Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

many people level-headed enough to hear what I’m fixing to tell you. This is the big one, and we’re not ready.”
    “So let’s go get Faye.”
    “We’d have to swim. The Marine Patrol office in Tampa has suspended rescue operations in this area for the duration of—”
    “Why? Because they don’t work on Sunday?”
    Sheriff Mike excused the interruption because he understood how she felt. “—For the duration of the storm,” he continued. “In their judgment, and I think they’re probably right, the risk of losing personnel and equipment is too high, and we’re going to need every officer and every rescue craft they have when the storm passes.”
    “Cowards,” Magda observed tartly.
    “Be that as it may. And by the way—you’re aware that Faye’s friend, Joe Wolf Mantooth, escaped from my custody today?”
    Magda sputtered. “Actually, no. But—”
    “Well, I’d bet my arrowhead collection that he’s with Faye. If you’d called me with Faye’s location earlier, then I might be questioning Joe Wolf right this minute and Faye might be safe. Not many people play me for a fool. Believe me, I’ll go get Joe Wolf Mantooth personally, just as soon as the storm passes.”
    “We’ll go get them,” Magda said.
    Only then did Sheriff Mike realize his position. The deceitful woman had never given him the exact location of Faye’s home.
    “I can’t take a civilian on a manhunt,” he said flatly.
    “How dangerous do you think Mr. Mantooth is?”
    Silence erupted.
    “That’s what I thought. I’ll be at your office as soon as the wind dies down. On second thought, I may have trouble getting there. There’ll be trees in the road, power lines, things like that. Send an emergency vehicle to the hurricane shelter in Sopchoppy—that’ll be my luxury suite for the night—and we’ll head out to Faye’s from there. And make sure you get a Marine Patrol vessel, not your little boat. God knows what’ll be floating in the water. Their boats—ships, whatever—will be more suitable than anything you’ve got. No offense.”
    “None taken, ma’am.”
    “I’ll be waiting for my ride.”
    “Yes, ma’am, Dr. Stockard.”

    Faye watched as great trees surrendered to the wind all over her island, taking down wide swathes of smaller trees as they fell. Pine trees rarely suffered the fate of less deeply rooted, less flexible trees. They swayed and bent at unnatural angles in the face of the hurricane’s unremitting wind but they were bred to survive and most did. Still, more than once, a great crack echoed over the island as even the resilience of a pine tree was pushed past its limit. She wondered how much force it took to snap a tree trunk like a strand of dried pasta. How much could a tree endure?
    And how much could a man endure? In the hour since he was shot, Douglass had slid rapidly downhill. He had been intermittently conscious for the past half-hour. When she pressed her ear to his chest, the sound was wheezy and wet. Was he developing pneumonia? Heart failure? Had his entire lung collapsed? She had no idea, but she was heartened to see him cling to life with the stubborn will that had turned a poor black boy into a wealthy and dignified man.
    She huddled beside him and watched the sky. It was a luminescent gray-green, shading to orange in the west. When the sun set, they would be left with no light but the shimmering, ever-present lightning.
    She wondered where the Senator was. Somewhere in the house below them, he was waiting, hoping that she was floating in the waters covering her island, hoping she was dead. He must wonder what had happened to Douglass. She hoped he believed that the wounded man had crawled into the bushes where he had bled to death or lay there still, waiting for the storm to drown him.
    Wishing someone dead is powerful magic. She wished the Senator dead. He wished her dead, and Douglass too, but he thought Joe was safely imprisoned. Perhaps Joe was safe from the insistent magic pulling at her, at Douglass, at the man downstairs. Perhaps he was the one to free them from their interlaced bonds, from the net of hatred. Or perhaps the unremitting roll of thunder was affecting her mind.
    She watched Joe work. She had left the shutters hanging by one nail apiece in her quest to make Joyeuse look uninhabitable but, with the windows broken, they would need the shutters to fulfill their original purpose: keeping the weather out when the windows were open.
    With no hammer or