informing Rob of her unhappy discovery. The sooner he knew, the sooner he could start back for the folder, or figure out if there was some less inconvenient alternative. As far as she knew, though, he wouldn’t be able to get his work done without it.
She read the Fairview’s phone number off the bulletin board above the stand, lifted the receiver… and to her mild surprise got no dial tone. She frowned, pushed down the disconnect button, released it, and again heard only dead silence in the earpiece.
Perfect, Cynthia thought. Just perfect.
She tapped the button a few more times without any better result, then noticed the keypad lights were out and inspected the phone wire to make sure Laurie hadn’t crawled under the stand and messed with it, pulling or loosening the plugs from their jacks. Everything looked to be in place.
“Spo flig?” Laurie cooed behind her in a tone that genuinely sounded as if she understood the problem and wondered what they were going to do to solve it… although Cynthia had to admit her maternal pride tended to exaggerate the kid’s natural gifts from time to time.
“Wish I knew,” she said stuffily, and considered a moment. A few minutes ago she’d heard Julia driving uphill to the center. After feeding Laurie she could take a walk over there, see whether the problem with the telephone was confined to the house. If it was affecting the entire property, and the business phone was down, too, then they would be able to report the trouble using Julia’s cell phone.
Cynthia reached into her house robe for another tissue and blew her nose again. That sounded to her like a plan.
She moved to the window. It was a dark and gloomy morning, and it occurred to her that she might have to get Laurie’s slicker out of the closet before they left the house. Also let the dogs in from the outdoor pen. Better find out if the rain had started yet.
Even before Cynthia pushed aside the curtain she could hear patters of moisture against the glass. But now something else caught her interest downhill. Two PG&E vehicles were entering the drive. A utility van first and then a station wagon. She watched them approach slowly, the van heading up toward the rescue center, the wagon turning in toward her house.
Cynthia glanced briefly over at the electric range on which she’d prepared Laurie’s formula. The indicator light for a hot burner pad was still on, telling her there had been no interruption in electrical power. Nevertheless, she had a hunch her questions about the phone outage were about to be answered.
She stayed at the window long enough to watch the station wagon come to a halt and a uniformed worker get out. Then she started toward her front door, hefting Laurie off her seat along the way.
The baby nestled against her shoulder, Cynthia opened the door just as the worker reached it, and was met by yet another of the young — albeit already eventful — day’s surprises.
“Top a’ the mornin’, laddies and lassies,” Julia said, amusing herself with an atrocious cartoon leprechaun’s accent. “Shall ye all do your morning toilet, mayhap have yourselves a wee bit of a workout afterward?”
Thirty pairs of keen, curious dog eyes looked at her from gated stalls to the left and right. Before she’d let herself get too settled in at the shop, Julia had decided to step out the back door to the kennels and let the rescues into their exercise yard, knowing they wouldn’t budge once it started to rain. Greys were as obsessive about keeping their living areas clean as they were balky about getting wet, and she didn’t want them bursting at the seams if the bad weather were to arrive and persist throughout the day.
Julia looked down at Viv, who was already out of her stall beside her.
“You gonna help me open these gates for your buds?” she asked with enthusiasm, dropping the cruddy Irish.
Viv wagged her tail, lowered her forequarters into the play position, and then turned over on her back, rolling about with her long front legs upstretched and her lips pulled into a distinctive greyhound smile.
Julia watched her for a bemused moment, then bent and rubbed her stomach.
“Why do I get the feeling nobody in this joint’s got the slightest clue what I’m talking about?” she said.
Over his car radio, the word Rob Howell had heard the WKGO 810 traffic reporter use was
In fact
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
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
