Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Cole Read Free Book Online

sudden, unexplained deaths, no witchcraft-curses or invisible heartaches. No distrust or disappointments. After Brooke’s death and her talk with David last night, there were few places Kate would rather be than at the earthquake and volcanic control center of the Northwest. Today, she even hoped for a small quake.
    The PNGS team consisted of herself, a field geoscientist and seismic specialist, Bruce Adams, a volcanologist, Aaron Clark, a hydro-geologist, her boss Stewart Reese, Operations Officer, and the occasional intern. Normally, the office climate could be compared to a small coffee shop—light chatter and the intermittent drone of equipment, but this morning when she stepped in the door, she could almost see the haze of unease clotting the air. She knew then that another big quake had hit the coast. Even though she had wanted one just a second ago, the reality of it was death and destruction to many, something that was all too real at the moment, and left her feeling guilty.
    Aaron spoke quietly on the phone, seemingly on a serious call from the way his head angled into the corner, and Bruce sat at one of the computers recording data sketches. Stewart, unlike Aaron, spoke heatedly into the phone, a return to his usual gruff self since his divorce a few months ago. He and his wife had been married nine years until her affair resulted in a pregnancy. It was a shock to the office—everyone had always assumed Stewart was the one having the affair, flirting openly with the last intern, Nicole. In any case, Kate welcomed his old self back. One more stable element in her life.
    “Kate!” He stormed up to her. “What the hell is going on?”
    “Would you be referring to my own messed up world or someone else’s?”
    Stewart frowned at her and pointed out the window. “The storms. Haven’t you seen the news?”
    Kate glanced out the window, at the sideways trees. “Well, haven’t you heard? April showers bring.…”
    “May havoc!” He thrust his finger at the seismograph monitor. “The storm waves off the coast had more force behind them than my ex-wife.”
    Kate smiled at that and sat down in front of a seismograph. Large sweeping strokes brushed across the roll. Swarms of earthquakes dotted the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon where a subduction zone ran up toward British Columbia. She turned back to Stewart.
    “One registered 4.6 on the Richter scale, which stirred a landslide five miles off the coast of Yacquina Bay,” Stewart said. “Ten-foot waves crashed ashore, pulled six people out to sea.”
    “My God.” Another reel of guilt pulled at Kate, remembering her earlier wish for a quake.
    “They were all rescued, but can you imagine what the big one is going to do?”
    Kate looked at the monitor again. There had been numerous earthquakes in the past, but not at that magnitude. Some scientists believed frequent, small quakes were good because they released the building pressure, where as other geologists, including Kate, thought they warned of a much larger, imminent quake in the near future.
    Or, if you were a witch, they were precursors to death via a cursed statue. Kate vividly remembered Thea’s warning in Brooke’s house: The ground is shaking, a storm is coming…the wrath of a vengeful goddess… She will kill more .
    A chill crawled over her. Not because she believed Thea about the curse, but because a storm was coming. The normal world she had just barely weaved back together seemed to be slowly unthreading.
    Stewart’s shouts jerked her back to the present. “Kate? So, what’s your prediction? Should I sell my beach condo in Netarts or buy my neighbor’s?” His eyes searched her as if she held the tipping opinion.
    “Stay put, Stewart. That way when the big wave comes, you’ll get all the limelight.” Although Kate meant it as a joke, Stewart wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity to be on television. He craved fame, and she often wondered exactly what it was that had lured him