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worried.
    The first two washes on High Lonesome Road were dry. The third and fourth had a tiny trickle of water, but the last one—the one after she turned onto their own private road—was actually starting to run. Taking a deep breath, she rammed her foot onto the gas pedal, counting on momentum to finish carrying her across the streambed. She drove the rest of the way to the house with her hands alive with needles and pins.
    As she approached the house, another flash of lightning lit the sky, followed by a fierce boom of thunder. The lights in the house flickered slightly and then went out. By the time she made it to the garage door, however, their emergency generator had rumbled into action. The interior lights flashed back on and the garage door opened when she pressed the clicker.
    Still drenched from getting into the car back at her office, Joanna was grateful that she could pull inside the garage. The family’s three dogs were all waiting just inside the door that led from the garage into the laundry room. Jenny’s two, the incredibly ugly Tigger, a half golden retriever/half pit bull, and Lucky, a boisterous but stone-deaf black Lab, gave Joanna a joyous greeting. Lady, Joanna’s far more dignified Australian shepherd, held back. Once Joanna set the pizza box on the kitchen table, however, it was clear that the dogs were far more interested in the possibility of pizza than they were in greeting their newly arrived human.
    Butch’s laptop and stacks of manuscript pages sat unattended on the kitchen table. From several rooms away, Joanna heard Dennis wailing at the top of his lungs.
    Butch appeared a moment later with the squalling baby propped on one shoulder and with a bottle gripped in his other hand. “He’s mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore,” Butch said. “The poor little kid was in bed and asleep, but that last crack of thunder woke him up. Do you want him?”
    After slipping out of her wet clothing and putting on a robe, Joanna took both the baby and the bottle. When she tried offering him the bottle, Dennis wasn’t the least bit interested. He screwed his angry little face up and kept right on screeching.
    With a sigh Butch went over to the table and helped himself to a piece of pizza. “Had to turn off the computer. Didn’t want it to get fried. The power went off, too,” he said. “I’m sure glad we bit the bullet and sprang for a generator. The lights came back on without a hitch a few seconds later, just the way the brochure says they should.”
    At the time Joanna and Butch had been building the house, they debated whether or not to take on the expense of adding a liquid-propane-powered generator. Because their house was so isolated, however, they knew that when electrical outages did occur, High Lonesome Ranch could end up a long way down the priority list when it came to having power restored.
    “So am I,” Joanna said. “Where’s Jenny?”
    “Sleepover at Cassie’s house, remember?”
    Cassie Parks, Jenny’s best friend, lived a few miles away near Double Adobe at a decommissioned KOA campground her parents had turned into a mobile home park.
    “Didn’t,” Joanna said.
    Butch went over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Want one?” he asked.
    “No, thanks,” Joanna said.
    “How were the roads?”
    “They’re fine,” she said. That was a little white lie, but Butch didn’t need to know she had crossed a possibly dangerous wash on her way home. “So far,” she added. “But it’s raining enough right now that they could be bad by morning. My Crown Victoria doesn’t have a whole lot of clearance.”
    Butch looked at her and grinned. “But tomorrow’s Saturday. You won’t need to go in, will you?”
    Her department was currently dealing with a homicide/suicide. It seemed unlikely that Joanna would be able to take all of Saturday off. “Maybe not,” she hedged.
    Most of the time Butch was really understanding about the demands of her job, but at