Darned if You Do Read Free

all right, but we need some help in here to get you freed up. Just hang on, okay?”
    Through a thick lock of light-colored hair, Riordan searched the big cop’s face. “All right,” he muttered after a few moments, defeated. The room fell silent.
    But it wasn’t long before Lars said, “There now, hear that?” as a siren was heard coming up the street. “Help is here.”
    As the rescuers started arriving—firemen in big black coats and hats, emergency medics in white raincoats—their flashlights and lanterns made dizzying patterns in the clutter and destruction.
    Lars, having done his part, left the house to go on other calls.
    *   *   *
    E MERGENCY medical workers and a public works crew filled the space in the little bedroom. An IV line was slipped painlessly into Riordan’s arm, and a thick bandage was applied to his head wound. No one said a word about the shocking amount of clutter in the house or the weirdness of finding a whole lot of broken tree in the bedroom.
    Riordan was grateful for that, though his eyes flashed from face to face as he looked at the people assembled there to rescue him. What must they think? He was as ashamed as he was hurting.
    But the men and women around him were kind and kept reassuring him that all would be well. It took a long while, but eventually a crane was summoned to drop cables into his bedroom from outside, and lift and support the broken tree while chain saws filled the room with a hideous racket as they cut through the tangle of branches. Tom was given a pair of ear protectors, which helped to muffle the noise.
    It took over an hour to free him from his wooden prison after the crane arrived, and he was unconscious by the time they brought him down the steep and narrowed staircase and into an ambulance.

Chapter Three

    I T was the quiet that woke Betsy. Not merely the quiet after the violent storm—which had brought both cats into the bed with her and Connor—but another kind of quiet.
    As in dead silence.
    The modern American home is full of a constant murmur of electric devices going about their business of chilling food, cooling or heating or refreshing the air, heating the water, washing the dishes or clothes, marking the passage of time.
    When all that stops, the silence can be disturbing. So Betsy, who had awakened briefly when the storm was at its crashing, booming, flashing height, woke again when true quiet fell.
    She lay still for a little while, wondering what had woken her up. Turning her head to look at the bedside clock radio, she saw nothing. The red numbers on its face had vanished.
    Ah
, she thought.
Power’s out.
That sometimes happened during a violent storm. The outage usually didn’t last long; in fact, power might be back before daylight.
    Betsy rolled onto her back and lifted her left arm to press the little button on her Indiglo watch. Its cool green face lit up: 4:30 a.m. She sighed and dropped her wrist, letting it drift over to Connor’s side of the bed—where it found empty space. Where could he have gone? she wondered.
    Her live-in boyfriend, Connor Sullivan, was a retired sea captain. Betsy, an ex-WAVE, liked to jest that she had a weakness for anything nautical. For years he had been in charge of enormous cargo and even more enormous oil-carrying vessels as they crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, responsible for both the cargo and the crew. A habit of responsibility, powerfully instilled, lingered in him. Doubtless his sleep had also been disturbed and now he had gotten up to see how extensive the outage was and if there was other damage to the building or in the immediate area.
    Betsy waited for a few minutes, drifting on the edge of sleep. But he didn’t return. Had he dressed and gone out?
    She tried to decide not to worry about it, but the effort only made her concern grow until she was wide awake and now fully concerned. Annoyed at herself, she threw