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CHAPTER 8

He took her with him, back into the booth. Brooke just let him. He kept updating the listeners, every ten minutes like clockwork. Brooke manned the satellite phone that he had argued with her father in order to buy four months ago, making notes of all the damages being reported. Of closed roads, and buildings that were opening for the displaced.

Finally, he put a recorded update on and stood. Stretched. Looked at her.

“What have we learned?”

Brooke blinked back the tears. What she was about to say was going to hurt him. “They…The TSP took a direct hit, Houston. It’s been almost leveled. I called the emergency services line. They are saying there are casualties at the TSP. And…one of the hospital emergency departments was struck. They are reporting injuries as well.”

“Which hospital?” He’d paled before her very eyes.

“I don’t know. I’ve got calls out, but the towers…calls are spotty, at best. I’m sorry.” He had a brother, she thought, who worked for the TSP. And…his younger sister, he’d said once. And his parents both worked at the same hospital. “You want to try to call your family? I’ll watch the clock.”

He stepped outside to do just that.

Brooke looked up, through the window. Dwight was in there. Watching her.

He blew her a kiss. Made an obscene gesture.

Brooke turned away.

Tonight…she’d get through tonight. Then she and her dad would figure out what to do about him next.

Dwight Hoby wasn’t going to destroy her hard-won life now.

She wasn’t going to let him.

She said a quick prayer that Houston’s family was safe. Said a prayer for her father. And for everyone out there tonight. Anyone facing the storm threat.

But…it was just going to get worse out there, before it got better.

And…she couldn’t find her father. She knew he would be trying to get to her. She’d left him a message about Dwight tonight. She knew…

It terrified her. He could be out there in this, worried that she was being hurt. And he would be trying to get to her. She knew that.

But the towers were down. Cell phones weren’t working. He didn’t have a satellite phone. He should have a satellite phone. He could afford it.

Panic was setting in.

It was only going to get worse out there before it got better.