The Running Girls(78)
“I just need to get on land,” said Laurie, checking the address she had for Neil Mosley on the map she’d packed with her.
“Old school,” said Patrick, nodding to the map.
“I’ve been told it’s the best way, but then, the guy who told me that is old as dirt.”
He grinned. “You don’t risk losing signal, I’ll say that much for them.” He nodded toward the back of the bird. “Grab a seat back there. Leaving in five,” he said, placing headphones on as he settled into his seat in the cockpit.
Laurie introduced herself to the two coastguardsmen working the back of the helicopter. The machine was an MH-65 Dolphin specifically outfitted for search and rescue. The guardsmen told her they’d already rescued fifteen people in the last few hours from various parts of Galveston, and had taken a flyby of the peninsula.
The wind was already buffeting the helicopter as the pilot started the propellers. The three guardsmen had flown in earlier that day from Corpus Christi, the small city where Sadie Cornish had moved with her family many years previous. As well as rescuing those stranded by the hurricane, their mission was to document the devastation unleashed by Heather, as evidenced by the compact video camera wielded by one of the guardsmen.
“Ready for takeoff,” said Patrick over Laurie’s headset, followed immediately thereafter by the helicopter’s stomach-lurching leap into the still decidedly unsettled air. “Be prepared, Detective Campbell. It’s going to be a rough ride, both up here and down below. Ugly down there.”
Laurie had already seen her share of devastation on the ground following Hurricane Ike, but the pilot was right. Below her, Galveston looked like some waterlogged foreign country. The majority of the island was still blanketed by water. Great, tangled piles of debris snarled the roads and many of the beachfront properties on the West End were utterly destroyed.
“Estimates just jumped up to eighty percent of the island being flooded,” said Patrick, as he swept the rocking, bouncing copter back east toward the Bolivar Peninsula, scanning for signs of life below as he flew. “Thankfully, most folks had the good sense to get out this time. Look there,” he added, pointing to a herd of cattle that had somehow congregated near one of the resorts a little inland. “That’s a bunch of lucky hamburger.”
As they approached Bolivar, it was clear that most of Highway 87 was still underwater. If Frank and Mosley had made it to the peninsula, they would have had to have done so before the hurricane made landfall. Judging by the flooding and the property damage below them, they would have done very well to have survived the last twenty-four hours.
“You have to wonder why folks would rebuild here after last time,” said Patrick, flying low over the waterlogged Crystal Beach Road to the bay side, close to the address they had for Sadie Cornish. “This the area?”
“This is it,” said Laurie, staring at the flooded land, which held no sign of life.
“I can’t in all good conscience put you down here, Detective, even if I could find somewhere to land. I’d likely be dropping you to your death.”
Laurie was tempted to agree. It already looked like a fool’s errand, and there was also the fact that Filmore had forbidden her to make the trip. Still, she had no option. “I understand what you’re saying, but we have an active, highly agitated killer on the loose down there,” she said, still unsure who exactly that was. “Just letting him wander around and go off on somebody else isn’t an option for me. Surely there must be somewhere to land.”
Patrick shook his head slowly as if she were nuts, but he did appear to be scanning for some solid earth. As it happened, though, it was Laurie who spotted some. “What do you think about that, down there?” she said, leaning forward into the cockpit and pointing down at what seemed to be a clear patch of muddy ground.
“Not much,” said Patrick. “That’s only about a thimbleful of dirt.”
“I don’t require much. Dainty little me.”
He heaved a sigh as they hovered over it. “Last chance to think it over, ma’am. Your lunatic down there won’t be going anywhere.”
“Only way to be certain of that is if I get down there.”
After grumbling something that got lost in static, Patrick said, “All right, ma’am. Fellas, let’s get Detective Campbell prepared.” He cranked a look back at her. “You’ll have to go down the hard way, I’m afraid.”
“Story of my life.”
A few minutes later, Laurie was in a harness lashed to one of the coastguardsmen, and the two of them were being lowered to the ground. Deprived of her headset, the world was a madness of noise, what with the racket of the helicopter above them and the high winds pushing them to and fro as the machine battled to hold steady over their target. After maybe two minutes that felt like an hour, the pair settled squarely onto it. Laurie had never been more pleased to sink into ankle-deep mud.
“You sure about this, ma’am?” the guardsman said, detaching her from him and helping her free of the harness.
“Oh, not in the least, Guardsman,” she said, “but thanks for all your help, anyway.” She slapped him on the shoulder and turned away like she had an immediate plan for where in the hell to go. When she looked back, he was already being lifted up to the helicopter, which hovered for another few minutes before moving off.