In the backseat, Moe whimpered like a baby.

“Come on, you coward, it’s just a little rain.” Lightning pitchforked through the black sky, followed by a boom of thunder like a cannon blast. “And some lightning.”

Flynn cursed and muscled the wheel in position when the car bucked and shuddered. “And some wind,” he added. With gusts approaching gale force.

It hadn’t seemed like more than a quick thunderstorm when he’d left the office. But it worsened with every inch of road. As Moe’s whimpers turned to pitiful howls, Flynn began to worry that Malory or Dana or Zoe, maybe all three of them, had gotten caught in the storm.

They should have been at the house by now, he reminded himself. But he would have sworn that the rage of the storm was worse, considerably worse, on this end of town. Fog had rolled down from the hills, blanketed them in gray as thick and dense as wool. His visibility decreased, forcing him to slow down. Even at a crawl, the car fishtailed madly on a turn.

“We’ll just pull over,” he said to Moe. “Pull over and wait it out.”

Anxiety skated up his spine, but instead of easing when he nudged the car to the curb, it clamped on to the back of his neck like claws. The sound of the rain pounding like fists on the roof of the car seemed to hammer into his brain.

“Something’s wrong.”

He pulled out into the street again, his hands vising on the wheel as the wind buffeted the car. Sweat, born of effort and worry, snaked down his back. For the next three blocks he felt like a man fighting a war.

There was a trickle of relief when he spotted the cars in the driveway. They were okay, he told himself. They were inside. No problem. He was an idiot.

“Told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said to Moe. “Now you’ve got two choices. You can pull yourself together and come inside with me, or you can stay here, quaking and quivering. Up to you, pal.”

Relief drained away when he parked at the curb and looked at the house.

If the storm had a heart, it was there. Black clouds boiled over the house, pumped the full force of their fury. Even as he watched, lightning lanced down, speared like a fiery arrow into the front lawn. The grass went black in a jagged patch.

“Malory.”

He didn’t know if he spoke it, shouted it, or his mind simply screamed it, but he shoved open the car door and leaped into the surreal violence of the storm.

The wind slapped him back, a back-handed blow so intense that he tasted blood in his mouth. Lightning blasted like a mortar directly in front of him, and the air stank with burning. Blind from the driving rain, he bent over and lurched toward the house.

He stumbled on the steps and was calling her name, over and over like a chant, when he saw the hard blue light leaking around the front door.