governor has declared—”
Leslie tuned out the rest of the weather report. Summer storms often brought
high winds and torrential rain, but they usually weren’t sustained for more than
an hour or two. But an off-season variant of a clipper could last twenty-four
hours or more and might dump a foot of rain. She thought about Dev in a tent on
an island that was likely to be buffeted by gale-force winds and ? ooded by high
waves. She stared at the phone, and as if she had willed it, it vibrated. She
snatched it up.
“Hello?”
“Dev says she’s ? ne. Not to worry.”
“Bullshit. Of course she isn’t ? ne!” Leslie ? icked on the turn signal so
vehemently the lever nearly snapped off. “I’m exiting now and I’ll be home in
twenty minutes. What did Natalie say?”
“I could only reach the of? cer on the desk. They’re all out evacuating campers
from the islands.”
“Tell him you want to speak to Natalie Evans. Tell him it’s an emergency. Tell
him if you don’t speak to her, I’m going to have someone’s ass.” Leslie gunned
the truck onto Route 9 and fought with the wheel as it skidded on the wet
pavement. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just call them back.” Leslie clutched the phone and switched the
wipers to high as rain battered the windshield. Her chest tightened and out of the
blue, the ? uttering started. She blinked as a wave of dizziness swept through
her and she shook her head angrily to dispel it. “I don’t have time for this.”
To her relief, the brief episode passed and her vision cleared. She concentrated
on what needed to be done. If her mother didn’t reach Natalie, her choices
were few. In fact, there was only one choice.
The parking lot was empty, as were the grounds, as Leslie roared into the lot.
She jumped out and sprinted through the steady rain to the lodge. The wind had
picked up, and she noticed that most of the leaves had turned over, their
bottoms to the sky. It was a sure sign that the barometric pressure was falling
and a big storm was on its way. Eileen met her at the door.
• 146 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
“Did you reach Natalie?” Leslie gasped.
Eileen shook her head. “The ranger in the of? ce promised to get a message to
her. She knows Dev is out there, Leslie. She’ll get her.”
“Natalie’s going to be lucky to get all the campers out of the campsites. And she
has to do that ? rst. She has to. Besides, she knows that Dev is better equipped
than anyone else to ride out the storm, so she’ll leave her till last.” Leslie hurried
to the small of? ce beyond the dining room and snatched up the two-way.
“Dev? Dev, do you read me?”
“Leslie…hear you.”
Even through the static, the sound of Dev’s voice instantly quieted her racing
heart. “Hey you. I’ll be there in an hour. Everything okay?”
“Don’t …co…ere. D…you read…on’t… Les…”
“An hour, Devon. See you then.” Leslie switched off and turned to ? nd her
father watching from his wheelchair in the doorway. Hastily, she bent down and
kissed his cheek. “Hi, Daddy. Welcome home. I’m sorry, I have to go right
back out.”
“Your mother told me about your friend.” Paul Harris backed his wheelchair up
to allow Leslie room to pass. “It’ll be rough out there on the water, sweetheart.”
“Good thing you taught me how to handle the boat, then,” Leslie called on the
run.
“Check your gear before you head out,” he shouted after her.
“I will. Don’t worry.” Leslie pulled her mother’s rain slicker off a coat tree just
inside the back door and slammed out. Pulling it on, she hurried down to the
docks. There wasn’t much of a margin before the storm really broke, but she
calculated there would be just enough time to get there and back. She jumped
into the boat and did a quick check in the storage lockers for the critical items—
battery-powered searchlights, the GPS transmitter, an in? atable life raft, and
PFDs. She shrugged into a life vest and zipped it up, then released the tie lines
and pushed the boat away from the dock. As she turned the key in the ignition
and revved the motor, she thought grimly of backwash and the effect of the
propellers on the sediment in the shallows. Right now, that seemed far less
important than reaching Devon. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single thing that
felt more critical.
She hunched her shoulders against the driving wind, narrowed her eyes in the
pelting rain, and thrust the throttle to the max. The boat leapt forward, the big
motor whining as the bow crashed heavily in the
• 147 •
RADCLY fFE
troughs between the waves. Her teeth knocked together painfully, and she
clenched her jaws and spread her legs to steady herself, keeping a death grip on
the wheel. She didn’t think about the impending storm or the rising chop. She
thought about Dev. This time, she had no intention of leaving Dev to face danger
alone.
• 148 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Leslie! Leslie, do you read?” Dev held the two-way close to her ear with one
hand and dragged her tarp over the equipment cases she had piled in a rocky
cul-de-sac near her campsite with the other. She waited a full minute for a
response, then jammed the radio into the front pocket of her anorak. “God
damn it.”
Rain drummed steadily against the leaves overhead, but the canopy was not yet
saturated and only a slow drizzle was getting through to her. The wind had
picked up, though, and it wouldn’t be long before the rain penetrated the last
remaining barrier between her and the angry sky. She piled rocks around the
edges of the tarp and hastily trenched it as well as she could with the small
folding shovel she’d packed with her camping gear. Then she trenched her tent
and pounded extra stakes with additional guidelines into the ? rmest ground she
could ? nd. Thunder rolled and a sheet of rain sliced through the trees, hitting
her in the back of the neck, immediately soaking her shirt.
She couldn’t even be bothered to swear, but just pulled her hood over her head.
After checking one more time to see that everything was as secure as she could
make it, she skidded down the narrow path to the shore, following the trail
through the trees she’d created by her daily trek to the lake. By the time Dev
reached the shore, the wind buffeted her body and she needed to lean forward
