She checked the time on the wall clock and frowned. It was a few minutes past eight. Rob had told her he liked to do the payroll the first thing after he got to the hotel on Sundays, get it out of the way to make sure the checks weren’t late, and she was surprised he hadn’t given her a frantic call by now. But it could be something else had come up that took precedence. Or maybe she was being too quick with her conclusions. This might be a different folder than the one she’d seen him poring over last night. Or he could have removed the disk and printout from it before he started out this morning, transferring it to a different one for some reason.

Cynthia poured the cereal into the bowl, added a little formula, and stirred them together.

“Pleoww!” Laurie said.

“I know, peapod. Breakfast’s coming. Just be patient with me another second.” Cynthia set the spoon down on a folded towel. The cereal was a tad too hot and really needed to sit anyway. “I’d better see what kind of upset to expect from Dad.”

She went over to the phone stand, picked up the folder, hastily examined its contents, and felt her optimism of last resort evaporate all at once. The CD and printout were inside. Rob had, in fact, forgotten the payroll ledger here at home.

Cynthia reached into a pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. She decided she’d better not postpone informing Rob of her unhappy discovery. The sooner he knew, the sooner he could start back for the folder, or figure out if there was some less inconvenient alternative. As far as she knew, though, he wouldn’t be able to get his work done without it.

She read the Fairview’s phone number off the bulletin board above the stand, lifted the receiver . . . and to her mild surprise got no dial tone. She frowned, pushed down the disconnect button, released it, and again heard only dead silence in the earpiece.

Perfect, Cynthia thought. Just perfect.

She tapped the button a few more times without any better result, then noticed the keypad lights were out and inspected the phone wire to make sure Laurie hadn’t crawled under the stand and messed with it, pulling or loosening the plugs from their jacks. Everything looked to be in place.

“Spo flig?” Laurie cooed behind her in a tone that genuinely sounded as if she understood the problem and wondered what they were going to do to solve it . . . although Cynthia had to admit her maternal pride tended to exaggerate the kid’s natural gifts from time to time.

“Wish I knew,” she said stuffily, and considered a moment. A few minutes ago she’d heard Julia driving uphill to the center. After feeding Laurie she could take a walk over there, see whether the problem with the telephone was confined to the house. If it was affecting the entire property, and the business phone was down, too, then they would be able to report the trouble using Julia’s cell phone.