Tipping Point (5 page)

The company was legitimate, but it made things difficult for everyday citizens to trace unofficially. It was owned by several business entities, which of course were owned by herself and Cam. An official inquiry would bring that up in a heartbeat, but she wasn’t worried about those kinds of questions. She paid her taxes like everyone else, and she wasn’t breaking any law that she was aware of.

“Alright, then, ‘Mackenzie-uh-Thane,’ why don’t we take a look at some of these and see what you think?”

4

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TRANGE
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NOTHER

As much as she might wish she could spend all day gazing at knives, not to mention a certain green-eyed creature who looked nothing like a monster, Mac had too many other things to do. For the first time she found that a little irritating, which she knew wasn’t smart. She really didn’t have the time.

“Okay, I’ll take the Gerber LMF II and the KA-BAR Becker 22. My daughter will need a knife anyway, and I’ll get a chance to play around with both of them. I’m happy with the KA-BAR and Coyote Brown for the Gerber. They both have non-reflective blades and all the other features I was looking for. Frankly, except for the partially serrated edge on the Gerber, and the different glass break points, they’re very similar.

“And I’ll take the razors and all that, too, of course,” she said, making her decision.

“These are display models, so I’ll get you the ones that are still in their packaging. I’m guessing you don’t want any engraving or anything done.”

“Honestly, I almost wish I could, because they’re so beautiful, and a knife is such a personal thing, but no. It’s just not practical. These will be getting good use, though you can assure your son that they won’t be used on people. Most likely anyway. They’re for survival in the bush, not combat.” Neil smiled a bit, though he appeared preoccupied.

“Be right back with your stuff,” he said a bit quietly, and turned away. Mac attempted to lecture herself, even as she pondered his behaviour and what it might mean. She was forty years old, shit was hitting the fan, and here she was wondering if a guy liked her or not. This was not how she usually interacted with men.

Suddenly she was sad, though. If things were going the way she figured they were, she didn’t like to think of him and his son not making it through. By the time he came back, she’d figured out what she wanted to say.

“Look, Neil, you might think I’m some sort of crazy psycho after I say this, or maybe just misinterpreting things, but I felt like you should know what’s going on. Or at least what I believe is happening.” His face brightened, and she realized he thought she meant something else entirely.

“Well, that too, but that wasn’t what I was referring to at the moment. Things are getting bad in the cities. I’m not sure what the news has been reporting up here, even news from the cities that you probably get. People are going without hydro about half the time now, and it’s causing serious problems.

“Those problems are bound to bleed into other areas. Not just because power outages can have a cascade effect, and outages are likely to start happening here, but because people will start leaving the cities looking for a better situation. Nobody wants to be in an urban environment when things go bad. Just thought maybe you’d want to keep yourself safe and lay in some supplies. The supply chain in the GTA has already been disrupted, so it’ll happen here very soon.”

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?” He seemed to be taking her seriously, thankfully, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

“I was living in Hamilton when it started, though I was actually raised around Huntsville. I’ve been watching for it, however. Most people aren’t. Most people think everything will be fixed if only they get mad enough, and I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.

“I was warned a long time ago by someone who worked as an executive for Ontario Hydro. He told me this would happen based on what they were planning for the nuclear and coal plants. He said it was unsustainable and our outages would only get worse. It was after that big blackout I started getting concerned. That was caused by a stupid tree in Cleveland, and millions of people were affected. Like I said, a cascade effect.

“Anyway, I hope I don’t sound like a survivalist nut. I just thought you might want to know what’s probably coming.”

“We’re actually pretty set. It’s one of the reasons we’re up here. You’re a prepper aren’t you?” Mac smiled.

“Guilty. I see you’re familiar with the term.”

“Oh yeah. Charge me with the same crime. About that other thing you mentioned?”

“Yeah?” Her heart stopped as she waited for him to speak.

“You said, ‘that, too.’“ He waited for her to speak.

This time her breath caught in her throat. This guy could be the death of her if he could stop her heart and keep her from breathing at the same time. All she could do was nod.

“I’ll bet you’re pretty busy right now if you just came up from the city, so here...I wrote my cell number on the back. Call me when you get some time.” He held out his business card. She moved closer to the counter to take it, unable to stop looking into those bright green eyes. When she reached for the card, he pulled back at the last second.

“Wait. I’m guessing you have a radio setup, right?” When she nodded again, he flipped the card over and wrote down his call sign and a frequency.

“Just in case,” he said, and held out the card again. This time he let her take it from him, and she just barely resisted the urge to run her thumb over his. That was just a little too cliché for her, though. She flipped over the card and stared at the short note she hadn’t even seen him write down.
Absolutely anytime. Be careful
.

“Do me a favour then,” she said, smiling a bit. “Please let your son know I really was just teasing him.” He winked at her, and it took everything she had not to lean over the counter and just mash her mouth against his. Instead she did what she had to do and walked out of the store with her sexy new cutlery.

Knowing he was still watching her from inside the store, she refrained from doing anything as undignified as a hip-shaking boogie, but there was definitely a bounce in her step as she headed for the truck. When she pulled past the store window, she waved. Through the glare she thought he waved back at her, but she wasn’t sure.

Jesus, she was giddy. What a weird way to start what she’d assumed was going to be nothing more than a productive day. Of course, she’d managed to get what she’d been looking for, so it was still productive. Just more...eventful. She knew she was going to be thinking about him all day. Probably for a lot of days, because she wasn’t sure when she’d get the chance to call him.

Still, she planned to the first chance she got. Mac didn’t play idiotic games. He liked her, she liked him. Basic. Which was how she liked it. She actually let out a sigh, which made her laugh at herself, but her mood had certainly improved.

The trip to the hardware store turned out to be eventful, as well, but not in a pleasant way. The slimy twerp behind the counter kept insisting he needed her address to ring up her purchases, even though she was paying cash and bringing everything home on the trailer. She knew full well there was no such policy. The third time he said he needed it she told him to call his manager over.

“Now now, we don’t need to disturb her. Even though I’m not supposed to do it this way, I’ll put it through for ya.”

“Either get your manager down here or I’m going to start causing a scene so that everyone in this store knows
exactly
what you’re trying to pull. You need to be reprimanded, and I’m going to make sure that it happens. If I have to go so far as to make a ruckus, I’m going to go even further and make sure that they fire you. Call her. Now.” Mac was beyond furious.

Obviously this guy figured she had to be living alone if she was going to the hardware store by herself. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was either a peeping tom or rapist, and something needed to be done about it.

Once the situation was explained to the manager, Mac could tell the woman was pretty angry. She was tactful about it, though.

As a result of the situation, Mac ended up getting twenty-percent off her purchases that day. Happily it had been a big haul, so that twenty-percent amounted to a good chunk of change.

Things had worked out for the best, but she was still leery of what the guy might do. He could still lose his job, even though she hadn’t pushed that.

She kept an eye on the vehicles in her rearview mirror as she finished up her business in town, which involved a stop at the gas station. As luck would have it, by the time she hit the main intersection out of town she had seen the same green Civic a few times. If that was the guy from the hardware store, she was going to have to deal with him long before she got anywhere near the house. In fact, it might be a good idea to take a little detour. A bit of misdirection never hurt.

She took a turn-off heading toward Bala instead. There were a lot of near-vacant side-roads here, and sometimes no homes or farms for miles.

Mackenzie was heading in the direction she would need to take when it came time to get her goats and chickens, so she’d already mapped it out in her mind and wouldn’t likely get lost. She wasn’t sure about the asshole who was still following her, but it would probably be best for everyone if he did get himself lost out here.

Mac reached into the bag on the passenger seat and opened up the first knife box her hand came in contact with. The knife and sheath she pulled out were all black, so it was the KA-BAR. She shoved the blade into the sheath and pushed the sheath down the back of her jeans. Then she grabbed her phone.

She hated to operate her cell while she was driving. She knew damn well it was a good way to get herself killed, but in this case she really needed to do it. She opened Facebook as she slowed the truck and pulled over to the shoulder. By the time he caught up with her, she would be ready.

Once the truck rolled to a stop she put it in park, removed the seat belt and ran her search for the Ontario Provincial Police page. Way out here the OPP was the only law enforcement organization that applied. Then she opened a message box, typed in a short message, and made sure her location flag was turned on.

Once that was ready she opened a second Facebook page. This time she ran a search for the hardware store. She opened a message box to that one, too, typed another quick message without sending, and then switched back to the app version where the OPP message box awaited further input.

Mac got out of the truck, twisting in such a way that he wouldn’t see the knife sheath. Surreptitiously she clicked the little camera icon in the message box. He pulled to a stop, and slowly got out of the car, obviously attempting to appear threatening, and savouring the moment when he thought he had the upper hand.

She snapped a picture, making sure to get both him and his licence plate in the frame, and pressed the enter key on her touchscreen. She had her head bent down as though she were merely checking her phone. Then she switched over to the hardware store message box and did the same.

She turned on her UStream app to broadcast a live feed, mostly to capture any audio, and watched him approach with a sly smile on his exceedingly ugly face.

“So, did your boss fire you? Is that why you’re out here now?” He leered at her. It was the only thing she could call that expression in her mind.

“My boss don’t know shit from Shinola. Just told me not to do it again.” Mac laughed.

“Well, she sure as hell knows ‘shit from Shinola’ now, seeing as I just sent your location, as well as the image of you and your licence plate, directly to your employer’s Facebook account. In addition to the OPP’s. I can guarantee you just lost your job, if nothing else, and the police are going to be very interested in you if I disappear or get hurt. You do know it’s a crime to stalk someone, right? That sexual harassment is a crime? I don’t suppose you were ever privy to the ‘No Means No’ campaign, huh?” She glanced at the name tag still pinned to his work shirt, and noted the gradual reddening of his skin.

“Look, Gerry. You’ve got one option if you don’t want to end up in jail for a very long time. Turn around and walk away, right this second. You haven’t done anything too extreme, and if I don’t press charges you’re not even going to miss your dinner. If you insist on seeing this through, despite the fact that I’m broadcasting this over the internet, it will not be worth whatever satisfaction you get out of trying to hurt me.

“As it is, I would really like to get home without you following me there, and I don’t have time to fuck around with you. Otherwise, the very next place I’m going to drive is to the Huntsville OPP station. Believe me when I tell you, if you push this you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. However long I allow that to be.”

Mac watched him struggle with his decision, her right hand clasped around the hilt of her brand new knife, and her left holding her phone up so the camera could pick up everything.

“Look, kid. At the moment you only look a little too enthusiastic. It’s not legal to do what you did, but a lot of people don’t know that. There’s very little that can be done if there’s no evidence of intent to harm.”

She couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though his jaw wasn’t clenched quite so tightly. Part of her was seriously itching to go after him, but she just had too much to do. Otherwise she would never have notified anyone of her location. Now that she had, her only options were to either talk him out of it, or take him down in self-defense.

“Bitch,” he muttered, and backed toward his car. Mackenzie sighed.
People are assholes
, she thought, which reminded her of Kirk. She resisted the urge to call and find out where they were, because she wanted to keep her video streaming a little bit longer. She watched the compact shoot past her and drive off with a squeal of tires, and hoped she never saw him again.