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The truck pulled up. Theo blanched as the doors were opened and light flooded in. They were on the side of the road, she didn’t know exactly where, but it was outside the built-up areas. Caleb was waiting beside a black Yukon with tinted windows.
“Is all this really necessary?” Mac demanded wearily.
“You asked for our help, brother,” Sam reminded him. “We know what we’re doing and this old heap might find the roads up to the Ponderosa a challenge.”
The Ponderosa. Theo had thought Mac was being sarcastic when he called his family’s compound “the Ponderosa.” Perhaps everything she’d been told about the Etheridges was in fact literal.
They transferred into the Yukon, and Caleb took the wheel, taking them off the blacktop for several miles before he turned into an isolated driveway. They passed through three separate locked gates, each equipped with video surveillance. The Ponderosa, when they came upon it, was a sprawling brick construction, architecturally eclectic and set on high ground. It was a confusing building with no defined entrance, makeshift turrets on the roofline, and gun slots beside the windows.
Theo tried not to look too alarmed, too uncomfortable.
Gus looked around. “There’re no mantraps we should be aware of are there, Mac?”
Mac shrugged. “Caleb?”
“Just follow me,” Caleb said. “Don’t wander off.”
They fell into line behind Caleb, who led them past a series of doors until he finally opened one. Inside the Ponderosa was something of a surprise, more akin to a genteel villa from another era than a fortress. The furniture was Victorian, the rooms spacious and fastidiously neat. Nancy Etheridge was making food parcels, sealing cans and bags of rice in large plastic bags, and placing them into a wheelbarrow on the veranda. “Caleb, honey, this lot is ready to bury outside the gate,” she said as they walked in. She welcomed them then, warmly. “Another murder! It’s how it begins, you know. Luckily, we are ready.”
“Mac,” Caleb interrupted. “I need to talk to you.”
“After you bury the donations,” Nancy ordered. “You can talk to your brother later.”
“We’re not staying long, Mom,” Mac warned. “We just need to use the library.”
“I’ll come with you,” Caleb jumped. “We can—”
“Not now, Caleb. I need to work some things out with these guys—we can talk later.”
“Those packages aren’t going to bury themselves.” Nancy pointed to the wheelbarrow.
Caleb glared at both of them for a moment before throwing up his arms and stomping toward the wheelbarrow.
Nancy tossed another couple of bags onto the pile in the wheelbarrow. “Not too deep, mind you; they’ll have to dig with their hands.” Nancy smoothed out her apron. “I’ll just see to some refreshments.” She walked out of the room, and for a moment they listened in silence to her fading footsteps.
Theo had to ask. “Why are they burying food outside the gate?”
Mac replied wearily. “So that when the apocalypse comes and the unprepared and starving arrive at the gate, the Etheridges will be able to give them food without letting them in. Christian kindness.”
Theo tried to offer consolation. “It is very charitable, if you think about it.”
“It’s best not to think about it.” Mac shook it off. “Come on, we’d better talk while Mom’s busy making hors d’oeuvres.”
“She’s not going to make us dig for them, is she?” Gus murmured.
Theo elbowed him sharply, but Mac laughed. “Geez, I hope not.”
They sat down in the room Mac called the library. Theo could not help but scan the shelves. Manuals mainly: construction, electronics, mechanics, first aid, even midwifery. The collection was clearly for reference, not pleasure. Vaguely she wondered about a future without stories. It was bleak. However troubled her present, at least it was not without stories.
They shared information about their respective interviews. Jacqui had been present at all three.
“Everything they have is circumstantial. That said, they might have arrested Theo by now if it didn’t seem so physically unlikely, though not impossible, that she cut Dan Murdoch’s throat or shot Burt Winslow. Which is why they’re interested in the two of you as possible accomplices.”
Gus exploded. “What the hell has Mendes been smoking?”
Mac reacted more calmly. “He thinks we’re some kind of tag-team murder cartel?”
“Detective Mendes didn’t exactly share his theories with me, but I suspect he believes that you and Gus are at least accomplices after the fact. However”—Jacqui’s tone was confident and absolute—“it is all circumstantial. They haven’t got any murder weapons, or witnesses. Nothing we couldn’t tear apart, and Mendes knows it.”
