Drought by Graham Masterton Page A

was chilly and moist, even though she looked so hot. He leaned over and kissed her forehead and said, gently, ‘Hallo, baby. It’s your Daddy.’
    Ella opened her eyes and blinked at him, and then she smiled. ‘Daddy. You came.’
    â€˜I brought some water for you. Here – Mommy has it now.’
    Peta came in with a large glass of water and sat down on the bed to help Ella drink it. Martin propped her head up while she gulped it down. Occasionally she stopped and gasped for breath, but she managed to finish all of it.
    â€˜Could I have some more?’ she asked.
    Martin lowered her head back on the pillow and grinned at her. ‘What are you, a camel?’
    â€˜I’m just so thirsty, Daddy. I feel like my throat is full of dust.’
    Peta gave Ella some more water to drink and plumped up her pillows and then she and Martin went back into the kitchen.
    â€˜I really think we need to get her to a doctor,’ said Peta. ‘She doesn’t have a rash, and she’s not vomiting or anything, but then all she’s eaten all day is a piece of dry toast and half a cup of chicken soup.’
    â€˜Maybe you should try calling the medical center again.’
    â€˜I can try,’ said Peta. She took the phone off the wall and punched out the number but before she even handed it to him, Martin could hear the busy signal.
    â€˜I’ll drive down there myself,’ he said. ‘If they’re really so busy I don’t want to take Ella with me. Maybe I can persuade one of the doctors to make a house call.’
    He went to the door. Peta caught his sleeve and said, ‘What about Tyler? He must be so frightened!’
    â€˜We have a good lawyer for him, sweetheart, that’s all we can do for now. The detective who’s in charge of his case promised to call me when they’re ready to send him over to Rancho Cucamonga.’
    He turned to go but she still kept hold of his sleeve.
    â€˜Martin—’ she said.
    He waited, but she simply said, ‘Nothing. But call me, won’t you, when you’ve found out what’s happening at the medical center?’
    Highland Medical Center was ten minutes’ drive south-east, through quiet, wide, well-kept streets, and each street that Martin passed was even more affluent than the street before, with larger houses and more expensive vehicles parked in their driveways.
    Like everywhere else, though, the streets were empty, and he drove for over five minutes before he passed another car, a Lincoln Town Car, heading in the opposite direction. The driver had dyed black hair and a papery, sun-mottled face, and as he passed he stared at Martin with undisguised suspicion.
    Only a few streets further on, however, he took a right turn toward the medical center, and he saw a pot-bellied man in a baseball cap and khaki shorts, watering the plants on either side of his driveway with a hosepipe.
    He pulled in to the side of the road and called out, ‘So – you have your water back on? When did that happen?’
    â€˜Never been off,’ the man told him. ‘I saw on the news they cut it off in some neighborhoods, but not here, not so far. Not too sure they’d dare. Too many council members live around here!’
    â€˜Yeah, maybe you’re right,’ said Martin, watching the man fill his terracotta plant pots until they were flooded, and thinking of the Murillo children, listlessly sprawled out on their verandah, with only a half bottle of Dr Pepper left to drink, and that was probably long gone by now.
    He drove on. He was only three streets away from the medical center, however, when he saw a battered black Dodge Ram parked at a diagonal across the road in front of him, and an old silver Caprice pulled up on the sidewalk. Both the car and the SUV had their doors wide open, and five or six young Hispanic men in sleeveless black T-shirts were milling around them. As Martin came closer, he saw that