Fully Loaded - Blake Crouch [58]
In the morning, he brought yesterday’s coffee to a fast boil in a saucepan and powered up the laptop. The forecast discussion on the National Weather Service’s Goodland, Kansas Website thrilled him—extreme thunderstorm activity expected along the Nebraska border.
Peter headed north up Highway 23 and reached the town of Cedar Bluffs at noon, the sky still clear, the heat intense and wet. He pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned Pizza Hut, nuked a frozen dinner in the microwave, ate lunch, slept off the remnants of a three-wine headache.
He woke sweating, the sun blazing into the RV. Grabbed a bottled water from the Fridge, drained it in one long gulp.
That familiar pang of disappointment blossomed in his stomach as he read the updated forecast discussion. The NWS had, as usual, missed the boat. A line of storms were setting up, but over the eastern plains of Colorado, a hundred and seventy miles west of his position. With convection already underway and a supercell forming south of Greeley, the party would be over long before he got there.
He convinced himself on the five-block stroll from his RV to the Prairie View Café that he was going in hopes they’d reprised the chicken-fried steak and because he’d spent the entire day in his home on wheels. It had nothing to do with the waitress who probably had the night off anyway.
She stood at a booth scribbling an order onto a pad when he walked into the restaurant. The chimes that jangled over the opening door caught her attention, and she looked at Peter and raised her finger, might even have winked, though he couldn’t say that for certain in the poor light. The thought of it put knots in his stomach. She wore a blue and white dress that seemed such the epitome of her profession it reminded him more of a movie costume. With her hair down tonight and her lips a paler pink than before, perhaps their natural color, he went short of breath as she walked toward him.
“Hi, Peter.”
“Melanie.”
“You want the window booth again or a brand new experience?”
He thought about it. “I like the booth.”
She walked him over.
He slid in.
“How was your day in scenic Hoxie?” she asked, setting a menu on the table, and he almost responded as he would have to any other human being who tried to engage him, but he didn’t want to just say, “Fine,” because then she’d probably smile and leave and he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want her to walk away yet.
“Disappointing,” he confessed.
“What happened?”
“It was supposed to storm up near the Nebraska border, but the forecast didn’t pan. Kind of a wasted day.”
She looked at him askance. “It was a beautiful day, Peter.”
“Not if you wanted a storm.”
“No, I guess not. Well, I’ll be back in a bit to tell you about the special. You want something to—”
“I’m an idiot,” he said, heat flooding his face, wondering if she noticed the color. “I should explain.”
“No, it’s—”
“I’m a storm chaser. That’s why I wanted it to—”
“You mean one of those people who photograph tornadoes?”
“Sort of.”
Her face lit up. The awkwardness retreating. “Oh my God, that is so interesting. So you’re one of those guys.”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. Strangely, genuinely impressed. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve heard of in awhile. How’d you pick Hoxie?”
“You guys got hammered a couple years back with a tornado outbreak.”
“I was here when those storms swept through. It was awful.”
“Well, I’ve been all over Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle,