“You’re not getting fired. No one’s going to know. I’m just going to take a little boat tour, and you’re going to document whatever damage you can from safety.”

“I’m going with you,” Lauren said stubbornly.

“You and I both know your wife is one of the scariest women on the planet. If she found out I let your pregnant ass get on a fishing boat and go trolling through flood waters, she’d murder me. Stay!”

Cat hooked a leg over the bow of the boat and clambered aboard.

--------

Stuart was a middle-aged man of few words. He piloted the small boat down flooded town streets with close-mouthed determination. Just another fishing trip for him, Cat thought. He had no idea who she was, just that she was some crazy woman who showed up to a flood with a small cooler of sandwiches and water and a thermos of coffee. She was just another volunteer to him, and she was happy to keep it that way.

Cat was incognito in her ball cap and layers.

She’d recorded the canoe rescue of a young mother, her little boy, and a bedraggled cat from their flooded home. And Cat had taken dozens of photos of flood waters and damage. She’d coaxed Stu—Cat had no idea if he minded her calling him that—to float them through the park in hopes of getting close to the Hai house. The park itself was completely submerged. The tree… The tree that had been decorated and lit every Christmas season for the past fifty years was broken, on its side listing in the ice-cold, debris-filled water.

There’d be no Christmas Festival here. Unless the network put their money where their mouth was. If the suits didn’t jump on this as the most epic Christmas special ever—well, that wasn’t going to happen. She’d make sure of it.

Mindful of the current, Stu didn’t venture too far into the park. Instead he motored up Mistletoe Avenue. The Hai house, a cute bungalow that Cat had personally helped renovate from top to bottom, was sitting in three feet of water. The finished basement would be a complete loss, and the first floor would need new drywall, new floors, and new molding, but barring a further freak act of nature, it would be livable again.

They weren’t there. The sign on the front door said so. And Cat wondered who had the forethought to ask residents to post whether their homes were empty, saving rescuers time.

She snapped away pictures, video. Whatever it would take to convince the network to send her back to this tiny town.

Cat stowed her phone in her rain slicker and began scanning neighboring windows for movement. Burrowing deeper into her slicker, she shivered. She could see puffs of her own breath, silvery clouds in the frigid air. The floodwaters were even more dangerous with their Arctic temperatures.