In fact flooding would have been a truer description. By the time Rob reached the exit leading onto 35—his usual southbound shortcut — the rain was coming down in buckets and had so completely inundated the ramp beyond that he half expected to see a guy with a grizzled white beard, leather sandals, and a diverse menagerie of critters around him hammering together a wooden ark at the roadside.
Rob checked his rearview, saw there was nobody behind him, then pressed firmly on his ABS brake pedal and swung toward the gravel shoulder. The Camaro’s wheels splashed through water several inches deep, their mud guards creating a choppy little wake as he came to an abrupt halt a couple of seconds before he would have made his turn into the exit.
His face tightening into a frown, Rob sat behind the wheel and listened to the steady tattoo of the rain against his car’s exterior. From the look of things, the ramp had been washed out by a serious drainage overflow. He supposed it might be worth chancing the turn anyway, but knew he’d be stuck if the backup of water extended out onto the highway. It would be far safer to remain on 84 and take it straight to the Pescadero Creek Road junction — a slower, dippier route, but one the guy in the WKGO weather chopper had mentioned was clear of delays.
The latter it would be, then.
Rob released a long exhale and reached for the cell phone on the passenger seat, wanting to try Cynth again before he got back on the roadway. It had been a while since his last attempt at calling her, and he figured she ought to be within earshot of a phone by now.
But the unanswered rings from both his house and the rescue center did nothing to relax Rob’s expression. It just seemed strange… Cynth and Julia had to be around somewhere. Could the weather have caused an interruption in telephone service? He didn’t think it was that severe, at least in terms of the wind being strong enough to blow down lines, or snap any tree limbs that might get caught in them. But you never knew. You really couldn’t predict where squalls would kick up when unstable weather systems passed over the mountain peaks and ridges. Lousy as conditions were around him, they could be much worse farther on.
Rob chucked his cellular onto the seat again, returned to the blacktop, and within minutes had persuaded himself he’d gone overboard with his concern. There were a bunch of likely explanations for Cynth not answering, including the one that had just occurred to him. If service had been knocked out, she might be altogether unaware of the problem.
He could just see her wrangling Laurie into eating breakfast about three feet from their kitchen phone, nothing further from her busy mind than the idea that her memory-deficient husband and provider was on his way home right now, and having conniptions trying to get through to her.
“Hi… aren’t you—?”
“Barry Hughes.” Anton produced an effortless smile for the Howell woman, tapping the forged power company name tag on his chest. “I stopped by here last week on my day off—”
“To inquire about adopting a grey, sure,” Cynthia said. “You asked if the shop was open, and went to get some information from Julia. I remember you’d mentioned that you were a lineman.”
Anton nodded. He stood facing her from the doorstep, his heavy work gloves stuffed into a back pocket of his coveralls. It had started to shower, the rain sizzling on the ground around him, sliding down over the smooth yellow surface of his hard hat.
“Wish I could say I’ve had a chance to make an appointment to look at the dogs, but life’s been all work lately,” he said, and paused. “The reason I’m here is to tell you we’re doing some maintenance on the cables—”
“Bfow!” Laurie interrupted with a big, gummy grin, reaching a tiny hand out toward him.
Anton chuckled, took it lightly in his own.
“That’s exactly right, doll,” he said, and then looked back up at the baby’s mother. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know your current might be down for a little while. Five, ten minutes at most. There’ve been some brownouts in the area… nothing major, just some spotty fluctuations… and we’re trying to trace the source of the problem.”
“Oh.” Cynthia gave him a questioning look. “I noticed the van heading up toward our kennels.”
He nodded. “Your lines look okay, but the couplings are pretty old. That’d be on the poles and outside your house and kennels. We’re replacing them as a precaution as we go along… before things really go bfow.”
Cynthia gave him a crooked smile.
“I think you might be too late,” she said. “Don’t know whether it’s related to any trouble with the electricity, but my telephone seems to be out of commission.”
Anton looked appropriately unprepared.
“Oh.” He frowned a little. “Are you sure?”
Cynthia nodded.
“I’ve been trying to make a call,” she said. “No dial tone.”
Anton stood there by the door another moment, looking thoughtful. The raindrops continued to dribble off his hard hat.
“Suppose we could have loosened a contact by accident,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll be something our crew can straighten out right away… you’ve already checked your inside connections, right?”
Cynthia nodded again.
“Just before you buzzed me,” she said.
Anton put on another smile.
“With a baby in the house, I sort of figured it’d be your first reaction. Kids always getting into things and all,” he said. “If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to give it a quick check for myself. Otherwise it becomes an issue with the phone company techs in case we nicked a cable and have to contact them.”
Cynthia adjusted Laurie against her shoulder. “Do what you have to,” she said, and moved aside to let him in. “It’ll get you out of the rain for a few minutes, anyway.”
Anton stepped through the doorway, wiped his boots on the mat, let her guide him to the kitchen, and held the receiver to his ear as she stepped back to give him some room.
“Nothing,” he said, and made a small show of examining the jacks. “It’s out for sure.”
She shrugged.
“I was just about to feed the baby, walk up to the center, and ask my husband’s assistant—”
“Julia…”
“Right, I almost forgot, you met her the other day,” Cynthia said. “Anyway, she has a cell phone, and I’m going to need to make an important call.”
Anton abruptly hung up the phone and turned to her.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he said.
His tone flatly declarative.
No expression on his face now.
Cynthia stood there in baffled silence, looking as if she was certain she had misheard him.
“Excuse m—?”
“I said you can’t do that,” Anton broke in, and then flicked his right hand into the utility pouch on his belt and produced the weapon he had chosen for the job. A Sig P232.380 ACP. White stainless-steel frame, blued barrel. Powerful, accurate, and easily concealed.
Her eyes wide, her lips a wide circle of confusion and fear, Cynthia stared as he raised the pistol, stared uncomprehendingly at the terrible black hole in the center of the gun barrel. She instinctively pulled Laurie close, arms wrapped around her, backing away until she came up short against something hard. The table, a chair, a counter, Cynthia wasn’t sure what in her fear and incomprehension.
That gun. That great black hole pointing at her. Aimed at her from across the kitchen.
“No,” she said. Clasping the baby tightly against her chest. Laurie crying now, sensing her terror. “Whoever you are… no.”
Anton cocked the hammer of his pistol, a sound that sent a physical jolt through Cynthia.