She was still in the intersection, only now she was facing up Twelfth Avenue. The car had stopped moving. The car had stopped moving?

Yes.

She looked out the window. She was still in the water. It was all around her. She tried the handle, half expecting the pressure of the water to pin it closed, but it opened, skimming over the top of the water. She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. The water was maybe five inches deep, above her ankle. She could feel its chill through the rubber of her boots.

She already had her phone out when she turned and saw her car moving again. It floated peacefully for a moment, before scraping along a parked pickup truck and coming to rest nuzzled against it.

Susan dialed 911.

All the operators were busy.

“You’re kidding me,” Susan said.

They were probably up to their eyeballs with calls. Flooding. Mudslides. Traffic accidents. Citizens concerned about their neighbor’s aquarium.

She called Archie. He didn’t pick up.

She looked up and down Division Street, and then up and down Twelfth Avenue. She didn’t see any headlights coming.

At least her car was out of the path of traffic.

She wrote a note on a page from her notebook and tore it out. My car hit your pickup truck, read the note. Sorry. She added her name and cell number. She waded over to the pickup and tucked it under the windshield wiper. The paper was already wet enough that the ink was bleeding.

She was across the intersection when she realized that her laptop was in the backseat of the car. She decided to leave it. She was twenty-three blocks from home, and she didn’t want it getting rained on.

She put her hood up and started walking.

It wasn’t that far. They were short blocks. And she remembered that Heil was going to an address around here. She decided to take Division most of the way, and keep an eye out for his car. She had to walk through deep puddles on the sidewalk in places, but she had her rainbow boots on. And it was relatively warm out. That was the bright side—if all this was coming down as snow, Portland might be even more screwed. After a few blocks she’d worked up enough body heat that she had to unzip her raincoat.

A few more blocks after that, she’d had enough.

Her feet hurt. She was getting blisters between her toes. She needed Band-Aids. Her jeans were soaked.

She lit a cigarette and called Archie again. Once again, his voice mail picked up after one ring. It was making her a little mad. “It’s me,” she said. “Susan. Again.” She didn’t know what he could do, just that he could do something. Call a tow truck or something. Get her a ride. Then she saw the mint-green Nissan Cube.