“I told you he’d been upstairs way too long for just taking a shower,” Matt told Carrie.
“It’s not in the kitchen or living room, so it has to be in the main bedroom.” Oscar sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How the heck do I get past the chief?”
For a moment, his eyes slid toward the closet. Both Carrie and Matt tensed and stilled.
“Oscar!” Andy’s voice called softly down the hall. “Where are you?”
“Uh-oh,” Oscar said. “The po-po is awake.”
He moved toward the door, opening it, and as he was about to step out, they heard Andy.
“What are you doing in there?” Andy’s cold, suspicious voice rang out.
“I was finding out if the lines were back up,” Oscar lied through his teeth. “I need to call my mom.”
“At four in the morning?” Andy said skeptically.
“Trust me, she’s up and pacing, wondering if I’m okay,” Oscar assured him.
“Yeah, hoping you’re not doing something stupid like trying to rob someone’s house,” Andy retorted. “Now get back to the living room. As soon as the storm has passed, trust me, you and I are going to your house to meet your mother.”
“No!” Oscar snapped, and then his voice softened to a plea. “Please. You can’t.”
“Oh, I can and will,” Andy assured him. “Now get back to the living room.”
“I need the bathroom,” Oscar told him.
“Then go to the guest one down here,” Andy suggested. “Don’t think I’m letting you go spend another hour upstairs. The chief and Matt are sleeping.”
“Fine,” Oscar muttered. “Just the bathroom upstairs has a light. The one down here doesn’t.”
“You have a phone,” Andy pointed out. “While it might not have any service, I’m sure the flashlight works.”
Oscar sighed and pulled the study door closed behind him.
They waited a heartbeat longer than necessary, pressed together in the darkness of the closet. The storm filled the silence like surf, rain hammering against the roof in waves while wind moaned through the eaves. Carrie could feel both of their breaths steady, the warmth of Matt’s exhale tickling the nape of her neck. Her fingers found the cool brass of the closet door handle, its ornate scrollwork pressing into her palm. She was about to step out when a shout, sharp and panicked, cut through the house like a knife.
“Oscar, get back here!” Andy’s voice cracked with alarm as the front door slammed against the wall with such force that the brass knocker left a half-moon dent in the plaster. Both dogs erupted into frenzied barking—Muttley’s deep woofs overlapping with Luna’s, their nails clicking and scraping across the hardwood as they thundered through the house like a stampede of much larger animals.
Carrie and Matt burst from the closet, their shoulders colliding as they raced through the office doorway. They sprinted down the hallway, the polished floor cold beneath their bare feet. At the front of the house, hurricane winds howled through the gaping doorway, transforming the foyer into chaos. A Monet reproduction torn from its hook skidded across it, while the Persian runner writhed like a living thing, its tasseled edges flapping wildly. Rain slashed sideways through the entrance, soaking the antique console table and spattering the wallpaper with dark tears. Through the veil of water, they glimpsed Andy’s silhouette on the steps, his clothes already plastered to his body as Muttley and Luna bolted past him into the raging darkness.
“Muttley, Luna, come back!” Andy’s voice cracked against the wind as the dogs vanished into the churning darkness. The hurricane swallowed his silhouette, transforming him into a ghostly figure—rain plastering his shirt to his shoulders, his knuckles white around the brass handle of the storm lantern. The wavering yellow flame cast eerie shadows across his face as he staggered forward, each gust threatening to extinguish the light entirely. For a moment, time seemed to fold in on itself: a lone man with a flickering lantern, pursuing something precious into the heart of nature’s fury.
“Andy!” Matt yelled, lunging toward the toppled coat rack where his navy-blue Gore-Tex raincoat lay crumpled among umbrellas and scarves. He yanked it free, thrusting his arms through the sleeves with such force that the waterproof fabric snapped like a sail catching wind. He shoved his feet into the rain boots he pulled from beneath the pile. “Don’t go after Oscar.”
Carrie stumbled after him, fingers closing around the butter-soft yellow slicker she recognized as Lori’s. The coat smelled faintly of her friend’s gardenia perfume as she zipped it to her chin before slipping her freezing feet into Lori’s rubber gardening boots. They fumbled for their flashlights, clicking them on only to watch the beams dissolve into useless, wavering halos against the wall of rain—like trying to cut through fog with butter knives.
Carrie followed Matt as they launched out of the foyer and into the needle-biting storm. Wind tried to snatch the door from her grip; she slammed it behind them, barely registering the rattle of glass and the violent boom as the wind gouged at the clapboards, her cold fingers turned the key in the lock, and she slipped it into a pocket that zipped up. Now there was no way for Oscar to get back into the house if he was crazy enough to try to double back. The rain hit with the force of thrown gravel, instantly slickingher hair to her scalp and making the world around them vanish into a gray, seething curtain.
She could make out the bobbing storm lantern twenty yards ahead, Andy’s silhouette hunched as he skidded sideways down the walk, benches and flowerpots tumbling along the path. Matt was already past her, his feet slapping through ankle-deep water with a speed she didn’t think he was capable of. She found her own stride, ignoring the sting of wind-driven sand on her cheeks, focusing instead on the dark, sodden shapes streaking into the breach—Muttley first, Luna right behind.
Each flash of lightning lit up the cove like a crime scene photo. For a split second, Carrie saw the whole field of chaos: the dock, bending under the strain of the storm; the silver seam of the channel, boiling and wild; the skeletal outline of the mangroves thrashing beneath the onslaught. Beyond the dock, a strange, unnatural glow illuminated the water in a ripple of phosphorescent green, like a signal meant for nobody who would care to see it. If Maggie were here, she’d have thought it beautiful—nature showing off, even when angry.
While Matt’s large frame fought against the driving wind, Carrie’s smaller one battled against it with every step, feeling as if she were trying to move a brick wall. She yanked the slicker tighter, the wet rubber chafing at her throat, and squinted through the downpour. She couldn’t see the dogs anymore, just a swirl of leaves, shredded palm fronds, and the frenetic beam of Andy’s storm lantern as he zigzagged through the blinding rain.
“Matt!” she screamed, but her voice came out as a shredded wisp, instantly gobbled by the wind and hurled toward the gulf. Fear burrowed hot and sharp below her ribs. Matt had gone after Andy, no question. A headlong, foolish charge into the worst of the squall. Carrie punched her own legs forward, boots suckingat the grass and stones as if the earth itself didn’t want her to go further. It was impossible to breathe with the air so thick with flying salt and water, each inhale a slap of the sea that stung her teeth and left her gasping.
For a lunatic second, she thought,This is how people get themselves killed, chasing after an idiot who ran out into a hurricane and then some hero went after him. She rolled her eyes, adding:Now two other people have to go find the hero who doesn’t know they were probably being played and that Oscar might already have doubled back.
