38. Chapter 38
The Panhead sat brown with dirt across the road. Behind it, lightning split the sky.
After slurping down his coffee and cup of chicken noodle, Whitlock took his briefcase, spectacles, and bow tie, and left Jason in the booth with the envelope. Inside were papers with the names of family members Jason didn’t know and a ten-million-dollar check.
Ten million dollars.
The check scared the piss out of him. He couldn’t hold it for very long without feeling lightheaded.
With his bequest for company, he’d gulped down enough coffee to rot his guts and the pile of fries in front of him had turned soggy in the juice from the burger untouched on his plate.
A whip crack of thunder rattled the windows and his rib cage. The diner was too quiet and the sky too dark for midafternoon. Warnings scrolled along the bottom of the TV behind the counter, too small for Jason to read. He rubbed his eyes, stuck on Whitlock’s matter-of-fact proclamation.
You’re a millionaire.
He had a father. A sister. An uncle Lewis.
A cousin Harriet. Another cousin named Michael.
An aged Aunt Molly who was going to die in an old folks’ home soon.
Everyone got something. Molly, his younger sister, got the lion’s share, and she was still running the family business.
There was a handwritten letter from Stanley Woodridge among the papers, an apology from father to bastard son.
“You’re technically the oldest,” the lawyer had said. “Molly knows that so she’s not going to rock the boat too hard. Before you get any ideas about going after a bigger piece of the pie, trust me, it’s not worth it. If I were you, I’d take the money and run.”
Going after a family he didn’t know for more money when ten million was literally on the table never crossed his mind.
Another crack of thunder. A weatherman was on the TV screen now in front of a map with flashing colors.
“It’s getting nasty out there. Do you have to get somewhere on your bike right now?”
Theresa stood beside his booth. She wasn’t smiling, but at least she was meeting his eyes.
“I don’t,” he said.
The lights flickered and his Panhead disappeared on the other side of a wall of rain. Theresa sat across from him, watching the sky.
They were brown, her eyes. Jason thought he heard Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” beneath the thunder and rain.
“Wow, would you look at that?”
But he was looking at her. At her lips a darker shade of pink than her cheeks, and slightly parted. Wondering what they’d feel like to touch.
“Have you ever seen this kind of weather?”
“I’m a millionaire,” he said suddenly.
She turned away from the window. “What?”
“I’m a millionaire. That’s what the lawyer was here to tell me.”
Those brown eyes narrowed. “You’re not funny.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t try to impress me.” Theresa stood and backed out of the booth. “I’m not one of your girls.”
A flash of lightning with a pop of purple sent a static charge through the air and knocked the power out.
Theresa gasped. “Oh God.”
“Are you okay?” Jason asked.
She ran down the row of booths and tuned a battery-powered radio on the counter.
“Maybe it’ll come right back,” another waitress, Maisie, said at her side.
“Let’s hope so.”
A station came through the static. From the booth Jason couldn’t make out what the panicked announcer was saying, and didn’t need to once Maisie started hollering and waving her arms in the air.
“There’s a tornado warning! If you have a safe place to go, I’d suggest you move your asses!” the frantic waitress informed the diners.
The rain stopped as quickly as if someone turned off the switch.
Jason peered through the streaks of water on the window at his soaked Panhead across the way.
He didn’t have anywhere safe to go—didn’t usually need one.
It wasn’t hard to stay ahead of the weather. Today he hadn’t been paying attention.
Of the five other diners, three hurried their bills to the counter and ran out the door to their vehicles. The two men who stayed behind shoveled their food into boxes and followed Maisie toward the kitchen. Theresa turned up the radio loud enough for Jason to hear the announcer.
“This is a serious weather situation, folks. The tornado is on the ground. I repeat, the tornado is on the ground. All of Clark County is in danger from this storm, but the most direct threat is the Springfield area…”
“Theresa!” Maisie screamed at the streak of auburn hair running out the door.
The sky was funny—as if a kid had drawn a jagged line across it with a crayon.
Above the line was the blackest black he’d ever seen, below an eerie yellow.
Connecting the sky with the sopping-wet ground, spinning up a mass of dirt as it traced a path like a massive finger dragging through damp sand, was a tornado.
And out in front of the truck stop, in the full force of the wind, Theresa spread her arms wide.