Kestrel (Hart Briothers #3)
Read Kestrel (Hart Briothers #3) Online
Authors: A. M. Hargrove
KESTREL
A
Hart Brothers Novel
A.M.
HARGROVE
Published
By AM Hargrove, LLC
Copyright
© 2015 A. M. Hargrove
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the
prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed
“Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names,
places
and characters are figments of the author’s
imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
To my beta team—you are my Super Heroes!
Terri, Kat, Candace, Andrea, Megan, Kristie, and Heather. I couldn’t function
without you. Not only do you beta for me, you are also my friends and that
means much more than anything else. You are the best and I mean that from the
bottom of my thankful heart. Your valuable insight never ceases to amaze me.
And now, thank you to my special bloggers. You all
are simply amazing and I honestly don’t know how you do what you do.
So—and this is in no particular order—thank you Terri from My Book
Boyfriend; Kat from Tsk
Tsk
What To Read; Andrea and
Simone from Make My Day Books; Kristie from Kristie’s
Kaptivating
Reviews; Heather from Carver’s Book Cravings; Laurie Oh, Nina, and Lisa, from
Literary Gossip; Ellie, Courtney, Virginia, and
Hillz
from
LoveN.Books
, Mandy from I Read Indie;
Hetty
from Bestsellers and
Beststellers
;
and Alana from Dark Obsession Chronicles. I know I’ve missed a bunch of people
and for that I apologize, but my squishy brain can’t seem to remember you all. Just
know that all of you ladies have rocked my world and I love you hard for
helping me so much.
A ginormous thanks goes out to my street team who
are so awesome in sticking by me in my times of absence, when I scurry and hide
in the cave for days because if I don’t, I’d never get anything accomplished.
Thank you for loving my books so much and for shouting them out from the
mountaintops for me, or the Twitter tops and Facebook tops as it is. Love you
all from my toes to my eyes, and then some. I’d like to send out a special
thanks to Nancy and Keisha who always seem to spread the love for my characters
like they live and breathe off the pages as well as on them. XOXOXO.
To Michelle, Lila,
Rick
and
the RedCoat PR Family, Amy, and all my other helpers out there including
Jessica Nelson at Rare Bird Editing. There wouldn’t be a novel without you
guys. Massive hugs to you all.
And to my family, who always seem to be there when I
need them. Thanks,
fam
. You ARE THE BEST!
This
book is dedicated to those who fight the battle against cancer every day. It is
also dedicated to those who have won that battle and to all those who have not
been so fortunate. Though you are no longer here, you will forever live on in
our hearts.
Carter
October
2010
It
wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did. Not like that. It all went wrong.
Terribly wrong.
How could the meteorologists have been so
off target? My family was supposed to be fine. My father was great with these
kinds of things. He knew about them. He
knew.
He was a sailor, for
Pete’s sake. He had all that stupid equipment at the beach house. He would
track those things incessantly, like a kid following his favorite baseball
player. But he didn’t know … couldn’t have known. No one knew. Not even NOAA.
It took everyone by surprise.
Most of all, me.
God,
how I wish it had all played out differently … how I wish my mother hadn’t
urged me to go.
“Honey,
it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. This will catapult your career. Genetic
engineering is your love. You can’t pass up a chance to attend this seminar at
Duke. Only a handful of students in the world are invited. You
have
to
go,” my mother had insisted.
“But
Ells,” I said.
My
mother scoffed. “What? I can’t take care of my grandbaby for a week while
you’re away? It’s not like I don’t babysit for her on a daily basis as it is.”
Guilt
flooded me, though. It was my fall break … a chance for me to spend some
quality time with my little girl. My nose was in the books most of the time and
I rarely had a spare minute to play with my daughter.
“I
know,” I moaned. “But I want to be with her, too.”
“Carter,
listen to me. When I found out you were pregnant, I never thought you’d make it
to this point. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel now. You’re on your
way, honey. One day soon, you’ll have that coveted Ph.D. and the hard work will
have been worth it. I am so proud of you. This is one short week. It’ll be
Thanksgiving before you know it and you’ll have a few days off, and then
Christmas will be here. Ells will be all yours then. This invitation you’ve
gotten is huge. Don’t pass this up, baby.”
“Oh,
Mom. I never knew it would be this hard.”
My
mother hugged me. What I didn’t know— couldn’t have known—was that
urging me to go was the worst thing she could have possibly done for me.
I
took my mother’s advice and went to the seminar. It was on genetic engineering,
specifically in the oncogene, which is my area of interest. Yes, I am a geek …
a scientist or whatever you want to call me. I study cancer using mice that
have been genetically altered making them susceptible to invasive cancer cells.
And no, I do not believe it is cruel. What I do believe, however, is that it’s
cruel to see children suffering from devastating illnesses. If I can, in some
way, make headway against those atrocious diseases by studying them in the
oncomouse, then so be it. I really don’t give a fuck what the mice savers of
the world think. My lifetime goal is to be a child saver and to, hopefully,
find a cure for cancer.
However,
by going to that specific seminar, and by reveling in scientific
geekdom
for a week, I ended up being a child killer.
My own.
Because had I stayed home, I would have insisted
that Ells get off Sullivan’s Island that day. I never would have taken that
risk. And Ells, along with my parents, would be alive today.
It
was the beginning of October and the storm that was brewing was only a Category
One hurricane. It had formed off the coast of Cape Verde as a low-pressure
system, wobbling its way across the Atlantic. When it hit the Caribbean Sea, it
gained strength and developed into a tropical storm. By the time it made it to
the Bahamas, it was a hurricane. No one, not even NOAA or the National
Hurricane Center, was greatly concerned about it because all the tracking
information had led everyone to believe that it would remain at either Category
One status or be downgraded back to a tropical storm. Charleston, South
Carolina was its target, and Charlestonians were well versed in hurricane
preparedness. After all, they were Hurricane Hugo survivors. They took all
storms seriously.
But
this one fooled everyone. The predictions had the storm making landfall during
the day at low tide. However, something dreadful happened that changed
everything. A low-pressure system that had rapidly developed over the Bahamas
collided with this storm, turning it into a monstrosity. The waters of the
still-warm southern Atlantic only fed this beast, and it grew into a Category
Five, gaining speed and strength overnight until it slammed into the coast of
South Carolina, catching everyone by surprise. Evacuations were still taking
place before emergency preparedness had to close off bridges and turn people
around. Roads were crammed with cars trying to escape impending doom. The
hurricane hit at high tide, bringing with it a thirty-five-foot storm surge and
leaving behind a swath of death and destruction that left the coastline and
state numb with shock and despair.
My
seminar had occupied most of my waking moments, so I hadn’t paid the least bit
of attention to the news or weather. But on the morning of the storm, talk was
running rampant. My phone was useless. “All circuits are busy,” was the
recording I kept receiving. Panic ripped through me. Surely they left the
island. They wouldn’t take any risks, not with Ells staying with them.
Later
that morning my phone rang. It was my mother.
“Carter,
listen to me.”
“Mom!
I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where are you?”
“Listen
to me, Carter. I don’t have much time. The cell towers are jammed and this call
may drop any second. Write this down quickly. Do you have paper and pen?”
“Yes.”
I quickly grabbed both.
“10-21-57-3-28-88.
Do
you have that?”
“Yeah.
Mom, what is it?”
“That’s
the combination to the safe in our closet on Murray Boulevard. Inside you’ll
find a copy of our will, one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and all of my
jewelry.”
“Why
all the cash?”
“No
time to explain. Carter, in all likelihood, we’re not going to make it.”
“What
are you saying?” Her statement confused me.
“The
storm. We’re on the northern front of it. The eye is going to pass just south
of us. That means we’re going to take the brunt of the surge.”
Oh,
Jesus.
God, no.
“You
stayed? You stayed on Sullivan’s?” I was instantly sick. My body violently
shook. Shock. I went into shock as my ass hit the chair behind me.
“We
didn’t know, Carter. They had it all wrong. We never would’ve stayed had we
known. I’m so sorry, baby. I love you so much. We all love you so much.”
A
loud buzzing filled my ears and then a high keening. Someone yelled out my
name, but I can’t recall who. That’s all I remember. And that’s the last
conversation I had with my mother.
No
one was allowed on the islands around Charleston for days. It was presumed that
there were broken gas lines and possible
live
electrical lines, though I doubted that because all the main electrical trunk
lines had been knocked down by either wind or water. The National Guard did
thorough searches of all barrier islands and declared there were no survivors.
It was official. My parents and daughter—my entire family—had
perished in the storm.
There were very few homes left standing,
and what remained were husks that I imagined a post World War II town in Europe
to look like. Nothing but the skeletal remains and bone fragments of what were
once fine and stately oceanfront homes. A wall here and there, odd pieces of
furniture scattered around, most of it pushed against whatever remained
standing, as it had been shoved by the wall of water that crashed onto shore. I
walked the island from end to end, looking for some sign, but there wasn’t a
single thing that remained from my parent’s home. Nothing. It was all gone,
chewed up by the sea that came to claim them that night.
My
mother had been wrong after all. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.
There never would be for me. From this day forward, I would live in darkness,
alone, without my parents and without my sweet baby Ells.