the time he hit Main Street, the sky looked worse. Wall clouds were rolling over the mountains, bringing low, airborne rotations threatening more than rain.
"Shit," John muttered, and sped up. All he needed was to see her face and know she was okay.
He pulled up to the Majestic and got out on the run. The Open sign was still on, but the streets were almost empty. He came inside yelling Gracie's name. He could see Reba crying, and then Donna met him at the register.
"Where's Gracie? I've been trying to call her all morning."
"She and Reba have been working in a banquet room on the second floor at the Wisteria Inn all day. The room is soundproofed, which makes cell service spotty."
John grabbed Donna by both arms. "But where is she now?"
"She's still there," Reba said. "We ran out of some stuff. I came back to get it, and now Donna won't let me leave. We tried to call the hotel, but no one is answering the switchboard."
Donna waved toward the windows. "You can't! Look outside!" The hail was falling like bullets. "Listen! They're already blowing the storm sirens. Do you want to die in that?"
"No," Reba wailed. "But Gracie..."
John's heart sank, and then a calm came over him.
"Gracie isn't going to die. She'll get herself to a safe place, and when it's over, I'll go get her. It's okay. It's okay. All of you. You're doing the right thing."
"And so are you," Donna said. "Get in the cooler with us and don't argue. It's the safest place to be."
John had talked a good game, but he was scared. Walking into that cooler with all of the other women, without knowing if Gracie was safe, made him sick to his stomach.
And then Donna shut the door, and the decision was made. They began moving canisters of flowers so they could get up against the walls and into the corners, huddling together to wait out the storm.
Gracie was flat on her back and half-asleep in a soundproof room. She didn't hear the wind, or the sirens that were now blowing in the city. But when the walls began to pop, and the table she was stretched out on began to shake, she sat up with a jerk, jumped off, and ran out into the hall.
The moment she stepped out of that room and began hearing screams and sirens, and seeing people running, she knew something terrible was happening. She started to go back to get the two-way radio, then looked out across the second-floor lobby to the massive glass windows on the other side, and all the hair stood up on the back of her neck.
Hail was hitting the glass in rapid-fire motion. The sky was black, and the tornado spinning out of the belly of the storm was on the ground and coming this way, chewing up and spitting out everything in its path.
Gracie panicked. Not only was she not underground, she was on the second floor, facing a wall of glass, and she needed to move. She jerked as if she'd been slapped, and bolted for the stairwell, knowing her life depended on getting down.
Glass was already shattering behind her as she reached the Exit—the roar around her so loud she couldn't hear her own screams. She leaped into the stairwell, then began vaulting down steps, two and three at a time. Even within this windowless tube, the roar of the storm was deafening, but she couldn't slow down.
She was almost to the first-floor landing when the power went out, leaving her in a complete absence of light. She fumbled for her phone, trying to get it out of her pocket to light the way when the walls came down around her.
Chapter Nineteen
The tornado plowed through the north side of Branson, leveling homes, damaging buildings, and leaving downed trees and broken power lines in its wake.
As soon as the sirens stopped blowing, John and the women left the cooler and ran outside.
All the windows in the buildings on the opposite side of the street were shattered because they'd been facing the storm. But it had come in from behind the Majestic, and by a stroke of fate, their storefront was sound. The hail damage on roofs and vehicles were a whole other thing. They had been hammered by the hail, and it showed.
"I'm going to find Gracie," John said, and jumped into his truck, quickly leaving the old part of the city and heading north.
He kept calling her as