Friday Afternoon
Monroe Residence
Ginny had spent the day with Charlie Monroe hustling him from shop to shop, selecting clothing, luggage, and personal care items. He’d been cooperative, but silent. They were settled now in his kitchen with hot drinks in hand and Good Brown Stew on the stove. Ginny looked at him. He was much too thin, pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and a dull look to his skin and hair.
“How are you, Charlie?”
He shrugged.
“Are you sleeping?”
He nodded, then shrugged again.
Ginny sighed. “Are you having second thoughts?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me here. At least this way I can make a fresh start.”
“Has Reggie talked to you, yet?”
“He gave me something to read. Couldn’t concentrate, though.” He shifted in his chair. “When do we leave?”
“Tuesday morning.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Act normal. Which, in your case, means show everyone you are doing as told. Take your medications, sleep, bathe, wash your clothes, cook, eat, throw out the trash, pay the bills, and be sure to keep your follow-up appointment with the psychiatrist on Monday.”
Ginny’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket.
“Where are you?” Jim’s voice.
“Charlie Monroe’s house.”
“Alone? Is that safe?”
“I hope so.”
“It’s Friday night. Are we going to the ceilidh?”
“Of course! I’ve just been telling Charlie that we all have to act normal.” She met Charlie’s eye. “I tell you what. Come on over and have some stew. There’s plenty. Then the three of us can go to the dancing together.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Charlie had his eyes on her. “I don’t feel real sociable.”
“You need to be seen in public. We’ll need witnesses.”
“Oh.”
Ginny set the table and laid out drinks and condiments, watching as Charlie helped himself to a pickle, then a sniff of the stew. He was young and essentially healthy. With care, he should recover.
* * *
Friday Evening
Dallas Police Substation
Detective Tran looked over her list of things to do, assigning priorities. She had cleared most of her cases this week and could now focus on the body in the boat.
It had been more than a week since the discovery. The police had interviewed everyone involved in the building, transporting, and destruction of that boat, also all of the people involved in picking up the debris afterwards.
The Medical Examiner’s office had been prompt and efficient, producing a completed autopsy within forty-eight hours of the discovery. The DNA records had come back on Monday afternoon, which allowed the police to start canvassing the neighborhood. The victim was a Mexican national with a string of priors, so he was in the system.
So was one of the Scots.
The Scot was the surviving spouse in the latest of the drunk driving incidents the dead Mexican had caused. It might mean nothing, of course, but it was interesting.
According to her sources, Charles Monroe had not been involved in the boat burning ritual this year. He had been picked up in the park last Saturday, waving a gun around, and threatening to shoot himself. He’d been charged with a Class C misdemeanor, and been referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit for a mandatory three day evaluation. According to the accompanying notes, he’d been released back into the community, with supervision, on Tuesday.
Detective Tran had a history with the Scots. She had investigated an attack on Ginny Forbes last October, then enlisted her help to investigate a murder at the hospital in December. An interesting young woman, with a guileless face that made her transparent to questioning. She and another young woman had discovered the latest corpse.
Even more interesting, Miss Forbes had been on site when Mr. Monroe was waving that gun around. Her statement to the police had indicated Mr. Monroe was so disturbed by his loss that he was no longer able to care for himself.
Detective Tran’s eyes narrowed slightly as she considered the possibility. He had motive and he had access to the boat, but he might not have had the physical coordination necessary to deliver that death blow. That had taken skill and control. The degree of alcoholic impairment would be critical. She should pull Mr. Monroe’s medical record and see what the admitting physician and psychiatrist had to say on the subject.
* * *
Friday Evening
Cooperative Hall
Ginny slipped out of the cheerful throng just getting ready to start the next dance and made her way across the hall to where Himself and Jim were standing. There had been something wrong with Jim during dinner.
She kept her voice down, a non-committal smile on her face. “Am I interrupting?”
Both men turned to face her. Himself looked just the tiniest bit ruffled, a first in her book. Jim looked angry.
“I see that I am.” Ginny turned on her heel and started to retreat, but Jim caught her arm.
“No, Ginny. Please come back.”
She did as asked, waiting for him to explain.
“We were just discussing honesty.” Jim’s eyes slid toward his grandfather.
Himself clarified. “Jim got his first look at th’ caverns today.”
“Ah.” Ginny looked at Jim, wondering what it must have been like for him, not having been brought up in the community, to have seen the extent of the preparations going on below their feet.
“You didn’t tell me about that when you suggested I abandon all the plans I had for my life and come here instead.”
“I had nae authority tae do so, until ye came.”
“Did my father know about this?”
“Aye.”
“Is that why he left?”
“We ha’ a difference o’ opinion, but not o’er this.”
“Are there other things you haven’t told me yet?”
“Many.”
The older man regarded his grandson with a look that Ginny classified as speculative. Jim was glaring, but in control, aware he was being watched.
“Will you tell me?”
“In guid time.”
Jim nodded curtly, then turned and strode off in the direction of the door. Ginny gave Himself a quick look, got a short nod in reply, then hurried after Jim.
She spotted him moving in the direction of the loch and followed. His legs were longer than hers and he was clearly burning through a head of steam. It was all she could do to keep him in sight for the first quarter hour. When he came to a rise that served as a lookout point, he climbed the rocks and came to rest at last, staring off across the water.
She climbed up behind him, making sure he could hear her ascent. As she reached the crest, he looked at her, then turned his eyes back to the loch. She walked over and took up a position beside him.
In a city the size of Dallas, few places were ever really dark; man-made light reflected off every surface. She could see him easily. He had his arms crossed on his chest, his legs planted firmly on the rock, his face full of thunder.
She slipped her arm around his waist. He uncrossed his arms and pulled her closer.
“Talk to me,” she said.
It took him a minute to get started. “I feel as if I’ve been lied to,” he said. “As if I was lured here under false pretenses.”
“Would you have come, if you had known what the Homesteads were?”
“I don’t know. I had plans, and they didn’t include preparing for war.”
She looked up at him. “You fight every day, to save lives.”
“That’s different. I don’t have to fight another human being, just disease and decay, and I don’t have to be responsible for 50,000 people, just the ones that come through my ER.”
Ginny sighed. “I’m told that being responsible for other people is what makes us human rather than animals.”
“Most animals care for their young and some have family groups. Some mate for life.” He looked down at her and she felt his arm tighten around her.
“And most of those family groups have an alpha male. Right now, that’s your grandfather.”
Jim snorted. “You’ve got that right!”
“It could be you. It will be, if you choose.”
“Maybe I don’t want the job.”
She shrugged. “You don’t have to take it. Young males have been known to leave the herd and strike out on their own.”
“Or be driven out.”
She shook her head. “You’re too valuable for that.” She felt him stiffen.
“Now I feel like a commodity.”
“We all are.”
He looked down at her and she shrugged.
“Each of the Homesteads maintains a list of resources they possess. That includes human resources. We are occasionally loaned and sometimes traded, with our consent, of course. If one of the Homesteads needs an engineer, for instance, they recruit from among the others. The idea is that, at any given moment, each Homestead will have all the resources it needs to survive. We’re unlikely to get much warning and we need to be ready.”
Jim looked down at her for a long moment. “You believe it’s coming?”
She nodded. “History is full of examples of militant peoples conquering their peaceful neighbors. The mistake the neighbors make, each time, is believing the militants will live and let live.” She took a deep breath. “We already know we can’t win this war, but we can survive it, and preserve the better parts of civilization in the hope peace will come again.”
She looked up at him. “The question for you, Jim, is whether you want to be the hammer or the anvil.”
“Are those my only choices?”
“You can be the one giving the orders or one of the ones taking them.”
“Or I can refuse to do either.”
She sighed. “Yes. In which case, you will be asked to keep the secret, but nothing else.”
He let go of her, frowning, and stood looking out over the water. “Maybe it would have been better to stay in Virginia.”
She nodded slowly. “Perhaps, for you, but if you had, I would quite likely be dead, so I have to be glad you came.”
He turned suddenly and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, Ginny! I didn’t mean it that way.” He put his cheek down on the top of her head, holding her close. “I just meant I’m not sure I’m up to it.”
“You’re not alone, Jim. We all feel that way.”
He sighed deeply. “You’ve been living with this your whole life.”
She nodded.
He looked down at her. “Well, I’m still mad at my grandfather for not leveling with me, but I guess I can see his point. It’s an awfully big secret.”
“It’s not just you. Most of the clan don’t know the whole truth. All they know is that there’s a shelter that might or might not be needed at some point in the future.”
“And in the meantime, we just go about our lives as usual.”
She shook her head. “Not you. As the heir to Loch Lonach, the responsibility for the clan falls on your shoulders. There’s a lot to be done to get you ready.”
He frowned, then looked down at her. “And you? What responsibility to do you have in all of this?”
She sighed. “That remains to be seen.”
* * *