Wipeout

by Adam Meyer

About the Author: Adam Meyer is a screenwriter, novelist and short story writer. He's written TV movies and series for Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, and National Geographic, and is the author of the novel The Last Domino. His short fiction has recently appeared in the anthologies Crime Travel and Seascape: The Best New England Crime Stories 2019.

Excerpt

The inspection was going even better than Dominic had hoped. The guy they’d sent looked a little younger than Dominic himself, maybe mid-twenties, fresh-faced and blond, a corn-fed Midwestern-type so pale it was like he’d never stepped foot on the sand that gave Rockaway Beach its name. He had no clipboard, just an iPad, which he snapped pictures with as he moved this way and that around the basement. His name was Timothy Anderson but he said most people just called him “Tim.”

Tim crouched against the floor, his hair flopping down into his face. “Bathroom was here, right?”

“I, ah …” Ma was flapped, just the way she’d been in the days after the storm.

“That’s right,” Dominic said.

Tim took a shot of what was left of the broken toilet, the porcelain now yellow and green, and made a note in his iPad.

Dominic looked around. It was fourteen months since Hurricane Norma had swept in off the Atlantic and flooded the basement. If he closed his eyes, he could still see it, brownish water seeping in from beneath the window frames and around the back door.

“You really got wiped out,” Tim said, snapping another picture. Of what, Dominic had no idea. The whole place had been reduced to empty gray walls and stray bits of loose insulation. Wherever you stood it looked pretty much the same. “You really think you’re going to rebuild down here?”

“I hope so,” Ma said, glancing at Dominic. “We’re just not sure …”

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