Vacation

“He said he’d be back soon,” Simon said.

“And he will. Tell you what. As soon as he’s back, I’ll send him in. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kate said.

Simon looked up. “I want to hear what happened.”

“Probably nothing. Only an alarm.”

Just saying those words made them sound false.

“Come on—brush your teeth and into bed.”

The two kids slid off the couch and walked into their room. With them gone, Christie looked at the door and then walked over to the front windows.

Lights on outside. Everything looked quiet.

Where the hell was he?

She turned away from the window, the locked door, and walked into the kids’ room.

*   *   *

Ed Lowe nodded to Shana and the others, who headed to the Lodge.

At the same time, a different kind of siren started coming from the horns all around the camp.

Lowe stood close. “The all clear. Fence back up.” He took a breath. “We stopped them.”

Jack looked right at him. “Fences back up? Great. So what the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got power back up now. Something— I’ll check it out. I’ll find out what goddamned happened.”

“So much for your security.” He turned away to head back to the cabin.

Lowe grabbed Jack’s right arm. “Hey, Jack, hold on a second.”

Jack shrugged off Lowe’s hand.

“I got to get back. My family’s waiting.”

“Of course, of course. Can I walk with you a bit?”

“Be my guest.”

The pain in Jack’s leg had come roaring back, now that the adrenaline had faded. All that running.

Killing my leg, he thought.

“What you did was amazing, Jack.”

“Right.”

“Helping us. Taking down those Can Heads. Can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“You know, we could use someone like you.”

Jack shook his head. “Someone like me? What’s that? Some cop who came up here to get the hell away? And finds his family at fucking risk?”

His voice rose, the tension of the night hitting him.

He would have liked nothing more than to take Ed Lowe and shake him, grab his shirt and ask him, How the hell did you let this happen?

“No. And easy, friend. No need to raise your voice. Just that this can be a safe place, Jack. Protected, with guards. But even in safe places, things can happen.”

Jack stopped. They were close to the path that led directly to his cabin and he didn’t want Lowe following him all the way there.

“Things can happen? Is that how the damn fence got knocked out?”

“Hey, Jack—I said easy, huh? No need to yell. We’re all friends here, right?”

“How about an answer?”

“You can take the cop out of the city … and you still get a cop, right?”

“Lose power to your fence, and—shit—in a place this large, everyone here is suddenly vulnerable. Enough Can Heads outside, waiting. If they had all gotten in, it would have been a bloodbath.”

“We have backups. Backup power. Should have kicked in. Redundancies. I’ll get to the bottom of—”

Jack shook his head. “Redundancies? Really? Didn’t see anything too fucking redundant tonight.”

“I said things can happen. Whatever shorted out the fence led the backup to overload. Never happened before. Should have been a smooth transition, like a switch being thrown. Don’t worry, Jack. I have people looking at it … working on it now. Won’t happen again.”

“How reassuring. Will you call the state police?”

Lowe’s face caught the glow from the lamp behind Jack. The fleshy face now smiling. The tight-as-a-drum Lowe from before had been replaced by this stubby guy with an idiotic grin.

Welcome, newcomers!

“Of course I’ll call the state police. But they have their hands full out there. They’d come if we needed any help. But it’s all over now. They’ll swing by tomorrow.”

“And who’d you lose?”

Lowe grimaced. “Not too sure yet. But I know of one. A guard. Drunk. Right near that section of fence that went down. One drunk guard who couldn’t fire fast enough.”

Lowe looked away.

“We’re better off without that asshole.”

*   *   *

Christie heard the voices and went to the big front window of the cabin.

She saw Ed Lowe standing in a pool of light, talking to Jack.

Why don’t you just come back? Christie wondered.

Why do you have to do a goddamn postmortem with Ed Lowe?

She remained standing at the window.

*   *   *

“Jack, I meant what I said. We could use you here. Your skills—training my guys.”

“I have a job, thanks.”

“Yeah. Back there. You think your family is really looking forward to going back? How long before things in the city go completely to hell? And the food? What you have to eat there. Is that how you want your family to live?”

“That’s life.”

“Not here, it isn’t. You could be safe. And we have food, real food.”

Jack looked up at his cabin.

“Look, I said thanks, but no thanks. Gotta go. Just make sure you find out what happened with the fence.”

He turned away and walked up to the cabin.

For a few moments, he thought Ed Lowe would stand there and watch him walk all the way back. But Lowe headed back to the lodge.

No longer engaged in a heated conversation, the pain hit Jack full force.

Need to take some real painkillers tonight.

Even though he hated the way the Vicodin made him feel in the morning, all cotton balls in his head, so groggy.

Christie opened the door for him and immediately raised her hands, balled into fists as if she was about to beat his chest.

Instead, she backed up, letting him in.

“The kids … I said you’d come in. Say good night.”

Her voice cold; her eyes on him equally chilly.

She had passed being worried and sailed straight on to really pissed.

“They still up?”

“I’m sure. Guess they want to hear what happened. The cop adventures of their father.”