“She’s asleep,” she told herself.

But she could see Willow Court on the drainage map in her mind as clearly as if someone had drawn it across the kitchen floor.

Briar Crossing was a mill town with a broad river, a beautiful old stone bridge, and a habit of pretending the river was merely scenery. Decades earlier, factories had lined the northern bank. When the factories closed, developers discovered that the waterfront looked appealing in brochures. The city built walking paths and planted ornamental grasses. The county approved new luxury residences at Harbor Point. There were ribbon cuttings, speeches, and a glossy sign that declared the project a model of responsible waterfront renewal.

Lena had attended one of those meetings in her professional capacity.

She remembered walking out before the refreshments were served.

On the drive west, rain hammered the roof of her state-issued SUV. The navigation display kept offering a shortcut through lower streets she knew would soon be impassable. She stayed on the ridge road. At 3:51, Frank Delgado, the city’s waterworks foreman, called her.

“You headed here?”

“Ten minutes out. What does your staff gauge show?”

Frank was silent for a moment.

“I don’t like the answer.”

“That makes two of us.”

“The screen says six feet, two inches. The painted post says seven feet, one. There’s no way they should be that far apart.”

“Who verified the screen?”

“Grayline’s remote monitoring team.”

Grayline Infrastructure. The contractor that had recently modified the western flood system as part of the Harbor Point redevelopment.

Lena took the next bend too quickly and felt her tires slide against the wet pavement. She eased off the accelerator.

“Frank, don’t trust the remote number. Send a person to the upstream staff gauge, and keep everyone out of the gate chamber until we know the pressure.”

“I tried. Harbor Point security turned my crew back. Says the city doesn’t have access before six.”

Lena looked at the clock on the dashboard.

“It’s a public flood-control facility. They can’t set visiting hours for a flood.”

“I told them that.”

She reached the access road minutes later and found a steel chain stretched between two posts. A private security vehicle was parked on one side. On the other side, a county cruiser sat beneath a blinking streetlamp.