Page 82 of Desperate Creed

“Hey, yourself,” Jason told him, and in those two words Creed could hear the mixture of fear and relief.

“Here she is,” the woman said.

Creed looked around just in time to see Dr. Avelyn deposit Grace at his side. Penelope Clemence was standing behind her. He gently pulled Grace to him. She was wet and shaking, but wagging.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he told the veterinarian.

“I’m never sure what that means,” Dr. Avelyn said. She squatted down next to him.

“It means I’m glad to see you. You too, Penelope.”

“Well then, right back at you,” Dr. Avelyn told him. “Truthfully Ryder, you look like hell.”

He laughed, but pain stopped him cold.

Her fingers unsnapped the chinstrap, and she removed his helmet. A wave of fresh air swirled around him.

He groaned and rolled onto his side.

He was still trying to catch his breath when Jason said, “I don’t think we’ll be able to keep this one a secret from Hannah.”

59

Birmingham, Alabama

Willis asked Mia to stay on the air while he juggled all the information coming in at a rapid-fire pace. Everyone including anchors, producers and staff was helping, taking phone calls, downloading livestream video and recording damage reports while Willis tried to map out tornadoes on the ground. At last count there were five. Paul would barely hand Mia a new set of warnings and Willis would give him more.

And in the middle of this, Beth kept calling and texting him.

Willis had asked Paul to leave one of the monitors on the live video feed the station had set up at the scene, showing the damaged restaurant. His eyes skimmed over it every time he looked from the radar screens to the other monitors sending views from their other city cams. Some of those had already been knocked out by the previous storms, but a couple of them still showed black, churning clouds filling the viewfinders.

“We have a report of a hotel being hit,” Paul said as he came in the door to the weather desk. For the last half hour Paul’s voice had taken on a high pitch, the sudden inflection of urgency a bit nerve-racking to Willis.

“Which tornado?”

“It’s making its way up I-65. Just south of where the one hit earlier.”

Willis twisted around to a radar screen and pulled up the area.

“It looks like it’s following the same path,” Willis said and he could feel the acid in his stomach from too much coffee.

His eyes flicked to the video feed watching over the restaurant debris. He almost missed the curl of smoke then he saw the flames.

“What’s going on there?” He pointed.

“Oh yeah, the news desk had a report of arson.”

“Arson?”

“Suspicious activity. There was a HAZMAT team before the storms made them leave the area. All those blue barrels.”

Willis stood. The monitor was one in a row, up above and bracketed to the wall. He came in close, his head tilted up. Dozens of barrels were scattered around the site. They must have fallen out of the trailer.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.

If the contents were flammable the whole place could go up in flames any second. Suddenly, he knew why Beth was texting and calling. She and the others must already smell the smoke.

He started to search for his cell phone when his eyes caught something else on the monitor. In the sky above the battered restaurant he could see a shadow slinking into view. A dark column was already emerging out of the gray mass.