Atlas sat up in bed, breathing hard. The red numbers on his digital clock glowed 6:30 a.m. He’d overslept. For an instant, he thought he was back in Houston, but as the busy Victorian trim and floral curtains crowded into his vision with grating insistence, he remembered he was still in Eureka, and the phone was ringing, not the alarm. He picked up.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Jamison, sir. I hope it’s not too early. I have news.”
“Go ahead.”
“The young man, Blackburn. It seems his father owned property west of yours. You tried to buy him out, but he refused to sell. Do you remember?”
“No. But go on.”
“Well, there was a mudslide.”
Barnes kept talking but faded into the background as Atlas vaguely remembered news reports about this, and images of the littered slope. Thoughts of his daughter’s safety
