“Sorry, Jake. They’re making a thing of it—the storm you called wrong.”

“It was just a thunderstorm. No one was hurt. Right?” His heart fluttered.

“One lady can’t find her dog.” Susan looked down as she said it—her face the waxy clay color left over from the morning show.

Jacob patted his hair. It always stood up, forever in the wind. His head always in the storm.

Dan came forward, the remote in one hand, ratings in the other. “They said your miscalculation was dangerous. That you’re still just a storm chaser. That you belong on the side of the road and not in a newsroom.”

“Those fucking jerks.”

“Yeah. People ate it up. Stupid always sells.”

Jacob grabbed the remote and hurled it at the screen. The duct tape from the last time held it together.

“I’ve been storm chasing for twenty-three years! The fact that I’m even still alive means I’m good at it. I can read a radar—I can read a fucking storm.”

“We know that, Jake.”

Paula’s ghost hung in the room, pushing everyone’s chins to the floor.

“Why don’t you take the day? Get some rest. Weather’s clear here now.” Dan forced a smile.

“How do you know?”

Susan’s eyes shot to the screen. Of course. The news.

Jacob stalked out of the room. A day would be good. Maybe that storm was still within driving distance—rough and gorgeous.

He checked the camera back out.

***

It had moved northeast, those warm winds from the south hitting the cold Canadian front and stirring up a cataclysm. The sort of storm that leaves little ambiguity for meteorologists. No one needs a weatherman to tell them to take shelter when the trees begin to bend.

Jacob went north along the beach, just a few miles out ahead of it. He dug the tripod legs deep into the sand, pointed the camera at the sea, across a marina where the boats bucked like angry bulls.

The world needs a new waterspout video. Something viral. Bury the old clip, like I could never bury her.

Conditions were perfect. If they held, it would work this time.

Wisps of funnels dangled from the underside of the cloud, forming, then spinning out. The twisting ropes stretched closer and closer to the foaming swells offshore. Lightning stabbed, whiting out the world, snapping it back to a different view.

One of the funnels dropped, gaining strength, rotating so fast its body seemed as smooth as glazed porcelain.

Jacob let the video roll and lifted his still camera, taking shots. Paula used to do this part. He felt the vibration of the shutter—the wind howling too loud now to hear anything but the relentless engine of nature.

The hair on his body rose. The world went white and split with a roar, then concussed into silence. His body burned with its own friction, everything the flavor of ions.