Title: Hurricane Lindsay
Author: DancingStar
Crossover: PSI Factor/ Sue Thomas FBEye
Pairing: Connor/ Lindsay, Jack/ Sue
Rating: 12
Category: Mystery, Romance, AU
Summaries: A Hurricane and a ghost spoil the vacation of Sue, Jack, Connor and Lindsay
Comments: None
Hurricane Lindsay
Sometimes, one really good friend is enough to face the whole world.
"How does Jack Hudson come to a house in Arizona?", Sue asked curiously and smiled at the dark-haired, handsome man.
"House sharing", he replied, "I spend my holidays in a small town in Arizona while the owner of this house and his wife in spend their vacation in my home in Washington."
"This is a bad exchange," Lucy laughed. She came along, because Sue had asked her to. It was late winter, Christmas was about to come in two weeks, and Jack had invited Sue to take a trip to Arizona. Lucy knew that Sue was secretly interested in Jack and perhaps this was the reason why she didn´t want to be alone with him. Lucy wouldn´t say Sue was afraid of being alone with Jack, but she thought Sue was afraid to lose control of herself and in the end she´d confess him her feelings. Jack was very disappointed when he picked her up at home and Sue announced she invited Lucy, too, but he tried to hide it. Lucy didn´t like the idea of being the nanny, but Sue asked her...
"I've found that wonderful house on a website that offers house sharing and... Here we are now."
"Don´t worry, Jack: It´s a beautiful house. Even if it isn´t yours", Sue smiled and took her bag into the house first. Levi barked in agreement. The house was really nice, it was located in the suburbs of a small desert town called Abernathy Springs, the nearest neighbor lived one mile away. In the garden, there were large cactus and although it was winter it was still very warm. They would need a sun lotion, if they didn´t want to get a sunburn.
While Lucy picked up her suitcase from the car, another car stopped in front of the house. "Hey," Lucy recognized the visit immediately, "I didn´t know you were invited to Jack's Holiday, too."
Lucy hugged Lindsay. They had not seen for a long time. "We were working in Phoenix. Jack called Connor this morning and suggested we should come."
At that moment, Sue came out of the house and she was glad to see Lindsay. She also helped them to carry their bags into the house and hoped there was enough room for all guests.
In the evening they met in the garden behind the house where Jack grilled steaks and hot dogs over the campfire. Sue and Lucy took care of a few salads. "I used my secret ingredient", Jack said proudly while he placed a steak on Sue´s plate.
"Is it beer?", Lindsay asked, Jack looked at her shocked and she knew she was right, "So it is beer!"
When they were done with dinner, they roasted marshmallows over the fire. "What's wrong with you and Connor?", Sue asked, when she and Lindsay were in the kitchen and put the dishes in the dishwasher.
"What should be?"
"I'm deaf, but not blind," Sue recalled, "It´s impossible not to see how you adore him and he´s apparently the same."
"Sue," Lindsay exclaimed horrified. She didn´t want anyone found out that she had fallen in love with Connor. When she thought this, she had to shake her head. It was incredible she had found someone who could win her heart, and when Sue was right, then he did it. But she didn´t dare to talk to Connor about it: If he didn´t return her feelings, it would be very embarrassing for both of them.
"Sue, why is Lucy here?", Lindsay asked suddenly. Sue threw an uncertain glance out the window and could see how Lucy was talking to Peter in the glow of the campfire. Connor and Jack were a bit off and Jack pointed with his right hand in the distance. He showed Connor, how huge the entire property was.
"Why shouldn´t Lucy be here?", Sue asked back. She had never thought Lindsay wouldn´t like Lucy.
"Because Jack told on the phone he just invited you to this trip. I think he wanted to be alone with you."
Sue was searching for an excuse. "So why are you here?"
"Jack called Connor while he was in the plane," Lindsay recalled and Sue admitted she had slept during the flight very long, "He told us you invited Lucy, too, but the invitation was only for you… But that's not a problem," Lindsay shrugged her shoulders, "That's why we brought Peter."
"You want to match Lucy off with Peter?"
Lindsay didn´t answer. With a tray, she went back outside and Sue promised to do the same.
"It's wonderful that there´s a pool," heard Lindsay Lucy saying, "What did you wanted to do with that, Jack?"
"What?" He didn´t understand. What else could he do in a pool than swimming?
"Maybe you wanted to celebrate a pool party with Sue."
"I think you're going a little too far," Jack said, "I also didn´t know there´s a swimming pool in the garden." He got up and went inside. There he rummaged in his luggage for the copies of the mails that had been sent to him by the homeowner, and handed it to her. "There´s no single word about a pool!," he told her in a bad mood. He would like to add she hadn´t been invited to this holiday. He wanted to spend some time alone with Sue and he hadn´t booked a trip to Arizona under the pretext of wanting to sleep with her. He liked Sue very much, but he didn´t know if she also felt more for him. He would like to ask for it, but he was afraid to destroy their friendship, if it wasn´t so. Jack had hoped Lucy knew him better.
In light of the fire on Lucy read the mails and apologized. "It wasn´t meant that way," she said, "It's just..."
"Don´t worry", Jack decided to hide his displeasure to Sue, who sat down beside him.
"Jack, I think it's very nice of you, you also invited Lucy to Arizona," Sue said, and noticed how Jack rolled his eyes. For a moment, Sue thought, what Lindsay had said in the house was true: Jack had planned this trip just for both of them and when she had invited Lucy, it was obvious that he invited his friends Connor and Lindsay.
Jack reached for a glass of beer and explained he was happy to invite Lucy. After all, they wanted to spend a good time. "It's the most wonderful time of the year," Jack quoted and Sue laughed about the fact that he was singing a Christmas song.
"It´ll take two weeks until Christmas," Connor recalled.
"I'm not talking about Christmas, but about the holidays."
They clinked glasses and while they sat around the campfire in the twilight, Sue tried to forget about the conversation with Lindsay and about Jack's reaction when she thanked him for Lucy's invitation on this vacation.
In the same night Sue looked at her digital camera and checked the photos she had taken today. One photo showed Connor, Jack and Peter when they drank beer and on a different picture Jack had put his arm around Sue's shoulders and they both smiled at the camera. Sue thought it was a beautiful picture. If she wouldn´t know the people in the picture, she would say they were a very happy couple. Sue brought the idea to the end but then she shook her head. She should not...
Even while she was scaring the idea she noticed a figure in the background of the image. It was a young woman with a white husky on a leash. Her hair fell into her forehead and Sue couldn´t see her eyes.
"Lucy?", she asked when her friend came out of the bathroom, "Do you know who this woman in the photo is?" She showed her the picture, but Lucy shook her head.
They went to Jack and asked him if he knew who the woman was. He took the camera and looked at the photo. "No idea," he said and returned the camera to Sue, "I've never seen her before."
"Is that a friend of the homeowners who didn´t know that we are here?", Lucy suggested.
"I don´t know", and he added the gray, almost pale skin color of the woman was very strange.
"You think she's a ghost?", Lucy asked and Jack shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
"That's impossible," Lucy shook her head amused, but then she noticed Sue's face. She stared at her camera.
"This photo was taken a few seconds later after the first," she said and showed them the display, "I always use the continuous shooting function, if a photo is blurred."
Jack and Lucy knew immediately what was wrong with the second picture of Jack and Sue: The woman and her dog in the background were gone within seconds.
They showed Connor, Peter and Lindsay the photo after they connected the camera to a computer and printed the picture and while showing the picture to them, they talked confused. Jack, Sue and Lucy were convinced to see a real ghost in the photo.
"Calm down!", Connor raised his voice to get their attention, "Where did you get this picture from?"
Jack thought it was obvious: He and Sue were on the photo.
"I found it after I looked at the pictures on my camera," Sue said. They watched how Connor and Lindsay studied the picture and then handed it to Peter.
"I think we should check this out," Peter suggested and Connor agreed: "I know someone who can help us..."
Sue was relieved that Connor, Lindsay and Peter believed her and wanted to review the photo at least. She was convinced it was real. She didn´t believe that digital cameras could exposure double. And today, no one noticed the woman and the dog.
That night it was impossible for Sue to sleep and so she sat down on the couch in the living room, started the laptop and searched the Internet. Soon, Jack and Lucy came to her. Apparently they also couldn´t sleep and so they sat down beside her.
"There are lots of ghost photos on the Internet," said Sue, "This is the photo of a ghost, who was shot in 1963 in the Newby Church in England..."
"Don´t you think it´s strange that most ghost pictures were taken in England?", Jack asked and Lucy and Sue looked at him as if to admonish him for this interruption. Sue then showed them a photo of a veiled figure beside an altar. The figure seemed to hide its face behind its hands. "The photo was examined by experts and it´s real. It´s not caused by a double exposure", Sue had to admit when she saw this picture for the first time, she had felt a chill.
"This is a photo was taken in 1966 in Canada," Sue said now and disagreed Jack's theory that all ghost photos were shot in England, "The photo shows a figure clinging to the railing of a staircase and the figure obviously goes up. This photo was examined by experts as well and it´s also real."
Jack and Lucy bowed to the laptop to get a closer look at the picture when someone knocked at the door. Lucy hopped on her chair scared and then she told Sue someone had knocked on the door. Even when Lucy struggled to breathe, Jack got up to ask the late visit in. It was already after midnight. "Thank god, it´s you," Jack was relieved, "Where have you been so long?"
"We examined the picture," Connor showed him the printed picture of him and Sue with the unknown woman and her dog in the background, "A friend of mine works around here at Kodak and we showed it to him. The picture is real."
"Did you really say our ghost photo is real?",Sue asked.
Connor nodded. "Now we need to find out why the ghost is still here."
"I´ll get information if there are local ghost stories," Sue agreed and Lucy promised to help her. Lindsay promised to find out whether there were unexplained deaths in Abernathy Springs.
Lindsay interviewed several employees at the newspaper, but as it turned out, there were no mysterious deaths in the small town. Sue and Lucy, however, had luck with local ghost stories: in a cafe, they met a lady who told them the story of a young woman who had lived 100 years ago in a house on a river. The house disappeared one morning without a trace: The young woman was never seen again. Some people thought, she had drown in the river after her house collapsed. The woman still appeared to some people today: she mostly appeared to car drivers who were on the road along the river. The lady reported that drivers often felt a cold breeze in their vehicle and then they saw a woman with wet hair sitting on the back seat.
"The woman had a dog?", Sue asked and the lady shook her head, "Probably not. My grandmother would have told me. She lived just across the street."
When they had said goodbye to the old lady, Lucy added to Sue that they apparently spent their vacation in a ghost town because the woman whose house had disappeared in the river and the mysterious woman in the photo were two different persons.
Sue and Lucy went back to the house in the afternoon. Lindsay also only arrived a few minutes ago. "What did you find out?", she asked, noting how a convoy of some pickups drove down the road in front of the house. Gray clouds darkened the sky and it was still stifling hot.
"There is a story of a ghostly woman who appears to some motorists. But we don´t believe it´s the woman in the picture", Lucy said, "The granddaughter of the neighbor can remember that the drown woman had no dog."
"Perhaps she forgot the woman owned a dog," Lindsay suggested. They decided to enter the house. Connor was sitting at the kitchen table behind the laptop. He lifted his head when he saw how they came in. "Hey," he greeted them, "Did you find out anything?"
"Lindsay asked the same."
"Hey, good you´re all here," Peter suddenly said, when he rushed in through a glass door. He had spent some time in the garden and listened to the radio program when he heard a very disturbing message. "A hurricane is moving toward the west coast," Peter reported, "There´s a storm warning for the coastal region but the Meteorological Service believes the outskirts of the storm will be felt also in Arizona and Nevada."
"And?", Connor asked.
"Maybe we should leave before the hurricane reaches the coast..."
"How much time do we have?"
"About five hours."
Connor nodded in agreement. "Peter is right. We should get out as quickly as possible. I´ll tell Jack about it. Is there anything else we should know?"
Peter nodded, seriously. "The Hurricane is called Lindsay." He seemed to wait for a response from Lindsay, but instead she just shrugged her shoulders. It wasn´t as if she gave that name to the hurricane.
"What about the ghost?", Sue asked and Levi suddenly barked.
"If we don´t get out of here quickly, we´ll also haunt the neighborhood, soon," said Peter. He and Connor went upstairs to Jack and told him about the impending hurricane.
Three hours later the sky had already darkened and strong wind swept across the country. Peter listened to the weather report on his smartphone and in the late afternoon, the highways were already blocked. He nervously ran through the house and quarreled with Connor, why they were still here and they really should have left long ago.
Sue warned him to stop getting excited and instead to help them making the house storm proof because Jack promised to the house owner to do this when he had called a few minutes ago. So Jack, Peter and Connor then locked up the doors and windows of the house with boards, although Connor believed it offered no protection. It was already raining like crazy.
"Jack!", Sue came, wearing a rain jacket, out of the house, "Lindsay says, you shall come inside now!" She looked at the clouds in the sky. Since this morning the wind had become much worse.
With the remaining nails in their hands, Jack, Peter and Connor followed her into house. The blinds were lowered inside and Lindsay had removed objects that could fly around easily.
A strong shaking of the blind, made them going to the basement. There they sat on an old couch and waited. Lucy turned on the light bulb above their heads with intent: if the Hurricane should sweep over the power plant in Abernathy Springs, they would know when they were in danger. "I´m not happy to be here," Lindsay said, who nervously walked up and down.
"Me neither," Connor admitted, "But how are we going to get out of here? Meanwhile, the highways and country roads are certainly completely blocked." He looked out to the tiny basement windows. He saw the trees swaying in the wind.
"That's pretty scary," Lindsay also saw how the trees were fighting with the wind, "I never experienced such a fierce storm... Arizona doesn´t even belong to the Midwestern states."
"I think you are confusing this with tornadoes," Connor told her and when he went back to the couch he told them he had seen a tornado when he was a child and visited his grandmother during the Spring Break in Oklahoma. However, this was his first hurricane.
"Actually, it's a typhoon, because it was born west of the dateline," Lucy said and Sue laughed, she was a know-all. Connor said then he would not care to call it as a Hurricane. They became relieved and listened to Connors dramatic stories about the tornado that had destroyed the home of his grandmother. A loud clang interrupted Connor.
Upstairs there was a terrible wailing noise and Levi ran excitedly up the wooden stairs. "Levi, come back!", Sue said to him, but Levi was barking. He straightened up and then scratched at the door. The door opened and the dog ran out. "Levi, come back!", Sue got up and Jack tried to stop her, but she was faster. She also ran upstairs and her friends followed her. Sue saw how Levi ran to a broken window. The window wasn´t saved by boards from the outside: it was secured only by a blind and now a heavy stone had pierced the plastic tracks effortlessly. Sue saw how Levi was hit by a gust of wind and taken out of the house. "Levi!", Sue screamed, "My God, LEVI!" She also wanted to run to the window, but Jack grabbed her hand and with Connor's help, he pulled her back into the basement. They stumbled and the three fell down the stairs. Peter grabbed the door and locked it after he had closed it.
"Are you okay?", Lindsay asked, who ran down the stairs in a hurry. She helped Connor getting up.
"I'm not hurt," he said and during the fall he had asked himself why the storm had suddenly become so strong. When Sue was aware of what had happened, she had to cry. "Levi," she sobbed the name of her dog and felt how Jack wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. He helped her up and she sat back on the couch.
Suddenly they heard a beating sound again, which came from above.
"What's that?", Lucy asked, looking to the only door that led to the basement. Next moment, the noise was gone and above them the light bulb turned off. A quiet outcry escaped. Lucy suggested the storm had now reached the power plant in Abernathy Springs.
"I found an old radio!," Connor shouted triumphantly and in the darkness he pulled a dusty radio out of the basement shelf. Luckily it worked on batteries. He was looking for a newscast and finally he found something on the news channel. "Hurricane Lindsay weakens to a tropical storm above Arizona and California", the woman in the news said and Jack thought this information wasn´t true and came too late for Levi, "...and sweeps now at fifty knots of wind speed over the country. The nuclear power plant in Abernathy Springs, Arizona, announces that all reactors were shut down for safety reasons. Residents should expect power cuts of up to six hours."
Connor turned off the radio.
"What's wrong?", Sue asked and Jack suddenly realized she had no idea what was going on. In the darkness she had no way to get an input.
"Connor, can you find a flashlight in the shelves?", he asked.
In the dark, Connor touched the objects on the shelf and they heard how an empty can fall to the ground. Then he found an old oil lamp, lit it and returned back to the couch on which Sue, Jack, Lucy and Lindsay sat and looked quite worried. He put the oil lamp on a wooden crate, which now functioned as a table. Peter had been placed on an overturned potato sack.
"The woman on the radio said that the hurricane has weakened to a tropical storm over land," said Jack, looking at Sue, "We are without electricity six hours, maybe longer."
"We should try to save the oil in the lamp," Peter suggested and Connor nodded and agreed. They switched off the lamp and tried to sleep a little bit.
Lindsay had no idea how much time had passed. It was dark and it started getting cold. Connor had, after he had turned off the oil lamp, brought five blankets from the shelf and gave it to his friends. Then he had sat down on an old chair, so Lindsay, Jack, Sue and Lucy had more room on the couch. Peter had built an uncomfortable bed for himself with a few sacks of potatoes. Lindsay heard someone coughing and it was clearly Connor. She got up and tried as best as she could to walk to the chair in the darkness. Then she sat next to Connor and put the blanket above him.
"It's pretty cold," she said and was happy that he wasn´t bothered when she sat down next to him. A scrawny bush produced a scratchy sound on one of the basement window. "The storm is pretty intense... How bad can it get?"
"The hurricane is still innocent," Connor whispered, because he had no idea if Jack and Lucy heard him. He was convinced that Peter was sleeping, because since a long time he breathed evenly and deeply.
"The tornado, which I saw as a child when I was at my grandmothers place was much worse," he said, "I can still remember very well how it was when we had hidden in the basement. I´ll never forget the fear."
"How old were you back then?", Lindsay asked.
"About eight years. My grandfather died in the tornado."
"How did this happen?"
"When the tornado came, my grandfather was at work and my grandmother, my parents and I hid in the basement. We learned later that grandfather had died: He was about to come home from work and had almost reached the house when the twister destroyed the house of the neighbors. His car was hurled by the wind and policemen found it 20 miles to the north. They said, my grandfather had no chance to survive…"
"I'm sorry... I didn´t know... Why are you telling this to me?"
"I thought it isn´t a good idea to tell the others how my grandfather died... That was the last summer when I visited my grandmother. My father always said it broke her heart when her husband died."
There was silent for a moment. In her mind Lindsay asked herself if she should say something. "Connor, I..." she gulped, "There's something that keeps me busy for a long time. I..."
He listened attentively and seemed to know something was wrong. Under the blanket, he took her hand.
"I'm terrified," she finally said, "I don´t want to ruin our friendship."
"Why should you do that?"
"Because I'll tell you right away that I´m in love with you. I'm afraid you don´t feel the same and if you don´t say something, I'll kiss you and I don´t know if I ever can stop... Oh God, I´m talking too much and..."
"Lindsay," the pressure for her hand was firm, "I don´t even have the chance to say something." Something in his voice was soft.
"That was awfully stupid of me. Excuse me, "she tried to get up, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him. "You don´t have to excuse. Without your confession I probably would have started to kiss you and never stop. So if you don´t mind, I kiss you now."
He heard her laughing when she threw her arms around him and kissed him. Her hands moved through his hair and Connor grasped for air excitedly. They both laughed softly when they decided to behave and sit together, arm in arm, on the chair and tried to sleep.
When Jack awoke next morning, he noticed a heavy weight on his shoulder. The aroma of peach rose in his nose and the feeling slowly came back into his body. The weight on his shoulder was Sue, who was leaning against him and was asleep. He wanted to wake her but at that moment she started. Jack heard her breathing excitedly. She probably had a nightmare and looked around: The basement was now lit by a few rays of sunshine. Lucy had fallen asleep on the couch. Lindsay and Connor slept well, but they were sitting in the chair: She had snuggled up to him and leaned her forehead against his neck. Sue smiled. If Lindsay would tell Connor that she loved him? Sue hoped so much. Connor and Lindsay could be a nice couple.
She lifted her head and noticed Jack was also awake.
"Good morning," he muttered, but she didn´t know if the morning was good. She thought about Levi and of what had happened to him.
"Good morning," Sue stretched and felt she held his hand. It didn´t seem to bother him, because he planted a kiss on her hand back. "I´m very glad this terrible storm is over. That was the longest night of my life", he whispered, "How are you?"
"I ...", she tried to answer, but she couldn´t find appropriate words.
"Sue, I wanted to...", he actually wanted to tell her yesterday night, how much he felt for her, but in the darkness she wouldn´t realize, "Sue, you mean very much to me. I wanted to spent time just with you in Arizona, but..."
"You wanted to be alone with me?", she asked, "Why?"
Jack gasped. "Because I love you. I wanted to use the trip to tell you that I love you." He wondered if he should kiss her. "I´m sorry, it´s a bad time to bother you with this confession."
"No, the timing is just right. I love you too. Very much", she smiled, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Their first kiss felt wonderful and right. Jack wondered how he could think she wouldn´t return his feelings. He smiled into the kiss and when both had to get air, they began to talk in sign language. "I am very happy you came along," he said.
"Yes," Sue answered, laughing, "I´m very glad to be here, too." She couldn´t imagine what would have happened in their holidays, if this hurricane would not rage out there. Surely there was no reason to tell him she loved him.
Sue giggled and when she kissed Jack, she didn´t realize that Lindsay was already awake and watching her in a great relief, before she shut her eyes tired for another time.
An hour later, when everyone was awake, they decided to go upstairs and wanted to see the disaster caused by the Hurricane. Jack was the first who entered the living room and he was surprised and relieved that no major damage was caused: The kitchen window was smashed and the wind had thrown around a lot of smaller items, but luckily the house was fine. He went to the back door to look out. The wind had knocked over some pots and the flower soil was scattered over the entire terrace. The wooden shed had collapsed and looked like a heap of rubble. A cactus was knocked down and one part of the plant was in the pool.
Together they walked out onto the terrace. The wind was still fierce.
"Can we look for Levi?", Sue asked.
"Of course," Jack's voice was very quiet and for the first time he was relieved Sue wasn´t able to hear. She would have known immediately he didn´t believe in finding Levi alive.
They had forgotten they actually wanted to solve the case of the appearance of a ghostly woman. While Jack and Sue wanted to search for Levi, their friends Connor, Lindsay and Peter would take care of the house.
Peter was busy with fishing the cactus out of the pool, when Sue was looking for her bag inside the house. She needed a photo of Levi, which she could show to people when she searched for him. She walked into the guest room, where she and Lucy lived during their stay. Surprisingly, her friend was busy trying to pack our bags.
"What are you doing?", Sue wanted to know and entered the room.
"I'm going home," said Lucy while she packed her clothes.
"You're already leaving?... But we must search for Levi and..."
"Sue, the point is," Lucy began and they both sat down on the bed, "I shouldn´t be here. I shouldn´t be here as less as Connor, Lindsay and Peter."
"But... Jack invited Connor and Lindsay."
"Yes, because you invited me. Presumably he didn´t want to...", Lucy thought how sweet Jack had taken care of Sue, when they were in the basement. And she felt that she shouldn´t disturb them any longer. "Sue, I think it's really better if I go home. Jack has planned this as a vacation for both of you... and I have a feeling he´ll care very well for you. I know it's a bad time to leave you alone, but ... He´ll help you finding Levi and if he doesn´t, I promise you, I kick his butt."
Sue nodded in tears and hugged Lucy. "You just want to chicken out of the big cleanup," Sue said and Lucy suddenly laughed. "No, I´m leaving tonight. Until then, I'm going to help Lindsay and Connor with cleaning up... And now go and look for Levi."
Sue nodded again. She realized she needed a photo of Levi and so she was searching for her wallet. In there were countless photos of Levi. With the picture in her hand, she went downstairs. "How are you?" Lindsay asked, worried, and Sue nodded bravely.
"Jack told me he loves me. That gives me strength."
"That's very nice... Oh, I've also told Connor. Next weekend we have our first official date."
Sue's face brightened: "I´m very happy for you... Now I must go and search for Levi. We'll talk later, okay?" She waved. Sue and Jack wanted to drive off when they saw that Peter was talking to a policeman.
"Why did you talk to the policeman?", asked Jack, when Peter had finished the conversation.
"He wanted to know if someone´s injured... The policeman told, a Golden Retriever with a red collar was taken to the local veterinary clinic."
"Where is that?", Sue asked. She hoped the dog was Levi.
Jack immediately took her to the vet clinic.
"Levi!", Tears came from Sue's eyes when she hugged her furry friend. The dog with red collar was really Levi and the veterinarian told, a farmer had found the dog in his front yard. Sue tried to imagine how much pain he suffered, when the winds of hurricane hurled him with strong powers to the ground. It was a miracle Levi had survived. "Doctor, will he be okay?"
"He´s very badly injured, Miss," the vet said, "If he doesn´t survive the night... Well, there´s a good pet obedience school in Abernathy Springs which trains great hearing dogs", the last sentence he said to Jack, because Sue embraced Levi and so she didn´t see the vet. She didn´t want to see what he said.
"Where do you live?", the doctor asked now. He wanted to assess if Levi would survive a transport home.
"In Washington, DC"
"This is far away."
"It's my fault, Levi," Sue said, sobbing to her dog. She didn´t care if Jack and the vet were still present and heard every word. It broke Jack´s heart when she said that. It wasn´t her fault Levi was injured.
"We should have left in time. Now you're hurt and we´ll never find out who´s the woman with the white husky", Sue sighed disappointed and the vet looked at Jack. "You´re searching for a woman with a dog?"
Jack touched Sue 's shoulder to get her attention and she turned around.
Sue saw how the vet turned around and then rolled in his office chair to a filing cabinet. She had no idea what he was saying when she couldn´t see his face. Then he showed them a photo.
"Is this the dog?", the vet didn´t wait for her reply, "That's the sixteen year old Lola Smith with her hearing dog Case."
"She's deaf?", Sue asked and the vet nodded, "Where does she live?"
"Lola Smith disappeared three weeks ago. Nobody knows where she is now."
Sue wondered if it was a bad omen, perhaps, that Lola's ghost had appeared on the photo of her and Jack. If it really was a ghost, this would mean that Lola was already dead.
"Do you know where Lola is?", asked the vet, "Have you seen her?"
"Not exactly...", Sue replied.
"If you want, I'll give you the address of Lola's mother ..."
Sue and Jack agreed. They said goodbye to Levi, who had to spend the night at the animal hospital.
Talking to Lola Smith `mother didn´t help Jack and Sue: They met only a desperate woman who tried to hide how much she was worried about her daughter before Lola's stepfather. In tears, she told Sue she didn´t even believed Lola was still alive. Lola's stepfather, a dirty construction worker who had just came home from work, didn´t thought it was necessary to talk to them about Lola and Sue couldn´t shake the feeling he was relieved the teenager was finally gone. "That I can´t stand her, isn´t because she's deaf," Lola's stepfather told Jack in an individual interview, "She's my step-daughter, you understand? All stepfathers hate their step-daughters."
"Do you hate her so much that you would get her abducted?", Jack asked.
"I´m not a criminal, Mr. Hudson", for him the conversation was ended and Jack and Sue returned to the house when it was time for lunch. Lucy, Peter, Connor and Lindsay had cleaned up the most damage that the hurricane had left. Connor took Lucy to the airport an hour ago because she wanted to fly back to Washington and Connor, Peter and Lindsay had booked flights home for the evening. But before they would leave Arizona, they sat together on the terrace and had lunch.
"The carpenter is coming tomorrow and replaces the kitchen window ", Connor said, while handing Jack a bill, "The insurance will pay the damages."
"Thank you for taking care of it."
"How is Levi?" Lindsay wanted to know worried.
"We can pick him up if he gets better... Assuming he survives the night... Jack told, the vet said, there´s a pet obedience school in Abernathy Springs which trains hearing dogs… Oh, the young woman in the photo is also deaf and the husky is her hearing dog."
At that moment a cold gust of wind swept over them and they looked up. Sue's fork clattered back onto the plate when she saw the gray figure again: Her long, dark hair was hanging in her face and next to her feet sat a white husky. "There she is again," Sue murmured.
"I know," Lindsay whispered, "I see her, too."
They were getting up, trying to reach the young woman, but the closer they came to her, the further she moved away. They followed the girl through a cactus field behind the garden and then down a slope until they were finally in a sort of valley. At the bottom of the ravine was some old, heavy construction equipment. Sue remembered that Lola Smith's stepfather was a construction worker and although he insists to Jack he had nothing to do with her disappearance, Sue suddenly had the feeling the solution was very close. "Is there a place where people could be hidden?", she asked.
"This could be anywhere," Connor looked around and suddenly they heard a faint cry. It was clearly a female voice which called softly for help. "Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"A voice is crying silently for help," Jack told his girlfriend. They all looked around searchingly, trying to find a place where the young woman could be. With a crowbar, Connor and Jack opened an old, locked barn. "
I'll help you!", Peter yelled and hurried to them. He had to run across some boards that were lined up accurately to each other on the dusty ground. He noticed how the boards bounced under his weight and how hollow it sounded. He quickly jumped back on solid ground, pushed the board aside and was surprised when he discovered a deep pit. A girl with long black hair (she looked like the girl in the photo) was sitting on the floor. The white Husky crouched next to her. She held her hands over her eyes when the light blinded her. Peter wanted to call to her that now everything would be fine, but then it occurred to him that she couldn´t hear.
"Do you think she´s in there by chance?", Lindsay asked, but then she thought that the boards couldn´t be put over Lola´s prison by themselves. She wondered why they had seen Lola's ghost in the photo, if the girl wasn´t dead.
Jack and Sue wanted to climb down into the pit to help Lola. Sue would be able to talk to her in sign language and tell her everything was going to be fine now. She asked Lola how she had fallen into this pit and the teenager told her stepfather had brought her here and brought a daily ration of food and water. Lola cried and asked how her mother was.
"She's fine," Sue said in sign language, "She´s missing you very much." She didn´t tell Lola that there are consequences for her stepfather, who lied to Jack.
They decided to call the police and took Lola to a hospital.
In the evening, Peter, Connor and Lindsay were also on the way back home. Sue and Jack stayed for another week in Arizona and enjoyed the time together. At the end of their vacation, both and Levi drove back to Washington DC.
Fin