“Come on. You have to come to the hotel. They have a cellar.”
The boy looked shocked. The wind slammed the door shut and it was several seconds before he could force it open again. Salander grabbed hold of his T-shirt and dragged him out. She wiped the water from her face, then gripped his hand and began to run. He ran with her.
They took the beach path, which was about a hundred yards shorter than the main road, which looped inland. When they had gone halfway, Salander realized that this might have been a mistake. On the beach they had no protection at all. Wind and rain tore at them so hard that they had to stop several times. Sand and branches were flying through the air. There was a terrible roar. After what seemed an eternity Salander finally spied the hotel walls and picked up the pace. Just as they made it to the entrance and the promise of safety, she looked over her shoulder at the beach. She stopped short.
Through a rain squall she spotted two figures about fifty yards down the beach. Bland pulled her arm to drag her through the door. She let go of his hand and braced herself against the wall as she tried to focus on the water’s edge. For a second or two she lost sight of the figures in the rain, but then the entire sky was lit up by a flash of lightning.
She knew already that it was Richard and Geraldine Forbes. They were at about the same place where she had seen Forbes wandering back and forth the night before.
When the next flash came, Forbes appeared to be dragging his wife, who was struggling with him.
All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The financial dependence. The allegations of chicanery in Austin. His restless wandering and motionless hours at the Turtleback.
Salander turned and shoved Bland through the door. She looked around and found the rickety wooden chair the night watchman usually sat on, which had not been cleared away before the storm. She smashed it as hard as she could against the wall and armed herself with one of its legs. Bland screamed after her in horror as she ran towards the beach.
She was almost bowled over by the furious gusts, but she clenched her teeth and worked her way forward, step by step, into the storm. She had almost reached the couple when one more flash of lightning lit up the beach and she saw Geraldine Forbes sink to her knees by the water’s edge. Forbes stood over her, his arm raised to strike with what looked like an iron pipe in his hand. She saw his arm move in an arc towards his wife’s head. Geraldine stopped struggling.
Forbes never saw Salander coming.
She cracked the chair leg over the back of his head and he fell forward on his face.
Salander bent and took hold of Geraldine Forbes. As the rain whipped across them, she turned the body over. Her hands were suddenly bloody. Geraldine Forbes had a wound on her scalp. She was as heavy as lead, and Salander looked around desperately, wondering how she was going to pull her up to the hotel wall. Then Bland appeared at her side. He shouted something that Salander could not make out in the storm.
She glanced at Forbes. He had his back to her, but he was up on all fours. She took Geraldine’s left arm and put it around her neck and motioned to Bland to take the other arm. They began laboriously dragging her up the beach.
Halfway to the hotel wall Salander felt completely drained, as if all strength had left her body. Her heart skipped a beat when she felt a hand grab her shoulder. She let go of Geraldine and spun around to kick Forbes in the crotch. He stumbled to his knees. Then she kicked him in the face. She saw Bland’s horrified expression. Salander gave him half a second of attention before she again took hold of Geraldine Forbes and resumed dragging her.
After a few seconds she turned her head. Forbes was tottering ten paces behind them, but he was swaying like a drunk in the gusting winds.
Another bolt of lightning cleaved the sky and Salander opened her eyes wide.
She felt a paralyzing terror.
Behind Forbes, a hundred yards out to sea, she saw the finger of God.
A frozen image in the sudden flash, a coal black pillar that towered up and vanished from sight into space.
Bland had seen the tornado too. They yelled at each other to hurry, not able to hear what the other was saying.
Twenty yards more to the wall. Ten. Salander tripped and fell to her knees. Five. At the gate she took one last look over her shoulder. She caught a glimpse of Forbes just as he was tugged into the sea as if by an invisible hand and disappeared. She and Bland heaved their burden through the gate. As they staggered across the back courtyard, over the storm Salander heard the crash of windowpanes shattering and the screeching whine of twisting sheet metal. A plank flew through the air right past her nose. The next second she felt pain as something solid struck her in the back. The violence of the wind diminished when they reached the lobby.
Salander stopped Bland and grabbed his collar. She pulled his head to her mouth and yelled in his ear.
“We found her on the beach. We didn’t see the husband. Understood?”
He nodded.
They carried Geraldine Forbes down the cellar stairs and Salander kicked at the door. McBain opened it and stared at them. Then he pulled them in and shut the door again.
The noise from the storm dropped in a second from an intolerable roar to a creaking and rumbling in the background. Salander took a deep breath.
Ella poured hot coffee into a mug. Salander was so shattered she could scarcely raise her arm to take it. She sat passively on the floor, leaning against the wall. Someone had wrapped blankets around both her and the boy. She was soaked through and bleeding badly from a gash below her kneecap. There was a rip about four inches long in her jeans and she had no memory of it happening. She watched numbly as McBain and two hotel guests worked on Geraldine Forbes, wrapping bandages around her head. She caught words here and there and understood that someone in the group was a doctor. She noticed that the cellar was packed and that the hotel guests had been joined by people from outside who had come looking for shelter.
After a while McBain came over to Salander and squatted down.
“She’ll live.”
Salander said nothing.
“What happened?”
“We found her beyond the wall on the beach.”
“I was missing three people when I counted the guests down here in the cellar. You and the Forbes couple. Ella said that you ran off like a crazy person just as the storm got here.”
“I went to get my friend George.” Salander nodded at Bland. “He lives down the road in a shack that can’t possibly still be standing.”
“That was very brave but awfully stupid,” McBain said, glancing at Bland. “Did either of you two see the husband?”
“No,” Salander said with a neutral expression. Bland glanced at her and shook his head.
Ella tilted her head and gave Salander a sharp look. Salander looked back at her with expressionless eyes.
Geraldine Forbes came to at around 3:00 a.m. By that time Salander had fallen asleep with her head on Bland’s shoulder.
