“Who you calling an idiot?” Kayla asked. “Who’s the one named after bat piss again?”
“Don’t let them get to you,” Sara said. She gave me a kiss, but it didn’t help to calm me down.
“This is ridiculous. Every one of them is drunk off their ass.”
“But it’s a fine, fine ass,” Kayla said. She stuck it out at me.
“This can’t happen again,” I said as I made my way upstairs, leaving the noise behind.
I think I was angrier at myself for letting it happen.
“Your anger was disproportionate, Robert.”
I’d had a therapist back in Toronto who’d told me that pretty much every time I’d talk about the latest thing that made me lose my temper.
Guys like me… we’re great when the shit hits the fan, or at least we like to think we are, but when things are going so-so and something gets on our nerves… watch out.
It doesn’t make sense for me to want to beat the life out of Matt, or to want to scream at Kayla. It’s disproportionate. It’s out of whack.
So I had a bag of pills in my pocket, with the little maple leaf; I’d expected to need one yesterday, but I’d never gotten to it. For some reason, I needed it today.
I sat down on my bed and I gently tossed a pill from one hand to the other.
I knew that it was a bad idea, that I was the only person there who was sober and experienced enough to shoot a gun. If this pill took me out of commission for six or seven hours…
Stems might have snowmobiles or he might just use snowshoes. He could come back to take us out once and for all. If he cared to. If he hadn’t really changed.
Or… maybe some other, random guys could show up at any moment with no real purpose other than to totally fuck us up.
That doesn’t sound any better.
I couldn’t afford to take that pill.
Fiona came to see me in my room a little while later.
I was reading a book on my tablet, laying on my bed in my boxer shorts; she didn’t seem to care that I was somewhat close to naked.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she planted herself on the bed beside me.
“I’m fine… thanks.” I sat up and gave her a smile.
She put her hand on my bare knee; I don’t think she meant anything by it.
“I didn’t think it bothered you when people drank,” she said.
“It usually doesn’t. But there’s a limit, you know? Things are a little out of control down there.”
“There’s not much else to do around here today.”
“See what’s happened? You hated people drinking when you got here.”
“I was fourteen when I got here.”
“Well, it’s not a good idea for more than half of us to be drunk. What if there was some kind of emergency?”
She grinned. “Like what? Yeti attack?”
I laughed at that. “Possible… or zombie snowmen?”
I loved hearing her giggle.
She arched her eyebrows. “Homicidal Christmas elves?”
She gave me a funny look that made me crack up.
“You’re awesome, Fiona. You really are. You remind me so much of my daughter… have I ever said that?”
She seemed to be taken aback. “Um… Sara’s told me that before. That you think I’m a lot like Cassy.”
“Well… you are.”
She looked down for a moment. “Does that bother you at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. With me being here all the time… does it make you miss her that much more?”
I realized then that she was crying. Forgetting my bare chest, I leaned in and wrapped my arms around her. “I miss her with everything I have, Fiona… but that’s not any worse because of you. If anything, you make it a little bit easier for me.”
“I really want to meet her someday. I’m sure she’s a wonderful person.”
“She was a wonderful person,” I said.
“Sorry… I didn’t think…”
“I can’t spend every day hoping. It’s too hard.”
“Sorry…”
“I love you, Fiona… so very much.”
“I love you, Baptiste.”
I gave her a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.
It didn’t feel like holding Cassy.
“I found something,” Fiona said.
I looked down at my crotch. Could she…?
“That breadmaker that Marc said he found,” she said.
“Where did he find it?”
“He said it was from a house on the way to Gardiner or something.”
“Are you sure?”
Ant and Matt had checked every house on Kennedy Road back in the spring. They wouldn’t have missed something that important to Fiona.
“I’m sure,” she said. “Anyway… that’s not the point. I found a recipe card in the instruction manual.”
“He even had the manual?”
“‘Grandma Lamarche’s Pain Québecois’.”
“Shit.”
Marc had lied.
And because some bald idiot had managed to kill him, the truth had died with him.
Unless Justin knew.
Not that he’d tell me. Not that I needed to hear it.
He and Marc had gone back at it.
“Marc took that breadmaker from the Lamarches,” Fiona said.
“Looks like.”
“The Lamarches are gone.”
“I think so.”
“Did Marc and Justin have something to do with them leaving?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need time to think this through.”
“Let me know what I can do to help.”
“I will.” I gave her a smile. “We should head back downstairs… see what they’ll break next.” I climbed off the bed a little too quickly.
She nodded. “I’ll bet it’s another chunk off of Graham.”
They weren’t sober, but they were less drunk by the time dinner came around.
So as we ate, I decided to give them the speech, the same one I gave at the start of last winter.
“Winter is the most dangerous time of the year,” I said. “And this year may end up being worse.”
“People are trying to kill us,” Sara said.
“We don’t know that,” Lisa said.
“We don’t,” I said. “But we do know that there are two guys with assault weapons who need to be handled.”
“So fucking handle them,” Kayla said.
“I will.”
“Good. You go kick their asses, you… asshole.”
“Come on,” Sara said, “can you at least pretend that you’re not a drunken whore for two minutes?”
“Sara,” I said, “come on…”
“Yeah, Sara,” Kayla said.
“She’s right,” Lisa said. “We should take them out. Right now.”
“Right now?” I said. “Or did you want a shot of Drambuie before we leave?”
“The snow’s still falling. If it’s still falling in a few hours―”
“Once you’ve sobered up…”
She nodded. “We head up to Silver Queen Lake and we find them.”
“They could be anywhere,” Sara said. “There’s no way to know if you’ll even find them.”
“That’s true,” I said.
“But if we get there and find nothing,” Lisa said, “it won’t be a wasted trip. We’ll still get to balance things out with the Walkers a little, take a few choice items for ourselves.”
“That might work,” I said.
“It’ll work.”
“So you guys want to try and hook the plow up to the new truck and drive to Silver Queen Lake?” Graham asked.
“You’ll drive us,” I said.
“What about Justin?”
“What about him?”
“You’re going to want Justin,” Lisa said. “I hate the fucker, and I still think we should bring him with us.”
I shook my head. “No… this is an internal operation. No Porters and no Tremblays. Just us.” There was no way I could trust Justin.