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  Lisa’s eyes widened in surprise at the retaliatory words. Then she took a step forward, her sneer adding ten years to her face. “You think you’re so hot, coming back to town with your fancy movie and your Hollywood friends, but it turns out you’re the same fat, nasty girl you always were. Why don’t you just take your cameras and your ‘opportunities’”—Lisa put little air quotes around the word, then flung her fingers toward the posting on the wall, cut out from the Tempest Weekly—“back to where you came from? Trailer trash doesn’t become royalty just because it changes its zip code and its dress size.”

  “Lisa, shut up,” Duncan said. “I think you should leave. You’ve said enough—”

  “I’ll handle this, Duncan,” Allie said, cutting him off, with her hand, her words. Every single one of the insults Lisa had thrown at her rose inside of Allie’s throat like bile, layered with the sneers, the disgusted looks, the torturous gym classes. It all crystallized in that moment, in the woman standing in front of her—Lisa, the ringleader. The source of so much pain. Allie’s fists balled at her side and the tension in her gut knotted, then unraveled as she moved forward.

  “You know, Lisa, I never knew what your problem was with me. Maybe you were afraid to turn into me. Maybe you saw more of yourself in me than you wanted to admit. Or maybe you’re just a total bitch. Personally, I think you’re just a jealous tramp who never got up the guts to step one foot out of Tempest. To make yourself feel better you cut down everyone else around you.”

  Lisa snorted and looked away.

  “I don’t even care anymore. You can’t hurt me now. I’m done letting anything you say affect me.” Allie took a step forward, watching Lisa’s eyes widen as she did. “You know what’s really pathetic? That all these years after high school, the only thing you can do is stand here and act like you’re still some miserable”—another step—“washed-up”—a third—“scared-as-shit”—and then a fourth, bringing her nearly nose to nose with Lisa, whose nostrils flared in and out, a bull ready to charge—“bully who hasn’t got the guts to grow up like the rest of us.”

  If Margie’s had been a movie set, the crowd around her would have erupted in a scripted cheer, rah-rahing the underdog of Tempest finally standing up to the bully of the senior class.

  But there was only silence. Drop-a-pin-and-hear-it-echo-for-miles silence.

  She looked to Duncan. And didn’t find the Hollywood ending there either. In his eyes, she saw—

  Disappointment.

  He stepped back. “Hell of a speech,” he said. “But the Allison I thought I knew would never have said something like that to someone.”

  “Maybe you never knew me very well at all.” But as she said the words, she wondered how well she knew herself. She’d changed the exterior, but the interior felt like a jumbled mess right now. “It doesn’t matter,” Allie said as much to herself as everyone else, “I don’t need to prove anything to any of you.”

  Earl looked at her, his arms over his chest, judgment yet to be passed. “If that’s so, then why didn’t you tell anyone who you were?”

  “Because in this town, people judge first and ask questions later. And I wanted to show all of you.” She turned around, indicating Margie and Dick and Joe and Harry and Petey, all of whom were staring at her, pies and eggs and home fries forgotten. “Allison Gray wasn’t some worthless glob of human flesh. If I had come back here, weighing what I used to, no one would have ever looked at me. Listened to me. Given me a chance.”

  “No, Allie, that’s where you’re wrong,” Duncan said. “By lying, you never gave any of us a chance.”

  Then he left, the door whooshing shut behind him signaling the end of everything that Allie had thought was going right and had suddenly gone so very, very wrong.

  Chapter 24

  “The prodigal daughter returns again. Boy, are you a glutton for punishment.” Carlene gave Allie a dismissive, sarcastic look, then headed into the kitchen, clutching a bag of chips like Linus with his blankie.

  “I’m done hiding. Everyone found out who I am.”

  “Who dropped the big bombshell?”

  “Duncan.”

  Carlene arched a brow in surprise. “You’re turning into a regular episode of General Hospital.”

  “I think having the truth out there is better. Or I hope it will be in the end.” Except for the fallout Allie had read on Duncan’s face, she could almost believe everything would work out okay.

  Almost.

  “Hey, what’d you say to Ma today?” Carlene reached into the fridge for a can of soda. “She came in here, dropped off some groceries, then dragged Dad out to go buy more. She was like Imelda Marcos on a shoe frenzy. All upset and saying something about food and love. I don’t know, it wasn’t making any sense.”

  Allie sighed. “It’s complicated. I made a mess of things.”

  Carlene brushed by her sister. “I’ll say. When you screw up, you do it big time.”

  “Yeah, well, about those screwups…” Allie followed Carlene, and figured she’d tackle the last big topic left in Tempest. “I wanted to talk to you about why you’re hiding.”

  “I’m not hiding from anything, so go take your holier-than-thou ass back to L.A.” Carlene hefted herself up onto the sofa and turned on the TV.

  Allie moved in front of the thirty-five-inch set, blocking most of the view. “What made you turn into me?”

  “I’m trying to watch Maury Povich here.”

  “That didn’t answer my question.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that. Now, will you move?” She popped some chips into her mouth and munched.

  “Carlene, I’m worried about you.”

  “Since when? Since you moved to L.A. and pretty much forgot I existed? Since you spent all your days getting the perfect body? Since you came back to town with a different name and wouldn’t let us tell anyone you were here? Like we were the trash you forgot to take out?”

  “You know I don’t feel that way.”

  “That’s a lie and we both know it.” Carlene took a swig from the soda can on the table beside her. “Because I feel the same damned way.”

  “Why? Last time I saw you, you were dating Doug Wilkins and going to a different party every Friday night.”

  “Doug dumped me and parties stopped being fun.”

  “Why?”

  “If I wanted to play twenty questions, I would have bought the game. Now let me watch Maury.”

  “No. Not until you tell me what happened.”

  Carlene shot her sister a look of disdain, then flopped positions and turned up the volume.

  Her mother and father entered the trailer then, in a flurry of grocery bags. “Oh, it’s Allison Jean. Back again?” Allie could have frozen an Eskimo in her mother’s tone.

  Clearly their conversation on the bench hadn’t solved everything. Allie was batting a thousand right now. She’d ruined nearly every relationship she had. It was definitely time to go back to L.A. She wondered how much longer Jerry would need her to stay or if she could hop on the next plane going west.

  “I was visiting Carlene.” Unsuccessfully, Allie added mentally. “Need some help?”

  “Oh, no, dear, you don’t have to help. You just sit yourself down. I’ll do it all.”

  “Beatrice, let the girl help. Your heart’s not getting any younger and neither is my hip.” Dad pulled out a chair and nearly forced his wife into it. “Carlene, get your butt off the sofa and grab some bags.”

  Carlene did as she was told, following Allie out to the car. A wicked wind had sprung up in the few minutes since Allie had entered the trailer. She paused on her way up the concrete steps, looking toward the sky. “What does that look like to you?”

  “A storm, Einstein.” Carlene shifted the bags in her hands and kept going. “So?”

  “This one looks like a bad storm. Maybe a tornado.”

  “Tempest hasn’t had a tornado in a million years, Allison. And it isn’t going to have one today.”

  �
�I don’t know,” Allie said, glancing over at her sister, at the discontent still brewing in Carlene’s eyes. “I think we’ve got a big one on the way.”

  “Mr. H.?” Wally’s voice on the other side of Duncan’s door had a decided nervous shakiness to it.

  Duncan opened the door, annoyed and at the same time glad for the distraction. All he’d been doing was staring at the walls, rehashing the bombshell in Margie’s diner and getting nowhere fast. He was in no mood to deal with Wally’s weather enthusiasm, but figured it was better than his own grumpy company. “What?”

  “There’s a big storm headed this way. Think we should interrupt Dr. Phil?”

  “Let me check the Doppler.” Besides, it would give him something to do and give him a reason to escape his own thoughts. Right now, he’d like nothing better than to head off to a corner to stew and lick his wounds, but Wally was following him like an overeager puppy. The least he could do was check out the radar and look over the ratio of reds and greens before weighing the wisdom of breaking into the afternoon broadcast of Dr. Phil.

  If he interrupted the pop psychologist too many times, the station would hear about it from angry fans of the Texan. Too few interruptions, and they’d complain that Duncan hadn’t given them enough warning to get their booties on before leaving for their afternoon Bingo games.

  Predicting weather, Duncan had found, was an awful lot about pleasing the people by not getting in the way just when the wife was coming clean about her extramarital affairs.

  “Wally!” Steve’s voice came booming over the interoffice speakers. “Phone call, line three. Your mommy wants you.”

  The intern blushed three shades of crimson, then hurried off to take the call, leaving Duncan alone with the radar. A moment later, Wally poked his head back around the corner. “Mr. H.? My mom needs me at home. Her car won’t start and I need to give her a ride to work. Is it okay if I leave early?”

  “Sure, sure,” Duncan said. He waved off the intern and settled in at the weather desk. Staying here would undoubtedly be better than becoming the office hermit. Duncan fiddled with the software, then clicked on the live outdoor shot. Gathering cumulonimbus clouds presented an ominous, ugly view, looming over the station like a coven of witches.

  He returned his attention to the computer screen, scanning the Doppler radar. In many places, the spots of green had been superceded by yellow.

  Green meant precipitation. The darker the shade, the heavier the rain. Green was okay. Green he could deal with. Yellow meant severe weather, thunderstorms and the like.

  And red—

  Red was danger.

  He saw a flicker of crimson appear for one brief moment to the southwest of Tempest. There, like a firefly flash in the center of the kidney-shaped storm cell, then gone.

  He clicked through the rest of the Doppler software, seeing nothing but a lot of numbers that didn’t make much sense. Heck, when had they ever made sense?

  Nevertheless he went back to the radar screen. He may not have picked up much in the few classes he’d been able to attend, but he knew one thing, this was no ordinary storm.

  Something nagged at his gut. A feeling, but without the ability to read the data, he couldn’t tell if it was his empty stomach or a true weather barometer.

  He glanced around, looking for Wally, before he remembered the intern was already gone. The Magic 8 Ball was too far away, sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  To hell with the stupid toy anyway. Even if he had it in his hands, he knew the Magic 8 Ball couldn’t quiet this gut feeling. Neither could Wally.

  Something was in the air, Duncan just knew it. Something big.

  Klein and Jane weren’t due to come in for another hour, Steve was off in his office probably writing love letters to his Russian paramour. That left Duncan.

  And the approaching flickers of red and yellow.

  He clicked through screen after screen, trying to make sense of the data in his head, translating the information about supercell thunderstorms, reflectivity and wind velocity into the chances of this becoming something worse, the knot in his stomach clenching and tightening, telling him again that this was no ordinary storm.

  And it looked like it was heading straight for—

  Duncan cursed under his breath. Quickly, he got out a map, plotted the storm’s projected path.

  Oh, hell. No. He plotted again, scanned the data one more time. Oh, God.

  Allie. Katie.

  The whole town.

  Duncan sat back against his chair, his heart hammering in his chest, the colors on the screen beginning to flicker like stoplights gone wild, making their journey inch by inch across the screen.

  The storm was coming. He had to make a decision.

  A choice. An impossible choice.

  Time ticked on the clock above him. He couldn’t make this choice. God, no, he couldn’t make it.

  Leave the station to go home and save his sister, save the woman he cared about—despite everything—or stay here, and warn the entire town.

  The pencil in his fingers snapped. How could he choose?

  There wasn’t even enough time to hesitate. With a storm like this, even seconds mattered. Katie would have to be okay. She had the dog, she’d learned to navigate the chair, the stair lift.

  She’d have to be okay, he repeated in his head.

  And Allie. He had to hope she wasn’t out in the open somewhere, or worse, at her parents’ trailer, one of those cheap metal homes weathermen half-jokingly called “tornado magnets.”

  Duncan closed his eyes, said a prayer, then depressed the intercom button on the phone. “Steve, call my sister, and then call the Gray family. They live out on Rural Route 20. Tell them to get somewhere safe. Somewhere with a basement, for God’s sake. Then get in here with whatever we’ve got around here for a crew, because we’re going live immediately. We have a tornado on our hands.”

  Duncan swung over to the computer, quickly created a weather warning page and a scrolling message. Behind him, he heard the station’s afternoon skeleton crew hustling into position. When he was done, Duncan stepped in front of the blue screen, clipped on a mike, and waited while Jim counted down. “Five, four, three—”

  And then the cue. Duncan was live.

  If there was ever a time in his life when he’d better take his job seriously, this was it.

  Chapter 25

  “I don’t see why we can’t stay home,” Ma muttered from the back of the Taurus. “We were perfectly fine where we were.”

  Allie glanced from the road to the sky and back again. “There’s a storm coming, Ma, and I don’t think the trailer is the best place to be.”

  “It’s been fine for thirty years’ worth of storms, hasn’t it, Larry?”

  Her father grunted. “Is there going to be food where we’re going?”

  Allie chuckled. “Yes.”

  “Then count me in.”

  Ma swatted his arm. “I brought you some graham crackers and chocolate bars for a snack. I’m prepared to feed you, don’t you worry.”

  “Food’s food, Beatrice, no matter where we eat it.” Her father craned his neck to look out the window at the clouds, now quadrupling in darkness and size. “Allison’s right. That sky does look pretty mean.”

  Carlene had taken the passenger’s seat, and spent the entire ride silent as a piece of wood. It took less than five minutes to get from the trailer to the Henry house. As soon as Allie pulled in, the new nurse came hurrying down the porch stairs.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Mary, the nurse said. “There is no dealing with the girl today. She kicked me out. Said she doesn’t want anyone but you.”

  “Has she been…” Allie’s voice trailed off. She didn’t want to finish the question, not with her whole family here.

  “I don’t think so,” Mary said. “But she’s pretty grumpy, at least with me. Personally, I think she misses you.”

  “Go on home to your family,” Allie said. “A storm’s co
ming. I’ll stay with her.”

  Mary looked relieved, and headed out to her car, bag already in hand, clearly ready to go.

  “Why are we at the Henry place? You know how I feel about him.” Dad scowled. “I am not setting foot in that man’s house.”

  “And neither am I,” Ma added, standing resolute beside her husband, her arms crossed over her chest. “What were you thinking, bringing us to the Henry house, of all places?”

  “This is where Katie is. And if a storm is coming, I want to know that Katie’s safe. Since I can’t bring her to the trailer, because there’s no basement, I brought all of you to her.”

  “Katie? Katie Henry?” Carlene’s face paled.

  Allie knew then, the pieces falling into place as easily as waves filling a hole in the sand. Carlene had been there that night. That’s how she knew so much about what happened with Katie.

  And her guilt, probably over what had happened to Katie, had led to her overeating. Carlene had started stuffing it back inside, using potato chips to keep from having to deal with those feelings.

  “Get that nurse back here to take care of her,” Carlene said. “We don’t need to be here.”

  “Suit yourself. It’s a long way back home. In the rain.” Allie pocketed her keys and strode up the porch and into the house, leaving the door ajar, just as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. She didn’t have time to talk to Carlene about that night with Katie, not with this storm on the way, but she would. She didn’t want to see Carlene spend her life on a sofa.

  The three Grays stood outside for a minute more, stubborn, but then the rain fell harder. Apparently it was hard to hold a grudge when you were wet.

  “We’ll just stay until the storm passes,” Ma said, stepping inside the door and not a foot more.

  “Yeah,” Carlene agreed.

  Beside them came the whine of a motor, the jerking sound of a belt and the clang of metal. Followed by the even clicking of paws on wood. “Allie! You came.”

  “You promised me spaghetti and meatballs. And I brought some company.”