Tipping Point (7 page)

“I’ve got your stuff ready.”

“Great. And now that I asked you to have everything ready, I have to ask if you have any knives that are comparable to what I bought today, but different enough in appearance that we can all tell our knives apart. Another colour of the Gerber would do the trick, but I’m pretty sure that KA-BAR only comes in black, so we’ll need something else there.”

“No problem. How are you liking yours so far, or have you even had the chance to take them out of the boxes?”

“I’ve developed an attachment to the KA-BAR. Almost became familiar with its use, actually.” Neil gave her a worried look.

“That bad, huh? Alright. Let’s get you set up so you can get home to your daughter. You can finish filling me in later tonight. I’m usually up ‘til about three anyway, so call me even if it’s late.” She nodded.

He was back right away with the longer KA-BAR Becker BK-7, which was perfect for Kirk. Leigh chose the Olive Drab, or OD, Gerber identical to the one Mackenzie had given to Cameron earlier.

Kirk protested when she went to pay for the items, but Mac had the last laugh.

“Don’t worry. You may end up getting stuck buying the goats tomorrow.” The look on his face was priceless. Neil wagged his finger at her.

“You’re a tricky one, Mac. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.” She smirked.

“Both of them, I hope!” She thanked him for his help, told him she’d talk to him in a few hours, and headed back out to the car with a quick wink, leaving him to shake his head.

“How long have you known that guy?” Kirk’s question made her laugh again. She calculated in her head.

“About six hours maybe.” She swiveled down into her car, pleased to have added another look of confusion to the young man’s face. Leigh just glanced at Kirk, obviously not sure what to make of the situation. She spoke out the window to them, all traces of teasing having left her voice.

“Keep your eye on the rearview mirror. Make sure we aren’t followed.” Kirk glanced at the store window, his question obvious.

“No. A different guy. We need to stop at the gas station and fill up both our tanks and the jerrycan we just emptied. Watch for a green Honda Civic. It’s a hatchback, and pretty recent. I’ve lost touch with the newer cars, so I don’t know exactly what year it is, but you guys probably wouldn’t be able to tell either. Keep your eyes peeled in all directions. Pretend you don’t know me, and follow at a distance, but not far enough that you get lost.

“This car isn’t familiar to him, and if I don’t get out it’s because I see him somewhere. I’ll pop my trunk so you can refill the empty jerrycan. When you’re finished, we’ll head straight to the house.”

She rolled up her window and they drove over to the station, Leigh heading inside the convenience store so she could pay. Kirk started pumping their gas. He was definitely looking around him. Mac had pulled up on the other side and done her own visual search. No sign of him. Still, she snugged a baseball cap on over her long hair, and pulled on a windbreaker she kept in the car for emergencies.

She kept her head down while she finished the filling-up she had to do, and when she went in to place the cash on the counter. Aside from Leigh there was no one else in the store, so she felt safe telling the clerk it was pump three she was paying on. She went straight back to her car.

Mac was just about to pull away from the station, with Leigh and Kirk planning to follow, when a green Civic pulled up to the pump behind her. Her heart began to pound, and she tilted her face away from him when he stepped up to the pump beside his car.

She was pretty sure she heard him complain about ‘fucking rich people,’ but that was the extent of it. Apparently the old Beemer had offended him somehow, but at least he didn’t see her.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful, giving her a chance to calm down again. That had been close. A deep sigh helped release the pent-up tension in her body. This was not a good situation. She may have gotten the better of Gerry in their little skirmish today, but she didn’t think he was going to forget about her. She had no choice but to talk to the police tomorrow.

Mac slowed her car to a crawl and started using the UV light on the trees. She knew she was close, but she still hadn’t driven this road enough to find the marked tree without the use of the light, and there was nothing visibly distinctive about it on the side facing the road. It made it easier to hide the driveway. Even from herself.

The purplish white glow finally appeared, so Mac pulled up level with it and rolled to a stop. She walked back to Kirk and Leigh’s rental, and waited until Leigh rolled down the window.

“The gate will open in a second. I need to stop once I get past the pressure plate to make sure it closes properly, so just pull around me and head up the driveway to the house as soon as it opens. The passage through the trees will curve to the left, which is the direction of the house. It takes a bit before you actually see it.”

Leigh replied that she understood, and rolled her window back up. Mac moved behind the tree and pressed her thumb to the reader inside the hollow. She waited for Leigh to drive past her, and then followed them through.

It wasn’t long before the gate finished closing and Mac was following them to the house. The relief made her tired, and she wanted her ferrets and her pyjamas, and then probably her ferrets again.

In the meantime she had some explaining to do. She didn’t know if she had the energy to go through it right now, but she had to. It wasn’t just the danger presented by Gerry, and the instinctive knowledge he’d been planning to rape her. There was also the matter of her reaction to Neil. Cameron was going to want information.

Her daughter walked out when they pulled up. She’d have been alerted as soon as Mac approached the gate control, because there were sensors in front of it and she would have seen both cars on the monitors.

Mac walked toward her, holding her hand up.

“Give me a few minutes. I need to decompress.” She didn’t have to explain. Cameron knew her stress habits. She left them to chat and exchange relieved greetings, while she went across the open space to her bedroom. The scratching started as soon as her shadow crossed the gap beneath the door, making her smile.

The boys weren’t used to spending so much time without her. Mac listened to the scratching for a moment. It sounded as if both of them were up and around. When she opened the door she leaned down to pick them up.

“Hey guys! I guess you missed me, huh?” They were both licking her face and sniffing her hair in between licks.

“Yeah, I’ve been through some strange smells today. One of those is probably stress, and another is a bit of fear, but that’s okay. I’ve got you two.” Eventually they both had enough attention, and she went straight for her dresser after putting them down. Sweat-shorts and a support-tank were the runway fare for tonight, along with bare feet. As soon as she’d changed she felt the weight lift off her shoulders. She was home.

She grabbed the boys again and carried them with her down the hall so Leigh and Kirk could see them for a bit.

“Okay, I’d better put them back in my room so we can hash all this stuff out, make whatever plans, adjustments, and arrangements that need to be made, and I can finally relax and go make a highly anticipated phone call.”

Once she’d confined the ferrets again, she grabbed some snack food from the cupboards in case anyone wanted anything. It wasn’t until then that she realized how hungry she was herself. She hadn’t stopped to eat since she’d left the house around noon, and it was nearly nine. If she didn’t have some protein, her blood sugar would start to drop. She added a hunk of cheese and a kitchen knife to the tray she was loading up, along with some small bottles of orange juice, and took it over to the six-seater table they were using.

“Alright. I’ll tell y’all everything that happened today, and then you can ask your questions. I’m incredibly exhausted, so just let me finish before you ask me anything. I want to get it out in the right order. You can eat while I talk.”

Thankfully they remained silent throughout her recitation, everyone nibbling on their own thing. When she was done, she cut off a large block of cheese and started chewing on it. Kirk spoke first.

“Why don’t I go with you for whatever running around you have to do from now on? Maybe it’s sexist, but most guys will leave a woman alone if there’s another male with her. You can defend yourself better than I ever could, but it’s all about perception.” Mac nodded and took a swallow of her orange juice.

“You’re right. In an ideal world a woman wouldn’t have to do that, but the world is far from ideal. Besides, I could use the help. Some of the stuff we’re going to need will likely be heavy or awkward, requiring two people to lift it.

“How much of the garden stuff did you get done today, Cameron? Is there enough to keep you and Leigh busy for the day tomorrow?” Cam nodded.

“I grabbed all the stuff that was ripe, and started pulling some weeds, but I think it’s going to take two of us a couple of hours for that. I didn’t start until about four, since it was so hot. I only got the trailer partly unloaded, though. I couldn’t really get in there to lift the cement bags. We’ll have to empty it before you leave tomorrow, if you’re planning to use it.”

“I’ll need it. I’m heading in to Huntsville to the OPP, and then I’m going to clear out whatever toilet paper and tampons I can find. I have feed, chickens, and goats to buy, too.

“If you have favourite brands of stuff, Leigh, make sure Kirk knows what they are so he can pick up as much of that as possible. I doubt you guys are as stringent on animal-testing as we are, so we probably don’t have what you like, but you can take a look at the supply areas and see.

“Maybe make a list as you go through, because seeing everything will probably remind you of things. If I wasn’t so freakin’ tired right now, I’d go through it all with you, but I got almost no sleep before I headed out today. Now I just wanna talk to that hunky stud with the green eyes and go to sleep.” She cut off more cheese to take to her room.

If she thought she was going to get away with that, however, Cameron disabused her of that notion.

“Yeah, speaking of which, you sort if skimmed that part when you were telling us what happened today.”

Mackenzie flopped back in the chair, sighed, and stuffed more cheese in her mouth. Cam was right about their need to know. They were heading into a dangerous situation, both with the power outages and the nut-job from the hardware store. So Mackenzie swallowed her food and told them what she knew.

“Well, he’s a prepper, so that should reassure you. We won’t have to worry about him stealing from us later, even if he’s shown where we live. He has a son I wound up for a bit before he went to get Neil from the back. He’s been up here a few years, owns the knife store, seems to know his way around them pretty well, has a ham radio, and took me seriously when I warned him about the outages.

“I really don’t know much more than that, but I’d say that’s a good start after three short conversations. Most of which revolved around sharp objects.” That garnered a bit of a laugh from everyone.

“Is that it? Are you done grilling me?”

“You really like him, don’t you?” Mac smiled.

“Yeah, I do. Surprised me. Not that I would like him, because he seems pretty great, but that I would meet someone like him at all right now. Weird timing, but whatever works.” She was about to get up and leave when she realized they had no idea what the plans were for the future, so she turned to Kirk and Leigh and spoke to them directly.

“You guys are going to be stuck with the futon for now, and you won’t have your own room yet. I’m sorry about the lack of privacy. We can get started on the main house in a few days. We’ll have to do the interior framing, wiring, walls, plumbing, et cetera, before we’ll be able to really live in it, but just getting the building up means we can spread out a bit.

“The next few days we’ll need to get every bit of our main running around done. Anything that requires using gasoline, so that we can refuel all our tanks and jerrycans when we empty them. If we wait, we may not be able to stock up again.

“Our very first priority is to get things ready for livestock. They’re absolutely vital.” She paused for a minute, thinking, grabbing a handful of almonds to gnaw on while she considered the situation.

“Cam, maybe you guys should just forget about the weeding tomorrow. After I’m done talking to Neil, I’ll draw up the plans for the enclosures, and you guys can start getting them set up. I just need you to do minor stuff, and then I can finish with the construction when I get back. You’ve got some experience with tools and stuff, right Kirk?” He nodded.

“Yeah. Even where I work, or
worked
I guess, I was using power tools all the time.”

“So, what I’ll ask you two to do, is dig some post holes and a shallow area that I mark out.” Leigh spoke up then.

“We’re going to have to learn all this stuff anyway, so is there anything else we can do other than digging holes, or even weeding?” Mac shook her head.

“Not without being taught how to use the tools. You could get seriously hurt. Have you ever used a cement mixer, or table saw?”

“No. Kinda regretting not taking that shop class now, though,” Leigh said sardonically.

“Mom, I can use some of the tools. You taught me some stuff already, and I did actually take shop in high school.”

Mackenzie took a moment to think about it. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to get injured, but time was short.

“Okay, it’s probably worth the little bit of time it would take to get you two set up.” She got up from the table, grabbing another juice and a big hunk of cheese to take with her.

“Alright, I’m going to go call him and subject him to my own form of grilling. He made it obvious he was interested in the ride, so now he’ll have to pay the price of admission.”

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