Baby Dreams

“Of course,” he said simply. Then he almost grinned. “I’m the good guy.”

“In your dreams.” She shook her head, exasperated. He was enjoying this a little too much. Sadistic beast. She turned away so that her back was to him and began to dial again. But something wasn’t right. Holding the receiver to her ear, she frowned. “There’s no dial tone,” she said, turning back to him. “Listen.” She held it out to him.

He listened, then tapped down the buttons a few times and gave up. “It’s dead,” he said shortly.

She stared at him, hoping he didn’t mean what he obviously did mean. This telephone was her only hope, her only lifeline to the outside world that would surely prove, quickly enough once contacted, that she wasn’t any more Billie Joe Calloway than she was Billy the Kid. “Dead? What do you mean, it’s dead?”

He glanced at her, his eyes as dark as coal. He knew what she was thinking, and he knew more than that. This meant the die was cast. The two of them were going to spend the night together in this room. There was no longer any way out. “It’s dead. The storm’s probably knocked out the lines.”

The look of horror on her face mirrored her distress. She was feeling more and more isolated here, more and more helpless. Was there no escape from this situation? “But… what about my phone call?”

He raised that dark eyebrow again, and the look on his face was a cynical one. “Got a cellular phone?”

Her eyes lit up. “Back in my car.”

He gestured toward the snowstorm raging outside the window. “Then I guess you’re out of luck.”

“But that’s not fair!”

He wasn’t sure why, but he was feeling rather smug at the moment. “No. Neither are lotteries or beauty pageants, but we have them anyway.”

She shook her head. “There’s got to be something.” A note of desperation was edging her tone.

He turned from her and gestured toward a dark, old-fashioned-looking machine sitting against the back of the desk. “There’s the old shortwave,” he told her reluctantly. “It’s ancient and it doesn’t work very well. But at least I might be able to get through to the district office in Santa Fe.”

“Okay.” She spread her arms out. “Let’s do it.”

She sat down and watched as he fooled with the controls for what seemed like hours, and finally there was a crackling sound of someone on the line.

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