CHAPTER TWO
When Luke opened the door, Rachel first noticed the neatness of the apartment. Unlike some men, Luke evidently had some housekeeping skills. He ushered her to a small patio table set with country dinnerware, and, with a flourish, offered her steak, baked potato and salad.
As they conversed and laughed over their meal, with no signs of additional storms moving in, she had to admit that the evening was turning out much better than expected. There weren’t many men she could enjoy an intelligent conversation with.
She savored her last bite of steak, contented. Dinner, a nice view, relaxation. No, she wasn’t sorry at all that she’d come here rather than Gage’s. Until Luke shifted on his chair as if suppressing an excess of energy.
“Let’s go exploring,” her newfound friend said suddenly. “I want to see what’s happening. The neighborhood’s completely different with no power.”
“Are you nuts? It could storm again at any minute. Those are your words! And besides, I have a column due tomorrow morning. Even if I can’t use my laptop, I’ve got to write seven hundred and fifty words tonight.”
“Column? Are you a writer? Where do you work?”
“At This Week. Right now I’m just a staff writer, but I hope to move up to assistant editor.”
“What a coincidence.” Luke stood to clear off the dishes to the sink. “I just was appointed publisher,” he called from the kitchen.
Publisher? Then this guy was the boss, the top in the pyramid. Rachel felt like disappearing. Whether she liked him or not, she was going to have to get along with him if she wanted to stay at the magazine. She pinned on a stiff smile. “I’d heard we had a new top gun. What plans do you have for the publication? Any major changes in editorial direction?”
“No. It’s fine right now, finger on the pulse of the city and all that. Anyway, I don’t believe in major upheavals when I first come on board.”
Only later, was the clear inference.
I’d better polish my resume, Rachel thought, just in case.
Now she had to make nice. So she agreed with his suggestion. “Okay. Let’s walk around. See what’s what.”
Outside the storm had stripped leaves and small branches from trees, but a rare freshness filled the air. Rachel and Luke stepped to the sidewalk to join dozens of their strolling neighbors, people Rachel had seldom seen before. An old lady with a walker talked animatedly to a young man laced with studs and tattoos. Several people had set up lawn chairs on the parking strip to peer down the main street in search of the cause of the power outage. From yards came the sounds of rarely used instruments—harmonicas, guitars, recorders. Without electricity for televisions and other equipment, people had been thrown to their own resources and they were acting like kids on an unexpected break from school. When Rachel and Luke dodged two skateboarders, they clung to one another and burst into surprised laughter.
He’s not such a bad guy after all, Rachel decided as she noticed the creases in his cheeks that marked regular amusement in his life.
Luke caught her elbow. “I’d better stay close to you. Especially if we want to cross the street. Let’s see if the local grocery is open.”
They paused at the corner of the main street. Without functioning stoplights, traffic was creeping along in both directions. Rachel was about to attempt a foray, but Luke held her back.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That sound. That cry. From over the way.” Sure enough, if Rachel listened hard, she could hear a faint but distinct wail. “It could be a cat,” she said.
“Or a baby,” said Luke.
The sound increased in volume and now seemed more like a howl or a plea for help.
“Maybe someone’s in trouble,” Rachel said. “What should we do? My phone’s out of energy.”
“We can’t just ignore it,” Luke pointed out. “What if someone’s trapped somewhere? Or a child’s parent has an emergency?”
The cry wavered and built like a siren. Following the eerie sound, they traced it to a storm drain.
“Try to keep me from being run down,” Luke gestured.
Rachel stepped a few feet into the empty street, watching for any oncoming traffic, trying to focus on safety and not her job’s future. She might be able to get that article written out in longhand if she sat up half the night.
Meanwhile, Luke stretched out flat on the wet ground and stuck his head over the curb. “Can you hear me?” he called. The response was a shriek, louder and obviously nearer than before.
Rachel waved her arms at an approaching car. Thankfully, the driver turned into a side street a block away and disappeared.
Peering into the drain intake, Luke thrust an arm as far as he could reach between the bars covering the drain. “Too far away,” he said.
Luke sat. He grimaced at his muddy hands and attempted to wipe them clean on the back of his shirt. Then he gingerly took a cell phone from a pocket and handed it to Rachel. “Try 911,” he said.
Rachel fumbled with the unfamiliar phone. “All I get is a recording stating all circuits are busy,” she said after several tries. “I can’t get through.”
Luke looked around. “Where does the water go from here? Is there a culvert or a stream nearby? We might be able to come in through a back door.”
Rachel tried to think, but she wasn’t in the habit of searching out drainage pathways. “There’s a manhole over there,” she said.
“Perfect!” Luke rushed to the spot she had pointed out. “Let’s see if we can get the cover off this thing.”
The evening was becoming surreal. Under normal circumstances, Rachel neither needed nor wanted to find out if a manhole cover could be removed. Yes, someone needed help, but surely Luke wasn’t thinking of going underground?
Luke slid the big iron lid aside. “There’s a ladder,” he said, as he slowly disappeared into the dark hole.
Rachel remembered her key ring. She leaned over the hole and said, “I have a flashlight. It’s little, but it’s LED and throws out a pretty good beam of light.”
“That might help.” Luke’s hand appeared. Rachel switched on the light and handed him her keys.
The next minute seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, Luke climbed out of the manhole. “There’s a cat down there with a whole litter of kittens.” He wiped his hands on his muddy trousers. “Maybe this was a good place to live until the rain started. Now the water is rising. By the next storm, they’ll be washed away.” Luke handed Rachel her keys. “You’ll have to wade over to where they are to get the kittens out.”
“Me?” Rachel was stunned. “Why can’t you bring them out?” The thought of climbing down under the street and sloshing through dark waters definitely held no appeal. What if there was a flash flood? What if the next storm started? It had to be disgusting down there.
Luke’s eyes offered a silent apology. “The ladder only goes down so far, and then you have to drop a couple of feet to the bottom of the drain. When you get ready to come back up, you’ll have to jump up and catch the bottom rung of the ladder and then I’ll help pull you up. I have enough strength to lift you, but there’s no way you could haul me out of there.”
Looking down that manhole, how Rachel wished she had passed on that delicious steak, or at least refused to take this walk. Of course she didn’t want the mama kitty and her litter to drown, but she surely didn’t want to go fishing for them either. “How can we get the kittens out?” She couldn’t resist stalling.
“Hand them up to me, one or two at a time. Take the mother out last. She won’t give you any trouble once her kittens are safe. Animals have a way of sensing whether you’re a friend or foe.”
“Let me guess,” Rachel couldn’t keep herself from saying, “you were a Boy Scout.”
“Eagle Scout, as a matter of fact. Come on, Rachel, where’s your sense of adventure? You can do this.”