Heart Echoes (2 page)

Chapter 2

River Adams gazed up at the rafters of the garage ceiling. If it had been The Big One, he would be buried under those beams instead of under a mountain of blue plastic storage tubs.

Teal.
Where was she? “Please, Lord.”

A sharp pain shot through his right side. It had the familiar as-long-as-I-don't-breathe-I'm-fine tug of a broken rib.

Many of the tubs were full of books. Or rather had been full of books before crashing on top of him. The entire set of Anne of Green Gables hardbacks lay scattered about. They belonged to Maiya, his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, a childhood collection she could not bear to part with.

Oh, God.
Teal's panic would be sky high. Maiya would be laughing.
Whoa, dude! Five point nine at least.

They would be . . . if they were okay.

River refused to follow that line of thinking. His girls had to be okay. In the five years since he had met them, they had become the center of his universe. Teal was the epitome of femininity with her big gray eyes, bouncy personality, and short black hair framing a heart-shaped face. Maiya called him Riv and seemed more his than Teal's in some ways. Her easygoing attitude did not come from her mother, nor her goofy sense of humor.

And the most amazing part of all? They adored him.

He needed to reach his girls.

Taking shallow breaths, River pushed aside what he could from his upper body. The majority of the tubs pinned his legs against the concrete floor. From their weight, he suspected they contained Teal's law books and files. She had put them here when he moved into her house, to make space for his teaching materials in the bedroom she used as an office.

He broke out in a cold sweat and lay still.

“I'd say we're pushing a seven, Maiya. Epicenter . . . really close.”

It was the worst he'd experienced in his forty-two years, all lived in the Los Angeles area.

Just before the earthquake struck, he had carried a trash bag out to the garage and put it in the can at the far end. As he walked back toward the door that led into the house, the world started its belly dance. There was nothing in the attached single-car garage to duck under or hold on to. He covered his head with his arms and made a dash for the house.

The dash ended abruptly. The bins struck him, a cannonball shot at close range and full force.
Whoosh
, straight out from the wall where they were stacked. He went down, flat on his back.

Slowly, River pushed aside books and felt for the phone attached to his waistband.

It wasn't there.

He scanned the floor and saw it.

Under the corner of a bin.

Crushed.

He struggled to break free of the trap, his side screaming for him to stop moving, to stop breathing.

They have to be okay! They have to! You owe me, God! You owe me this one!

Chapter 3

Crouched as far as possible under the dashboard, Teal sensed an unearthly stillness.

She had seen the bridge go down. The crushing of people and vehicles and concrete and signs and light poles was finished. The world paused for a moment of silence.

She shuddered and gulped for air. “Oh, God. Oh, God. This isn't happening. This can't be happening.”

She tried not to do the math, but it nagged for attention. Under the bridge, five lanes eastbound, five lanes westbound. On the bridge, two lanes northbound, two lanes southbound. Traffic at a standstill beneath meant one vehicle per lane times the number that fit under the shadow of the bridge, plus the moving traffic atop it that had not stopped before it gave way. . . .

Inconceivable.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later and she would have been under it.

A cacophony erupted. Screams pierced the quiet. Doors opened and slammed. Sirens wailed. Voices rose and fell, a confusion of noise.

Teal struggled up from the floor and out from under the steering wheel, brushing grit from her shins and straightening her skirt. Where was her phone? It must have fallen.

She rummaged under the seat. “It has to be here. It has to be here! Oh, God, please let them be safe. Please let them be safe.” She chattered nonstop. Her heart still pounded; her body still trembled.

“Please oh please oh please.” She touched the phone, pulled it out, and sat up.

The scene through the windshield came into focus and smacked her breath away.

Half of the overpass was gone.

Vehicles lay on top of it willy-nilly like toy cars abandoned in a playroom.

Underneath it . . .

Incomprehensible.

She could see people everywhere across the freeway, outside their cars, west- and eastbound lanes, on the shoulders, on the median between oleander bushes. They cried, shouted, hugged. Some raced toward the collapsed bridge. Others ran away from it. Some sat on the pavement, faces buried in their hands.

The hot summer sun beat down from a clear blue sky as if nothing had happened.

Teal turned from it all and hit speed dial for Maiya. Her fifteen-year-old always carried her cell phone. Answering it guaranteed she got to keep it.

There was no ring.

Teal stared at the phone. The No Service symbol stared back at her.

“Oh, God.”

Her arms ached to hold her baby. Her body ached to be held by River. A hollowness enveloped her.
They have to be safe. They have to.

She looked at the scene before her.

They might not be. They truly might not be.

No. They were all right. River and Maiya could take care of themselves. He was probably still at home, in the solid 1925 bungalow she had bought ten years before at a rock-bottom price from a grateful client. The neighborhood was flat, not teetering on the edge of a bluff, not at the foot of some boulder-strewn hillside.

Maiya was at her best friend Amber Price's. She had worked last night. Then Amber's mom had picked her up and taken the girls to a late movie. Shauna and JT Price were as solid as Teal's house. If Teal weren't married to River, she'd write them into her will as Maiya's guardians.

Teal yanked the hem of her powder-blue silk blouse from the skirt waistband and used it to wipe away streaked mascara. There was nothing she could do to reach her family. Absolutely nothing she could do to contact River, Maiya, friends, or coworkers.

But she wasn't alone. No one on that freeway could reach their loved ones.

“Time to put on your big-girl pants, Morgan.” The phrase was her old mantra, a survival technique from her early days as single mom Teal Morgan working on a law degree, depending on strangers and mere acquaintances to help.

A banging on her passenger window made her jump. The scrunched face from the car next to hers peered through it. “Are you all right?” he shouted.

She nodded, took the key from the ignition, climbed out, and spotted the attaché in the backseat. Her laptop inside of it would roast. She got back in, cracked open the sunroof, got out, and wondered about looters. Day off or heyday? The car beeped as she hit the locks.

At her left sat two vacant cars. Their occupants could have been any of the countless people standing or roaming about. Behind her, two businessmen stood beside an SUV, removing ties, rolling up sleeves. She walked forward, toward the minivan from Iowa. Those people must be going crazy. Her pumps clicked on the pavement. She should get the sneakers out of the trunk. Maybe later. If she had to hoof it home.

Yes, later. There would be a later. There would be an end to this horrific moment.

Her steps slowed at the surreal scene before her. It was like being on the set of some B movie, a disaster film with obviously fake props and far too many actors.

She reached the van and gasped. On its hood sat a chunk of concrete the size of a desk. A spiderweb of cracks covered the windshield.

Teal leaned inside, through the open side door. A woman sat in the front passenger seat; three kids under the age of ten sat in the back. All four were quiet and wide eyed.

“Hey.” She gave them a small smile. “Welcome to LA. You okay? I mean, basically overall okay?”

The woman shook her head and then nodded. A butterfly bandage was on her forehead beneath short blonde curls, fresh blood seeping at its edges. She wore her seat belt. “Yes. No.”

Teal nodded. “Me too.” She eyed the kids, two boys in the center seats and a girl in the far back. They wore swimsuits. “The good news is the beach will still be there tomorrow.”

The tallest, a boy, said, “What about a tsunami?”

Teal swallowed. “No worries. The earthquake would have to start underwater, out at sea. I bet this one came from close by. Inland. No big waves.”

“What about aftershocks?”

“You're a regular walking encyclopedia.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

She hoped it was a smile and not a precursor to bawling. “Most likely there will be an aftershock. Or a few.” As in countless? For days on end? Weeks even? “All the ones I've experienced are smaller than the initial quake. But we still need to duck, cover, and hold on to something sturdy when we feel one.”

“Outdoors?”

“Uh, no. Then we just stay away from everything that might fall.” She winced. There wasn't anything left to fall except the other side of the overpass.

The little blonde in the back said, “Our daddy is a doctor. He fixed Mommy's head. Now he's fixing that man.” She pointed over Teal's shoulder. “I'm a 'cycopedia too.”

“Yes, you are.” Teal glanced behind her and saw a man wearing a floral shirt, shorts, and a stethoscope.

The woman said, “He noticed an elderly man in that car and thought he might need some attention.”

“That's wonderful. How did you get hurt?”

“My window was down. Something . . . flew . . . in.” Her hands fluttered. Teal imagined that under normal circumstances, her skin glowed with Midwest peaches and cream.

“Do you want to get out of the van?”

“Is it safe?”

“I don't know, but maybe safer than that windshield.” She blew out a breath. “What we need to do is get out of here. I wonder if . . . Oh.” She felt the telltale rumble. “Here it comes. Hold on to your zingiezangers!”

The kids hit the deck before she did. The woman screamed. Teal hopped onto the seat the oldest boy had vacated, bent double, and covered her head. Nobody asked what a zingiezanger was.

Evidently it didn't matter. They understood, just as her daughter had understood as a toddler. The word probably explained why Maiya still laughed at earthquakes.

The neighbor woman who had cared for Maiya while Teal went to school and worked taught the nonsensical word to her. She used it to warn Maiya about loud noises, running in the rain, zipping down slides, swinging high, uncontrollable giggling, and earthquakes.
Hold on to your zingiezangers!

Teal ached. She needed to hold on to her family.

The chaos escalated.

Helicopters hovered and whirred and whomped. An amplified voice boomed down from one of them with repetitive, indecipherable messages. Emergency vehicles crept along the freeway shoulders on both sides of the median, moving toward the overpass. Their discordant sirens and flashing lights were nerve-racking.

A slice of America—every age, race, and culture—roamed between parked vehicles. Some people looked like aimless zombies with blank expressions; others sobbed uncontrollably.

Teal did her own haphazard wandering, her breath in ragged spurts, her prayers repetitive one-liners.
Keep them safe. Keep them safe. Help us. Help us.
Her body refused to stop trembling. Walking on pavement she regularly traversed in her car but never set foot on added an eeriness to the entire scenario.

The worst damage within her vicinity was to the van from Iowa; the worst injury, the woman's cut forehead. A quarter of a mile ahead was impossible to comprehend. There would not be enough emergency personnel to help everyone in this one area alone. How extensively had the city been hit?

She and her new best friends hatched an exit plan. The three children and their mother, Carole Swanson, would ride with Teal. Dr. Swanson and the old man with chest pains would ride with Ron, the breath holder, and Joe, a truck driver parked behind him. There was nothing to be done with the out-of-commission minivan. The old man's car would have to stay put. The semi would not be budging for a long, long time.

Behind them a domino effect had begun. In the distance vehicles crept back and forth, back and forth, making tight one-eighty turns. Little by little they inched forward, allowing other drivers to start the turn. A line of traffic snaked toward an exit Teal had passed, perhaps half a mile back, hours ago.

It would take a while before they would have space to turn around. In the meantime, Dr. Swanson from Iowa opened his family's picnic basket and coolers and distributed food and water to the Californians who had not stocked their own cars on the off chance a quake would strike and leave them stranded on a hot summer's day.

Teal drank from her bottle of water because she was sweating and hoped she wouldn't have to get in line at the nearby RV, whose owners had opened their bathroom to the world. She helped the Swansons transfer their things to her trunk and fielded the eldest boy's questions about landslides, seismographs, and fires caused by damaged electrical and gas lines.

It wasn't the most encouraging topic of conversation, but it beat crawling onto her backseat and passing the time in a fetal position.