Chapter 4
Tucker
I'm in the foyer when Calder calls directly. "Status."
"Evacuation in progress. I've got two vehicles loaded—Decker's taking the first group to the Tidehaven Inn, twenty miles inland. I'm running the second transport with Hartwell and remaining guests."
"Hartwell's your priority. Eyes on her at all times."
"Understood."
"And Brennan?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't be a hero. Get everyone out, get yourself out. The house is insured. You're not."
There's a roughness in Calder's voice that goes beyond the professional. He lost a man on his last deployment—not to enemy fire, but to a guy who stayed behind to secure equipment when he should have fallen back. It changed the way Calder runs his team. Every operator comes home. Every time.
"Copy that, boss. We're moving."
The house is organized chaos. Renee, the coordinator, has transformed into a calm, efficient evacuation machine—clipboards traded for walkie-talkies, pleasantries traded for direct orders. The writers cluster near the front entrance with their bags, faces caught between annoyance and fear.
The poet clutches a leather journal to his chest like a lifeline. The thriller writer has a go-bag that looks suspiciously professional—I make a mental note to check her background. The memoirist stands by the door with mascara smudged under one eye, a suitcase in each hand.
"Is this really necessary?" she asks. "It's just wind."
"Ma'am, it's a Category 2 hurricane with possible upgrade to 3. The storm surge alone—"
"Fine, fine. I've survived two divorces. I can survive a hurricane."
Diana Hartwell descends the staircase with the composed grace of a woman who has faced worse than weather. Her security posture is solid—stays near walls, lets me take point, doesn't argue about vehicle positioning. This is someone who's been through threat protocols before.
"Tucker," she says, settling into the back seat of the SUV. "How long is the drive?"
"Twenty minutes in normal conditions. In this wind, maybe forty. Roads are still passable."
"And the inn?"
"Solid construction, inland position, backup generator. It's the best option within range."
She nods, and I catch something in her expression—not fear, but a sharp, practiced alertness that comes from knowing her safety has become a logistics problem.
It's a look I recognize from principals I've protected before, the quiet burden of knowing your existence creates risk for the people around you.
"I have my laptop," she says. "If we're going to be stranded, I might as well be productive."
Writers. Even in a hurricane, they're thinking about word count.
I do a final headcount before departure. Decker's vehicle has already left with four guests. My vehicle has Diana, the thriller writer, and—
"Where's Monroe?"
Renee checks her clipboard. "She was in her room twenty minutes ago. Said she was packing."
The wind screams past the house, and a shutter tears free somewhere above us with a sound like a gunshot. I hand the vehicle keys to the thriller writer—who takes them with suspicious competence—and head for the stairs.
"Tucker, we need to move," Decker says over the radio.
"Two minutes. One guest unaccounted for."
Kassidy's room is on the second floor, corner suite. The door is ajar. Inside, she's sitting on the bed, laptop open, fingers moving across the keyboard at a frantic pace.
"Kassidy."
She doesn't look up. "One second."
"We don't have one second. Hurricane, remember?"
"The words are coming. For the first time in three months, they're actually coming, and if I stop now—"
"You can write at the inn. Right now, we need to leave."
She finally looks at me, and her eyes are wild—not with fear, but with the desperate energy of someone who's been drowning and just broke the surface. There's color in her cheeks that wasn't there yesterday. The laptop screen is full of text.
"Kassidy. I need you to close the laptop and come with me."
"Five more—"
The window behind her explodes.
Not all the way—the inner pane holds—but the outer glass shatters inward with a crack that sends us both ducking. Wind roars through the breach, scattering papers, whipping curtains into horizontal flags. Rain lashes through in sheets.
Kassidy screams, curling over the laptop, and I'm already moving. Training takes over—assess, protect, evacuate. I grab the laptop, shut it, shove it into her bag. Her suitcase is by the door, already packed. I sling the bag over one shoulder, take her hand with the other.
"Move. Now."
She moves. No argument, no hesitation, just her fingers tight around mine and her breath coming fast as we take the stairs two at a time. The house groans around us, wood and plaster protesting the wind, and somewhere distant, the sound of water where water shouldn't be.
We hit the ground floor, push through the foyer, and I bundle her into the back of the SUV next to Diana. Her hand doesn't let go of mine until I pull away to close the door.
"Everyone accounted for?" I radio Decker.
"Affirmative. First group arrived at the inn. Roads are holding but won't for long."
"We're moving. ETA thirty minutes."
The drive is bad. Not the worst I've experienced—that honor belongs to a convoy run in Helmand during a sandstorm—but bad enough. Visibility drops to twenty feet. Trees bow sideways across the road. Twice I have to navigate around debris that wasn't there five minutes ago.
In the rearview mirror, Diana reads something on her phone with practiced calm. The thriller writer—seated beside me in the front—watches the road with sharp attention, occasionally pointing out hazards before I see them. Definitely checking her background.
Kassidy sits rigid in the back seat, laptop bag clutched to her chest, eyes locked on the storm outside. She's shaking. Small tremors in her hands, her jaw tight, the shaking of someone running on adrenaline that's starting to fade.
"Hey." I catch her eyes in the mirror. "We're fine. Fifteen more minutes."
She nods. Doesn't speak. But her grip on the bag loosens slightly.
The Tidehaven Inn materializes through the rain like a lighthouse—a sturdy three-story building with a stone facade and glowing windows. The parking lot is half full with other evacuees, and Decker meets us at the entrance with a status report and a look of relief.
"Rooms are limited," he says. "I got Hartwell a single. Poet and memoirist are sharing. The other rooms are taken by civilians."
"How many left?"
"One. King bed." He pauses. "For two."
The math is simple. Six writers, two security. Diana gets her own room for security purposes. Everyone else doubles up. Except there's an odd number, and the remaining room goes to—
"Monroe and me."
Decker's expression is carefully neutral. "I can take the lobby. There's a couch—"
"You're on a twelve-hour shift. You need a bed. I'll figure it out."
At the front desk, a harried woman with a Tidehaven Inn polo and a flashlight confirms the situation. One room, one king bed, and the inn is at capacity with evacuees from three counties.
"I'm sorry," she says, not sounding particularly sorry. "Take it or leave it."
Kassidy appears beside me, still damp from the rain, hair in complete rebellion, laptop bag slung across her body like armor. "What's the situation?"
"One room left."
"One room? For... both of us?"
"King bed."
Her face does something complicated—a rapid-fire sequence of surprise, calculation, and what I'm fairly sure is panic, all smoothed over with a thin veneer of composure.
"Fine," she says. "Fine. I'll sleep in the chair."
"I'll take the floor."
"You're not sleeping on the floor."
"I've slept on worse."
"That's not the point."
"What is the point?"
She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. "The point is that this is..." She gestures between us with a fluttering hand. "This is a romance novel trope. Forced proximity. One bed. It's literally a chapter in half the books I've written, and the irony is so thick I could spread it on toast."
The front desk woman looks between us with growing amusement. "So... do you want the room?"
"Yes," we say simultaneously.
Room 312 is small but clean—a king bed that dominates the space, a writing desk by the window, a bathroom that's barely wider than my shoulders. The storm howls against the building, but the walls are thick and the sound is muffled to a low, persistent roar.
Kassidy drops her bags on the desk chair, surveys the room, and lets out a breath that sounds like it's been locked in her chest since the window shattered.
"Okay," she says. "Ground rules."
"Ground rules."
"This is a professional arrangement. You're security, I'm a guest, and we're sharing space due to emergency circumstances."
"Agreed."
"Your side, my side." She draws an invisible line down the center of the bed, then stops. "Wait. You said you'd take the floor."
"I said I've slept on worse. I didn't say I wanted to."
"So you're suggesting we share the bed."
"I'm suggesting we're two adults who can handle a king-sized mattress with a pillow barrier. But if you'd prefer, I'll take the floor."
She stares at the bed, then at me, then at the bed again. The wheels behind her eyes are spinning—outlines, contingencies, risk assessments. This woman doesn't even sleep without a plan.
"Pillow barrier," she says finally. "And you stay on your side."
"Copy that."
"And stop saying copy that."
"Noted."
The wind picks up, rattling the windows, and the lights flicker once, twice, then hold. Outside, Tidehaven is battening down—I can hear distant voices, the clang of metal shutters, the thrum of a generator kicking in somewhere below us.
Kassidy sits on the edge of the bed—her side—and opens the laptop. The screen glows in the dim room, and her fingers hover over the keyboard. Whatever she was writing at Hargrove House, before the window blew, she's trying to find the thread again.
My phone buzzes. Channel 16.
Riggs: heard you're bunking with the writer. one bed??
Decker: I offered the couch. He declined.
Riggs: declined. interesting.
Calder: Update on Hartwell?
Tucker: Secure. Room 310. Decker has eyes on the hallway. All guests accounted for.
Riggs: but back to the one bed thing
Calder: Riggs.
Riggs: sorry. operational silence. starting now. probably.
I set the phone face down. Kassidy glances over.
"Your team?"
"My team."
"Are they giving you a hard time about the room?"
"They give me a hard time about everything. It's how they show affection."
She almost smiles. Almost. Then she turns back to the laptop, and the clicking of keys fills the room like rain on a tin roof—steady, rhythmic, alive.
I settle into the desk chair, pull out my own phone, and pull up the weather tracker. Helena is moving northeast at fourteen miles per hour. The worst of it will hit tonight, pass by morning. Roads might reopen in thirty-six to forty-eight hours, depending on flooding and debris.
Thirty-six to forty-eight hours in this room. With her.
Thirty-six to forty-eight hours. Her keys tap a rhythm against the quiet, and somewhere in it is a sentence she'll keep and a hundred she won't, and I'm listening like I can tell the difference.
My phone glows with the weather tracker. Helena crawls northeast at fourteen miles per hour. The storm will pass. The roads will open. And Kassidy Monroe will drive back to wherever she came from with her color-coded outlines and her stubborn curl and her unfinished book.
I set the phone down and listen to her write.