Janelle Taylor (21 page)

“Want to play another game?” Jordan asked Spencer hopefully.

“Nah.” He tossed his depleted hand of cards in the center of the table and looked toward the window, moping.

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I don’t want to play,” he said, his eyes flashing angrily at her. “I’m sick of cards! It’s all we’ve done all day.”

He was right.

But thank God for the deck of cards Jordan had found in a kitchen drawer. Without it, she would have been hard-pressed to keep the child entertained. The miniature cars Beau had bought him had long since inspired boredom.

Outside, a gust of wind slammed into the house, shaking it violently.

Spencer gasped and looked anxiously toward the window again. Darkness was falling rapidly, though it shouldn’t be time for dusk yet.

“It’s okay, it’s just the storm,” Jordan said, forcing her voice to remain calm.

“I know that.” He sounded irritated with her.

“Do you want another sandwich?” she asked. She had made him two peanut-butter-andjelly sandwiches already. Remembering Beau’s wizardry, she had cut one sandwich into an awkward seahorse shape, and another into a shark with a jagged fin.

“No.”

“Are you sure? This time I could make it look like an octopus, if you want. Or you can choose another—”

“No,” he said again, glowering.

She busied herself collecting the cards from the table, stacking the deck neatly in her palm so that the edge of each card aligned precisely with the edge of the one beneath it.

Cards. She hadn’t played in ages. Not since she was a little girl.

But she and Spencer had just played every card game she could recall from her childhood with Phoebe. She remembered games she hadn’t thought of in years, making up the rules where they were fuzzy in her mind.

As they played, she’d repeatedly pushed back the memories that threatened to surge forth, along with tears of grief for her lost friend. She had to keep her composure now more than ever, for Spencer’s sake.

Yet it was impossible not to think of Phoebe now especially, as Jordan sat across from a child who not only looked like her, but who played games as Phoebe had played them. He had been dead serious, focused
on his cards, even chewing on his lower lip while pondering a move, just as Phoebe used to do.

“Want me to show you how to build a house out of cards?” Jordan asked, desperate for a distraction.

“Nope.”

“Come on, I bet we can build a great house of cards.”

Spencer shook his head.

The rain pattered loudly on the roof overhead. It wouldn’t be as loud downstairs. Maybe they should go down to one of the bedrooms, or to the game room on the first floor, Jordan thought.

She looked at Spencer and tried again to engage him. “Beau’s an architect, you know. That means he designs houses for a living. Bet we can really impress him if we design a card house that won’t fall down.”

“Card houses are stupid. They always fall down,” Spencer said flatly.

“How do you know?”

“My mom and I build them.”

“I thought you said your mom never taught you how to play cards,” Jordan said, surprised.

“Not this kind of cards. We play ‘go fish’ and ‘I spy.’ And then sometimes, we use the cards to build houses.”

“Oh.” Jordan took a deep breath. Outside, the wind gusted. The lights flickered. “Well, why don’t we build—”

“No!” Spencer shouted. He pushed his chair back from the table and glared at her. “I want my mom. How come I’m stuck here with you and you won’t let me call her?”

“Spencer…”

She half-expected him to interrupt her again. But he didn’t He just stared at her, waiting. Waiting for her to explain.

“Spencer…” “What? Where’s my mom?” Jordan took a deep breath.

Then the wind howled and slammed into the house again, this time plunging it into darkness.

This was insane.

Beau had been driving for hours, and he had still only made it as far as Richmond. He was miles from the coastline, but the rain and wind had picked up in intensity. The traffic headed toward him—away from the coast—was far heavier than it was here. But it was slow going because of the weather. And twice accidents in the northbound lanes caused rubbernecking delays on Beau’s southbound side.

According to the radio, the storm had been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, with wind speeds in excess of a hundred miles per hour.

The storm’s precarious path was crucial. If it stayed over water, it would only intensify. If it veered toward land, some of its power would be diffused.

Timing was also crucial. If the storm hit the Outer Banks during high tide, the entire peninsula could be swept underwater in the storm surge. The governor had issued a mandatory evacuation order for the region.

Beau was losing precious time.

As traffic slowed to a near stop alongside an exit for Richmond’s airport, Beau stared at the green-and-white exit sign, allowing the idea that had been building in
the
back of his mind to take hold with a vengeance.

He looked at his watch, then at the pouring rain and the line of traffic that snaked in front of him.

It was the only way.

The only way.

He jerked the steering wheel to the right and pulled onto the shoulder, driving toward the exit. Toward the airport.

“I don’t like candles,” Spencer said, warily looking at the small votive candle Jordan had lit and placed in the center of the coffee table.

“Why not? I think candles are cozy,” Jordan said, making a tremendous effort to keep the anxiety from her voice.

“Because I don’t like fire.” Spencer’s voice grew smaller and he seemed to burrow into the couch cushions.

Jordan put the book of matches and an unlit candle on the table and sat next to him. She longed to put her arms around him and pull him close, but she sensed that he would only pull away. He was still embarrassed at the way he’d reacted when the lights went out.

Actually, he had done exactly what she wanted to do: burst into tears and wailed for his mother, and then for Beau.

But Jordan couldn’t afford to do that—or even to admit to the child that she wanted to. She had to appear strong and in control. She had to make him feel safe.

That was getting harder by the minute. The storm had intensified.

When she was looking for a flashlight, she had found a small battery-operated radio in a cabinet downstairs, but there was too much static to hear much of anything. She did hear the words “hurricane” and “evacuation,” but it was impossible to decipher the context.

Besides, the radio broadcast seemed to make Spencer even more agitated, so she turned it off.

She hadn’t found a flashlight, either. There were several books of matches in the kitchen drawer, and at least half-dozen small, scented votive candles scattered around the house. She had collected them all and lined them up on the counter.

“Where’s Beau?” Spencer asked again. “I don’t like this storm. He’s supposed to be back by now, isn’t he?”

“Not yet,” Jordan said, looking at her watch. Even if Beau had left Washington when he said he would—and in decent weather—he still wouldn’t be due out here for another hour or two at least.

“Is something bad going to happen to us?” Spencer asked, watching her face carefully.

She hoped the flickering light would conceal the truth as she feigned shock that he would even consider such a thing, saying, “No! Of course not! Why would you even say a thing like that?”

“Because…”

The little boy hesitated.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Spencer,” Jordan lied. “This big old storm can’t get us.”

He seemed to consider that.

Then he caught her completely off guard, asking, “If the water is rough like it was when we were out on the beach, it means a pirate can’t sail his pirate ship on it, right?”

“Oh, Spencer…”

She fumbled for words. What could she say?

That there was no such thing as pirates? That wouldn’t cut it anymore. Not now that she knew that his eye-patch-wearing nemesis might be made of flesh and blood.

“Tell me about the pirate, Spencer. Where did you first see him?”

The little boy was silent, looking down at the pillow on his lap. For a moment she thought he was going to evade her question.

Then he began to speak, his voice low and quivering, his eyes glued to the pillow. “I saw him when my mom and I were getting out of the car at home one day.”

“How long ago?”

“I dunno.”

No, he wouldn’t know. Spencer was too young to have any sense of time. He had told her earlier today that his mother had been gone for months. It probably seemed like that to him. It even felt that way to Jordan.

“What did the pirate do?”

“He just came up to us and started talking to my mom. He was waiting for us or something. He didn’t have a ship. But I still knew he was a pirate.”

“Because he looked like one, right? He had a black eye patch like a pirate, didn’t he, Spencer?”

The little boy nodded. “He said something bad to my mom. He made her cry.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

“Some of it. He said my mom had to tell my dad something about his job. To stop doing something.” Spencer’s voice trembled. “And he said that if my dad didn’t stop doing it, the pirate was going to hurt me and my mom.”

A tide of nausea coursed through Jordan. She tried to imagine what Phoebe must have felt, coming face to face with some kind of thug—and a threat against her own life, and her child’s.

“What happened then?” she asked Spencer, as though he were giving her a blow-by-blow of a play
date. She didn’t want him to know how crucial this information was, and she certainly didn’t want him to perceive any kind of peril, or that the pirate still lurked somewhere.

“Then he told my mom she’d better not tell anyone what he said. And he left.” Spencer was looking at Jordan now, his guard down, his expression earnest. “And we went inside, and my mom told me to go into my room. And I went, but I still heard her on the phone with my dad. She told him to come home from work right away.”

“Did he?”

“Uh-uh. My dad gets really busy at work. Sometimes he can’t come home at all.”

Jordan nodded, hating Reno Averill with all her heart. Clearly, his profession had placed his family in jeopardy.

“My mom and dad had a big fight when my dad did come home, though,” Spencer volunteered. “I woke up and heard them. My mom wascrying.”

Oh, Phoebe …

“What were they saying?” Jordan managed to ask.

“I couldn’t really hear. All I know is that the next day, my mom brought me to your house. When is she coming back, Jordan? You don’t think the pirate did something bad to her, do you?”

Now was the time.

Now was the time to tell him the truth.

Jordan had been prepared to do it before, but then the lights went out.

Now she stared at the child’s worried, frightened face, and she knew she couldn’t do it. Not here. Not now. Not with a storm raging outside and Beau still gone.

“Jordan… ?” Spencer prodded. “Did the pirate get my mom?”

“Spencer, you said yourself that the pirate can’t sail his ship on rough seas, remember?”

“Yeah, but maybe the seas aren’t rough in Philadelphia.”

Jordan cleared her throat unsuccessfully. It was still clogged with emotion when she said, “Right now, I think seas are pretty rough everywhere, sweetie.”

Beau’s body was trembling from head to toe as he sat behind the controls of the small twin-engine plane.

A plane.

Hell.

He hadn’t set foot on a plane since the accident.

Hadn’t even been near a plane, for Christ’s sake. What was he doing here?

His stomach was roiling. He had eaten nothing all day since that stale muffin, which had long since dissolved in all the acrid coffee he’d poured down his throat in an effort to cope with the day’s demands.

Could he actually fly this thing?

Of course he could. He could fly any plane. He’d been an expert at this, once.

All he had to do was start up the engines, radio the tower, and wait for the go-ahead.

Beau shook his head in amazement at what had transpired back there in the terminal. Most people couldn’t walk into an airport off the street and find themselves in a charter plane within the space of an hour. Even after a lifetime of opening doors with his wallet and the Somerville name, Beau was sometimes stunned at the extent of what money and connections could buy.

All it had taken was an astronomical sum of money—
a sum he could easily afford—a few well-placed phone calls, and here he was.

Rain pattered against the windows.

Wind buffeted the wings.

Yet miraculously, they had given him the okay to fly this plane out of here.

Beau started the engines. As the plane rumbled to life around him, he closed his eyes, struggling to calm himself.

It was going to be okay.

He could do this.

He could.

Even the charter people thought he could.

But they didn’t know where he was really headed.

He had filed a northwest flight plan, away from the storm—not dead into the center of it.

Once he was up, he’d head for the coast. He’d get as close as he could to Jordan and Spencer—preferably all the way to Dare County Regional Airport.

That was the plan.

But if he had to land on the mainland and find some other way to the Outer Banks, he was prepared to do that.

After all, it wouldn’t be helping Jordan and Spencer if he got himself killed.

He took a deep breath.

Then another.

He looked out the window at the storm, remembering what the weather had been like that long-ago day.

Something like this weather.

You’re a fool to try this, Beau Somerville.

But that flight was different.

His wife and his son had put their lives in his hands.

This time, the only life in his hands was his own.

No, that wasn’t true.

Jordan and Spencer were counting on him. They were alone in the beach house with no means of escape, a hurricane closing in, and God knew what else.