Tipping Point (22 page)

Feeling like an idiot, she asked Neil to call her phone so she could find it. When he did it went straight to voicemail.

“Well
that’s
really strange. It must be turned off. I never turn off my phone now that they finally made it easy to switch to silent mode on the damn things.”

“Maybe your battery died. When was the last time you charged it?” She had to think about it.

“Probably a couple of days before we left Tuesday night. Yeah. Five days is about right for the battery.”

“Your phone lasts for five days without charging? Are you kidding me?”

“If I use it constantly for reading or using other apps, then no. It might last up to three days then. I’ve only really been using it for a few calls and texts here and there, though. It’s a BlackBerry. Battery life is their best feature as far as I’m concerned. Every other phone I’ve had has needed to be charged every single day. Not ideal for a prepper. I’m surprised you don’t have one.”

“I have a satellite phone in addition to the iPhone. My other tech is pretty much all Apple stuff, so I went with them for the phone, too. Simple convenience more than anything,” he said, giving a shrug.

“Not very convenient to have your battery run down all the time. Not that it really matters at this point. Like you I’ll probably have to switch to satellite soon. Once the power is down in this area, the towers will go out here, too. Of course, there’s also the radio.

“I’ll be right back. I think my phone’s probably on the table. I was talking to Cam, Leigh, and Kirk, when you texted you were at the gate.”

Mac had put her clothes back on while she was babbling. Sure enough, when she got out to the table her phone was on top of the maps she’d left there earlier. She pressed and held the power button to no avail. She went back to her bedroom and dug into her computer’s backpack for the adapter she’d stowed in there, then plugged it into the wall outlet. It took a few seconds before she could even get it to power up because it had been completely drained.

It finished its boot sequence, and moments later three different notification tones came out of the speaker.

“Well, there’s your text anyway. What the hell else did I miss? Jesus.” She didn’t bother checking her e-mail for the time being. A lot of it would be activism stuff that could no longer make a difference. Anything of importance would be in her phone calls. She apparently had two messages waiting. The first was from Mitch.

“Hey. Man am I ever sorry I didn’t come up there when you told me to. This is a fucking nightmare, and I don’t have the fuel to get there now. Is there any way you can help me out here?” She’d had the phone pressed to her ear, but now she pulled it away with a disgusted grunt.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mitch!” Neil was looking at her, his brows raised in question.

“It’s my second ex-husband. We’re still friends. Get along fine usually, now that we’re no longer trying to be married, but occasionally he seriously strains my patience.” She let Neil listen to the message on the speakerphone.

“He expects you to solve his problem for him now, even though you already gave him a solution?”

“Yup, that’s pretty much his pattern. Of course, I still care what happens to him. I mean, how can you not? You don’t just love someone for years, and then stay friends with them if you don’t give a shit.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t. We’ve been apart for ten years now. If there was a hope in hell of a reconciliation, or any unresolved romantic feelings, then at least one of us would have made an attempt many years ago. It’s just not there.”

“No, it’s not that. If you had wanted something you’d have gone after it and been honest about it. It’s the fact that you offered him asylum, basically. You really are trying to take care of everyone. How can you be the way you are?”

“Huh?”

“After the life you’ve had, and some of the ways you’ve been treated, most people would be uncaring shits. You’re something else entirely.”

“Sure. Okay. Anyway, let me finish listening to my messages. Then you can pander to my ego a little more. I think I like it.” Neil chuckled and pulled her down for a quick kiss. When she listened to the next voicemail on speaker, though, his expression darkened. Understandably.

“Hey my Canadian sex kitten. How are ya? Got your message. Call me back and talk dirty to me.” Mac took one look at Neil’s face and held up her hand.

“That is so totally not what you think.”

16

T
HE
S
AILING OF THE
F
LIRTATIONSHIP

“What was it then?” The blunt question reminded her that there were a lot of things they hadn’t been able to share with one another yet.

“I guess I’d better explain, huh? That was Ian, who’s my closest friend. I met him through business stuff, online. He lives outside Cleveland, and I’ve never actually met him in person. We started talking a few years ago, I edited his book, and we later became business partners. I run all his websites, too.

“He’s not actually interested in me, and never has been. Honesty compels me to admit that at one time I was interested in him. I made my interest known, and he was pretty blunt about not wanting to go there. In fact, I almost lost him as a business partner and client over it. Not to mention as a friend. I guess he didn’t think I could handle rejection, though I was fine with it. I just misinterpreted things.”

“
He
rejected
you
? You were fine with it. I see.”

“I doubt very much that you do, because it’s pretty hard to encapsulate several years’ worth of friendship in a single conversation. We were flirting back and forth. He took it as a joke. I thought he was interested. When a guy isn’t interested in me I don’t hold a torch for them. I lose all interest myself. Probably a lot to do with self-esteem, and very much like what you were saying about me.

“At the time I thought I had some pretty deep feelings for him, other than friendship, but knowing he wasn’t into me just killed it. I was a little depressed about it for a couple of weeks, and then I moved on.”

“So why is he talking to you like that then? Wouldn’t he realize that it might be hurtful to you?” Neil’s jaw was rigid. She knew she wasn’t explaining Ian very well, but then Ian was pretty hard to explain.

“I doubt it. He’s forgetful with stuff like that. It’s one of the reasons I wasn’t embarrassed talking to him afterward. He just didn’t seem to retain the conversation. He does that with other things, too. There’s some stuff we’ve talked about that I swear we’ve had the same conversation ten times, and he just doesn’t remember anything that was said before.

“And it isn’t hurtful. I just find it funny now. I joke with him, too. He doesn’t take me seriously either. If I hadn’t been single, however, I wouldn’t have been flirting, and I won’t be doing it now. I’ll let him know I’m with you. If he knows I’m not single he won’t act like that. He’s not that kind of guy.

“Look, I have to call him. It’s important for me to talk to him. Listen if you want, but try to relax would you? You start acting like a jealous schmuck over something that doesn’t mean anything, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”

“Mac, my first reaction might have been jealousy, which isn’t so surprising considering his message, but that’s not what I’m thinking now. Make your call and we can discuss it after.”

Mac gave him a suspicious look.

“Just to let you know, cowboy, before you ever utter the words, there are four words that really do freak me out. See, if you ever do say them now, and I turn into a psychotic banshee, you can’t say you weren’t warned.” Neil raised one eyebrow, which for some reason she’d always found insanely sexy on a man, and waited for her to continue.

“‘We need to talk,’ is the phrase I’m referring to. That’s probably something most people expect a man to hate, but I find it almost always precipitates, ‘I don’t love you anymore,’ or ‘I’m sick of your fucking bullshit and I want out,’ or...”

“I get it,” he interrupted, looking at her strangely. He stood up and pulled her into his arms.

“How about I stick to three words? I love you.” A lump formed in her throat. Maybe she’d been carrying around a little more pain than she’d realized, because it now occurred to her that even saying that much about it was painful.

“I love you, too,” she said softly, and let him hold onto her for a minute.

When she’d shaken off the slightly melancholy mood, she pulled away to call Ian. This time he picked up.

“Hey hussy, how are you?” His usual cheerful tone made her smile. She didn’t bother to tone it down for Neil’s benefit. She loved Ian. He was her best friend, and she didn’t give up her friends unless they did something to deserve it. Otherwise they had her loyalty.

“I can’t be your hussy anymore. You’ll have to find a new one. This one’s off the auction block to a really high bidder.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m taken.
Finito
. I’m seeing someone, and I’m crazy about him.”

“Oh, wow!” His response was exactly what she’d expected from him. More surprise than anything else, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d been single a long time, and safe to flirt with.

“Your command of English has grown to two words, I see.”

“Ha ha.”

“And you’ve managed it again. Sort of. Anyway, that’s not why I was calling you before, but considering your usual pervy message, I thought I’d save you the embarrassment of fawning over me anymore.” Neil was grinning at her, but she ignored him.

“Okay, so what’s up then, aside from the unusual state of your sex life?”

“Very funny. Bloody American. Actually, it’s really important. I’m permanently up at my northern property now, and for good reason. Things are bad in the GTA. Toronto is dark, and so is Hamilton and every other city. They’ve instituted what you would call martial law, actually, and it’s not going to be very effective. They’ve got military police along with federal, provincial, and city police, trying to keep millions of people under control.”

“Holy shit! When did this happen?”

“We’ve been having bad outages for a while. I told you about them, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah I think so.” Mac rolled her eyes. Typical Ian.

“Cameron and I left the city Tuesday, because people were starting to get seriously pissed. We just barely managed to get some friends of hers up here the next day. They had to rent a car, and ran out of gas partway here. I had to go bring them gas a couple of towns away. We’ve been working like crazy to get things ready here.

“Today we got the news that all the cities in the GTA are dark, and they’re not even giving an estimate of when people will have power. It’s already hit outlying areas. Barrie and Orillia were both without power on Wednesday, and there’s no food left on store shelves in any of the cities near Toronto. Have you had any power issues there?”

“Yeah, off and on. You think it’s the same thing?”

“Shit. Yeah, I do. It’s a cascade effect. Okay, please, please go get as much insulin as you can right now, along with test strips. I’m begging you to take this seriously. Remember we talked about this, where you might have to store the insulin deep in your well in a waterproof bag if your power goes out?”

“Yeah, okay. I might as well. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.” Mac wanted to sigh in relief, but she couldn’t yet. He was still far too unprepared.

“I’m sending you a list. I formatted it so it shows on your phone as legibly as possible, so that you can go directly to the stores and get everything. I’ve even added the stores near you where the stuff is sold. You
need
to pick up every single item with an asterisk beside it, but pick up everything else if you can. It’s the difference between being dead, being alive and shitty, and being alive and doing okay. Those will be the new levels of normal.”

“You sure about this?”

“Look, I tried to get my ex to come up here, and he didn’t take me seriously. I just got a message from him asking for help. He’s still in Hamilton. I don’t know if there’s a way for me to do anything for him, but I haven’t had time to think about it. I was more worried about you. You’re the one who can’t go three days without insulin. He can deal with his own shit for a few days while I come up with something.
If
I come up with something.

“I believe, a hundred percent, that everything I’ve been preparing for is about to happen. This is the shit-hits-the-fan scenario I keep saying is going to go down. It was inevitable. The power grids couldn’t compensate for global warming.

“Even if I’m wrong, there’s no harm in you having that stuff on hand. I’m not asking you to make a suicide pact with me. Just buy it. You can afford to buy it, but you can’t afford not to. Thankfully you’ve got your radio already, and we can communicate that way when the towers go down. It’s too bad you didn’t hook up full solar already, but there’s a makeshift kit on the list that you can use for small stuff.

“Now please go get your insulin right now. You can fish in your pond for food if you have to, so the list can wait until you have the insulin. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said in a doubtful tone.

“I sure hope you managed to get in touch with that friend-of-a-friend who’s a chemist, but if not you might have to find a pharmacist or something later.”

“Wow, you’re really sure this is the big one, huh?” Mac gritted her teeth.

“Ian, I’m not usually wrong about stuff this important, and I’ve been keeping an eye on this for a long time. You know that. I said it would happen eventually, but I never once told you that it
was
happening until right now. Don’t make me shit kittens up here worrying about you. I’ve got enough on my plate to deal with. Like chickens. And goats.”

“You got goats? Cool.”

“Yes, I got goats. After much delay, blamed partially on Neil, I finally managed to get twelve of them. And twenty four chickens.” Neil had started laughing at the mention of the goats.