LITMIR.BIZ

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with tears. If Cari had already told her, it no longer mattered. Finding her dead meant that was one decision he wouldn’t have to make.

      He backed away quickly, then stood up, brushing at the mud on his knees as he sidestepped an upturned sofa and more drywall. A few moments later, he found Frank.

      “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, then quickly looked away.

      He found the family dog within moments of finding Frank, but still no Cari. Just as he was beginning to fear that she hadn’t come home after all but was probably already in Bordelaise and talking to the authorities, he saw her.

      It was the dark green, all-weather coat she’d been wearing that caught his eye. From this distance, he could tell she wasn’t moving, but she wasn’t lying in the midst of any debris. What if she was still alive? Could he finish her off and lay the blame on the twister?

      His fingers curled into fists. His belly knotted. This was turning into the worst day of his life. He genuinely cared for all of the Norths, but especially Cari. That his life had come down to this was sickening.

      He took a deep breath and then started forward. His legs were shaking; his vision blurred. Then he saw her face—or what was left of it—and froze. Still a good fifteen yards away, he dropped to his knees again, this time weeping from the relief of knowing he’d just been given a second chance. The only witness to the fact that he’d committed murder was dead.

      After he pulled himself together enough to walk, he stumbled back to his truck and grabbed the cell phone from the seat. He tried to call the parish police but couldn’t get a signal. It occurred to him then that the North property might not be the only scene of disaster.

      Still shaking, he crawled up into the truck seat and started the engine. When he pulled back onto the main road and turned toward Bordelaise to notify the authorities about what he’d found, he had to remind himself that it was grief he would be expressing and not relief.

      Cari drove the thirty miles from the family farm to Baton Rouge on autopilot. She had to stop twice to vomit and guessed she was probably concussed. The blood had dried on her clothes and in her hair, and the palms of her hands were beginning to swell from the splinters under the skin. She could only imagine what she looked like, but she couldn’t let that stop her. Getting to safety, then getting medical attention, was paramount. She wouldn’t let herself think of what she’d left behind—or that the bodies of her loved ones were lying exposed to the elements. They were beyond help and would have been the first to understand. If she was going to save herself, she needed to get well.

      There was money in Susan’s purse on the seat beside her. Inside were her driver’s license, and insurance and credit cards, as well as a card stating her blood type, which they also shared. Cari should be able to get in and out of a hospital emergency room without complications. The fact that her claims would technically be fraudulent was nothing compared to being tracked down and killed to hide a murder.

      When she finally reached the city limits of Baton Rouge, her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold on to the steering wheel. She didn’t see the shocked expressions on the faces of other drivers as they passed her, or of the people at the crosswalks as she stopped for lights. She was too focused on not passing out and keeping the car in the proper lane.

      She glanced up at a street sign as she braked for another red light. The words kept blurring and running together, but if she wasn’t mistaken, the hospital was just a couple of blocks down on her right. She turned on her signal. Just as the light went green, she felt herself fading.

      “God, help me,” she whispered, and jammed the shift into Park just before she passed out.

      “Susan! Susan Blackwell! Can you hear me? Open your eyes, Susan. You’re in a hospital.”

      Cari moaned. Someone was yelling. Didn’t they know enough to speak softer? Her head was killing her.

      She could feel someone taking off her clothes, which didn’t make sense. It wasn’t time for bed.

      “Susan? You’re in a hospital. My name is Dr. Samuels. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

      Images moved through Cari’s mind in disjointed flashes. Something red on the leaves on the forest floor. Wind whipping through the trees. Panic! Why panic? Running. The sky turning dark. Mother screaming. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. They’re gone.

      She felt a hand on her shoulder, then heard a woman’s voice near her ear. “Susan, my name is Amy Niehues. I’m a nurse. Do you hurt anywhere besides your head? How did you get all these splinters in your hands?”

      Cari inhaled slowly. Everything hurt, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around the words long enough to answer before she lost consciousness again. The next time she came to, she was aware enough to realize she was in a hospital. A momentary swell of relief rushed through her. She’d made it. She was safe. On the heels of that emotion came the memory of what had happened. The tornado. Her family. Everyone gone.

      Breath caught in the back of her throat. She would never hear their voices again. Never feel their arms around her. Never laugh with them. Never have her father walk her down the aisle. She might be a grown woman, but she’d just been orphaned.

      Tears welled. A sob burned at the back of her throat. She covered her face with her hands, but the images from the storm were seared into her brain. What started out as a simple sigh of defeat turned into a scream. And once she started screaming, it didn’t feel like she could stop.

      Amy Niehues came running, as did several of her coworkers. Cari’s room quickly filled as they began frantically trying to find the source of her discomfort. They kept asking her if she was in pain. They didn’t know, and Cari couldn’t tell them, that the pain wasn’t fixable. There were no pills or treatments that would make what she was feeling go away. She didn’t notice when Amy shot a sedative into her IV, but in a few minutes she closed her eyes and the room fell silent.

      A doctor stood at the foot of her bed, studying her chart. He looked at her, then over to the nurse beside him.

      “Amy…has anyone been able to locate her parents?”

      “They’ve been dead for several years.”

      “What about extended family?”

      “We’re not sure,” Amy said. “Someone contacted her place of employment, and we’re just waiting for someone to get back to us.”

      The doctor handed the chart back to the nurse, gave Cari one last glance, then left the room.

      Mike Boudreaux was in his office, pacing between the windows and his desk as he spoke to his assistant on the other end of the line.

      “It doesn’t matter, Kelly. You tell them they have the only offer they’re going to get. They can either accept it—and me—or lose it all. I’m not the one who ran that company into the ground, and I’m also not the one who embezzled the entire company retirement fund. I said they could keep all the employees on the present payroll, but…the CEO is out. He didn’t know how to keep his own company safe from the accountant who embezzled all their money and ran with it. What happens to him is the state of Ohio’s problem, but no way in hell am I putting his boss in charge of a company I own.”

      “Yes, boss. I’ll make sure they understand that.”

      “See that you do,” Mike said, then frowned when he heard his housekeeper’s footsteps coming down the hall. She was running, and Songee Wister never ran.

      Songee burst into his office carrying the house phone. He could tell from the look on her face that something was wrong.

      “There’s a nurse asking for you,” she cried, as she thrust it in his hands. “Something has happened to Miss Susan.”

      Mike’s heart sank as he put the phone to his ear. Susan wasn’t just an employee, she was his personal assistant, as well as a very good friend.

      “Hello. This is Mike Boudreaux.”

      “My

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