The Breathtaker Read Free Page B

never bothered him so bad.
    Thirty years ago, Charlie Grover had suffered second-and third-degree burns to the left side of his body—arm, chest, rib cage and leg—a crazy quilt of melted flesh extending from his earlobe down to his ankle, where the scarring ended abruptly, like a tube sock with the foot cut off. Fortunately for him, his genitals and face had been spared
(thank you, God),
but some of the hypertrophic scars with their donor skin grafts had healed improperly, and the resultant lack of elasticity forced him as a matter of lifelong habit to turn around stiffly at the waist, as if his vertebrae were fused together. An odd handicap that’d made the top brass hesitant to promote him. Not that he blamed them, but Charlie Grover could fire a weapon, write a traffic ticket and solve a homicide with the best of them, yet he’d had to work extra hard to prove his worth to Mayor Whitmore and his cronies. He’d never filed a discrimination lawsuit, although he could have many times. It was only through sheer grit and determination on his part that those in charge had eventually come around. If Charlie knew one thing, it was that he was perfectly suited for the job. The bad guys of Promise had something to fear from him.
    “Chief?” His police radio squawked again. “Pick up!”
    He scooped up the hand mike. “Yeah, Tyler?”
    “We have a casualty! An elderly woman got blown out of her house… Oh God, she was literally thrown across the street into a barbed-wire fence… She’s dead at the scene.”
    “I’m on Willow Road. Almost there.”
    “Where’s the ambulance? Where the hell is everybody?”
    “Paramedics are on their way, I promise you that.”
    “Looks like fifteen homes were destroyed, maybe twenty. There’s major damage. Everybody’s running around in a panic.”
    “I’m minutes away. Hang in there, buddy, you’re doin’ great.” Around the next corner, he found himself on the long approach to the Black Kettle subdivision, where he had a sweeping panorama of the plains. As far as the eye could see was an unbroken stretch of winter wheat and wild grass, so much motion in the landscape it dazzled the senses. All those lush green pastures, all those red and orange wildflowers and blooming dogwood trees. A wet spring was essential if the wildflowers were to reach their peak in April.
    Now Charlie stepped on the gas, his sense of urgency piqued. Road gravel struck the undercarriage of the police car as he sped past fields bounded by thin belts of trees, their gloves of new growth khaki-colored from the insulation dust. The road he was on crossed a steel bridge, then waved gently up and down the map. April was the month of rebirth, and all week long the grass had kept its promise, growing thick and green in the meadows and crowding out the tassel-headed weeds. The last few pockets of ice in the woods had finally thawed, giving way to a carpet of Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets. Funny how you could watch very carefully for spring and still miss it, he thought as he glanced at the departing storm clouds amassed along the horizon.
    He rolled to a stop at a beheaded stop sign, and from this angle he could see down into the path of obliteration. The tornado had swept through like a giant reaper, ripping a spotty but destructive swath across the grasslands and dissecting the subdivision almost in half. Many of the expensive two-story homes had been reduced to one-story homes; some had been swept completely off their slabs. The blue water tower was knocked over, and injured cows and pigs from nearby farms were wandering around aimlessly. Crumpled sheets of corrugated tin were strewn across the landscape like discarded pieces of paper.
    Charlie veered the rest of the way down the snaking road, then came to a screeching halt. Two EMT vehicles and a highway patrol car were parked in the middle of the road in front of a tangle of downed power lines.
    He got out of his patrol car. “Hello?” All the