But at some unmarked moment, I felt Daniel’s insistent grip on me soften, his body ease back from crisis. The gusts screaming under the door dropped in pitch and were faintly warmer. Slight changes but promising. Most promising of all, the thunder died away and it stopped snowing. Wind and rain still beat at the window wall, but the mist was thinning, the glowering sky faintly lightening. The wave-torn lake took on a darker gray and separated from the roiling clouds. Like scared kids emerging from a bomb shelter, filled with wonder at a world still intact, we moved cautiously, hand in hand, and approached the glass.

Daniel pointed. “You can see the far side now. Used to be seating on those tiers.” Above the distant curving wall leaped the ragged foam of waves breaking against the outside. “Either we’re through the worst of it, or this is just the eye and there’s more to come. What says your weather itch?”

I considered. “I’d say, the eye. But if we got through it once . . .”

I felt the stadium settling around us, the creature released from agonies of torture with a groaning sigh as stretched seams and joints came together again, even if only till the next assault. The sense of animal presence was so vivid, I reached to stroke the nearest surface in gratitude. My own relief nearly buckled my knees. Relief and pride, that this place we had come to, this new home that Rubio had chosen for us, had taken everything the weather could throw at it, kept us safe, and would again.

“Hey!” Lights flashing out on the lake made Daniel lean into the glass. “Look at that.”

Down below us, some of the water taxis were venturing out from under the second-level seating tier, buffeted by the wind but stable enough in the flatter swell. From where we stood, the level below us looked to be completely under water. But to either side, I could see steps rising above the lake level. The boats were moving down along the seating curl, then turning back under the overhang. One of the taxis had pulled alongside a sleeker power boat. Two men face to face, arms in motion, fingers pointing this way and that, while their pilots struggled to keep the two boats from colliding.

“Uh-oh!” I squinted through the wind-shredded rain. “Is that Tom and Will?”

“Yeah. Looks like.”

Tom Doyle was armed with a chunky flashlight, waving it here and there. “Is this the chance they get to kill each other, with no one there to stop them?”

“No-o-o.” Daniel drew out the word thoughtfully. “I don’t think so.”

I wished I could see their faces better. “What’s up, then?”

“I do believe Tommy’s taking his own advice.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“He’s listening.”

I stared harder. “How can you tell?”

“Read the body language.”