Mac’s eyes spat fire when she confronted me, her expression tight and her jaw clenched. She listened to reason, thank fuck. Her anger evaporated. Breathless, she dug her nails into my arms, her worry for our friends palpable. I pulled her against my chest, holding her close. She pressed against me, even when she turned around to face the oncoming traffic.
Bending forward, I inhaled the scent of her hair. Her body trembled beneath my fingers. Damn. To touch her, to hear her voice. After two gut-wrenching weeks apart, I craved this sensory proof that we were together again.
Mac clutched the arms I had wrapped around her waist. She twisted her head to meet my eyes. Shock and fear had bleached all the color from her face. “Do you think they’re okay?”
“Don’t know.” Wished like hell I could offer the reassurance she obviously sought. “Depends on a lot of things. How fast the water’s moving. If the jeep went over the guardrail. If Sahdev knows what he’s doing—if he goes slow and doesn’t get water inside the air intake—the jeep could ford a couple of feet of water.”
Mac nodded and turned her gaze to the road again.
“I can’t believe that somebody blew up the dam,” she said. “I mean, what could they possibly hope to achieve? To kill people? The flu is doing a fine job of that already.”
“No fucking clue,” I said. “Could be somebody who likes to blow shit up taking advantage of the opportunity. Could be somebody with an agenda. Who knows?”
“When Portland started to burn, I figured it was probably Caleb,” Mac said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Thought we’d scared the little shit straight, but maybe not.”
“Now I’m wondering. Do you think the fire and the explosions could be connected?”
I jerked. That hadn’t occurred to me, and the prospect chilled me to the bone. Bad enough to think that an unsupervised, preteen pyromaniac might burn a major city to the ground. Worse yet to consider that somebody might be deliberately attacking cities and public works.
“Dunno. I suppose there might be some nutjob attacking the infrastructure. Power grid’s already down. Water and sewage, too. Internet and phones. All that could come back someday. But it’d be a helluva lot harder to bring ’em back if somebody starts burning cities and blowing up dams and roads, and bridges.”
She fell silent again, and the seconds slowly ticked by. From our perch on top of the overpass, I kept one eye on the small peninsula of land below us that protruded into the Columbia River. Water had flooded a motel, a gas station and a fast-food restaurant. The governor had shut down all businesses almost two months ago, so it was unlikely that anybody drowned down there when the river suddenly overflowed its banks. A small mercy. We were safe for now above the water, but if it started to rise, we’d hop onto the bike and turn onto the highway south.
“Did you see the graffiti painted on the cliffs near Rowena?” Mac asked. “It said Back 2 Eden. That’s the same graffiti I saw back in Portland.”
“Didn’t notice it.”
“I wonder—” Mac stopped abruptly, pointing at the sparse oncoming traffic. “Is that the jeep?”
In the distance, sunlight glinted off the windshield of a familiar green jeep.
Relief surged through me. “Thank fuck.”
Mac whirled in my arms, her face animated, her eyes dancing. Grabbing my head, she pulled my face down for a quick, celebratory kiss before turning back to the traffic and waving frantically at the jeep. I couldn’t suppress a grin at the exuberant and unnecessary gesture. Not like they’d miss us standing on the side of the road, but Mac couldn’t contain herself. When the jeep rolled to a stop on the shoulder and the doors opened, she rushed forward to hug both Kyle and Sahdev, then sat down on the asphalt and hauled Hector onto her lap. She threw her arms around the dog’s neck and buried her face in his fur.
Kyle and Sahdev walked over to me. “What the hell is going on? Who would want to blow up a dam?” Kyle clutched at his head, wide eyed with shock.
“Not a clue, man. That’s a question for another day.”
“What do we do now?” Sahdev asked, glancing down at the water.
I looked away from Mac and turned my eyes back to the men. “We gotta get away from the river, take the highway south into the Mt. Hood National Forest. Before it gets dark, I wanna find a place along the road to stop for the night. Been a long, crazy day. Mac needs to catch her breath—fuck, we all need to catch our breath.”
“Yeah. Sounds good,” Kyle agreed. Sahdev nodded.
“You want to ride with Hector or stay with me?” I called to Mac.
She stood and brushed grit from her pants. “Trying to get rid of me already?” She offered the dog one last pat before walking over to me and slipping her arms around my waist. “You’re stuck with me, big guy.”
I dropped a kiss on the top of her head and held her close for a moment. “Let’s go.”
We backed up onto the exit ramp and followed the signs to the Mt. Hood Scenic Highway, leaving the floodwaters behind us. The road wound through the hills, past orchards, vineyards, and fruit stands.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I spied Mt. St. Helens on the northern horizon. It was an odd-looking mountain. It looked like somebody had lopped off its pointy top, giving it a flat, squashed appearance. Somebody had—if you consider a volcanic eruption an act of God. The big explosion was before my time, but my parents had told stories of the day in 1980 when the mountain blew, sending plumes of ash and debris into the sky. Mom kept a jar of ash she’d swept up from the driveway of our Portland home. She’d shown it to me, the fine particles like gray baby powder. I shook my head. Now I had my own story of a landscape-changing explosion to share with my children. If I ever had kids, that is.
“Cherry Blossom Bed & Breakfast, one mile ahead,” a small painted sign proclaimed. I pointed to it. Sahdev flashed the jeep’s lights, then followed me up a long, curving driveway past fruit orchards to a sprawling Victorian-style house.
It was early evening, still plenty of daylight left in late July, but the sun was waning in the sky. I paused, examining the house for any signs of life, for a face to appear in a window or a curtain to be pulled aside. Worse, for somebody to burst from the front door brandishing a weapon as we pulled up. I cut the engine and waited a minute in front of the still and silent house. Intuition told me the house was empty, but I always confirmed my hunches.
Swinging off the bike, I handed Mac my helmet. “You got your Sig?”
She nodded. “In my bag in the back of the jeep.”
“Don’t expect trouble, but better safe than sorry. Get out the Sig and wait in the jeep until I check the property. If Kyle brought a shotgun, he should have it ready, too.”
Mac wrinkled her brow, like she wanted to argue, but her common sense carried the day. “All right.”
“You hear gunfire, you take off. Wait on the road for me to find you, but keep your eyes open.”
Kyle rolled down the passenger window. “What’s happening?”
“Ripper’s going to check the place out,” Mac answered. “We’ll wait here.”
I watched her fetch her weapon from the rear compartment, then climb onto the back seat next to Hector. Good. Shit hit the fan, they’d be able to peel out fast. I pulled my Colt from my shoulder holster and climbed the stairs onto the covered front porch.