Armando. “So where’s the set? Here in Atlanta?”
“No, for this we need you in the heart of it. For the spring, you’ll be based out of Oklahoma City, then in the—”
“Wait, you’re moving me?”
“It’s just temporary. Tornado season is churning up. They already had a little EF1 this past weekend. You’ll come home before hurricane season.”
“Okla-frickin-homa?” Seth’s voice rose, as if it suddenly remembered that this was the shouting office. “She’s behind this, isn’t she?”
“No, Seth, it’s not about you and Julia.”
“She wants me gone. You couldn’t fire me, so the next best thing is to send me into the field and pray that I get sucked up by a tornado.” His line of pacing melded into dizzying circles. His breath was shallow and he saw stars on the outer edges of his vision. This was the same as before. The same as that night.
His body both fought for breath and against it.
Vortex Page 2
