Deluge (The Best Thrillers Book 2) by James Best (top romance novels txt) 📗

as the traffic slowed to a crawl. As they decelerated, Baldwin could see that the water level had risen as much as six inches.

“How tall is this truck?” Baldwin asked.

“With my lift kit and oversized wheels, clearance is over fourteen inches, but my clearance isn’t our immediate problem.”

“What is?” Baldwin asked.

“The clearance of those sedans and minivans,” Smith answered. “They start stalling, and they’ll hem us in. Our additional height only means that our feet will get wet later than the people in those other cars.”

Smith rubbernecked, looking for an escape route. There appeared to be none. Then with a jerk, he stuck the nose of his SUV into a small gap between cars in the right lane. Horns blared, but Smith gradually edged his entire vehicle between cars whose passengers were giving him a piece of their mind with horns and hand gestures. He slid down his window and stuck his head out to look over the roof to the edge of the pavement. More horns as he allowed a gap to build between his Land Cruiser and the car in front of him.

When he pulled his head back in, his hair dripped water as though he’d held it under a shower. “I can’t see much, but I believe that beyond the shoulder, the water level is even with the highway. That means it could be two feet deep. Maybe more. And there’re crops under that water that’ll snarl the axle.”

“You can’t drive through it?” Ashley asked plaintively.

“No.” Smith appeared thoughtful. “If I could keep up speed, I might retain enough traction in the mud and wet vegetation, but I’ll push water into the engine compartment, and we’ll stall. If I go slow enough to keep the top of the engine dry, I’ll probably lose traction and spin the tires.” After a moment, he said, “Unless one of you has a better idea, I’m going to straddle the berm. One set of wheels on the edge of the road and one set on the asphalt shoulder that slopes into the drink.”

No one said a word. Smith shifted to compound low and steered right. As soon as his right-side wheels dropped off the concrete pavement, the vehicle tilted and wanted to veer toward the water. He expertly pulled the steering wheel in alternate directions to keep the left side of the vehicle on the edge of the highway. After about one hundred feet, he got the hang of it and moved steadily forward at about five miles an hour.

Baldwin began to feel optimistic, but then havoc enveloped them. Horns honked everywhere. Baldwin didn’t know if people were honking in frustration, jealousy, or warning. A car behind them decided to try the same maneuver, but slipped off the highway, then tipped over and made a huge splash as the side hit the water. Now people were opening their windows to yell obscenities at them. That clarified the reason for honking. People were angry that somebody moved while they stood still. They viewed it as unfair. Was it? Before she could think it through, a rent-a-truck pulled partially onto the shoulder in front of them, blocking their path. Now Smith got on the horn, but in return he got an uplifted finger out the window from the driver. The message was clear. If I can’t go anywhere, you can’t either.

Now they were in worse shape because no one would let them back onto the highway. Other cars cooperated with the truck blocking their path, and they made progress only when the rent-a-truck occasionally inched forward.

Baldwin became frustrated. Then she became fearful.

“The water’s rising,” Smith said. “Fast.”

Chapter 17

Evarts discovered that he had rescued the family of a fireman on the Buellton force. The woman had forgotten that their second car was in the shop and spent so much time packing her kids’ clothes and toys that her neighbors had already evacuated. In a panic, she had called her husband, who told her to leave everything behind and run away from the river.

After their escape, she had sobbed uncontrollably and thanked Evarts profusely. It took several minutes before she gained enough control to call her husband. As he drove to the park, she emotionally recapped their escapade to her husband. It sounded like a Hollywood disaster epic with an unlimited CGI budget. By the end of the conversation, she was punctuating her sentences with manic laughter, and the children were all sobbing. As she talked on the phone, she stretched one hand to the backseat to comfort the kids.

While the woman spoke with her husband, Evarts tried to call his wife. It went immediately to voice mail, which meant she was on the phone, or it had been turned off, or she was in a no-service area. He left a voice message cryptic enough to encourage her to call back as soon as she could.

Evarts pulled into Hans Christian Andersen Park. Dusk had turned to night, but the park was lit six ways from Sunday with Hollywood-style klieg lights. Seeing chaos in front of him, he wondered where to go, when the woman handed him her phone. He pulled onto the shoulder of the entrance before putting the phone to his ear.

“Hello,” Evarts said.

“This is Captain Hernandez. Is my family all right?”

“Yes. Perfectly fine. The ah, the sound you hear is relief. Maybe a little shock. I’ve taken them to Hans Christian Andersen Park. This is the evacuation center for Solvang. Hey, you’ve been alerted, haven’t you—about the mass of water coming at you?”

“I’m evacuating people as we speak. In fact, I gotta keep this short. I wanted to go home to save my family, but I couldn’t get there in time. Thank you. It means the world to me. What’s your name?”

“Greg Evarts … Santa Barbara Police. It was my pleasure to repay you in kind. It must have been difficult for you to save people in Buellton while your family faced imminent danger up here.”

“I hope you never know how