“Dear Lord, thank goodness.” She glanced at the opening in the roof as Al told Frank the police and fire departments were on their way, then turned back to Tess and Andy. “Why don’t you gather your things and come over to our house? I’m not sure what the police and fire department can do right now, but you can’t stay here tonight.”
“I—I don’t?—”
Al went out the rear kitchen door to survey the damage from the patio, while Frank joined the rest of them, still standing in the hallway. He interrupted what Tess was about to say. “Amelia’s right, Tess. Both of you grab a bag of clothes and things for the morning. You can get anything else you need tomorrow. Al said the fire department will make sure the gas and electrical lines aren’t damaged, then cover up the hole with tarps for the night. The building inspector will have to look things over in the morning, along with your insurance company. Then we’ll get the guys from the neighborhood over here with chainsaws. Once the tree isout, we’ll help you recover anything salvageable in there.”
Tess was still in shock and didn’t move as tears filled her eyes. Many sentimental items were in the damaged room—photos of their parents, a beautiful quilt their mother had made, memorabilia from family vacations when the siblings were younger, their dad’s leather-bound collection of classics, and much more.
Her brother put his arm around her shoulder. “C’mon, sis. It’ll be okay. Let’s grab our things.” At that moment, he sounded older than his sixteen years—as if he sensed she was seconds away from falling apart and needed his support.
Silently, Tess let her brother lead her back toward their bedrooms. Not for the first time that day, she wondered how much more bad luck, tragedy, and worry over Andy and everything else she could take before she had a nervous breakdown.
“Holy cow! Are they okay?” Brian asked Patty the next morning at the coroner’s office as she explained the dreadful reason for Tess’s absence after he and Rafe arrived for the autopsies on yesterday’s fatal car accident victims. Due to the amount of drugs recovered at the scene, the SBI had taken over the entire case. The suspect was high as a kite at the time, so three counts of vehicular homicide would be added to the charges.
“Yes, thank goodness. It came down in the family room, and they were both sleeping in their bedrooms on the other side of the house when it happened. When I spoke to her about an hour ago, the building inspector had just arrived, and the insurance company was sending someone out. The fire department covered the opening with tarps last night to keep any more rain from getting in and flooding the other rooms. That poor girl. She’s been through so much these past few years.” She shook her head sadly. “But, she’s strong—I’ll give her that. She and Andy will get through this too. I just wish I had room in my condo for them to stay with me, but it’s only a one-bedroom.”
Rafe frowned. “Where are they going to stay?”
“I don’t know. Right now, they’re at a neighbor’s house, but from what she told me, the Red Cross will find them a place. I’m sure it’ll be weeks before the insurance money comes through and longer than that for the damage to be repaired.”
Brian felt awful—Tess needed this like a fish needed feet. He wished there was some way he could help her and Andy. He was about to ask Patty if she knew of anything he could do for them when an idea popped into his head. Pulling out his cell phone, he told Rafe he’d meet him in the autopsy suite in a few minutes and then stepped out into the lobby. Hitting a speed-dial button, he waited for the call to be answered.
“Hey, Brian. Didn’t expect to hear from you thisearly. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Uncle Dan. I’m fine, but a friend of mine is in a jam.” He filled his uncle in on what had happened to Tess’s house. “They’re going to need a place to stay for a while, and the Red Cross usually puts people up in motel rooms. I was hoping you’d be okay with me inviting them to stay at the beach house for a few weeks until the damage can be fixed.”
Uncle Dan was famous in Whisper for aiding anyone in need. In fact, that was how Moriah and KC had met. Dan had run into Moriah as she looked at flyers for rooms to rent. The man had a keen sense of when someone needed a helping hand and offered her the beach house to rent, dirt cheap. He just hadn’t told KC about that before the eldest Malone brother arrived home while on leave from the Navy for a few weeks. The unlikely house guests eventually fell in love, despite Moriah being on the run from some bad dudes who were now in prison.
“I’m fine with that, but KC, Moriah, and Megan will be down tomorrow through Sunday.” While the home’s bedrooms were large enough, there were only two of them. When the three brothers moved in after their parents died, Sean and Brian shared one of the downstairs bedrooms, each with a bed, while KC took the only finished room upstairs. It was tight, but they made it work. A year later, when KC left to join the Navy, Brian claimed the futon he’d left behind, but when he moved out, the upstairs space gradually turned into little more than storage over time.
Now, a queen-sized bed occupied the downstairs guest room. The second floor was still mostly unfinished—just that one room and a walk-in attic that had never been fully converted. With the Malone family growing, Dan had started thinking it was time to do it right—turn thespace into real bedrooms and bathrooms, rather than the patchwork setup they’d lived with for years.
He paced the lobby. “That’s okay. Maybe Tess and her brother can stay with their neighbors or some friends until then.”
“Works for me. Let me know if she needs anything that I can order through the store. I’ll give it to her at cost.”
“Will do. Talk to you soon.” Disconnecting the call, he opened the door to the hallway that led to the autopsy suites and steeled himself against the gruesome sight awaiting him.
After getting the preliminary causes of death for the accident victims and a brief meeting with the assistant district attorney assigned to the case, Brian and Rafe got Tess’s address from Patty and drove there. Normally, the M.E.’s clerk wouldn’t have given out an employee’s personal information, but the two agents could’ve easily gotten it. Besides, she knew they just wanted to do what they could to help Tess.
Brian was surprised to learn the address was in Camden, since he lived in a condo on the other side of the same Elizabeth City suburb. He parked the department-issued vehicle by the curb, climbed out, and surveyed the scene. Yellow “Caution!” tape was stretched between trees and shrubs around the house. That and the edges of a blue tarp tied down near the peak of the roof were the only indications from the street that anything hadhappened.
He followed Rafe around the right side of the house and whistled loudly when he caught his first glimpse of the major damage the fallen tree had caused. A gigantic hole gaped where the back wall of what appeared to be a family room used to be. The heavy tarp covered most of the opening, but part of it had been pulled back, probably for the building inspector and the insurance agent. Brian shook his head in disbelief. “Holy shit! Thank God no one was hurt.”
They’d heard on the radio earlier that someone at the other end of Dare County hadn’t been as fortunate last night. A tree crushed a double-wide trailer, killing the two people living in it—a mother and her adult daughter. The fierce storm damaged several other homes and a few businesses, but no other fatalities had been reported so far.
Rafe ducked his head under a large tree limb and peered through the mess into the house. “Looks like Tess got a little lucky, though. I think the damage is confined to this one room.”
“It is—ninety percent of it really.” The two agents turned to see Tess and a man carrying a clipboard walking toward them. It was the latter who’d spoken. “I’m Marc Simpson, the building inspector.” He gestured toward the fallen tree. “A little to the left, and it would’ve landed right on top of the gas line and probably caused an explosion.”
Tess winced and paled at the implication, and Brian wanted to smack the idiot across the head forpointing out she and her brother could’ve been killed. He wished he could erase the despair in her eyes and the dark circles beneath them. Patty had been right. What Tess had gone through over the past few years would’ve broken some people, but she kept bouncing back, ready to take on the world again. While she was devastated by the damage to her home, he sensed she would rebuild and come out stronger. She seemed like the type of person who, when life handed her lemons, didn’t settle for lemonade but instead made a lemon meringue pie.
“Are you okay, Tess?” Brian asked.
Instead of answering, she narrowed her eyes and responded with a question of her own. “What are you two doing here?”
“Patty Flynn told us what happened, and we wanted to make sure you and your brother were okay.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Unharmed? Yes. Okay? Ask me again when the shock finally wears off. I was sitting on the couch in there for two hours before going to bed last night. If I hadn’t finished the book I was reading and decided to turn in early, I would’ve been...” Letting the sentence hang, she shivered and wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek.
