"And after that?"
"Then the hour after that."
It sounded almost exactly like something Daniel would have said.
Emily swallowed hard and nodded.
"There is a small metal box under what used to be my front counter," she said. "Wedding photograph. Papers. I bolted it to the floor."
"Show us where."
For the next ten minutes, Emily and three riders dug through what remained of the front office. They worked bare-handed until Sadi found gloves in a saddlebag and distributed them. Broken glass glittered in the mud. Wet insulation clung to everything.
They found the metal box beneath a collapsed section of counter framing.
Emily held it against her chest and closed her eyes.
Hawk stood nearby with his phone in his hand.
"You making calls?" she asked.
"Starting to."
"To who?"
"People who need to know what happened."
"Your families?"
"Them first. Then the chapter."
Emily opened her eyes. "Tell them you are alive. Do not tell them anything about me."
Hawk's expression did not change, but something in his eyes did. "Why not?"
"Because I did not do this for attention."
"I know."
"Then leave it there."
Hawk studied her for a moment. "I cannot promise that."
Emily frowned.
"Twenty-seven people are alive because of you and because of a shelter your husband built," he said. "That story belongs partly to the people who almost did not make it home. They are going to tell it."
"I do not want money."
"I did not offer money."
"You were thinking it."
A tired smile touched his face. "You do not know me well enough to know what I am thinking."
"I have run a repair shop for eleven years. Men are not nearly as mysterious as they believe."
This time Hawk laughed outright.
The laugh spread to Jake, then Deacon, and for a few seconds in the middle of wreckage nobody should have been able to laugh inside, several exhausted people did exactly that.
The first sirens arrived twenty minutes later.
An ambulance bounced over debris on Route 9 with a sheriff's cruiser behind it. Sheriff Allen Whitfield stepped out, took one look at the motorcycles and leather vests gathered around Emily's destroyed property, and placed one hand unconsciously near his belt.
"Mrs. Carter!" he called. "You all right?"
Emily almost laughed from sheer fatigue. "Depends what you mean by all right."
Whitfield approached, gaze moving from Hawk to Deacon to Jake. "These men giving you trouble?"
The question landed badly.
Several riders stiffened. Hawk did not move at all.
Emily stepped between them before anyone could answer. "These men survived the tornado in my shelter, Sheriff. Three are injured. Nobody is giving anybody trouble."
Whitfield looked at Hawk. "That true?"
"Every word."
"You the leader?"
"I am responsible for this group, yes."