Chapter 3
By the time I reached the abandoned feed store, the rain had turned the ash into paste.
It coated the street, clogged the gutters, and pulled at my shoes. My injured knee buckled every few steps. Each time, I caught myself and kept moving.
The continuous siren followed me through town.
So did the roar.
The railroad fence appeared through the gray rain. I limped toward the gate and grabbed the chain.
It was locked.
"No."
I shook it until pain ran through both arms.
The key was in the red emergency binder.
I had labeled it myself because Grant always complained that the old brass keys looked the same. I could still picture the tag in my handwriting:
NORTH RIDGE MAINTENANCE GATE
Natalie had the key now.
Natalie had the map.
Natalie had my husband.
A crash sounded behind me.
A pickup slid sideways through the intersection, carried by black water. Its headlights were still on. The current rolled it against a streetlight hard enough to bend the metal pole.
I stopped shaking the gate.
Anger would not open it.
Twenty feet to my left, the fence disappeared behind the old pump house. I remembered marking that building on the map because its maintenance ladder connected to the upper service path.
I limped toward it.
The side door was locked. I wrapped my sleeve around my hand and struck the narrow window with my elbow.
The first blow did nothing.
The second cracked the glass.
On the third, it broke.
A sharp edge cut through my sleeve. Blood warmed my wrist before the rain washed it away. I reached through, found the latch, and forced the door open.
Inside, the air smelled of rust and standing water. A steel ladder climbed the far wall.
My knee shook beneath me. I pulled a roll of therapy tape from my coat pocket and bound the joint as tightly as I could.
My hands trembled so badly that I dropped the tape twice.
"You can be scared," I whispered. "Just keep moving."
It was what I told my patients when pain made them afraid of their own bodies.
I gripped the ladder.
Halfway up, the building shuddered.
The roar became deafening.
Through the broken window, I saw the street vanish beneath a wall of mud, trees, roofing metal, and pieces of people's homes.
The mudflow struck the pump house.
The ladder jerked under my hands. My wet shoe slipped off a rung.
I screamed and locked both arms around the steel.
For several seconds, there was nothing in the world except the cold metal beneath my cheek and the knowledge that Grant had driven across the last bridge with another woman.
Then the building stopped shaking.
I climbed again.
At the top, I shoved open the roof hatch and crawled onto the service path. Emergency lights flashed through the rain on the north ridge.
A rescue worker pulled me over the barrier and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
Across the river, beyond the broken bridge, stood Grant's county truck.
Safe.
If I had been in Natalie's seat, I would never have seen the mudflow.
"Is your husband missing?"
the worker asked.
My wedding ring felt suddenly tight.
I pulled it off. After fifteen years, the skin beneath it was pale and soft.
"No," I said, closing my fist around it. "My husband isn't missing."
I looked at his truck.
"He knew exactly where I was."