Chapter Seven
Five months earlier
The first tornado touched down between the county lines. It triggered one of the two sirens in Seven Roads to blare. Rose barely heard the commotion. She was with Doc Ernest in the hospital, looking at the good doctor’s phone alongside Doc-Ernest-in-training, Lily.
“I knew they said the weather was going to get bad, but I didn’t think we’d get tornadoes on top of flash flooding,” Lily said to her mother. Doc Ernest simply shrugged.
“We had a hurricane hit us all the way here a few years back and no one predicted that would rock us like it did,” she pointed out. “Like people, in the end predicting weather seems to come down to fate.”
Rose, standing between them in plain clothes, didn’t know about the fate part but she agreed that being caught off guard by the difference in a weather forecast and the actual weather that showed up wasn’t so rare.
The severity had been slightly jarring, though. If she had known it would turn out like this, she would have spent her off time at home and not taken the drive out across the county.
Rose snaked her hand around to Doc Ernest’s phone and turned the volume up. She had known the woman since they were toddlers—she’d actually babysat the college-age Lily back when the girl was small. That wasn’t all that uncommon for the career locals of Seven Roads. They were born together, grew up together and aged together. They also attended all the big events together, whether they wanted to or not. Price had once called it trauma bonding. Sometimes, Rose didn’t disagree.
“It sounds like this tornado is heading away from here and town. Also—given the debris tracker…” Rose tilted her head a little as the meteorologist tracked the radar live. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s messing up any houses or businesses. That’s mostly field and trees up until County Road 72. Hopefully it winds down before it gets to the roads.”
Doc Ernest and Mini Doc Ernest nodded in agreement. They had each been through a tornado or two before. There was no reason to panic until therewasa reason to panic.
“I still bet your sheriff is getting a call or two,” the older woman told Rose. “That flooding is probably washing out Mrs. Glenn’s driveway and front lawn. That, plus the sirens, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t already sounded her own alarms. That woman could be sitting dry and safe and she’s still going to call for one of McCoy County’s finest to come keep her company.”
“That’s only because her no-good son up and left her alone after he skipped town with his mistress,” Lilypointed out. “I’d be calling for company too if I was her.”
Her mother gave her the side-eye.
“Gossip doesn’t become you, Miss Ernest. Not even the juicy kind.”
Lily disagreed and the two devolved into a mother-daughter bickering. Rose took the opportunity to step away. She considered calling the sheriff to see if he did in fact need some help before Price’s ID popped up on the phone instead.
“Hey, Wildcard, are you at home relaxing?” Price said in lieu of a greeting. He was obviously outside. The wind tore through his speakers. Rose pulled the phone away from her ear a little.
“No, I came out to eat with Doc Ernest for lunch at the—”
“Are you at the hospital?” he interrupted, volume going up a few notches.
Rose nodded to no one.
“Yeah. I got here before the weather went wonky. Why?”
“This is fate, I tell you what,” Price said. “We got a call for help from those Camden people and, wouldn’t you know it, they’re outside of the hospital’s new research annex.”
There was that talk of fate again. Though the coincidence was there. The research annex was on the back end of the hospital’s lot, a quick drive on a service road away from where she was now.
It was surprising to Rose that the “Camden people”—the staff running the drug trials for Camden Pharmaceuticals—were asking for help. The researchannex had received all kinds of grants and funding to become a gem-in-the-wild, top-notch building. The staff inside had been rumored to have all glowing résumés too.
Price, however, was quick to explain the reason why the building’s integrity didn’t matter.
“Those workers are all from up North and none of them know how to handle tornado weather,” he continued. “So, instead of hunkering down, they panicked when they heard the first of the sirens start up. They tried to take their shuttle up to the hospital. Now it sounds like they got stranded on the road that runs between the annex and the county.”
Rose gave a silent wave to the doc and her daughter and headed for the elevators.
“Are there any injuries?”
Rose could bring help to them if needed, but Price told her no.
“Nope, but there are eleven of them. And it sounds like they’re panicking. The bus blew a tire and that put them snug in a ditch. We had a car headed that way, but the flooding is slowing us down. I called on the off chance you were wild enough to be driving around in this weather. And look at this, you’re now definitely the one closest to them. Is your badge on you?”
Rose confirmed it was in her car. When she was buckled inside a minute later, she threw the lanyard it was on around her neck.
