Free Storm Season by Erica Spindler Page A

thought it was thunder. It was difficult to distinguish.
    Her goggles clouded with the spray of rain. It didn’t matter. She had her eyes squeezed tight. She knew if she opened them it would only add to the dizziness. She waited for the spinning to stop but even as Kesnick lowered her, it continued.
    After what seemed like an eternity, her heels connected with something more solid than air. Maggie opened her eyes. Through the blur of her goggles she saw the upper deck of the houseboat. She pushed off and swung herself to the lower deck, sliding past the railing.
    She felt Bailey’s hands before she really saw the woman. Bailey pulled her down and helped disconnect her. She seemed in a hurry. The noise of the helicopter, the storm and the waves hitting the boat filled Maggie’s ears and even when Bailey’s mouth moved, Maggie couldn’t make out the words. But she looked worried and frantic.
    Maggie yanked the goggles down in time to see the cable – their only connection to the outside world – zip back up to the helicopter. Bailey was gesturing to them. The same signals, one after another. Telling them to back away, followed by “I’m alright” then immediately contradicting herself with the signal for “emergency, in trouble.”
    Maggie tried to understand, tried to catch Bailey’s eyes. As she glanced away for an answer she suddenly saw a man underneath the deck’s awning, hidden from view of the helicopter. He was on the far end of the houseboat but Maggie could still see what he held on his shoulder. Even in the blur of wind and rain she knew exactly what it was. He was aiming an RPG right at the helicopter.

Chapter 5
     TULLY CHECKED HIS MESSAGES. He had texted Sheriff Langley about Maggie’s Coast Guard crew. Surely there had been some word radioed in from them. But the latest response from the sheriff was annoyingly short: NOTHING.
    How could there be nothing? That was bullshit!
    Tully waited in his rental. He sat facing the Gulf, shifting his eyes from the black rolling mass of clouds that flickered with electricity to watching in his rearview mirror as the Senator talked to her personal men-in-black. The clouds had turned day into night.
    He tried calling Sheriff Langley for a second time, but the call went directly to voice mail. The sheriff would be pissed if he discovered Senator Delanor-Ramos had passed on even a courtesy meeting with him. Was he pissed enough to withhold information? And why didn’t she understand this? Wouldn’t she want every possible law enforcement officer working to help? Or was it more important to keep the truth from getting out? Everything was political, either an asset or liability. Was the truth a liability in this case?
    Something had obviously happened to her family. Maybe their houseboat simply broke down along with the radio. Could that happen with a half-million dollar boat? But she didn’t believe it was that simple. She’d said as much.
    He ran a hand through his hair. Now he could see the sheet of white under the clouds. In minutes that sheet of rain would be on top of them. He sent another text to Maggie. None had been answered. He didn’t expect this one to be either, but he had to keep trying.
    The passenger door opened and Senator Delanor-Ramos hopped up and into the seat. She shoved an oversized tote onto the floor mat beside her feet and buckled herself in, getting comfortable like she was going to spend an afternoon sightseeing. Tully craned his neck to see what her bodyguards were doing. If he wasn’t mistaken, the black Escalade wasn’t waiting on them.
    She saw him looking in the rearview mirror and before he could ask, she said, “They would have only gotten in the way.” Already she looked relieved.
    And suddenly Tully realized that this was more serious than he thought. She was narrowing down her liabilities to just him. The fewer people who knew, the better.
    What the hell was going on? 
    If his family were missing out at sea, he would be