Free Storm Surge by J.D. Rhoades Page A

Surely she wouldn’t have gone… She cocked
her head and listened. Over the wind, she thought she heard something like
hammering, then a raised voice, suddenly cut off.
    Who the
hell could that be ?
She thought. She walked up the beach towards the house. She stopped at the foot
of the stairway that led up from the beach to a long wooden walkway over the
dunes, and from there to the lower of the house’s two huge ocean-facing decks.
The openings of the windows and double doors yawned wide and dark behind the
decks. She hesitated, then cupped her hands around her mouth and called up to
the house. “Glory?”
    There was no
response. She climbed the steps, stood on the large square railed platform at
the end of the walkway. “GLORY!” She looked up at the
second floor and thought she saw a flash of movement, somewhere back in the
shadows. Sharon’s jaw clenched. If that girl was playing games with her…she
looked around, suddenly aware that she was trespassing. But she didn’t have
time to stand around yelling. She walked toward the deck.
    ***
    There. There
she was. Max caught sight of Sharon climbing the steps to the Mayhew house. The
tingle at the base of his neck intensified. A still small voice in the back of
his head spoke up. Don’t go in there. He started off for the house at a
jog.
    ***
    Sharon saw
Glory, just inside the door. There was a man behind her, his arm around her
throat. His other hand held a pistol to her head.
    “Now, Mama,”
the man said, “why don’t you step into the house. ” She
stopped dead, her hand going to her mouth. She tried to speak, but nothing came
out. The man jammed the gun harder against Glory’s temple. Glory moaned in
fear. “I’m not going to ask again, Mama.”
    ***
    Max saw Sharon
on the deck. She stopped, as if she’d seen something inside that scared her. He
saw her hand go to her mouth in shock. Then, as if sleepwalking, she moved
slowly into the house. He pulled up to a stop. The tingling in the back of his
neck was gone. In it place was a feeling of absolute
certainty that something had just gone horribly wrong.
    He did
something he hadn’t done in months: reached for the gun he had always carried
in the holster at the small of his back. He stopped his hand halfway there. Of
course there was nothing there. He was Max Chase now, not Kyle Mercer. And Max
Chase, the friendly guy who worked at the marina, didn’t need a gun.
    A drop of
rain, fat and heavy, struck the brim of his ball cap. It was immediately
followed by another, then another. There was another brilliant flash, the thunder
coming quicker on its heels this time. Within moments, everything was blurred
by rain that came down so hard and fast it was like a translucent gray curtain.
    Max swore
under his breath. He had a sudden mental image: a line of darkly gleaming, expensive
shotguns in a beautifully crafted wooden case. His lips pulled back from his
teeth in a smile no one had ever seen on Max Chase, but that people had learned
to fear from Kyle Mercer. He ran as fast as he could, up and over the dunes,
toward the road.
     

CHAPTER TWENTY
     
    Back at the
landing, people were crowding back onto the construction ferry, hunched
miserably against the pounding rain. “Is that everybody?” Boyle called out from
the pilothouse. He didn’t wait long for an answer, but ducked back into the
warmth and dryness as fast as he could.
    ”Hey,
Consuela,” Sonny said. He stood beside her at the rail.
    “Hey
yourself,” Consuela smiled weakly at him.
    “ You seen Sharon?”
    She looked
around. “I thought I saw her and Glory get off when we landed. Why?”
    Sonny waved an
arm at the crowd. “I don’t see her.”
    Consuela
peered through the rain at the people crammed onto the barge. “Me either. But I
can’t see shit in this crowd.”
    They heard the
tugboat’s big engines change from the low burble of idle to the rapid chugging
as Boyle put the props in reverse. There was a high-pitched grinding