LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Blackness gripped her like a fist. Outside, the wind howled, and rain pummeled the thin windowpanes. Thunder rumbled. Lightning cracked.

      Inside, the silence of her heart was deafening. Terrifying. And so very, very lonely.

      Peggy Saxon shifted on the worn sofa to massage the small of her back. It didn’t help. The nagging throb simply wouldn’t go away. She heaved her pregnant bulk sideways, seeking a semicomfortable position. The threadbare sofa arm poked her ribs.

      Muttering, Peggy used a strategically tucked throw pillow to pad the exposed wood, then grabbed the tiny battery-powered radio from a nearby table. She needed something to drown out the roaring storm, the inner silence of desolation. She needed music. Voices. Even crackling white noise would be a distraction from desperate sadness, from secret fear.

      On the radio, a tight male voice announced new road closures due to mud slides. Phone lines were hit and miss, but the power company, having been flooded out by a massive surge of murky goo, still had no estimate as to when electricity would be restored. A state of emergency had been declared.

      It was five o’clock in the morning. There was no light. No heat. The lovely mountain hamlet of Grand Springs, Colorado, was under siege. And Peggy Saxon was alone.

      * * *

      “Dispatch to unit six. Travis…are you there?”

      Travis Stockwell ducked into the cab, knocked his hat off on the door frame and swore as his prized Stetson landed in the mud. He scooped it up, muttered and wiped the brim with a paisley handkerchief.

      The raspy female voice boomed with familiar agitation. “Unit six, respond. Respond, dadgummit, or I’ll be tossing out those fancy boots of yours and renting your room to the highest bidder.”

      “Aw, for crying out loud.” Travis tossed the wet Stetson on the cab’s front passenger seat, poked the soiled handkerchief back into his pocket, which was already crammed with a soggy pack of pumpkin seeds, and snatched up the microphone. “All right, already. This is unit six, soaking wet, so hungry I could chew cardboard, and so danged tired I don’t give a fat flying fig what you do with that flea-bitten flophouse.”

      A long-suffering sigh crackled over the line. “Where’n Sam Hill are you?”

      Travis squinted through the splattered windshield toward a weary group of guardsmen hoisting the gear he’d just unloaded. “Near as I can figure, about a half mile from the cutoff road to Mountain Meadows campground. I just dropped off the evacuation troop.”

      “What’s your ETA?”

      “I dunno. Thirty minutes, maybe sooner if the traffic lights are back on line.”

      “They’re not. The whole town is blacked out. Oh, and don’t take Orchard Road back into town.”

      “Mud slide?”

      “Big one. Looks like it might have taken a couple cars.”

      Travis swore, slapped the steering wheel. “Maybe I should head that way to see if I can help.”

      The microphone crackled. “Jimmy’s already en route with a group of volunteers and a trunk full of shovels. I need you back in town. Every emergency vehicle in the area is tied up. City hall is scrambling for rescue transport.”

      “On my way,” Travis said, and flipped the ignition with his free hand. “Unit six out.”

      “Travis, keep this radio on. Cell service is going in and out, so this is the only way I can always reach you”

      “Yeah, okay.”

      “You be careful, hear?”

      “I

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