Chapter 15 - The Three Wheels
The storm hit with a hard burst of rain that turned the hospital windows silver. By then Emma had awakened long enough to feed a little milk. Dr. Shah called her stable, though she would need more observation and follow-up examinations.
Claire pressed her lips to Emma's hair. "You don't know it yet," she said, "but you've got an entire neighborhood cheering for you."
In the county control room, Nadia directed technicians through the old maintenance steps. First they opened wheel two to bleed pressure into an unused holding basin. Then wheel one, which diverted flow away from the houses. Last came wheel three, a valve that would release the trapped water into a reinforced channel.
They turned the first wheel. Pressure dropped. A cheer went up across the radio.
At the second wheel, the handle would not move. Somebody had welded the shaft to its housing. Sparks flashed as technicians tried to cut it loose with a portable tool.
"We need ten minutes," Nadia said.
Ortiz looked at the clock. "We may have five before water reaches the Perez house."
Claire remembered something else about her mother's diagram. Ruth had drawn an unlabeled square beyond the lilac hedge. The old coal chute wasn't the only entrance. Their grandfather had built an emergency release under the mill, before the neighborhood was developed.
She pointed it out to Nadia on the video call. "That square. Is it another wheel?"
Nadia enlarged the original survey. "It's a manual overflow latch. We can open it if we get into the mill's pump shed."
The rescue team reached the shed and forced the door. Inside they found Graham Pike holding a folder over a barrel of burning papers.
May you like
He looked at the armed officers, then kicked the barrel toward an open trench.
The original report slid into the fire.
