Page 118 of Ten Beach Road

Traffic moved slowly, but it wasn’t the agonizing inching along of evacuation. It felt as if far fewer people were returning. Avery wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Traffic lights were out on Gulf Boulevard and crews from the power and phone company worked in pockets everywhere they looked. Trees were down and buildings were sorely damaged. Drifts of sand covered the asphalt, many with dark clumps mixed in.

“Is that seaweed?” Kyra asked. She’d been filming out the window since they’d first rolled onto the Howard Franklin. “Oh, my God, there’re fish over there.” She swung her lens toward a crosswalk where several fish lay belly up. The aroma promised many more as yet unseen.

“It kind of makes you wonder how much sand is left on the beach given how much of it is here,” Deirdre said.

No one mentioned Bella Flora, though Avery knew it had to be at the forefront of all of their thoughts. Would she still be standing? Could she be, considering her precarious position at the southernmost tip of the narrow barrier island?

Just before the Don CeSar things slowed further as identification was checked and those who’d returned via the Pinellas Bayway merged into the two lanes of Pass-a-Grille Way. “Oh, my God, look at the Don.” Kyra panned her camera up the stained pink façade. Two of the bell towers had broken off and fallen to the pavement. A whole section of windows was without glass. An employee was already busy sweeping the shards into piles on the sidewalk. Despite the traffic behind them, they slowed to gawk. “I can’t believe it. Imagine what things would look like if Charlene had come ashore anywhere near here.”

All the way down the narrow twist of road, debris cluttered their way. They gasped at the damage, which often seemed arbitrary. One minute Avery believed Bella Flora might have gotten through unscathed, the next she feared they’d find nothing waiting for them but an empty lot.

Without asking, Maddie stayed on Pass-a-Grille Way, hugging the bay rather than jogging over and paralleling the Gulf. Avery knew then that Maddie’s fears mirrored her own. At the corner of Beach Road, Maddie pulled the van to a complete stop. Cottage Inn’s cottages still stood, though they looked the worse for wear. Maddie and Avery considered each other. Kyra crouched forward so that she could shoot both out the windshield and over her mother’s shoulder.

“Are we ready?” Maddie asked.

“I’m rolling,” Kyra said as if that was all they were waiting for.

Maddie drew in a deep breath. Avery did the same.

“I’m not sure I can take this,” Avery said.

“All I want to do is close my eyes and not look until someone tells me it’s okay.”

“That might work if you weren’t driving, Maddie,” Nikki said. “Not so good as things stand.”

There was nervous laughter and a collective drawing of breath. “All right,” Maddie said, pressing down on the gas pedal. “Here we go.”

They turned onto Beach Road and headed toward number ten.

At the end of the road John Franklin’s Cadillac was bellied up to the curb. The Realtor and his wife stood in front of the white garden wall in the middle of what might have been a small sandbar. Renée Franklin was crying.

“I’m not getting a good feeling about this.” Maddie pulled the van to a stop and they clambered out, craning their necks, turning as one for a first glimpse of Bella Flora.

Avery was swept back to the first time she’d seen it and her partners all those months ago. The garden had looked bad then, but it was far worse now. In fact, it was decimated. Trees, plants, and bushes had been torn up by the roots and flung around; sand and seaweed were everywhere; the fabulous concrete fountain had toppled and smashed into far too many pieces to ever be put back together again.

But the front façade of the house appeared intact—chipped up and still damp, but all there. Even the windows seemed all right. Until Avery tilted her head up just a bit. And realized that from the doorway over there was no red tile, angled or otherwise. Because there was no roof for it to cling to.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “Not the roof.”

John Franklin looked helpless. Renée was in mourning. “My poor triple hibiscus,” she breathed. “That lovely jasmine and frangipani. And wait until you see what’s happened to the reclinada.”

“This doesn’t look that bad,” Deirdre said. “If it’s just a few sections of the roof, we can . . .”

The Realtor shook his head sadly. “This is the only exposure that doesn’t face water. It gets worse.”

Numb, they followed him around the west side of the house where pretty much all of the windows were either shattered or missing. Puddles of broken glass lay on the ground. There was no red tile poking over the edge of the house here, either. The western half of Bella Flora’s roof had been torn off by the wind, leaving jagged pieces of the frame poking into the sky. Shards of barrel tile lay everywhere as did pile after pile of debris, some of it mundane, some of it—like the crumpled baby stroller and the volleyball poles and netting—especially troubling.

They rounded the house, their gazes glued to the battered walls. The master bedroom’s wrought-iron balcony and spiral staircase hung crookedly down the back of the house, scraping against what remained of the loggia roof. Avery couldn’t bear to think about what Bella Flora must look like inside with so many of her windows missing and only half of a roof to protect her from the rain and the wind. All of it—the floors and doors, the hardware, the chandeliers, the walls, everything they’d worked on and slaved over, exposed and vulnerable. Deirdre’s kitchen, that work of art Avery had been unable to acknowledge, was bound to be a sodden mess. And what about the things the designers had just installed?

“Oh, my windows,” Maddie groaned. “All that time re-glazing and half of them are just . . . gone.”

“It’ll be all right,” Kyra said as she and Nikki stepped up on either side of Maddie. “We’ll just move into the pool house again and . . .” She panned her camera away from the house and toward the pass. They turned with her. And saw the reclinada palm, torn out by the roots, lying across it, the roof smashed but intact. One glassless French door lay at the bottom of the filthy pool along with the outdoor furniture.

Deirdre took Avery’s hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “It’s a good strong house with great bones. As long as it’s still standing, it can be fixed.”

Avery removed her hand and wiped it on her pant leg, automatically lashing out. “I’m not some rich client with endless money that you can jolly along,” she said. “This is not the time to bullshit.”

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