The Rescuer (35 page)

The wind whipped around and smoke blanketed the street. He choked and raised his arm to breathe through his sleeve. The inferno inside the jewelry store flashed over, and windows in the upper apartment exploded. An interior wal col apsed. Stephen tried to get near the building but was forced back by officers.

The volunteer firemen began to arrive.

Anyone inside that building was dead.

Kate wrapped her arm around him. "She's not in there."

"You don't know that."

"We have to believe it." She tugged at his arm. "Come on; let's go. We'l leave the ring at the bench and wait for the cal ."

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Don't leave me here," Meghan pleaded against being abandoned. As much as she wanted to be away from Jonathan, she didn't want it happening like this. The cues from the trip, how long the car ride was, the road surfaces, nothing gave her a clue for where she was.

She couldn't hear traffic or the sounds of town life. Just the whistle of the wind and the intense crack of thunder.

"Sit down."

Her hand felt a quilt and the edge of a bed; she touched an old iron headboard.

"The place just smel s musty from lack of use. It's dry and there are no bugs or mice. The refrigerator is stil running; you can hear its hum. There are plenty of sodas stil in it, and there are peanut butter and tubes of crackers on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Craig used this place al the time."

"Where are we? Please, I need to know."

"You are safer if you don't know, if you simply stay here.

Don't try to get yourself home, Meghan. On a night like this you'l break your neck in those woods. When I have the ring and am away from here, I'l let them know where you are." He walked away. The fury of the storm whipped inside when he opened the door. "I'm sorry about this."

"If you were sorry about it, you wouldn't be doing this."

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The door closed. Meghan sat frozen, listening to the unknown stil ness around her. She drew her feet up on the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. The shaking started and then the tears. Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?

She tasted blood as she bit her lower lip. Gulping air, she forced herself to calm down. Jesus... She rubbed her arms to try and stop the shaking. Jonathan was gone. Stfe was alone, but she was okay.

Kate was somewhere in Silverton. Stephen must have cal ed his family for help as soon as he realized she wasn't in the truck. They'd find her. Stephen wouldn't stop searching until he found her.

She had to get up and explore this place. If there was power for a refrigerator then someone was paying utility bil s. There might be a phone. Stephen and her parents had to be nearly frantic by now. She cautiously moved a foot down to the floor. A wind gust rattled a plane of glass so hard it sounded as if it cracked.

"Did he take the ring or not?" Stephen demanded, feeling every minute past midnight tick by as an eternity "The briefcase and ring were left as ordered.

Why hasn't he taken it and cal ed?"

Dave focused his binoculars out the open driver's side window. "I can't tel if the case is stil there or not. The rain is too heavy to see with night vision goggles any better than straight binoculars. Kate?"

"Nothing."

Dave picked up the radio. "Tom, do you see anything?"

"Negative."

Stephen leaned across from the backseat, peering into the rain. "One of us needs to go down there to see if he already took the case and left us sitting here without a lead on Meghan."

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Kate squeezed his hand. "We wait."

Stephen leaned his head down against the front seat.

Five hours. Meghan had been missing close to five hours. Jesus, I can't stand this wait. Where is she? He was trying hard to trust God to be a faithful friend and help him. It wasn't easy.

The phone rang and Kate grabbed it. "Yes, this is Kate."

She dropped the phone and grabbed the radio. "Tom, she's at the old mil house! Where is that?"

"The northeast side of town, near the old water tower."

"We'l go. You've got this scene. Don't move in to check that bench until we know for sure we have Meghan."

"Roger."

Dave put the car in reverse, leaving the headlights off until he had slowly moved away from their lookout spot.

Then he turned around, switched on the headlights, and put his foot down on the gas. Kate scrambled to search the map.

"Okay. Go east at this next interchange," Kate pointed out.

"What exactly did he say?" Stephen asked.

"Just the location and he hung up. There wasn't enough for me to be able to recognize the voice."

The car hit a pothole and Kate shifted uncomfortably.

Stephen put his hand down on her shoulder, silently sympathizing with the discomfort she was in.

"When we get there, you and Dave go on ahead and rescue her. Just don't rush forward until you have a feel for what the situation is."

"We'l be careful," Stephen promised. Meghan, we're coming. Just hold on.

The radio broke in for a weather update. A tornado watch and flash flood warning were added to the severe storm warning. Meghan hated storms. And without Blackie available to help her... They had to find her soon.

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OBBO

"There it is!" Stephen spotted the old water tower first.

"The gravel road has to be just ahead."

Dave slowed the car. The car rocked in the powerful wind gusts. Stephen strained to look through the darkness and rain. There were few visual clues to mark the area-no homes, few side roads. The sheriff described the old mm house as a one- room hunting lodge rarely used by its owners.

Kate pointed. "On your left. There's the private drive."

It was narrow gravel and disappeared into the trees.

Dave turned down the road. "How far back in these woods do you guess it is?"

"A hunting lodge could be a mile back," Stephen guessed. The road began to head up a steep incline.

"This is far enough, Dave," Kate warned. "Look at the phone poles. Power and phone lines just joined together. It's probably not that far ahead."

"Agreed. From here we walk." Dave pul ed to the side and stopped the car. He turned off the headlights. The howling wind immediately dominated every sound.

Dave tried his phone. "I've stil got a signal. I'l cal you, Kate, and you can drive up once we know what we're dealing with."

Stephen picked up the extra torchlight and the medical kit backpack. He pushed open the door and the wind about ripped the door off its hinges. To the left of the road was an open field and the tal grass was whipping first east and then flattening to the west. Gravel was beginning to stir on the road.

A tree crashed nearby in an explosion of wood.

Stephen had been out in a lot of bad weather but this was scary. "Kate, we need to park the car elsewhere."

A tree would land on her if they left it here.

Kate opened her door. "Take me with you. When we find

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Meghan, we'd best be prepared to hunker down and stay put until this blows over."

Dave looked around and nodded. "I don't like it but yes, come with us. If we drive up to the house, we risk getting shot at. If I leave you here, it may be very hard to get back to you later. I don't want you sitting in a car for the rest of the night. Just stay back when the fun starts."

They set off along the road, Kate walking between them. If the mil house was set back in those trees there were no lights on. The only sign something was there was the road and the power lines. Meghan alone, in a place she didn't know... "I can't believe he just left her out here."

"We'l find her, Stephen," Kate promised.

"I hope she didn't try to get to help on her own."

"She's a wise lady, even when scared to death. She wil sit and wait for us."

Stephen wasn't so sure. If Meghan thought the man might come back, she'd get away while she could.

Stephen felt a sudden updraft. Seconds passed and it did not dissipate. He looked up at the sky hearing a faint rumble of distant thunder and something else. The updraft intensified.

Kate stopped. "What is that?"

Dave shoved his wife toward the open field as a tree ahead of them snapped. "We are not moving to the country!"

Stephen heard it then, the sound of a freight train coming. He grabbed Kate and swung her over the roadside ditch as Dave jumped it. Dave picked Kate up and ran. Stephen spotted the culvert and pushed Dave toward it. They hit the ground as the wind started lifting anything it could. Stephen pushed Kate's head down and prayed the depression was deep enough.

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and felt like swearing when he couldn't get a signal. Then he reached across and grabbed Dave's and had better luck getting through to the sheriff's office.

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"There's a tornado on the ground north of the water tower! Sound the sirens, warn people!"

The noise turned deafening. Trees lifted from the ground. Dave sheltered Kate's body as debris began to rain down. The tornado tore through ahead of them, cutting apart the land. Stephen put his face into the wet earth.

Meghan. Oh, God, please, keep her safe. **

Meghan hit a table hard, bruising her thigh. She pushed the table aside, grabbed the chair and shoved it ahead of her, using it to clear her way. She knew that frightening sound.

The roof groaned above her. It would be ripped away any moment. Under the bed was no protection.

Outside would be worse as trees came down.

Lord, what do I do?

She was a sitting duck.

Her hand touched brick.

A fireplace. She searched frantical y to find out if there was a built-in wood box or something strong and sturdy near this wal of bricks.

The roof peeled up and began breaking apart. Meghan covered her head with one arm as she tried to protect herself. Water cascaded inside. She whimpered and struggled with the only thing she could find. She tipped the heavy couch over and shoved it near the brick wal .

She crawled beneath it for shelter, hoping it was heavy enough it would be buried in the rubble and not lifted away in the wind. Glass exploded.

"Meghan! Where are you?!" Stephen's torchlight lit up a broken bedroom door leaning drunkenly against an oak tree. Curtains wrapped around a fal en tree branch fluttered. The kitchen table

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was twenty yards ahead sitting among the grass as if set up there in a normal place for a meal. Stephen helped Kate over a tree trunk.

Kate's torchlight il uminated a shattered lamp resting ten feet up in a tree. The old mil house was now pieces of wood and brick and furniture strewn on the ground through the trees.

"There!" Dave focused his light ahead of them. The skeleton of the house was stil there-two outside wal s were stil standing and part of the roof tipped in on its side. Stephen released Kate's arm, looked to make sure she was steady, and then surged ahead of her to join Dave.

He picked his way around the foundation of the house.

"Meghan!"

"Is there a basement or a shelter somewhere she would have dove for cover?" Dave asked, his light running across the building remains.

Stephen wedged his light in a crevice. "Dig!" He started tossing drywal and broken furniture away.

Tears tracked down his face. She was in this! A nail on a board pierced his glove and drew blood. He tossed the board away. He climbed over the remains of the refrigerator and with Dave's help shoved it off the debris pile. They needed more help, light, time.

Minutes counted when someone was hurt. Dawn was stil hours away, and he was afraid there would be no extra hands to help them. Destruction marked the path of the tornado as it cut toward town.

Meghan pushed her hand against the fabric of the couch, her head aching, nearly deaf from the noise.

"Here." Someone was out there. She tried to cal and could barely whisper. She tried to get a deeper breath but it made her dizzy. Something was covering the opening she had used when she slipped under the sofa.

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Bricks. Those were bricks. The fireplace had come down over the couch.

She was getting hot. She lifted her head a few inches from the floor and realized her mouth was bleeding again. "Over here." Her hand felt the cool metal of the fire poker near the couch arm. She couldn't lift it, but she could wiggle it. She moved it as much as she could, trying to dislodge what it had sfruck. She heard something fal .

"Meghan!"

The voices were getting louder. She pushed the poker again and realized she could move the bricks. She rested her head back down on the floor and put her energy into moving out bricks.

"She's under here!"

Stephen. She let her head rest back against the floorboard. He'd come. She gulped air around the tears of relief, then she reached a hand toward where she could hear them digging. She waited for her rescuer to reach her.

Stephen tugged his sweater over Meghan's head, turning her into a mummy of wool. "Better?" He wiped at the remaining traces of tears.

"Much." She wrapped her arms around the warmth.

They sat in the shelter of the remaining wal , out of the wind and the tapering-off rain. Stephen checked her pulse again and this time she didn't try to push his hand away. She had a cut on her lip, a few bruises, and he was stil worried about her hearing, but she'd come through this night in better shape than he could have hoped.

He dug through his pockets looking for anything else that might help, or at least bring comfort. He found a piece of gum, not sure how old it was. It wouldn't do her sore jaw any good. He set it aside.

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She laughed weakly. "I wish I'd been able to see the tornado. Ken has been trying to get near one for years and I ended up under one."

"A little too close for my comfort." He ran his finger along her hairline, pushing back her dripping bangs and wishing he had a hat to offer her. "That couch is about the only piece of furniture stil actual y left in the house. We passed the mattress stuck up in a tree and the bed frame wrapped around a snapped telephone pole."