CHAPTER 27
C HAPTER 27
T he ground-level chambers were a mess. Curtis did his best to focus on the structure. Even though it felt as if Amiya’s arms still held him.
The first hurricane had struck in the standard central-Atlantic pattern, crawling up the coastline until high-altitude atmospheric pressure shoved its course inland. All the east-facing walls took a hammering, but Curtis thought they had probably held.
The basic rule of thumb was, a hurricane’s direct impact aged a structure ten years. But the problems with Cape Fortune only started with this aging process.
The necessary repairs weren’t done because the money wasn’t there, and the insurance payout had not yet arrived. That was another rule of life among homeowners in a hurricane zone: Never wait for the insurance check. Get it done. Get it done. Roof and windows first, then mold, then everything else. Get it done.
Then the second hurricane struck.
This time, the eye hovered over the island’s northern region for almost nine hours.
Hurricane winds are strongest around the eye, and almost as damaging as the winds are their direction. As the eye slowly drifted northward, the house was first struck from the east, and then from the west.
Hour after hour of being trapped and exposed and hammered. The inland waterway developed ocean-sized waves that wrecked the piers and bulkhead, then flooded the grounds and weakened the support pillars.
Up close, Curtis could mentally track the pattern of destruction. The home’s ground-floor walls were a jumbled wreck. Two sides of the four-car garage were gone entirely. Which was probably what forced the outer pilings to give way. The water turned the walls and support beams into battering rams, shoving at the pillars until they bent, tilted, and dragged the entire house to an angle.
Rae called down, “I’m waiting here!”
“Coming.”
The garage had taken up most of the downstairs, and resulted in the main entrance being placed significantly off-center. The glass entryway was history. The laundry room, storage facilities, and what had probably been a workshop were in tatters.
The foyer’s interior wall and the home’s main staircase were all steel-reinforced poured concrete and formed part of the upper floor’s support. They were riven with cracks where the foundations had shifted, but otherwise remained intact.
Curtis stepped through the glassless front door. Amiya followed. As he threaded his way through the debris, Rae called, “Hold it there!” She aimed her phone at them. “Okay, one more step toward the stairs. Amiya, move in closer to Curtis. Good.”
She fiddled with her phone, then started, “This is Rae Alden, attorney for clients . . .” Rae lowered the phone. “Who should I state as the property’s buyers?”
Amiya asked, “Is this necessary?”
“Yes, it absolutely is, and you’ll soon see why.”
Curtis said, “Use my name. I’m signatory on the deed and purchase contracts.”
“Okay, here we go.” She aimed the phone, gave her name, identified Curtis, then waved them forward. “My client is entering the property for the first time.”
Three steps up, Curtis realized what was the problem.