“We’re closed, lady,” said a grizzled man from the corner shadows.
“No party?” Mira’s teeth wanted to chatter. “Why not? The storm’s over.”
“Lady, don’t you know what’s going on?”
Mira shook her head.
He got off his bar stool and walked over to her. Big mistake. She could smell a week’s worth of sweat, tequila, and tacos. “It’s the eye now. We’re right in the middle of the eye of the storm.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not from around here. Not a Conch. But I knew that.” He sneered and looked over at her Louis Vuitton purse.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why don’t you just tell me?” She wanted to actually pull out her gun and give him the second surprise of his day. Shooting people could become a habit, a bad habit. Worse than shopping too much.
“You see, the storm will seem for a while like it’s stopped. But don’t let it fool you. It’s like a woman who’s in a fury. It can’t stop. It’ll swirl around and around. Lull you into thinking it’s not deadly. Then when you least expect it… One thing I learned is, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, except maybe a hurricane. If you ask me, they should go back to namin’ them all after women.”
Mira didn’t wait to hear the rest. She hurried back outside and, gunning her Mercedes, broke every speed law in the books in getting back to the house.
The eerie calm was worse than anything she had ever felt. The waters had risen higher. She wondered when the storm hit again, when the eye passed, would the house withstand the winds? She got out of the car into ankle-deep water.
The sky had turned a gunmetal gray. Her skin crawled as the barometric pressure began to drop. The eye of the storm was passing, taking with it any false sense of security.
Off to her left she could see two police cruisers, lights flashing as if they were at the gates of hell. They had tried to approach the house from another direction, where the water was higher, and were stalled or stymied by the depth of the flood. Another police vehicle was approaching cautiously behind one that was stalled. Her rescuers attempting to reach her?
She knew they didn’t have a chance to get to her before the killing storm, and a chill of fear passed through her. The feeling intensified as she saw that the police were otherwise occupied. They hadn’t come for her. Instead they were looking down at a figure in a wetsuit washed up near the deteriorating shoreline. Was it Rob? Mira squinted, staring. A bushy mustache caught her gaze as they flipped the figure onto its side. Pedro the pool boy?
As if on cue, the sky continued to darken and a seagull appeared out of nowhere. Dive-bombing, it headed for Mira’s hair as if it were a nest. She’d heard that the seabirds could go crazy when there was a hurricane, especially the gulls. There was a screaming sound and Mira couldn’t tell if it was the bird or herself.
Then she became aware of another noise, not the screaming of a gull but a strange mechanical beating sound, and all at once a helicopter appeared. It maneuvered until it was directly overhead. The pilot was looking down and pointing at her.
She’d been seen!
She was saved!
She waved at the chopper frantically. The helicopter dipped, steadied, and a cable with a safety hitch was thrust down at her.
“Any others?” A man barked down to her through a small yellow bullhorn.
Mira knew when to seize opportunity.
“My husband,” she yelled. “Oh, God, I warned him not to take the boat out! He’s not a very good swimmer!”
The man with the bullhorn nodded to let her know he’d understood.
Jagged lightning rent the sky and the pilot looked away worriedly. The lightning hit again and again. The copter lurched and a female face peered down at Mira.
The blonde from the surveillance videos!
Mira remembered L. S. Crum’s report: Grad student… Marine biology… Did a lot of diving together… Coast Guard Reserve…
Did a lot of diving together!
Over the beat of the thrashing helicopter blades, she didn’t hear the gull’s scream this time. With its sharp beak, the bird was rushing at her again, right at Mira’s eyes.
The last thing she saw before she closed them was a familiar face next to the blonde’s in the open ’copter doorway. It was a face that did not regret its own er’s sins of omission nor his sins of commission. It was the face of a most unworthy sinner.
It was Rob’s face. And if he had been close, she would have seen herself reflected in his eyes.
JOHN LUTZ is the author of more than forty novels and 250 short stories and articles. He is a past president of both Mystery Writers of America and Private Eye Writers of America. Among his awards are the MWA Edgar, the PWA Shamus, The Trophee 813 Award for best mystery short-story collection translated into the French language, the PWA Life Achievement Award, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Golden Derringer Lifetime Achievement Award. His SWF Seeks Same was made into the hit movie Single White Female, and his The Ex was made into the HBO original movie of the same title, for which he co-authored the screenplay. His latest book is the suspense novel Urge To Kill.
LISE S. BAKER is a licensed private investigator and a member of the World Association of Detectives. She has been nominated nine years in a row for California Investigator of the Year by CALI (California Association of Licensed Investigators). Her award-winning novel The Loser’s Club was inspired by John Lutz’s fictional detective, Fred Carver. Collaborating with Lutz on the short story “Eye of the Storm” is a dream come true for this writer/detective.
Currently, Detective Baker is working on a murder case for the Northern California Innocence Project. This is in addition to running her agency, L.S. Baker Investigations, which specializes in fraud investigations.
The Dead Club by Michael Palmer and Daniel James Palmer
I’ve always loved Vegas. And not just in a “I love going there” kind of way, which I do. It’s really much more than that. Vegas is like a second home to me. In the same way some people turn all warm and tingly inside when they stroll into, say, a knitting shop, that’s how I feel as soon as I take my first footsteps onto the blood-red carpeting of a Vegas casino.
I’m home.
Funny thing is, I’m a doctor, a general practitioner, and a darn good one. So you’d think after seeing my fair share of emphysema cases and a battalion of concerned parents whose teenage kids have just started lighting up, that I’d despise the cigarette smoke that clings to the ceiling and the table felt. But you’d be wrong. I love it, despite having quit the nasty habit to win a bet some twenty years ago.
And who says gambling can be dangerous to your health?
The sounds of chips plinking against one another are like birdsongs to me. I love watching the waitresses work the room-the ones destined to seduce some high roller and those still strutting their stuff, despite being as well-worn as flea market furniture. I love the unending sea of lights and the symphony of the slots, praising the winners with their bells and chimes, while goading the losers into pointlessly dropping more down the hatch. But what I love most about Vegas is winning money and that’s something I’ve always been very good at doing.
Now, Lee Anne, she’s my wife, might be quick to disagree with that last claim, but she tends to focus on the negative. See, as any real gambler knows, you’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet and that means the losses with the wins. What Lee Anne can’t seem to grasp is that even with the expected dry spells over the years, if you add it all up, I’ve won more money than I’ve lost, which is more than most players could honestly claim.