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Sasha frowned and turned to Leo. “Do you remember?”
“John specifically called them standby generators. He said there’s one connected to each building.”
Carl paused midway through unbuttoning his coat and started buttoning it back up. “I’ll go back outside and poke around.”
“I’ll come with you,” Hank offered.
“Meanwhile, we did find some catered meals in the kitchen of the other house. I don’t know why they left them behind. I guess they thought they were going back.”
Aroostine added, “They’re out on the porch if anyone wants to help me grab them. We should at least feed that lot.”
“We should,” Leo agreed, “and then I’ll make us something to eat. If we lock all the doors and they all stay in one room, we should be okay to split up for a bit to have our meals.”
“Even if one of them is a killer?” Aroostine cautioned.
“Well, the killer’s unlikely to strike again, especially in a room full of people. And frankly, we need some time away to compare notes and figure out what to do next.”
Sasha nodded her agreement, as did Aroostine.
“We’ll be right back,” Hank said as he and Carl headed out into the darkness.
Aroostine, Leo, and Sasha snatched the catering trays from the table on the porch just outside the door and carried them into the formal dining room.
Leo left them to arrange the platters and went into the parlor to announce the plan. As he entered, he swung the flashlight in a wide arc to get his bearings. The beam illuminated Maisy’s face, and she gave him a wide-eyed, overwhelmed look.
He’d seen that expression on her face once before—the first time she’d babysat the twins, Finn and Fiona, during their wild toddler years. She looked stretched thin and near her breaking point then, and she looked the same now.
“These people are a handful,” she murmured.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be off chaperone duty soon,” he promised.
Then he handed her a flashlight and clapped his hands together. “Here’s a quick update. We found a police scanner in John and Hatty’s office.”
“Good, then we can call for help,” someone said.
He couldn’t make out faces in the shadowy room, but it was a male voice. “No, that’s not how a scanner works. It has no transmitter. So we can listen, but we can’t send messages.”
“What good does that do us?” the male voice demanded.
Even before Maisy aimed the light in the speaker’s direction, he realized it was Paul. He recognized the pugilistic tone.
He took care to modulate his tone when he answered. “It allows us to monitor what’s going on in the area. For instance, we know that thousands of people are without power. And it seems we’ve joined their ranks.
“This place sucks,” a woman exclaimed.
He thought it was either Bethany or Joy, but he couldn’t be sure.
“The important thing is that we all stay calm. The Carlisles mentioned there’s a generator on the property, and Carl went outside to see what we need to do to get it to kick on. We should have heat, power, and light soon. In the meantime, we brought over the catering trays from your kitchen so you can eat. We thought we’d give you the formal dining room, and we’ll have our meal in the breakfast nook.”
“I thought we had to stick together?” the woman countered. “Remember the whole ‘there’s a killer among us’ business?”
Maisy shifted the flashlight’s beam. Joy blinked at the light and then gave him an expectant look.
“The exterior doors are locked, so as long as you all stay in the dining room and we all stay in the kitchen, we should be safe. We can regroup after our meals.”
“I think that’s a great plan,” Tessa interjected before anyone could object. “It would be good for us to have some time alone together as a group to process what happened to Rex. No offense, Leo.”
“None taken. Sasha and I want to do one more quick interview, and then we’ll all break for dinner. Paul, will you come with me?”
