When the Flood Falls. J.E. Barnard

      Dee groaned. “Again with Neil. I know you didn’t like him, and yeah, you were right. He’s shallow and vain and manipulative, with an ego bigger than Castle Mountain. But to come after me? It would take too much of his valuable time to drive all the way out here. He might miss out on some breaking deal or glam social event.”

      “You were right about Dan, too,” Lacey said, surprised it was so easy to admit. “He’s a rule follower to the core, and that core is a true-blue chauvinist. He couldn’t stand me outranking him at work, and he took it out on me at home.” She wasn’t ready to go into details about his methods, and hurried on. “Neil’s in real estate, too. Could he get the house back if you felt you had to move? Maybe to sell for a profit?”

      “In this market? He wouldn’t touch it. I had to take a second mortgage to pay out his share, and now the market is slumping, so I’m stuck with it. Besides, his girlfriend’s house is bigger.” Dee shook her head. “If it’s him, I’m counting on you to catch him at it and make him explain. Beat it out of him if you have to. Not that you’ll have to. He’s a coward at heart. When he sees your car in the drive, he’ll know I’m not alone and he’ll call off whatever little plan he has. If it’s him.”

      “Unless he’s driven by jealousy and thinks you have another man in here. Who knows what he’d do then?”

      “He wouldn’t care. He doesn’t love me. Sometimes I wonder if he ever did.”

      There was nothing to say to that, so Lacey said nothing. She spooned up the last of her seafood sauce, moved her plate to the dishwasher, and said, “I’d better get on the road if I’m going to be back to plug in those lights before the mosquito hour. Will you be all right on your own for a bit?”

      “I’ve got lots of paperwork to keep me entertained. And I’m sure there will be another half-dozen crises at the Centre that’ll have to be dealt with tonight.” Dee’s voice was light, but the lines were back around her eyes, and she couldn’t stop herself glancing at the open window. Would Lacey return to find the house buttoned up tighter than a meth lab again?

      Chapter Five

      Jan clattered pots into the kitchen sink, squinting a bit in the light from the west-facing window. The evening sky glowed, brilliant as midday this close to the summer solstice. The mountain shadows would take hours to creep as far as her house. It felt like the day could last forever. “I can’t believe how crystal clear everything is,” she said over her shoulder. “Every sound, every sight is crisp and clean. As if time has slowed down, giving my brain as long as it needs to process every signal. Those pills are killer.”

      “You said you weren’t going to take any today because they made you shake so bad.” Her husband brought the plates from the table, his strong, stubby fingers shoving them into the dishwasher with ominous vigour.

      “I know, Terry. I know. I just … forgot, okay?” Sunlight kissed the suds in the sink, bright and glistening as seafoam, seducing her eyes, wafting her thoughts onto distant voyages.

      “You forgot? Why am I not surprised?”

      Pulling her gaze from the bubbles, Jan stared at him instead. Tanned face, brown curls, strong neck, sturdy torso in a Search and Rescue T-shirt. He looked like Terry, but his expression was hard. Why was he objecting to this prescription? He had supported her through dozens of other treatment trials over the years, in full knowledge that there were no guarantees. This was the only one that cleared up her mental fogs. Maybe he just didn’t understand that.

      “When I was crashing down there alone on the stairs, it seemed like the only way to get enough energy to keep going. And they really feel wonderful. They give me back my old self for a few hours. My old brain.”

      “You’ve said that about other treatments. So much for your old brain.” Terry flung cutlery into the dishwasher. A fork missed the basket and bounced through the racks to rest by the heater element. He bent to retrieve it, his shoulders as wide as the countertop. His muscled arms easily reached the dishwasher’s back corner. “You could have phoned Rob for help. He was right there in the building. He’d have come for you.”

      “I forgot my cellphone in the van.” Jan swiped suds over a lid, holding on to her temper as tightly as she gripped the wet dishrag. If Terry realized she’d been too messed up to remember that her phone was in her pocket the whole time, he’d never let her go down to the museum again. “And yeah, before you say it, I know I should have had it with me. It was just a bad day, okay? They happen. And one of the workers phoned him for me. No harm done.”

      No need to mention that the worker had called her a drug addict. Terry was already against the pills. She was sure he had come right out and said that at some point, even if she couldn’t remember exactly when. If it was important her super brain would fling it up to visible altitude any moment now. What was altitude in brain terms? What artists painted the inner workings of the brain? Likely Picasso onward. Nobody before that had believed much in an inner consciousness. Except maybe Hieronymus Bosch? Her mind clicked through its mental catalogue of art images until something else crashed into the dishwasher, sending her heart racing.

      Terry was halfway across the room before her head turned. “I’ve got to get ready. Have you seen my hiking boots?”

      Jan’s head reeled from the sudden shift back to snarky reality. “In the garage, right where you left them last week.”

      Terry padded sock-footed toward the mudroom. “Where’s Rob with that van? He said he’d be right up twenty minutes ago.”

      “Probably some last-minute emergency at the museum. He was uncrating exhibits when I left this afternoon. Maybe one of them was damaged, and he’s got to mess around filing insurance claims and getting photo­graphers out there and stuff. Fine art insurance is killer.”

      He turned at the door. “I know you’re really wired when you talk about art as if you still had a job.”

      “You shit!” Jan slammed the last pot into the sudsy water.

      After a pause he said, “Sorry. That was insensitive.”

      While he was in the garage getting his boots, she forced herself to breathe in deeply and then breathe out slowly to a four count to temporarily calm her raging brain and ragged nerves. Why was he hating these pills? Or maybe it wasn’t the pills, just the situation. Terry’s SAR gear was in the van, which she had abandoned because she hadn’t managed her energy or medication properly this afternoon. He already ran his life around her needs, and this one night a week he liked to go out and test his fitness, away from her endless small requests for help. No wonder he was irked about not having his gear. Not about the pills at all, but about maybe missing his one night out. And he thought her brain wasn’t working. Hah.

      When he came back she said, “You’re right, Rob’s late. And I’m sorry I left the van this afternoon. Will you miss anything important if you don’t get there right at seven?”

      He looked at her warily for a moment, then accepted her peace offering. “Just the rope-and-harness review, and I’m not leading it tonight, thank god. Some of those bozos couldn’t tie a knot to hang themselves with. Heaven protect any lost climber who depends on them for rescue.”

      She squinted once more out the window. “I see the van now.”

      Soon Rob came scrambling in the patio doors, his artful dark hair still frosted with construction dust. “Sorry I’m late. Absolutely fatal day at the museum. Jan, honey, how are you doing? I expected to find you comatose on the sofa.”

      “She took a magic pill,” said Terry, yanking his second bootlace tight. “You coming, or will you walk down to your car later?”

      “Almost there, dear boy. Honey, we have a crisis. Since you’re wide awake and thinking straight, can you please bend your mind to how we can hang the opening show when our insurer won’t sign off until the vault is ready? I can’t bring paintings in without insurance, and you know it’s disastrous if the donors and loaners