Mystery-Suspense
Date Published: Apr 27, 2021
Publisher: Milford House Press, Inc.
A former Fish & Wildlife Officer conducts an off-the-book investigation when a murder appears to have a connection to her deceased nephew, just as a hurricane hits her Florida beach town.
Kate
found a battery-operated Coleman lantern discarded on the kitchen floor and
flipped it on. It lit up the room, and she carried it upstairs, where Elise sat
alone in Noah’s bedroom.
“I
want to be alone,” Elise said, sitting in the rocker.
Kate
didn’t respond, listening to the rain and wind pummel the house. The walls
creaked so eerily in the gale-force winds that she wondered if they could
collapse around them. Stuffed animals above the bed trembled. Her pet squirrel,
Doc, raised up on her shoulder, swishing his bushy tail. The lantern cast a
pale glow around the bedroom. With the windows boarded up, any area outside the
lantern light was lost in thick, inky blackness. Though she couldn’t see the
lightning, she could hear the angry thunder compete with the rain beating the
roof.
The
bookcase rattled, keeping her on edge. She glanced at Elise, huddled in the
rocking chair. Her sister wrapped the afghan tighter over her shoulders and
locked her arms around her knees.
The
walls trembled with another thunderclap, shaking the bookcase, and knocked the
worn copy of Where the Darkness Hides
to the floor. Kate jumped at the loud thump. Doc jumped too and leaped to the
floor to investigate. She raised the lantern and looked around the room. Many
of the stuffed animals had fallen onto the small bed. A model airplane dangled
from the ceiling, swaying violently from the turbulence. A toy box sat
positioned under the window.
Letting
out a breath, she shut her eyes and focused on the rain thumping the roof. It
intensified, then quieted. The sound was hypnotic, and she didn’t even hear
Doogie enter the bedroom. He shined a flashlight in her direction and paused in
the doorway.
“Sebastian
made landfall”—his voice rose above another loud boom of thunder—“south of
Sarasota.”
Kate
couldn’t see him behind the blinding light in his hands, and when he lowered the
flashlight, it still took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She sensed him
stepping beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doc dash across the
floor toward him.
“We’ve
just got to make it through the night.” He walked over to the rocking chair and
put a hand on Elise’s shoulder.
Doc
followed, cautiously investigating the cuff of his right pant leg.
“It’s
about to get worse,” Kate said.
A
corner of Elise’s mouth turned upward, but her smile was without humor. She
turned to Doogie. “Why didn’t you sell her to gypsies or leave her in the woods
somewhere?”
The
wind howled at the window, and a sudden gust ripped the plywood from the
casing. The glass shattered. Wind and rain blew into the room.
Elise
screamed. The rocker overturned, spilling her to the floor. Kate and Doogie
rushed to the bed, flipped the mattress off it, and forced it to the open
window. They fought the incoming wind. The force bent the mattress, folded it
like a sheet of paper, and pushed them back. Doogie shoved the mattress against
the window and held it there. He yelled at Kate to
move the bookcase. She got to one side of it and scooted it across the carpet
to the front of the mattress.
The
mattress shuddered in front of the broken window. The wind squealed and
screamed like a dying thing. Kate and Doogie were silent for a couple of
minutes, staring at each other.
“It’s
not going to hold,” Kate yelled to him over the wind.
“We
need to go downstairs.” He pointed toward the bedroom door. “It’s not safe in here.”
Elise
turned the rocker right side up and sat down. “I’m not leaving Noah’s room.”
Doogie
stepped to her, knelt beside the rocker. “C’mon, kid. It’s not safe.”
Kate
watched her sister look up at him.
“I’m
not leaving.” Gripping the edges of the afghan and pulling it taut against her
back, she sank deeper into the cradle of the rocking chair. Her voice sounded
raspy and tired, and a clap of thunder tapped her willpower.
The
wind grew louder. It sounded like a howling wolf for a second and then a train.
The roar became deafening. Debris hit the house. The roof rattled and banged.
Kate
looked up.
Doogie
moved the box spring and bedframe to the window, struggling to position them
against the mattress. He looked back at Kate.
Elise
picked up the weathered copy of Where the Darkness Hides from the floor.
With the soft lantern light illuminating her face, she set the book in her lap
and opened the cover.
Doogie
looked puzzled. “We don’t have time for this.”
Elise
read out loud, raising her voice over the shrieking wind.
“We
don’t have time for this,” Doogie yelled. He turned to Kate. “Do something.”
Kate
listened to the roar of the wind. Something massive hit the side of the house.
The impact was loud and shook the walls. What could she do? If their number was
up, she couldn't possibly do anything to prevent it. And at least they'd be
going as a family, together. She dropped to the floor, next to Elise. Doc
scurried to her, his tail raised high, and hopped onto her thigh. He stood on
his hind legs and pawed at Kate with his single arm.
Thunder
rocked the house, and Elise stopped reading. She turned toward the bedroom
door. Doc let out a series of warning chirps and clicks. Kate heard it too. A
pounding that seemed separate from the rain beating the exterior of the house. BAM! BAM! BAM! Intense. Determined. It
sounded different from the wind.
It
was coming from downstairs.
The
hairs on the back of Kate’s neck rose. Another BAM! BAM! BAM! She definitely didn’t imagine it. She turned to
Doogie. His eyes widened.
“That’s
the front door,” he said. “Someone’s at the door.”
About the Author
JC Gatlin is a Mystery Suspense author living in Tampa, Florida. He self-published three mystery novels, including 21 DARES--which topped Amazon's Mystery-Suspense chart in 2016. Milford House Press published his next mystery, H_NGM_N: MURDER IS THE WORD, and it won the Royal Palm Literary Award for Best Mystery-Crime Fiction in 2019. His new mystery, Darkness Hides, is scheduled for release on April 27, 2021.
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