Windfall Page 0,8

a lot of blood. He died on the way to the hospital."

Silence. Outside, the insects were droning, and the sky was that clear, scrubbed blue you only get after a vicious storm. The few palm fronds surviving nodded in a fresh ocean breeze.

Storms were natural. We-the Wardens-didn't stop the cycle of nature, we just moderated it. Buffered it for the safety of the vulnerable people who lived in its path. But for a storm like this, we wouldn't have bothered. It wasn't that bad, and it was necessary to correct the ever-wobbling scales of Mother Earth.

If somebody had messed with it, it was criminal, and intentional.

And murderous.

"It wasn't me," I said. "I'll take whatever oath you want, John. But I'm innocent."

He nodded slowly, and turned back to face front. "Let's get you back home," he said.

"That's it?" Shirl asked loudly. "Just like that? You buy it just because she says it?"

"No," Maria the French Ghost said, and turned her head slightly toward me. She had odd eyes, not quite any color, and they looked a little empty. "Not just because she says it."

Shirl opened her mouth, sensibly shut it, and scowled out the window. Maria started the car and reversed us back out to the highway.

It was a long, silent drive back, and I had a lot to think about.

I got home too late for any shopping, and way out of the mood anyway. I went home to my grubby little apartment, made chili from a can with some shredded cheese, and curled up on my secondhand couch with a warm blanket and a rented movie. The movie was one of those warmed-over schmaltzy romantic comedies with too much romance and not nearly enough comedy, but it didn't matter; I was too distracted to watch it anyway.

If somebody had been messing with Tropical Storm Walter, I should have known it.

I've always been sensitive to those kinds of things. Of course, I could excuse it with the fact that John Foster's spider sense hadn't tingled, either, nor-apparently-had those of any of the eight other Wardens stationed in the state. So maybe I could forgive myself a little.

I couldn't shake the image of that father bringing his kids to work on a boring, safe job, and facing the nightmare of his life. Struggling to save his family in the face of someone else's malice.

Wardens screw up, that's a fact of life. Weather is difficult and tricky and it doesn't like to be tamed. It has a violence and vengeance all its own.

But this wasn't a screwup, didn't feel like a screwup, or a random event. It felt targeted, and it felt cold. No wonder the Wardens were sending out hit squads looking for an answer.

I did have to wonder why John Foster had accepted my word for my innocence. In his place, I'd have wanted proof. I wasn't sure that the fact he let me off so lightly was a good sign.

I did some internet research, made some phone calls to neutral parties-i.e., not Wardens-and put together a rough picture of what had happened. Tropical Storm Walter had turned vicious at the last second, gathering strength as it roared up on the coastline. It made a last-minute turn to the north instead of the south, and waded ashore with near-hurricane-force winds and a complement of tornados.

So far as I knew, the only one that had touched down had leveled the hotel.

It might have been selfish, but I had to wonder why the investigation had focused on me. If they'd instantly focused suspicion on me, the obvious answer was that they didn't trust me-which, hey, they didn't-but there must have been some connection I wasn't seeing. And not the hole in the ground that had once been Bad Bob Biringanine's house on the beach, either. Even the Wardens weren't shallow enough to buy the fact that I'd throw a meaningless tantrum and beat up a helpless coastline, unless they suspected me of going completely wacko.

Then again, I was dressing up like the Morton's Salt Girl on TV and getting water dumped on my head for money.

Maybe they had a point.

I felt alone. More alone than I had in quite some time, actually. I missed my friends. I missed the Wardens.

Boy kissed girl, and the music came up and tried to tell me that love would make everything all right