“Know any other short cuts?” she shouted as they ran.
He veered toward another alley that led up to the street where the clinic was located. Elena could hear the car behind them, but she didn’t look back to see where it was going. She ran harder. Something about that guy was creepy. She’d have to warn her mother about him. She held tight to Miguel’s hand and ran for the safety of the clinic.
Dominic breathed another great sigh of relief, the second of the day, when he saw Elena and Miguel.
“You look like drowned cats,” he said. “Are you okay? Don’t you know when to get in out of the rain?” He said it with a smile, but he was half serious. People already were suffering injuries from flying objects and falling debris. Like the middle-aged lady before him whose kitchen ceiling had fallen on her. He was carefully cleaning the cuts on her face.
Elena and Miguel looked at each other and giggled.
“I guess we do look a sight, but we’re fine,” she said. “The storm is moving in fast though.”
“Towels are over there.” He indicated with his head a shelf with small white towels. Elena grabbed two and helped Miguel rub his face and hair.
“How are things going?” she asked, patting her face and arms with the towel.
“Getting worse. The land line phone service is out. We still have electricity.”
“I forgot about water and flash lights and all that stuff. I’m going to doña Carolita’s to take her to the Marina Copan. That is if I can pry her out of her house.”
“Elena.” He looked over at her as he cleaned and applied medication to cuts on the woman’s arm. “I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you stay with Miguel and me at my place? Bring doña Carolita there, too. We’ll at least be able to prepare food on the gas stove. I have water and flashlights and batteries and blankets and all those things that you don’t have right now.”
She studied him, like she was considering the offer. She looked down at Miguel who stood in a puddle of water.
“I think you should come with us,” said Miguel.
“Okay, it’s a deal,” she finally said. “I’ll go for doña Carolita and get my stuff before it gets any worse.”
“Let me finish with this lady, and I’ll drive you.”
When Elena started to protest, he held up his hand. “No, I insist. You aren’t running around on foot in this storm.”
He helped the lady down from the table and gave her instructions and tablets in a bottle that he placed in her hand.
“Un million de gracias,” said the woman, and she shuffled out.
Dominic told Corazón where he was going and hustled his charges into the Jeep. Rain was blowing sideways as they crept down the street toward doña Carolita’s.
“Ever been in a hurricane before?” Dominic asked Elena.
“No, have you?”
“Yes, I got caught in Hurricane Andrew down in south Florida. That’s the first and last one I ever want to be in.”
“I guess you’re not going to get your wish. This one looks bad. I have great respect for Mother Nature so I never want to tempt her. But circumstances have dictated otherwise for both of us, hasn’t it?”
“You can say that again.”
Elena looked in the back seat to make sure Miguel was okay. “How you doing?” she asked him, smiling. But the smile died on her face.
“Oh, no,” she said and turned around and slid down in the seat.
“Do you see that yellow car following us with only one headlight?” she asked Dominic.
He looked in the rear view mirror. “Yes, he’s been behind us since the clinic. Why?”
“That’s this weird guy that I met this morning at breakfast with my mother. She picked him up at the hotel, and he says that he’s an art dealer. He wanted to give us a ride. Something about him I don’t like.”
Dominic looked in the mirror again. “I could try to lose him but I hesitate to go any faster in this rain. I’ll go by the Marina Copan and stop out front. Maybe he’ll think you’re visiting your mother.”
He whipped up the next street until they were in front of the Hotel Marina Copan, off the central plaza. Their pursuer turned off to the left before the hotel.
“He turned off,” said Dominic.
“That’s a relief. While we’re here, I’ll run in and tell my mother where I’ll be.”
She got out of the Jeep and ran around the front into the lobby. Dominic watched the street and sidewalks for signs of the man in the car, but he saw none. Elena was back in five minutes.
“She doesn’t like it but she’s resigned to not having me with her. Right now she’s alone in her room. I warned her about that jerk, Jorge, and she said she’d be careful.”
Dominic’s internal radar was humming. Someone taking an interest in Elena with the questionable deaths unresolved made his anxiety level hit a new high. He drove a circuitous route to doña Carolita’s up through the barrio San Pedrito where Armando lived. The houses were on a hill, and the wind was worse. Debris flew about unchecked. A piece of tin glanced off the windshield of the Jeep, and they all ducked. Armando was hunkered down in front of his shack, protected from the wind by the others that crowded on all sides.
Dominic stopped and shouted to be heard above the wind. “Are you okay?”
“We’re okay, go on. Take care.”
Dominic continued on, creeping down the hill that lead to the lower town and doña Carolita’s house.
“No one’s following us,” he said, after checking in the rear view mirror.
Elena looked back. “Good. That guy really gives me the creeps.”
“Me, too.”
They pulled up in front of doña Carolita’s. It looked as if no one was home. Elena pulled out her keys.
“I’ll pop in and try to entice her to come with us.”
Dominic nodded and left the engine running. He looked in the sack Elena had left on the front seat and saw the clothes.
He turned to Miguel in the back seat. “Looks like you got new clothes.”
“And a soccer ball.” He held up the ball.
“Nice. When the storm is over, we’ll have to practice.”
“Will you play with me?”
“Sure, although I’m not very good.”
Elena was not long in returning. She had donned dry shorts and top and her hair was gathered up under her field hat. She stowed her computer and back pack in the back seat with Miguel.
“Where’s doña Carolita?” asked Dominic.
“She left a note that she went to stay with her mother during the storm. That’s good because her mother lives with her other daughter and her husband, so there’ll be more people there to help each other. That’s a load off my mind. She advised me to stay with my mother at the hotel.”
“Is her house secure? I see she boarded the windows.”
“I think so. She’s got the back of the house all closed up, too. But bad news — the electricity is out.”
“Not good. At least the clinic has a generator.”
Dominic maneuvered the Jeep through an obstacle course back to the clinic and parked in front. Most of the people had left. An American volunteer from the Episcopal mission, wearing a Red Cross arm band, was trying to get the generator up and running.
Dominic walked over to help. He checked the equipment over. It was out of gas. No one had bothered to fill the tank. He’d have to go down the street to the service station. With any luck they’d still be open. He could only hope they had a generator.
He’d take Elena and Miguel with him since he didn’t want to let them out of his sight. He was worried about the strange guy interested in Elena. Maybe they would be better off with her mother. He could drop them off at the hotel but the strange guy might be staying there. He could take Elena and Miguel to his house to ride out the storm, but then they’d be there by themselves since he might have to leave.