Chapter 4 - The Rainstorm
Two days later, the sky opened up over the county in a slate-gray deluge. The kind of rain that turns the drainage ditches into brown torrents and makes windshield wipers slap back and forth with a desperate, rhythmic screech.
I was sitting at my kitchen island reviewing a logistics manifest when I heard the heavy rumble of a diesel engine idling in my driveway.
I stood up and walked to the front window.
A twenty-six-foot rented U-Haul truck—its white box sides streaked with black grime from the highway—was parked right across the center of my concrete drive. The hazard lights were blinking in the downpour.
Harper and Chase climbed out of the cab.
Chase didn't even bother with an umbrella; he pulled his jacket over his head like a cap and sprinted toward the front porch. Harper followed more slowly, her yellow maternity raincoat bright against the gloom, holding a large canvas tote bag against her chest.
They weren't coming to talk. They were coming to move in.
Chase walked straight to the front door, pulled a brass key from his pocket, and shoved it into the lock.
He turned it.
Nothing happened. The cylinder didn't even catch.
He frowned, jiggled the key, and tried again with more force, his shoulder leaning against the oak paneling. Still nothing. The new deadbolt held firm, cold and unyielding.
Harper came up the steps behind him, panting slightly, her face pale in the shadow of the porch roof. "Let me try," she said, snatching the key from his hand.
She jammed it into the keyway and twisted until her knuckles turned white. The brass key bent slightly under the torque.
Nothing.
Panic flickered across her face—quick and sharp. She dropped the key, stepped back, and started pounding her fist against my front door with terrifying rhythm.
"Naomi! Open this door right now!" she screamed over the sound of the rain. "You are seriously making a pregnant woman stand out here in this freezing weather! Open the door!"
I walked over to the hallway wall, flipped open the cover of the security intercom, and pressed the talk button. My voice came out of the exterior speaker beside the doorbell—flat, amplified, and entirely devoid of warmth.
"You have five minutes to remove that truck from my property before I have it towed to the municipal impound lot at your expense."
Harper froze, her hand still raised to pound again. She stared directly into the little glass eye of the porch camera above her head.
"You can't do this!" she shrieked, tears of pure rage mixing with the rain streaming down her cheeks. "We have nowhere to go! The loft landlord locked us out this morning! We are family, Naomi! You hear me? Family!"
May you like
"Four minutes," I said into the mic. "The tow truck is already on state route four. They love bad weather calls."
Chase grabbed Harper by the arm, shouting something in her ear that I couldn't make out over the roar of the storm. For a second, he looked up at the camera, his mouth twisted into an ugly, snarling line that looked nothing like the smiling brother-in-law from Sunday dinner. Then he turned her around, practically dragging her back down the porch steps through the puddles as the U-Haul’s engine roared to life, tires spinning and throwing wet gravel against my siding as it backed down the drive.
