Chapters (47)
- Cover
- ALSO BY MARJORIE B. KELLOGG AVAILABLE FROM DAW BOOKS
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- About the Author
I took in the erratic speed of Jenn’s movement. “Got it. Do what I can.”
Jenn gave me a brilliant smile as I came up. Too brilliant. If I could see her pupils, they’d be way dilated.
“Welcome back, kiddo!” she chirped. “Thought maybe you’d run off with the book guy! Sure wouldn’t blame you!” Immediately, she was back at her screens. Her bowl haircut, rarely a hair out of place, was a bird’s nest, like she’d forgotten to comb it for days. “Listen, can you give me a hand here? I’m tracking the storm, okay? But also, I gotta . . . just sit here.”
Words like ‘calm down’ were useless when she got like this. “Jenn, you know I’m a klutz with e-stuff.”
“No, no, no, this is easy!” She drew me inside the circle of machinery. “Just sit here and watch till you see one of these names come up.” She pushed a scrap of paper in front of me and nudged me onto a stool. “When you do, press this symbol.”
“What for?”
“It’s a phone file I found. See if they’re listed.”
The monitor was scrolling so fast I could hardly make out the letters, never mind read her pencil scrawl of names. “Listen, you seen Rubio?”
Her hands dipped and hovered over one of the old keyboards, like I’d shattered her train of thought. “No. But when I do, I’m slapping him upside for this stadium idea. Crazy, stupid time to be tearing the world apart and moving!”
“Why?”
“The storm, of course! And . . . and . . . you know!” She came up behind me. When I swiveled on the stool, she was way into my personal space, arms waving. “We’re sure to get caught out in the open, with all our worldly goods tied to a bunch of slapped-together rafts! Or some rogue wave’ll wash us all out to sea! What’s the chance we’ll ever make it to fucking Yankee Stadium?” She rotated her hands between us, as fast as the scrolling, so I could barely catch them with my own.
“JENN! Stop. Please. We can’t do this now. The kids need to pack up this equipment.”
Her eyes loomed huge as she fixed them on me. She leaned in, whispering frantically. “No, no, you see, I’ve told them where to find me! I’ve left that message so many times, they must have gotten it. I know they have! If we move, they won’t know where to look!”
‘They’ had to be her cousins in Minnesota. “We’re only going upriver. You can send a new message when we get there.”
“What if they come while we’re out on the water?”