Heart Echoes Read Free

people looked like aimless zombies with blank expressions; others sobbed uncontrollably.
    Teal did her own haphazard wandering, her breath in ragged spurts, her prayers repetitive one-liners. Keep them safe. Keep them safe. Help us. Help us. Her body refused to stop trembling. Walking on pavement she regularly traversed in her car but never set foot on added an eeriness to the entire scenario.
    The worst damage within her vicinity was to the van from Iowa; the worst injury, the woman’s cut forehead. A quarter of a mile ahead was impossible to comprehend. There would not be enough emergency personnel to help everyone in this one area alone. How extensively had the city been hit?
    She and her new best friends hatched an exit plan. The three children and their mother, Carole Swanson, would ride with Teal. Dr. Swanson and the old man with chest pains would ride with Ron, the breath holder, and Joe, a truck driver parked behind him. There was nothing to be done with the out-of-commission minivan. The old man’s car would have to stay put. The semi would not be budging for a long, long time.
    Behind them a domino effect had begun. In the distance vehicles crept back and forth, back and forth, making tight one-eighty turns. Little by little they inched forward, allowing other drivers to start the turn. A line of traffic snaked toward an exit Teal had passed, perhaps half a mile back, hours ago.
    It would take a while before they would have space to turn around. In the meantime, Dr. Swanson from Iowa opened his family’s picnic basket and coolers and distributed food and water to the Californians who had not stocked their own cars on the off chance a quake would strike and leave them stranded on a hot summer’s day.
    Teal drank from her bottle of water because she was sweating and hoped she wouldn’t have to get in line at the nearby RV, whose owners had opened their bathroom to the world. She helped the Swansons transfer their things to her trunk and fielded the eldest boy’s questions about landslides, seismographs, and fires caused by damaged electrical and gas lines.
    It wasn’t the most encouraging topic of conversation, but it beat crawling onto her backseat and passing the time in a fetal position.

Chapter 4

    The concrete floor rumbled beneath River’s back.
    He eyed the water heater. Strapped securely to the wall, it didn’t budge during the aftershock. The wall stayed put as well.
    â€œThank You, God.”
    But more aftershocks were likely to hit, jiggling things that had already been jiggled, loosening things like the gas line that led to the water tank. He needed to get to the shutoff valve.
    River worked at shoving aside books and plastic tubs, a centimeter at a time, in between the hot knife stabbing at his insides and cutting off his air.
    He wondered if the broken ribs had damaged something else. It seemed he would realize if that were true, though, that he would feel worse than he did. Wouldn’t he be passed out or screaming in pain by now?
    More than anything, River hated being helpless.
    He lay flat again, relaxed his neck and shoulders, and grimaced at the rafters. The last time helplessness engulfed him, it had morphed into a good thing.
    It had all started when his sister wanted to divorce her wealthy, philandering investor husband. Jen was her emotionally messy self on steroids at the time. River stepped in as he had always done. Even before their parents’ deaths when he and his sister were in their early twenties, he had watched over her.
    Jen chose the all-female law firm of Canfield and Stone, specialists in family law and the primo group for taking rich husbands to the cleaners. River imagined a company of Amazons and feared his sister would get carried away with vengeance. Her husband might deserve it, but he knew his sister. Jen would regret her actions.
    He tagged along with her to the appointment.
    And he met Ms. Teal Morgan.
    Helplessness swamped him.