Page 52 of No Judgements

“Of course I do,” I said. “But, Ed, who’s going to try to steal my scooter? The bridge is out. The only people on the island right now are locals. And you can’t honestly tell me that you think someone who lives here would—”

“Just take it with you.” Ed shoved the pistol at me. “You never know. Someone could come here on a boat or a plane to—”

“—steal my used, ten-year-old scooter?”

“Just take it. You’re a pretty young woman. It’d make me feel a lot better about letting you do this if you had a way to defend yourself. The piece is already loaded. Safety’s here—”

“I know where the safety is, Ed.”

I took the gun from him before he could flash it around some more. There were plenty of people walking around on the street, happy not to be cooped up in their homes now that the storm was over.

I shoved the gun into my backpack, into which I’d also packed a few bottles of water and a warm, foil-wrapped Cuban breakfast sandwich that Mrs. Hartwell had insisted on making for Drew when she’d heard where I was headed.

“Please bring him back to me,” she’d whispered, tears in her eyes—the whisper was because Katie was on the landline, talking to her dad, and Mrs. Hartwell didn’t want to disturb her. The tears were because she was so moved by my offer to go find Drew.

“Don’t worry, I will,” I’d assured her. I hadn’t wanted to voice my fears about what I was really going to find once I got out to Sandy Point, which was nothing but rubble.

Katie came in just at that moment, looking perturbed.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Mrs. H asked. “Is your dad all right?”

“Oh, he’s fine.” Katie lifted a piece of toast and nibbled on it absently. “Everyone over at the high school made it through the storm okay. The jail, too. But I guess things are pretty bad over by the bridge. There’s already a traffic jamon the other side, locals trying to get back to their homes. Only they can’t because there’s no safe way through. Dad’s there now, dealing with them. He wants me to call my mom in Miami and let her know I’m okay.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Hartwell, “you should. I’m sure she’s worried sick about you. You know they’re saying on the news that Little Bridge was destroyed in the storm.”

“I know,” Katie said. “It’s just that I don’t feel like talking to my mom. She’s such a—”

Mrs. Hartwell gasped. “Katie!”

I knew how Katie felt, though. I probably should have used the Hartwells’ landline to call my own mother and let her know I was all right. But like Katie, I didn’t want to, either. There was something weirdly restful and almost comforting about being cut off from the rest of the world, without cell service, Internet, and television...

Well, except the part about not knowing whether Drew Hartwell was dead or alive.

But I intended to remedy that.

I was familiar with the drive out to Sandy Point because it was one of the prettiest beaches on the island, so I often visited it on my days off from work, sometimes even going there to paint. A state park, there weren’t any hotels or commercial businesses out there, only a few private homes on land that had been purchased before the government had stepped in and declared the beach a national treasure, so the shoreline still had a pristine quality to it. There weren’t any tiki huts or trucks selling snow cones or rentingJet Skis or sun umbrellas, so tourists generally avoided the area.

Although who knew what that mile of white, palm tree–dotted sand looked like now? The closer I got to the shore, the more difficult the roads leading to it became to navigate. What was normally a fifteen-minute scooter ride took over an hour, because I kept having to back down a street once I’d started up it, due to fallen trees or power lines I couldn’t get by, even on a motorbike.

But one thing I did not encounter were any hostile predators, despite Ed’s predictions. In fact, I met the opposite. Thoughtful locals who lived in the area had already generously marked places where electric lines were down or hanging low, tying brightly colored bandannas or even plastic bags around the wires so anyone passing by wouldn’t run over or into them.

I saw plenty of people out with their own personal chain saws, getting to work on fallen trees before city crews even had a chance to assemble. I recognized many of them from the Mermaid. All of them waved and called out as I rode by, happy to see a familiar face.

“When are you guys opening back up?” a few wanted to know.

“Later this afternoon,” I called out.

This information was met with enormous smiles and cries of “Great, we’ll be there!”

Ed was going to get plenty of takers for the food he was hoping to give away before it spoiled.

My heart grew heavier the closer I got to the beach, however. I’d seen virtually no damage to any of the homes I’d passed traveling through town, aside from a few missing roof shingles or carports.

But the first home I saw upon turning down Sandy Point Drive—a beautiful, three-story modern structure that I happened to know belonged to a wealthy real estate developer who’d hosted several charity benefits catered by the Mermaid—had been ripped from its foundation by either the wind or storm surge or both. It lay several yards into the surf, collapsed onto itself.

It had the sad, vacant look of a home that had been deserted—I knew the owner was a “snowbird” who resided up north during the summer months—but I still offered up a silent prayer that no one had been in the house during the storm.

Beyond it the road was virtually unrecognizable as such, there was so much sand, seaweed, and other debris thrown across it. My tires skidded unsteadily on the uneven surface.