Whirlwind

The roof began twisting as trusses gave way and large beams fell on helpless people. Chunks of the building’s wall started ripping away, then the roof was gone, people vanished up into black swirling clouds. Metal, wood and debris rained down on Jenna and the others.

Tears streamed down Jenna’s face.

Please help us! Keep my children safe! Don’t let us die!

The heavy planters began shifting.

During horrible chaos Jenna held Cassie tight and held the stroller’s frame as the wind tried to tear it away. The kind stranger was holding on, too.

Lord, please help me!

The last thing Jenna remembered was hanging on to her children and praying before something struck her head. She saw stars before everything went black.

* * *

Jenna Cooper was floating.

She was adrift under a brilliant sun as diamond waves of warm water lapped on a white-sand beach. Blake was beside her, Caleb was napping between them, shaded by their towels. Cassie was making sand castles.

Totally content, Jenna watched the gulls gliding above them, circling, shrieking, inviting her...

...the shrieking...pulling her up from the beach...taking her higher, farther and farther from Blake and the children...no...she can’t leave them...the shrieking...no...she’s not ready to leave them...she’s rising faster...this can’t be happening...

Jenna’s eyes flicked open, squinting and adjusting to shafts of light piercing the latticework above. Where am I? A million muddled thoughts streaked across her mind as she blazed through an inventory of sensations. She was on her back. She wiggled her toes, her fingers, took a deep breath. No discomfort. Where’s Blake, the children? She thought she heard the clamor of radios in the distance. She coughed, twisted grit from her eyes, feeling warmth next to her and a familiar snuggle.

“Mommy!”

“Cassie!” Jenna moved to check her in the weak light. Cassie had cuts on her little cheeks. “Are you hurt, sweetie? Are you okay?”

“I think so. You got a big ouchy on your head.”

Jenna felt some swelling on her forehead and touched her fingers just at the hairline. It was tender, sticky and her fingertips glistened with blood.

“I guess I got a little bump, honey.”

Cassie’s chin crumpled and she cried. “I’m scared. What happened, Mommy?”

Images flashed before Jenna: The market, the storm, seeking shelter, a red-haired woman helping with Caleb, taking cover by the planters, everything going dark, the building breaking apart, Jenna’s hand holding the stroller.

Now her hand was empty.

She searched the area around her.

Where’s my baby?

“Caleb?” she said. Then, the scream ripped from her throat: “Caleb!”

3

Dallas, Texas

In the hour before the storm, Kate Page, an intern reporter at the Dallas bureau of the global news service, Newslead, was at her desk on the phone.

She’d taken a cold call from Cody Warren, a sixteen-year-old high school student whose father had been killed last week in a hit-and-run case just south of Dallas.

“Can you help us find my dad’s killer, please, ma’am?”

Kate adjusted her grip on her handset as he continued.

“We got to get the word out. Police say they have no leads, nothing.” Cody’s voice broke. “We buried him yesterday.”

Over the years, Kate had kept an emotional distance from the people she’d faced while reporting on tragedies. But she never lost her compassion and her heart went out to this teenager who’d been calling every newsroom in Dallas–Fort Worth.

He deserved kindness and the truth.

“Cody, I am so sorry for what’s happened. You have my condolences.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I can’t guarantee that we’ll do a story, but I give you my word I’ll look into it, okay?”

There was a pause.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, thank you, ma’am.”

After hanging up, Kate took a moment then took a breath. Her attention shifted briefly when the chatter of the bureau’s emergency radio scanners blared from across the floor where Tommy Koop, a news assistant, was monitoring the stream of coded transmissions.

Kate thought she’d heard the word, tornadoes, until Tommy lowered the volume, and she guessed it was just a spurt of firefighter cross talk about weather forecasts.

Ten people worked at the bureau; most of the reporters were out. Kate had an hour before her next assignment, enough time to keep the promise she had made to her caller. She did a quick online search of the suburban news outlets for the last reports on the hit-and-run. Not much had surfaced. She made a round of quick calls to the highway patrol, the sheriffs for Ellis and Dallas counties, and Cedar Hill PD, which had jurisdiction. Kate got through to a sergeant, who updated her.

“Cody’s father had stopped to help a driver, an elderly woman, change a flat on Bear Creek Road when he was hit by a car,” the sergeant said.

“He was being a Good Samaritan.” Kate was taking notes.

“That’s correct.”

Investigators had a blurred image of the suspect car from a store security camera but were counting on people who knew about the case to step forward. The sergeant gave Kate details on time and location.

After the call she looked out the bureau’s twenty-second-floor windows. The sky had darkened. It was raining with flashes of lightning.

She called Cody back for more background on his father. Then, pen clamped in her teeth, she crafted a tight three-hundred-word news story on the search for the car tied to the death of a Good Samaritan motorist. She sent it to the news desk, hoping Chuck Laneer, the bureau chief, would see it before Dorothea Pick, the bureau’s news editor.

The scanners grew louder again with dispatches on a storm, and Tommy paced between his desk and the window, then began making calls. A severe weather warning had been issued earlier in the day indicating a slim chance of tornado conditions. Kate considered it for a moment, wondering about the odds of a tornado touching down and thinking that it was a good thing she’d brought her rain jacket. She still had some time before her assignment, a city meeting on parks that Dorothea had given her.