The Cokes were gone, and he filled up a glass from the kitchen tap instead. It was nice to get clean, unfiltered water like this, when you could drink it without fearing for your life. And it tasted better than the water in New York too. He was beginning to think that this place would suit him just fine.

If he had turned to the window, he would have seen his daughter tottering slowly across the snow-covered lawn towards the shed and forgotten all about the plans and the project. But at that precise moment, the phone rang. He grabbed it off the counter with one hand while balancing the glass in the other, favoring his injured palm.

“David Pierce?” the voice asked. He hesitated a moment before answering. Somehow the voice didn’t sound like someone he was particularly interested in talking to, especially now on a Sunday afternoon.

He was, unfortunately, right on.

“Dan Flint. From the meeting the other day?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Listen, we went into the plant by snowmobile a few days ago, like we’d hoped. The samples we collected were contaminated with an unknown substance. We’ve done some lab testing over here, spent half the week, in fact.”

“And?”

“It’s not really something I can share over the phone. But we have every reason to believe the contaminant is coming from your power facility.”

David waited, but the line was silent. “You’re going to have to give me more than that, Mr. Flint. And why are you calling me? I’m not in charge of environmental concerns.”

There was another long pause. David was beginning to think he had lost the connection when Flint spoke up again. “We think you can help us.”

“What do you mean, help you? I told you, I’m not in charge—”

“I’m aware of that. What I mean is, we think you can give us some inside information that might help us decide whether to shut down the project.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Again, I’d rather not talk about it over the phone,” Flint said. “I’m coming to meet with you. I’ll be at the Railway Cafe in St. Boudin at nine thirty next Friday. In the meantime, I’d like you to do a little digging into anything unusual. Anything at all. You’ve got a few days. I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone about our conversa- tion.”

“What makes you think I won’t just call up Quebec City—”

“You won’t,” Flint said, “because I’m telling you not to. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen. I don’t need to tell you how serious this is. I’ll see you on the ninth.”

The phone went dead. David slammed it back into its cradle, feeling the rattle all the way down to his feet.