Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

Thirty-six year old Mercedes Reyes was the sole proprietor of Ex Isle, a not-quite disreputable, out of the way, dive bar, frequented by local regulars and ignored by the island’s transient vacationing population. She was also Noah Flood’s girlfriend, or at least Jenna assumed she was.

The exact nature of the relationship between her father and Mercy was difficult to pin down. They didn’t live together and their very independent lives meant that they didn’t spend much time with each other. Mercy was almost twenty years younger than Noah, making him literally old enough to be her father. She was also more than twenty years Jenna’s senior, old enough to be Jenna’s mother. Given the striking resemblance between them, a similarity which only seemed to increase as Jenna approached maturity, the question of whether they were actually related had come up more than once. Both Noah and Mercy insisted that they met for the first time when Jenna was three years old. The obvious explanation, that Noah was attracted to Mercy for the very reason that she resembled Jenna’s mother, would have made sense if not for the somewhat cool nature of their relationship. They were certainly friends, but they seemed to be in no great hurry to have a more intimate connection. Either that, or they were just very discreet about what they did have.

Jenna had always been of two minds about that. Because he was the most important person in her life, she felt both jealous and protective of her father. Sometimes she wanted him all for herself, and sometimes she wanted him to find someone to make him happy. Jenna thought of Mercy as both mother and big sister, and that, too, was problematic. There was no sense in upsetting the status quo with romance.

Now, all those considerations were moot.

“Mercy, I… Noah…” The words refused to form. If she said it out loud, that would make it all true. She had put her grief into a box and buried it deep. Her sole focus had been getting away, running, reaching Mercy, just like Noah told her to do.

Mercy’s face creased with concern. “Jenna, honey, what’s wrong?”

She tried again. The words didn’t come. The tears did.

Mercy, unbidden, folded her arms around Jenna, hugging her tight.

Stop it!

The thought was so sudden, so violent, that Jenna jerked away from Mercy’s embrace. She blinked furiously at the tears, embarrassed at the display of weakness, but that was not why she had pulled back.

Noah’s instructions to seek out Mercy had been specific: if we get separated... Mercy’s bar was to have been a place to rendezvous, not a refuge. But how was Mercy going to help? She would call 911—what else could she do?—and that would almost certainly bring Cray and his partner right to her doorstep.

She couldn’t put Mercy in danger. She couldn’t let herself be put in danger.

So what am I supposed to do?

What would Noah do?

That was a question she no longer felt she knew the answer to, but she knew one thing: He wouldn’t put Mercy in danger.

“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking away the tears. “I shouldn’t have come here.”





9



7:33 p.m.



As she crossed the parking lot, Jenna quickened her pace, moving with a determined stride that none-too-subtly telegraphed the message: Leave me alone. Mercy, standing at the entrance, called out to her but didn’t follow.

Jenna felt a profound, but short-lived sense of relief. She had protected Mercy and probably herself as well, but in so doing, had wiped clean the slate of options. She was on her own now, and the men who had tried to kill her were still out there. There was nowhere else she could go, no one she could trust to save her…

You’ve got to stop thinking that way, she told herself. Noah didn’t raise you to let other people solve your problems.

“So I’m just supposed to take on these killers myself?” she muttered.

If it comes to that. Flight or fight. You either run away, or you take the fight to them. You stood up to Zack, and he had a gun. You are not powerless. Trust your gut, but make up your own damn mind.

Her gut told her to fight, but who was she supposed to be fighting?

“Who wants me dead?”

She had thought that perhaps the bomb attack was the work of the Villegas brothers, wanting revenge for what had happened a week before.