CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
The channel swallowed sound. Above the surface, the storm screamed through trees and across tin roofs.
Beneath it, the world became pressure, darkness, and the low grinding thud of debris striking the gate housing.
The divers stayed close enough to remain aware of one another, each light reduced to a faint glow in the mud-brown water.
Finley’s voice crackled through their comms from the control room.
“You should be approaching the bend. If Alvin keeps left, follow the left channel. The right side drops into an old scour pocket.”
Alvin kept left.
“I hate that this is working,” Brix said.
A branch rolled past like a battering ram, close enough to thump Ham’s shoulder and spin away into the current. Zulu caught his balance against a cypress root and laughed once, sharp and breathless.
“Still better than my last family reunion,” Zulu said.
Nobody asked about the reunion. Nobody ever asked about Zulu’s family reunions twice.
At the gate housing, the reason for the failure revealed itself not as one problem but as several conspiring together.
A mat of storm debris had wedged against the metal framework.
The access grate had twisted just enough to block the service opening.
Somewhere inside, the manual mechanism waited uselessly, out of reach unless the obstruction could be cleared.
Ham surfaced beside the half-submerged piling and keyed his mic.
“Engineering, we found the issue. Gate’s not broken so much as buried under everything the storm stole from three parishes.”
Olive closed her eyes.
“Please tell me my missing lawn chair is not part of the problem.” Zulu’s light swept across the jam.
“Depends. Was it ugly, green, and somehow judgmental?”
“That chair supported me through graduate school,” Olive said.
“Then it died with a résumé,” Pax said.
Back in the control room, Belle Fleur held its breath.
The old house groaned in the wind, every shutter clapping like nervous hands.
Finley paced between the monitors and the rain-streaked window while Olive crouched at the console, one palm over the speaker as if she could steady the voices coming through by sheer force of will.
“Status?” Finley asked. Ham’s reply came broken by static and weather.
“Current’s ugly. Visibility’s worse. Zulu has insulted three pieces of debris and one possibly innocent turtle.”
“The turtle started it,” Zulu said. Olive pressed her fingers to her temples.
“I want everyone to know that if my final professional achievement is being outperformed by an alligator and a man arguing with a turtle, I am haunting this property.”
“Make the haunting useful,” Finley said. “Rattle pipes. Tighten bolts. Label wires.” It was typical of the team to use sarcastic, scathing humor when stressed but this was starting to become an Olympic competition.
Outside, a gust slammed rain against the glass hard enough to make both women flinch.
The bayou level indicator jumped again. The south lawn was gone beneath a rippling sheet of black water, and the reflecting pool had disappeared into it so completely that the statue at its center appeared to be standing in a lake.
At the gate, Alvin suddenly stopped. He floated sideways against the push of the current, tail barely moving, head angled toward the tangle where the service opening should have been. Ham lifted a hand for the others to pause.
“Why did the dinosaur park himself?” Brix asked.
Alvin slapped the water once with his tail. A loose sheet of tin spun out of the debris, flashing silver in Zulu’s light before vanishing into the dark.
“I think he’s pointing,” Pax said.
“With what?” Brix demanded. “His entire tax bracket?”
Ham studied the movement of the water. Alvin had not led them to the front of the jam.
He had shown them the side where the current curled strangely, where debris shifted in pulses instead of pressing flat.
There was a pocket there, a place where the mess could be moved without the whole bayou answering back at once.
“Engineering,” Ham said, “your alligator may have better situational awareness than most contractors I’ve met.” Olive’s voice came back immediately.
“Do not compliment him. He already has an ego. Last summer he ignored three wildlife officers and posed under the No Swimming sign.”
The work became a contest between human stubbornness and storm-fed water.
The team cleared enough debris to expose the twisted grate, then fought to keep the opening from vanishing again beneath fresh branches, weeds, and floating pieces of someone’s unfortunate shed.
Every few minutes, something bumped hard against the structure and sent a shudder through the metal.
Pax surfaced beside Ham, rain bouncing off his mask.
“I found the grate edge.”
“Good news,” Zulu said. “I found what I believe is Olive’s lawn chair. Bad news, it has become load-bearing.”
Olive groaned over the radio.
“That chair survived finals, hurricanes, and Claudette’s gumbo incident. Treat it with respect.”
“Define respect,” Zulu said.
“Don’t let Brix name it.” Brix looked offended.
“I was going to call it Lieutenant Mold.”
“See?” Olive said. “This is why we can’t have heirlooms.”
Then the current changed. It did not rise gradually.
It shoved. A heavy surge rolled through the channel with enough force to drag loose branches sideways and slam them against the gate housing.
Ham caught the piling. Pax caught Ham. Zulu disappeared beneath the surface for one heart-stopping second, then came up spitting water and outrage.
“Rude,” Zulu said. “Deeply rude. I expect an apology from the entire watershed.”