The Family Plot (35 page)

“We
have
to get him to the truck! We have to try. It's only water.”

“It's a swamp out there,” Brad argued, “and it's getting worse.” He rubbed at his upper arms to loosen them up, or warm them.

Dahlia refused to accept it. “Gabe, what if I get your legs—and the guys get your head and chest?”

Gabe's pupils were huge with the dim, wet light, and with abject agony. He answered her with a question. “What do you weigh, Dahl? A buck thirty?”

“I'm stronger than I look, and the trucks are only on the far side of the stone pillars.”

“Only?” Brad squeaked.

“You got any better ideas?” she snapped.

He snapped back, “No, I don't!”

“Then we can't stay here,” she insisted. “The ambulance will meet us at the road.”

Bobby held up his hands, signaling an idea—for good or ill. “Wait, what if I go first and flag it down? Maybe they have a wheelchair, and they can come get him…”

“You think they could get a wheelchair through this mess?” Brad asked, half incredulous, and half hopeful.

Dahlia squinted out through the rain. Another flash of lightning showed the ruts that they'd been using for a driveway. There was gravel under that water, and she could see the grass and stones peeking through. “No, but they'll have a stretcher, or a backboard, or something—and extra hands to help. If they ever get here.”

Brad ran his hands through his hair, smearing it back from his forehead. “They can't just
not come
. It's 911. That's not how it works.”

She handed him the lantern. “The whole county is in an uproar, and we're in the queue. That's all they would promise. Bobby? Go ahead and make a run for it. You can wave them down and it'll save us time, if they're having trouble finding the place. The cop knew where we are, but God only knows about the EMTs. You got your phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Go get a Ziploc bag for it. If your cell gets waterlogged, it won't do you any good.” Dahlia went back and pushed the front door open with her foot, then bobbed her head toward the kitchen. “You'll find some baggies in the blue cooler.”

While Bobby ran inside, Dahlia and Brad did their best to make Gabe comfortable, not that it was really possible anymore. At best, they could prop him up against the side of the house, make sure he wasn't sitting on any rocks or acorns, and put a couple of bags under his feet. He said it felt a little better. Dahlia couldn't imagine how it made a difference, and wondered if he was only saying so because everyone was trying so hard to help. It would be just like him, to say whatever he thought would make people happy.

Bobby emerged with his cell phone sealed in a clear plastic bag. He crammed it into his back pocket. “All right, I'm out of here.”

“Don't you want an umbrella?” Brad asked.

He said no with a jerk of his chin. “It won't do much to keep me dry, and it'll slow me down, to boot.”

“Call us when you get to the truck,” Dahlia begged. “Even if there's no ambulance, call and let us know you got there okay.”

He nodded, zipped his jacket up, and popped his collar. He jammed his favorite trucker hat on his head, hunkered down, and dashed down the stairs, and out into the rain.

Bobby didn't exactly vanish into the storm. His retreating silhouette shuffled back and forth as he sprinted around the deeper puddles, over the mounds of monkey grass, and past the rivulets that were turning into gullies before their eyes. He was still visible, if Dahlia squinted, until he rounded the bend that would lead to the gravel ruts and the stone pillars and then the road—where the trucks were parked off to the side. As she watched the yard fill with water and runoff from the mountain behind them, she silently thanked God that they'd moved the trucks before it got this bad. The guys had been right. The vehicles would've been stuck up to their axles by now.

Brad wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. “Now what?”

“Now we wait, and see what Bobby says when he gets there.”

“Dahlia?” Gabe asked from his reclined position beside the steps.

“Yes, baby? How you doing? Hanging in there?”

“Yeah, but … do you have any … I don't know. Tylenol or something? We have a regular old first-aid kit, right?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yes, we do. But the kit's all packed up, so I'm not sure where it is right now. Let me pull my purse out from under your foot, and I'll give you some of my own.” She always kept a little pouch full of tampons, Band-Aids, antibiotic cream, and generic painkillers on hand.

Gently, she raised his less-battered ankle and retrieved her bag, then fished around until she'd located a white bottle of pills. The label said to take two at a time, but the label wasn't talking about anyone Gabe's size, and in Gabe's kind of pain. She dumped four into her palm and handed them over.

“Can I have … something to … swallow them with?” His words were coming softer, and weren't stringing together very tightly. Either the pain was wearing him out, or this was what shock looked like. Dahlia didn't really know. Like she'd told the cop on the phone, she wasn't a nurse. She couldn't tell the difference between shock and exhaustion, or internal injuries and ordinary terror.

She badly wanted a drink. Gabe could probably use one, too. She didn't know if it'd help or hurt in the long run, but in the short run a swig of booze would make everyone feel better. “Gabe, I'll get you the last of the bourbon, would you like that?”

“I would seriously love you forever,” he promised.

“You were gonna love me forever anyway, but I'll be right back. Whatever's left ought to be in my duffel, if your daddy didn't help himself while I wasn't looking. Brad, keep an eye on him?”

“Sure.”

Gabe made an effort to smile. “I'm not going anyplace.”

“You're also not passing out, falling over, or making any inappropriate effort to rise and shine, do you hear me?” She said this to both of them. Then to Brad, “Don't let him overexert himself.”

The guys nodded, and she ducked back inside the house, leaving the door open behind her.

But even with the rain drumming into the clogged gutters and weathered shingles, it was quieter inside the house, and quieter still once she got past the foyer into the main living area, where they'd all slept the night before. The bags were all rolled up, and the crew's personal effects were packed and ready to go—ready for someone to load them up, in the event that the rain ever stopped, and the trucks were ever able to come up close to the house again.

Or, failing that, when her dad arrived with the Bobcat.

The Bobcat wasn't exactly an ATV, but it had a lot of power, and if the water went down a little, the machine could make the journey back and forth between the house and the road. It'd be faster and easier than playing two-legged pack mule, even if it did burn a lot of gas, take extra time, and piss off her dad. He was going to be pissed off enough as it was, unless Abigail put in an appearance and sufficiently scared him half to death—and then maybe he'd have a little sympathy for his beleaguered crew.

She halfway wanted him to see her. It didn't make her feel good, but there it was. She wanted him to
know.

Now where the hell was the bourbon?

She fished around in her duffel bag, but she'd accidentally lied to Gabe, because it wasn't in there after all. She moved on to Bobby's stuff. No, wait. Last time she saw the bottle, it'd been in the kitchen. Brad had probably packed it up while he was getting the galley in order. Isn't that where she'd seen it last? She couldn't remember. There was too much to remember, and too much going on. And it was getting really, truly dark.

Out of reflex, she flicked the light switch. She knew it wouldn't work, because the power was out in half the county, right? So she wasn't surprised when nothing happened—she just felt dumb for giving it a go in the first place.

“Stupid,” she muttered. “But I
do
need a light.”

One of the lanterns had been abandoned on a mid-level built-in shelf. She grabbed it and twisted the knob to turn it on. It hurt her eyes, even though she hadn't cranked it all the way up. She looked away, and let her eyes adjust. It still wasn't completely black inside, and the lantern didn't make it all the way bright. It hardly made any difference at all, except to sharpen the shadows, and color them blue and white.

The never-ending dusk lingered, and stretched, and stalled, while the sun dropped behind the mountain.

Dahlia's phone rang.

“Bobby, give me good news.”

“I made it to the trucks alive, is that good enough for you?” His voice echoed thickly in the narrow, closed space of the cab, and the rain was a background buzz. “No ambulance, though. I keep hearing sirens, but nothing's come close, not yet. All the emergency vehicles are going up or down the mountain, or past it.”

“Shit. So now what do we do? We both know we can't really move Gabe. You bred him too big.”

He halfway laughed. “Yeah, you can make this my fault, if you want.”

“It's nobody's fault.” She sighed.

His fault.

The words flickered like static through the cell's microphone. Dahlia wasn't even positive she'd heard them. Then she heard the voice again, slashing through the connection.
His fault. You should understand.

Her cousin said something too, but she couldn't catch it. The words were garbled and faint.

“Bobby?” she whispered. She wasn't sure if she was asking for clarification, or making sure he was still there. She
needed
for him to be there, and she was somewhat unreasonably glad that he was still so close, and that he hadn't just driven off into the sunset. Not that he'd do that to Gabe. But would he do it to her? She didn't want to think so.

Bobby might've been a thousand miles away on a tin can, when he replied, “I
said,
I'll hang out here and keep my eyes open!”

“That's all you can do, I guess…”

You were supposed to understand.

“Bobby?” She couldn't hear him anymore, not the hollow timbre of his words inside the truck's cab, and not the low hum of rain on the windshield outside it. She didn't know if he could hear her, either. “Don't leave us here. Don't leave me.”

“I—”

The line went dead, but the cell rang again immediately, right on the heels of Bobby's call. Dahlia checked the display and didn't recognize the number, but it started with 423, so it was local. Maybe that meant that an ambulance was coming after all.

Her fingers shook and her throat was dry, but she pressed the green icon and said, “Hello?”

“Ms. Dutton?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Susan Hardwick with Hamilton County dispatch—I understand you have an emergency on Lookout Mountain?”

The lights flickered. The lights
shouldn't
flicker. There shouldn't be any power.

Dahlia looked around, and up at the chandelier and pendant overhead. She stepped out from underneath the one, and eyed the other warily. “Yes ma'am … that's right. I'm sorry, it's almost right—we're not on the mountain, we're right at the foot, just above Saint Elmo.”

“Do you have any power?”

She eyeballed the lights, which shuddered, but remained dark this time. The lantern in her free hand swayed back and forth, and the old house's bones swayed with it. “No, no power. We have a young man with a badly broken leg—maybe two of them.”

“Have you been able to move him?”

“No ma'am. He's a big boy, and we're just about flooded in. We'll need a stretcher … or an ATV gurney, if you've got anything like that.”

“Lord, but I wish there were any such thing,” Susan said heavily.

I could
make
you understand.

Dahlia was cold, but she was sweating through her clothes. Her flannel was tacky against her skin, and her palm was so slick she had to squeeze the phone to keep from dropping it. “What about search and rescue?”

“They're occupied for the moment. Now, let me explain the situation, Ms. Dutton: There's a tree down across Ochs Highway, and that's why your power's out. The highway's out too, for now. Nothing coming, nothing going.”

“But there are other ways to get to the house, right?”

“If you're talking about Alabama Avenue, you're half right. I know the house you're working at,” Susan said. “I saw the note on the report. We used to tell stories about it, back when I was a kid. It's a bad place…” She paused, recognizing that she'd gone off script. “So believe me, I understand why you want to be away from it.”

“So what do you mean, I'm half right about Alabama?”

I could show you.

“There's storm damage that way, too. We got half a dozen reports of a tornado down toward the Georgia end of that street—and cleanup crews will be slow in coming. Right now, it's not clear when we'll be able to reach you with an ambulance. We have someone on the way, but that neighborhood's a game of chutes and ladders, except with downed trees and power lines.”

“There's
actually
a tornado?”

“Weather Service hasn't confirmed, but—”

“But someone's on the way, that's what you said?”

The sound of Susan's reply retreated into the distance, until it was barely a muffled patter of syllables. Did the lights flicker again, or was it lightning? Dahlia looked from window to window, but if there was light outside, it matched the reflections cast by her lantern, resulting in a bleak zero sum.

Her phone drooped away from her ear. She would have pressed the disconnect button, but the dropped call beep told her it wasn't necessary. Slowly, she tucked it into her back pocket. Carefully, she took a step toward the front door.