Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Jessica woke to find light seeping through the busted bathroom window. Bright light. It took her a moment to realize that there was no wind, no rain. Birds were singing.
She climbed from the bathtub, her stiff, sore limbs protesting with each movement. Her body ached with fatigue, but there was also a sense of relief that she’d survived the night unscathed.
She doubted the building had, though. Opening the bathroom door, she half expected a wave of water to flood the room, but the only thing that came in was a damp breeze.
Venturing out, she took a survey of the house.
The living room had fared the worst, with the window and a good amount of the front wall ripped away.
She could see patches of blue sky through holes in the roof.
The kitchen was a mess too; the cupboards had all been blown open, their scant contents lying shattered in deep puddles on the floor.
Broken foliage and bare branches covered every surface and crunched underfoot.
The air smelt of pine needles and brine.
She saw Ryan standing on the little porch just outside the door. “You do realize,” she called as she approached him, “if we stay here for much longer without power, that thing in the freezer is going to start coming back to life—”
She stopped abruptly beside him. Water covered what had once been land. It filled the front yard and lapped at the top of the porch. It stretched all the way to the road and beyond, as far as the eye could see. Things were floating in it: downed pine trees, junk from the yard, dead fish and birds.
She said, “I hope you know I’m not very good at swimming.”
“You should never swim in floodwaters,” he said, looking out over the newly formed lake. “It’s full of all kinds of crap. Not to mention leaches. Water snakes. Gators.”
She glanced back at the house. From out here, the damage looked worse than it did inside. A huge pine tree had embedded itself in the front wall. The flood had taken the roller door and completely submerged the garage. The Charger was up to its windows in saltwater.
She couldn’t get over how quiet it was. She could hear the lap of the water, the light breeze in the trees. It was almost idyllic.
Ryan unclipped his Glock from its holster and held it out to her. “You see anything moving in the water, you go right ahead and shoot if for me, okay?”
She took the gun from him, managing not to drop it. “Wait, what?”
He walked down the porch steps and start wading through the water. It was up to his shins, then his knee, then his hips.
She looked down at the gun. It was heavier than it looked; the rubber was warm in her grip. “Does it have a safety or something?” she called after him.
“Nope. Just pull the trigger.”
“What if I miss and hit you?”
He turned and gave her a wry smile over his shoulder. “Oh, I happen to know you’re a crack shot.”
As he waded deeper, she yelled, “What did you just say about not swimming in floodwaters?”
“I said you shouldn’t,” he called back. “Not me.”
She watched him make it to the safety of the shed without being eaten by anything. He was gone about ten minutes, then she heard a motor starting. It wasn’t the Charger’s.
When he reappeared, it was at the helm of the tiny aluminum boat she’d seen in the shed yesterday.
“Seriously?” she yelled.
“I said I’d get you to Baton Rouge, didn’t I?” he shouted over the sound of the outboard motor. “Come hell or high water.”
* * *
Ryan got dressed in dry clothing for what he hoped would be the last time for a while. Then he went and finished carting all their things onto the porch.
Jessica joined him a little while later, wearing a fresh t-shirt and a denim skirt, her hair piled on top of her head. He couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. Because soon, he knew he would never get to lay eyes on her again. The thought was like a sharp stab right above his kidney.
Together, they packed their things into the Jon boat, in the small space between the bench seats.
She picked up the rifle case, containing a Remington 870 shotgun and an AR-15 patrol rifle. Most field offices kept them in their vehicles, and every marshal was trained to use them.
Next, she passed him the last two bottles of their water.
Their lack of food was also a concern. The few tins they’d had left were underwater in the kitchen somewhere.
He was starving and suspected Jessica was, too.
But he figured they would survive until they got to a town or managed to flag down help.
When everything was loaded, he helped her in. The little boat had a flat hull and rocked dangerously with them both standing in it. He had a moment of fear that he was going to wind up in wet clothes again, but she had excellent balance and quickly sat down on the bench seat to steady it.
He started the motor and used the tiller steer to guide the boat toward the road.
From her perch at the bow, she turned around to look at the house. Her eyes caught his, and she smiled.
He tried to smile back, but it got stuck somewhere behind his mouth. And it dawned on him how strange this situation was. Less than two days ago, he hadn’t known her from a can of paint. And now he was experiencing actual chest pains at the thought of losing her.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
He looked up to find her watching him. And he realized he was indeed raking at the hair on the back of his head. He stopped, resting his hand on his knee.
She gestured at the floodwaters surrounding them in every direction. “You ever see anything like this?”
He looked around. The water was the color of milky coffee and was so deep in parts that he could only see the tops of road signs and power poles. Trees sprouted from the water, stripped of all their leaves, like the masts of some lost armada.
He said, “My sister was living in Galveston during Harvey. I went to stay with her to help with the cleanup.” He shook his head at the memory. “It was a hell of a mess. Water so high you could fish off the porch.”
She gave him a long look. “I bet you can’t wait to get back home.”
He thought of his tidy brick and tile house, with its empty rooms and kitchen that never got used and plastic lawns that never needed mowing.
Nestled in a homogenous subdivision on Memphis’ eastern edge, the house was so indistinguishable from its neighbors that he frequently drove right past it and parked at the wrong address.
It now seemed like the last place in the world he wanted to go back to. In fact, he’d rather stay in that falling-down house with the dead thing in the freezer because at least it would be with…
Her.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, trying to figure out what the hell was going on inside his head. He wanted to…what? Run off into the sunset with her? A protected witness who he’d known for a grand total of thirty-six hours, and who had at least one psychopath on her tail?
Yeah, he’d made some fairly poor decisions in the past when it came to women, but doing a thing like that would take the cake.
He remembered the psychopath was still out there somewhere. Waiting out the tempest, planning his next move.
He knew guys like that. Better than most. He knew they didn’t stop until someone made them.
And he knew if the storm hadn’t killed him, Ryan would have to.
* * *
Roach woke up with a splutter as water trickled into his mouth from above and made him cough. It took him a full ten seconds to figure out where he was and why he was sopping wet.
He was lying flat on his back on the gas station countertop, staring at the ceiling, which had sprung dozens of leaks, including the one that had erupted right above his head.
When he rolled over to escape it, he knocked the empty bottle of Dewars off the edge.
But it didn’t shatter on the floor; it made a splash instead.
He scrambled into a sitting position. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
The bottle was bobbing in about three feet of water, which spread out and filled the entire store. Small islands had formed of chip bags and confectionery packets and plastic sunglasses and everything else that had fallen from the shelves and was light enough to float.
The trooper’s SUV was sitting in water up to the top of its wheels. Beyond it and the shattered store window, the forecourt and the street were both flooded.
He scrubbed his hand down his face. Despite his wet wake-up call, his mouth felt dry and tacky, and his head ached. He really shouldn’t have polished off that bottle last night.
He grabbed Julia’s phone out of his jacket pocket and turned it on. Opened the tracking app. Saw the little arrow that showed where her smartwatch was now.
Julia Mikkelsen was on the move.