“I’m giving my notice to Wallace tomorrow, and I’ll probably move there before Christmas.”
“Good for you,” Sam muttered. “I like Jim Wallace, but I know how much you hate the job.”
“It’s great money,” Jack admitted.
“That’s because you’re their top earner. You’re too damned stressed out all the time.” Sam heaved a sigh. “It’s time that you did something for you instead of always worrying about us. Mom’s doing well, and Sean is even happy in the Army.”
“I’m glad he never had to go through what we did,” Jack confessed, wiping his face with a hand.
“Me too,” Sam answered softly.
“Sit down. How about a beer?” Jack asked, after laying his luggage on the floor and heading into the kitchen. It was rather warm, so he slid open the patio window before opening the fridge and grabbing a couple beers.
“Thanks,” Sam murmured, as Jack laid the beers on the small kitchen island.
“What are you seeing in the nightmares, Sam?”
“Another man,” Sam answered, grimly.
“I was afraid of that.” Closing his eyes, Jack heaved a sigh. “I was certain there was another man involved too.”
“So, what does it mean?”
After slugging down his beer, Jack’s eyes met Sam’s. “It means if we can somehow come up with a way to handle the memories and nightmares, we might eventually be able to discover the guys who killed Dad.”
Chapter Nine
Janelle and Emma were having a fabulous vacation, and even though Ciara spent a lot of time with Rand, Janelle and Emma were always invited along to tour the island and see the sights.
But by the time Friday arrived, trouble was brewing on Bali. There was talk of tropical storms developing. So far, the forecast left Bali safe from the warning being broadcast as far south as Australia and north as the Philippines.
Janelle and Emma left the hotel early that morning and moved over to Rand’s place for the duration of the storms since it was like a fortress.
When they arrived, Janelle and Emma were introduced to Kerilyntaryn and her husband, Wayan, the Balinese couple who were caretakers of Rand’s property. Apparently, foreigners were actually not allowed to own property in Bali, although it could change in the near future. But proper etiquette required that someone from the island lived and worked with Rand, to uphold island customs.
But Kerilyntaryn was pregnant, and Janelle noticed right away that she was due any day, no matter how much Kerilyntaryn protested that she was not, and Janelle made it her mission to keep a close eye on her. Unfortunately, she’d had some experience with a pregnancy gone wrong.
The next few days provided quite a challenge for Rand and the girls. Due to the deep spirituality of the natives, several families were still ready to leave their fate to the Gods. But Rand managed to convince some of the ex-pat families living near the beach to come and stay until after the storms when he couldn’t convince them to evacuate. Bali was close enough to the moderating effect of the equator to usually miss out on typhoons, tornadoes, and tropical cyclones, but apparently, this time, they wouldn’t be so lucky.
When Wednesday came, so did the type four storm. Silence first, and then an eerie darkness before devastation struck, rolling waves thundering across the walls of Rand’s home, which had been reinforced with steel rebar and concrete when it had been built.
There were two generators for backup power, but only the essential electronics were left to work off the external sources. Rand and Ciara had purchased and stored as much food as possible, intending to ration it out to those who might be left homeless after the storms.
When the first crush of the cyclone blasted through, everyone gathered in the upstairs living room, where an electric heater circulated some warmth through the room. The storm went on for hours, every once in a while drowning out their conversation, or causing someone to jump when it was obvious that something heavy had either fallen onto the house or been ripped and flown through the air outside.
Eventually, the eerie silence returned, and Rand had gone onto his laptop to see if he had a signal so he could check to see how the island was holding up.
Surprisingly, he’d had a signal, which was a sign that the interior of the island was probably still intact. Checking the news, he’d been able to see that indeed there had been a lot of devastation in the southern portion of Bali, including Nusa Dua.
Rand’s cell phone suddenly rang, and he pursed his lips and answered, “Hello?”
There was a rumbling of his voice as he moved through the room, pressing a button and opening one of the shutters to get a view of the land outside.
“Whoa,” Ciara murmured, staring at the debris that had washed up along the beach.
Actually, it didn’t even look like a beach anymore, Janelle realized. Laying on the patio were two huge palms, completely uprooted by the winds.
“There’s not as much damage here as I expected,” Rand murmured, listening to whoever was on the phone.
“Yep,” he said. “She sure can. She’s a licensed pilot and also knows how to operate a chopper. If you can get to us, I’m sure she’d be willing to help.”
Apparently, search and rescue needed them, and Ciara nodded her agreement to help.
“Okay,” Rand answered. “I’ll call you back in a moment, after I try and figure where you can land.”
“I doubt there’s anywhere,” Emma murmured. “And Kerilyntaryn still thinks she isn’t in labor, so Janelle is watching her like a hawk, so she doesn’t overdue
