Storm Track

the police or would she try to call him again?

Neither, he realized as she headed out of town toward Cotton Grove. Dobbs’s rush hour was nothing compared to Raleigh’s, but he was able to keep one or two cars back as they drove westward.

Stupid bitch.

* * *

The weather station’s announcer was going crazy with excitement as Fran appeared to draw a bead on the Carolinas. Stan dutifully noted the huge storm’s position—it was something to do to pass the time—but his head wasn’t into his science project this evening.

Not with Mama missing.

It wasn’t unusual to come home and find her not there.

It was unusual to get a call from Lashanda’s Brownie leader asking if Mrs. Freeman had forgotten to pick her up.

If it hadn’t been raining so hard, he’d have ridden his bicycle over to get her himself. As it was, he’d called his dad.

“I’m on my way, son, but how about you phone over to Sister Edwards’s house and see if Mama’s there?”

“Sorry, honey,” Miss Rosa had said. “I haven’t talked to her since this morning.”

He remembered Mrs. Thomas’s grocery list and called there, but with no better results. By the time Dad’s car rolled into the yard with Lashanda, Stan was starting to get worried.

Now it was heading for dark and still no news of Mama.

As word spread through their church, the phone rang frequently, all with the same soft questions: “Sister Clara home yet? Well now, don’t you children fret. I’m sure she’ll turn up just fine.”

When Lashanda’s best friend, Angela Herbert, arrived with her mother shortly before seven, Stan had protested. “We don’t need a babysitter. I’m almost twelve years old, Dad. I can take care of Lashanda.”

“I know you can, son, but your sister’s only seven and having a friend here will make it easier on her.”

“Then let me come with you,” he’d pleaded.

“It would help me more to know you’re here answering the phone in case Mama calls,” his father said.

Unhappily, Stan watched his father leave through the rain. He sure hoped Mama was somewhere safe and dry.

* * *

When the junker car pulled into the yard of a shabby little house at the end of the road, he realized that this was where he’d seen the driver of the Honda Civic drop someone off yesterday morning.

It was instantly clear to him that he’d made a colossal mistake, but instead of remorse, he felt only anger at the woman who was now entering this house without a backward glance. How could he have known? Not his fault that two different women were both driving the same car.

The road curved behind a thick clump of sassafras and wild cherry trees and he pulled his car up close to them, trusting to twilight, the rain and the house’s isolation to help him.

Inside, he saw the woman sawing at his packet with a paring knife. The screen door was hooked, but he put his fist right through the rusted mesh and flipped up the hook.

Rosa Edwards turned with a start and screamed as he burst into the room. She held the puny little knife before her, but he backhanded her so hard that the knife went flying and she fell heavily against the table.

He hit her again and blood gushed from her split lips.

“You better not!” she whimpered, scrabbling across the floor as she tried to get away. “I wrote it down. Somebody’s got the paper, too!”

“Who?” he snarled and kicked her hard in the stomach.

“I don’t get it back, she’ll read it!” Her words came raggedly as she gasped for air. “She’ll know you the one done it.”

Enraged, he grabbed her by the hair and half-lifted her from the floor as he punched her in the face again. “Who, you bitch? Who you give it to?”

“I ain’t telling!” she sobbed.

“Oh yes, you will! Yes, you damn well will.”

Still holding her by the hair, he dragged her over to the kitchen counter and started opening drawers till he found a butcher knife.

“You tell me where that paper is or I’m gonna start cutting off fingers, one finger at a time, and then I’m gonna work on your tits. You hear me?”

Desperately, she struggled against him, but he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her so viciously that she heard the bone snap.

CHAPTER | 12

The twisting tornado is confined to a narrow track and it has no long-drawn-out horrors. Its climax is reached in a moment. The hurricane, however, grows and grows.

It was nearly five before I adjourned court on Wednesday after hearing a silly case that took longer than any of the combatants (and I use the term advisedly) expected. Reid Stephenson was representing a young man who seemed to think he could race his motorcycle engine in front of his ex-girlfriend’s house in the middle of the night as