Page 3 of Against the Wind

The conference room door burst open. Chief Weather Officer Lopez stepped in, tablet in hand. “Sir, update on Hurricane Hannah. Track’s shifted. Making landfall in forty-eight hours, Category 3, possibly 4.”

Hayes swore. “Where?”

“Direct hit on the Outer Banks. Hatterwick’s right at the edge of the cone.”

My stomach clenched. Hatterwick. Gabi.

“This changes our surveillance timeline,” Hayes said. “LaRue, what was Gulf protocol for pre-storm drug activity?”

“They’ll likely try to move product before the weather hits. Traffickers can’t risk losing cargo to a storm.” I pulled up historical data. “We usually saw a spike in movement twenty-four to thirty-six hours out.”

“So we’ve got a day, maybe less, to catch them before Hannah shuts us down. Given how this op has been running, that seems unlikely.”

I nodded, but my mind was already racing south. Sixty nautical miles might as well have been six hundred with a hurricane bearing down. I’d waited too long to make things right.

Hayes pulled up the coastal map, marking evacuation zones in red. “We’ll need teams at key points to assist emergency services. LaRue, you’re taking Echo team to Hatterwick.”

My pulse quickened, but I kept my face neutral. “Copy that, sir. How many personnel?”

“Four-person team. Standard hurricane protocol—help local authorities with evac coordination, secure facilities, maintain emergency comms.” He zoomed in on Hatterwick. “Set up at the fire station. They’ve got backup generators and a solid structure.”

I noted the location, just off the main road through Sutter’s Ferry. Three blocks from the clinic. Not that I’d memorized her clinic’s location or anything.

“What about our trafficking surveillance?” Lopez asked.

“Mother Nature’s got other plans.” Hayes closed the map. “We’ll resume once Hannah passes. For now, priority is storm prep and civilian safety.”

The meeting wrapped with discussion of logistics—equipment loads, comm channels, transport schedules. My team would deploy first thing in the morning. Just twelve hours until I’d be headed for Hatterwick. I itched to go sooner, both to check on Gabi and because I wondered if the compressed timeline because of the storm would cause some of the drug runners to slip up. But I had my orders.

Back at my desk, I reviewed the island’s emergency response plan. One main road that circled the perimeter of the island. Two thousand year-round residents. Primary evacuation point at the ferry terminal. Medical services coordinated through... I paused at the words “Island Medical.” Dr. Paul Sibley, Chief Medical Officer. I reckoned that was Gabi’s boss.

“Ready for some island time, boss?” Peterson, my second, dropped a stack of weather reports on my desk.

“Just another deployment.” I closed the file. “Check our gear. I want extra medical supplies and at least three days of provisions.”

“You worked hurricane response in the Gulf, right? Similar setup?”

“This is smaller scale.” I stood, stretching cramped muscles. “But barrier islands can be tricky. Storm surge, flooding, limited access. We’ll need to be self-sufficient.”

Two thousand people. One main road that ran the perimeter of the island. One clinic. Finding Gabi wouldn’t be hard. Figuring out what to say to her after three months? That was the real challenge.

THREE

GABI

I pulled into the crushed-shell driveway beside Hoyt’s battered F-150. He’d bought it slightly used the summer I’d left for college and had put countless miles on it since as he and Caroline had renovated this house, taking it from the run-down duplex it had been when he bought it to the home it was today. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the restored beach house, its weathered blue clapboard siding and white trim glowing in the golden light. Music and laughter drifted through the screened windows, as it often did. After a childhood where we’d all been forced to stay quiet, creeping around lest we set off our unpredictable father’s temper, my sister made sure her own brood felt comfortable taking up space and making noise. Theirs was a house full of love. And it was home sweet temporary home.

At least until I found my own place.

Grabbing my medical bag from the passenger seat, I climbed the wooden steps to the wraparound porch. Through the front window, I caught glimpses of movement in the kitchen—Caroline’s dark head bent over the stove, Hoyt’s tall frame reaching into an upper cabinet. I hadn’t missed dinner after all. At the front door, my hand hesitated on the knob. After ten hours of dealing with patients, I craved the quiet of my upstairsbedroom. But the faint smell of garlic and olive oil as I let myself inside had my stomach growling loud enough to wake the dead.

“Look who finally made it home!” Caroline’s voice rang out as I shut the door behind me.

I dropped my bag by the stairs and picked my way through a maze of toys in the living room, back to the spacious kitchen.

The room was warm and inviting, with an array of herbs growing in painted clay pots along the windowsill of the wide window that overlooked the dunes. Bright stainless steel pots hung from the ceiling rack over the rustic island that was the centerpiece of the space. It was the kind of kitchen Caroline had always wanted.

The woman herself wiped her hands on a dishtowel and turned to flash a bright smile my way. “I was starting to think we’d have to send out a search party.”

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