Clara seemed nervous. Lily couldn’t quite nail down what it was, but the legal assistant kept looking away from the screen, scribbling notes on her laptop, not bothering to answer any of Lily’s answers correctly.
“Do we have any information from the security scan at the corporate office?” It was a valid question, one that should have been in the notes the clients sent to the firm. But Clara again shifted her gaze, hesitating as she thumbed through the file at her side.
“There doesn’t seem to be any information on that, Miss Campbell.”
Lily exhaled, scanning her own notes, ones she made on her personal iPad months back during meetings she and Ron Black, Reynold’s Steel’s current CEO, had to discuss the negotiation of their next takeover. He hadn’t released any information to his board or staff, but confided in Lily the plans for a takeover of his cousin’s company. But, he didn’t have all the numbers, all the facts needed to launch a real strategy. It was family, he’d told Lily, and very sensitive.
“If we knew anything about Black’s plans, anything that he might have bounced off you, Lil, we might know who’d have the most to benefit from sending in the mole.” It was the second time Lincoln subtly mentioned seeing Lily’s notes.
“No, that’s not going to help us at the moment. We’re coming at it the wrong way,” she told him, walking toward the coffee maker for a refill. The meeting room adjoined the conference room on the second floor. It was a standard room, more high-end than Lily thought it might be with several small tables around the window and along the back wall and a larger one in the center, where Lincoln had set up the monitor for the remote access conference call with both Clara, back in New Orleans and the clients in Pittsburgh.
Lily sipped her coffee, her attention returning to the monitor when the shuffle of Clara’s files sounded. In the distance, behind the large window on the monitor, displaying Clara’s office space and the window behind her, Lily had a plain view of the downpour happening in New Orleans. Through that window, the city streets were doused with thick, pelting rain, a collection against the glass and flooding the area around the building.
“Clara,” Lily said behind a sip of coffee as she returned to the PC and the large monitor, “are you safe at the office? The storm looks bad over there.”
“Might be the end of hurricane season, but no one told Mother Nature,” she said, shifting around in her chair to lower the blinds behind her. “We’re fine here, but I heard the national forecast this morning. Y’all are going to get some bad storms today, too. Be careful.”
Lily looked out of the window, something she hadn’t bothered to do all day. The meeting with the clients had been a bad one—Black was visibly upset, and not very forthcoming. He seemed more irritated that Lincoln led the call while Lily tried her best to calm the man. Curtains pushed aside, Lily caught sight of the darkening skies above them and heard the coming rumble of thunder as it rolled in the distance. The ocean beyond the parking lot and past the highway that ran in front of the hotel, was unsettled; a rolling whip of wave and current that grew higher and higher as the winds picked up.
“Lil, can we get back to this?” Lincoln said, shifting through his phone and pulling up a bound file from his briefcase. “I’ve got numbers here, a list of names, all corporations and agencies that have made offers to Black in the past ten years…”
Lily didn’t like the fierce storm stirring in the horizon or how black the skies had turned. Ignoring Lincoln, she pulled out her phone, frowning when she noticed neither Zee or Keilen had bothered to return her texts.
“If we cross reference the dip in…” Lincoln’s suggestion went silent and around them a loud shrieking noise erupted over the speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the National Weather Service has issued an alert…”
Fear rumbled inside Lily’s chest as Lincoln, inexplicably, looked up at the ceiling, to the bright white lights flashing as the warning continued. It was no simple storm stirring in the ocean; more than some tropical depression that would cut power. Again, Lily looked out the window, gripping her cell tight in her hand as she thought of how long it had been since she spoke to Zinnia. Not since Ano’s party. Not since she and Keilen disappeared to swim half naked in the ocean.
“Damn,” she said, once again trying Zee’s number. Once again getting that annoying message of her to leave a message.
“Should we postpone this?” Clara said on the monitor.
“I think we can continue…”
“The power will go out soon, Lincoln, and I can’t get in touch with my family.”
Lily had already started to gather her things, feeling a little sick when she tried Keilen’s number and got no reply, no voicemail request at all.
“Lily, this is nothing. You know that. We get storms like this twice a month back home.” He seemed more concerned with whatever text he received but not enough that he stopped insisting on keeping the meeting going.
Another alert announced an update to hotel guests, this one detailing the conditions and warning guests to stay inside.
“You hear that?” Lily asked Lincoln, moving her phone between her hands as the announcement continued. “Cat three, sustained winds spinning around eighty miles an hour.”
He waved at her, a silent motion to keep quiet as he took a call. In the background, Clara went on about filings made two years before and other claims Black had issued on behalf of the company. Lily didn’t pay attention to anything. Her worry wasn’t unfounded, she knew that. Lincoln hadn’t been wrong. There were storms of this magnitude back in New Orleans on occasion; they happened so often that flooding and school and road closures were commonplace. But that was New Orleans, a city connected to land that went on for miles and miles, that lead to other cities, to smaller town, larger populations that stretched across America. Hawaii was smaller, much smaller, island and inlets that covered eight main populated places, all vulnerable to the fickle ocean and mighty storms.
In the middle of all that was Zinnia and Keilen. And Lily hadn’t heard from either of them.
Lily tried again, passing the table and Lincoln as he fired off yet another message, or whatever it was he did on his precious phone, to step into the hallway. Her hands shook and that sick feeling in her chest thickened, made breathing difficult when she dialed Zee’s number and once more got her voicemail.
“Sweetie, I know I’ve left a bunch of messages, but I’m officially worried. I haven’t heard from you since last night and now there’s a storm. I…I’m not sure what to do or where you are or…anything.” She exhaled, swallowed the thick knot that seemed to form in her throat. “Please, Zee, just call or text so I know you’re okay. I’m…I think I’m going to go home, to your home to see if you’re back.”
Lily’s worst fear had always been the obvious—losing Zinnia. It wasn’t a ridiculous thing to dread; she’d already lost the people she loved most in the world. Zee was it. Some nights when her niece had first started dating or going out to parties with her friends, Lily’s morbid imagination would construct the most awful scenarios, all of which ended with Lily picking out caskets or, God forbid, identifying Zinnia’s body. That immense feeling of dread would stay with her all night, would grow darker as the hours ticked by and Zee remained absent.
She hadn’t felt that dread in a long time. It had been there, ever so faintly as Zinnia went off to college, then to Hawaii, but Lily had trained herself to let some of her worse fears go. It was the only way to remain sane.
Now that fear was back and it had taken hold of Lily like never before. It had been intensified by the worry she felt for Keilen. Lily took a second to compose herself, resting her head against the wall as she closed her eyes, shooting up a silent prayer for the protection of her family and her own fraying nerves.
Breaths deep, focused, Lily tried to relax, listening to the rising beat of her heart, wishing it would clam, that the worry she felt would not overtake her. And then, the text message alert chirped twice, making her jump as she looked down at her phone.
The number was anonymous; the only thing recognizable it was the area code, 808, coming from a local number. When she opened the message, that fear, the worry and dread she felt dimmed. She still feared what might have become of Zee and Ano, but she no longer worried about Keilen. The image was dark, but showed his face and the gray shirt she’d seen him in that morning.
He wasn’t in danger. Keilen was simply occupied.