Page 8 of Against the Wind

“Guess we’re gonna be late opening this morning. Does this mean I have time to run to Panadería de la Isla for a pastry?”

I dug in my bag for my wallet. “You know what? It’s gonna be a hell of a day. Get some for all of us.” I passed over a twenty.

“You want your usual?” Kristie asked.

“Not sure an empanada is going to cut it. I need sugar. As much as you can manage.”

She grinned. “You got it.”

A few minutes later, a police cruiser pulled into the lot. Officer Cory Teague slipped out of the car.

“Morning, Gabi. Have a little trouble?”

I gestured toward the door. “I don’t know if they got in or not. We haven’t touched anything, in case you needed to dust for prints.”

“You said the front wasn’t disturbed?”

“Door was still locked and isn’t broken. It didn’t look like they’d tried anything there,” Nina added.

“Since it faces the main street, that’s not surprising. Y’all got any cameras back here?”

“No.” And that was something that needed to change. But I’d have to take it up with Dr. Sibley when he returned.

Cory did his due diligence, taking photos of the damage, before checking the door with a gloved hand. It was still locked. Once I unlocked it, he preceded us inside, making sure to clear the entire building.

“Looks like everything is safe,” he pronounced.

He waited while I checked our med supplies. “Nothing seems to be missing.”

“That’s good. In this case, no news is good news.”

“You’re not going to dust for prints, are you?”

“I could, but as that’s the door the whole staff uses, they’re likely muddled. And since whoever it was didn’t actually get inside, and there’s no video evidence linking that person to the door specifically last night, there’s not a lot we can do. Especially as we’re all busy getting ready for the hurricane.”

I sighed again. “That was more or less what I expected. I just wanted to document in case of… whatever.” If someone had tried once, they might try again sometime during the storm when they thought the building would be abandoned. Something to think about.

“Sure thing. I’ll have that report on file. And y’all might want to consider changing out the existing lock or adding another deadbolt.”

Right. Because we had time to mess with that while the island was preparing for the storm. But I simply nodded. “I appreciate you coming, Cory. Stay safe out there.”

“You, too.”

Kristie returned with pastries as he left, and Justin Humphries, our other nurse on duty today arrived.

He came in, brows up. “I have one day off and come back to the police? Somethin’ I need to know about?”

“Attempted break in last night. Failed. We’ll talk about it in a staff meeting later. Meanwhile, come grab a pastry and let’s get the doors open. I can already see folks lining up outside.”

Nina headed to unlock the front door. “Hold on to your butts.”

SIX

DANIEL

The hammer’s rhythm matched the thud of country music spilling from Home Port’s open door. We’d been boarding up windows for the past three hours, and my shoulders burned from the repetitive motion. The dive bar was our last stop before a much-needed break.

“Ain’t gonna be much view left when we’re done.” Tank, the aptly nicknamed big bruiser of a firefighter I’d been paired with, drove another nail into the plywood. “Though most folks come here for the beer, not the scenery.”

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