Sandra Brown: Low Pressure

“Uh, yeah,” he said, hoping that was a suitable reply.

Gall took the cigar from his mouth. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

Dent stood up and addressed the senator. “Your airplane’s a wet dream. And I can fly it better than anybody. But right now, I’ve got to go.”

As he wended his way through the tables he heard the senator chuckle. “Is he always in that big of a hurry?”

“Lately, yeah,” Gall said. “He’s in love.”

Dent pushed through the door, which the wind caught and jerked out of his hand. He didn’t stop to close it, but bowed his head against the pelting rain and took off running.

With trembling hands, Bellamy shook the shards of broken glass from the frame, then ran her fingertips across the photograph itself. She looked carefully at each family member individually, trying to figure out what was bothering her about the picture.

Lightning flashed. She cringed. And for that instant, she was twelve years old again, in the wooded area of the state park, petrified with fear as she crouched in the underbrush. She needed to take cover from the weather, but she was too frightened to move.

The flashback was so intense her breath started coming in loud, rushing gasps. Taking the photograph with her, she scrambled around the desk to the nearest bookcase and dropped to her knees in front of the cabinets beneath the shelves. Inside were all the research materials she’d collected while writing Low Pressure . She’d had Dexter send her all the files, which she’d left behind when she fled New York. When they arrived, she had asked her dad if she could store them here in a space he wasn’t using.

Moving unsteadily, she stacked the bulky folders on the floor in front of her and began rapidly sorting through them until she found the one containing photographs of the tornado and its aftermath. She’d clipped them from magazine write-ups and newspaper articles, and printed them off the Internet, until she had dozens of pictures that had been taken that fateful Memorial Day in Austin.

But she was searching for one in particular, and her search was so frantic she flipped through all the photographs twice before she located it. It had been captioned: Prominent family searches for loved ones among the rubble .

A Lyston Electronics employee who’d had his camera at the barbecue had taken the picture within minutes of the tornado. In the background, the devastation looked surreal. The snapshot had captured people in tears, in tatters, still in the throes of panic.

In the forefront were Howard, Olivia, and Steven.

Howard was clutching Olivia’s hand, his face streaked with tears. Steven’s arm was raised, his face buried in the crook of his elbow. Olivia’s expression was stark, vastly different from the smile she’d been wearing in the photograph taken that morning on the front steps of her home.

Bellamy held the photographs side by side.

Yes, the contrast between Olivia’s facial expressions was pronounced.

However, not so noticeable was the difference in her blouse. In the photograph taken earlier, it had a bow at the neck. In the second photo…

Bellamy dropped the photographs and covered her face with her hands as the memory jolted her. As though she’d been propelled supersonically through a time warp, she was suddenly back there picking her way through the woods, looking for Susan, who’d left the pavilion with Allen Strickland.

Bellamy wanted to find them together so she could embarrass Susan the way Susan had embarrassed her by saying what she had about her and Dent.

But when she came upon her sister, she was lying facedown on the ground, the skirt of her sundress flipped up, showing her bottom. Clutched in her hand was her small purse. She wasn’t moving. Bellamy knew she was dead.

As shocking as that, Olivia was standing over her, looking down. In her hand was the tie that belonged around the neck of her blouse. The end of it was trailing on the ground.

Bellamy wanted to cry out, but she was frozen with fear and shock. She remained perfectly still and held her breath. It would have been hard to breathe anyway, because the air had turned so thick. The woods had become preternaturally silent and motionless. Nothing moved. No birds or insects, no squirrels, not a single leaf. It was as though everything in nature had stopped to watch Olivia choke her stepdaughter to death.

Then suddenly the stillness was interrupted by a strong whoosh of wind, and the silence was split by a roar that knocked Bellamy to the ground. The change galvanized Olivia, who turned and thrashed her way through the trees and underbrush at a run, moving in the direction of the pavilion.

Bellamy clambered to her feet and stumbled blindly through the woods as the wind beat at her and stole her breath, as the charged atmosphere caused her hair to stand on end. The noise was unlike anything she’d ever heard. It was like the roar of a dragon bearing down on her.

But she hadn’t been running from the terrifying elements of the storm. She’d been running from what she’d seen. She was blindly seeking not shelter from the wind and natural debris that was whipping around her, but rather refuge from the unthinkable.

When she finally reached the boathouse, lungs bursting and heart racing, she stumbled inside and instinctually sought a corner in which to cower, even as a section of the metal roof was ripped away and another sliced through the cavernous building like the blade of a guillotine, cleaving a boat in two. Weeping uncontrollably, she covered her head with her arms and made herself as small and invisible as possible.

Rain was lashing at the study window now. A jagged fork of lightning struck close. Following a loud explosive pop, the lamp on the desk flickered, then went out.

She wanted to seek cover and hide, as she had that day in the boathouse, but she was no longer a child, and if she gave in to her fear now, she might never learn what even her unlocked memory couldn’t tell her.

Reaching up from her place on the floor, she grabbed a corner of the desk and used it as leverage to pull herself to her feet. She closed her eyes against the lashing fury of the storm, took several deep breaths, then let go of the desk and walked from the room.

All the lights in the house had gone out, but she found her way to the main staircase. Gripping the newel post, she paused. Its curving length seemed rife with menace. It was so dark she couldn’t even see where it ended at the top, but she forced herself to plant her foot on the bottom tread and start up.

She was blinded by periodic flashes of lightning, causing her to grab the banister and wait until her vision returned. When she reached the second-story landing, she looked down the long hallway. It was dark. But a faint light shone beneath the door of the bedroom Olivia and Howard had shared. Bellamy walked toward it and didn’t even pause to knock before turning the doorknob and going in.

A candle votive flickered on the nightstand. Olivia was lying on the bed, the covers pulled up to her chest. “Olivia?”

She raised her head from the pillow. “Bellamy.” Then, more weakly, “Steven left.”

Bellamy crossed the room to stand at the foot of the bed. Olivia glanced down at her hand, in which she clutched the two telling photographs. When her gaze moved back to Bellamy’s face, she looked deeply into her eyes for ponderous moments. Finally, she said, “You know.”

Bellamy nodded and slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. For a time they just looked at each other, saying nothing. Olivia broke the taut silence. “How did you piece it together?”

“I didn’t. With the help of these photographs, I finally remembered.”

Olivia looked at her quizzically.

Bellamy explained her memory loss. “Even when I was focused on that day and writing the book, I couldn’t remember snatches of time. Not until just now did it all come back.”