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“You wouldn’t. He never talks about it. But the killer was never caught. And when the Abernathys were found dead, it was like those old feelings of injustice and fear crept back up in him again. I think in his mind, the Abernathys’ killer was the same guy who killed his brother. Not in a real sense, of course, but he feels like there’s some kind of connection. Even though he couldn’t stop what happened to his brother, he feels like he’s the one who has to stop this. He’s been bound and determined to figure out who this guy is.”

“I can’t say I blame him. Maybe if he explained that to those men, they’d stop suspecting him.”

“Are you kidding?” Judith’s laughter was bitter. “You can’t explain things to a lynch mob with baseball bats and guns.”

Kay knew she was right.

Later when she went back home, Kay found Doug with Deni and Jeff on the back porch. They’d gotten water from the lake already and were trying to filter the dirt out of it by pouring it through a towel before they boiled it. The process wasn’t perfect, but it helped some.

Doug set a pot of water on the grate over the fire in the barbecue pit. “Where’ve you been?”

“I went to check on Brad and Judith. You won’t believe what she told me.”

Deni stopped pouring and looked up at her. “That he’s really the killer after all?”

Kay shot her a look. “That’s not funny, Deni. She told me that Brad had a little brother who was murdered when he was growing up.” She related what Judith said about the connections Brad had made.

Doug took it all in. “Well, that does explain his walking the neighborhood every night. Why he was single-handedly trying to protect us all.”

Deni wiped her hands on her shorts. “If he really was trying to protect us.”

Kay turned back to her daughter. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m not sure you should be so quick to defend him.” She straightened the towel over the bowl and started pouring again. “Maybe the truth is that his brother’s murder pushed him off the deep end. Maybe it turned him into a killer.”

“What?” Kay couldn’t believe Deni had said that.

Doug grabbed the bowl out of Deni’s hands, sloshing the water all over both of them. “So help me, young lady, I better not ever hear you say those words again!”

Deni’s eyes flashed. “Why, if it’s true? Admit it, Dad, you hardly know him. We barely waved at each other before the outage. Now you’re willing to risk your life to defend him? Maybe you’d feel differently if I told you that I’ve seen Brad following
me
! Stepping behind houses and peering out, watching in that creepy way he has—”

“You’re exaggerating,” Kay ground out.

“No, I’m not.”

“She’s right, Mom.”

Kay hadn’t expected Jeff to take Deni’s side, but now he took off his baseball cap and raked his hair back. “That night I snuck out to Zach’s? Brad was out that night, too. He just walked up out of nowhere. I didn’t think about it then, but I can see how someone might think he was up to no good.”

“He probably thought
you
were,” Doug said. “You weren’t exactly where you belonged, either.”

“The point is that he
has
been acting kind of weird,” Jeff said. “You just need to consider that. Don’t just rush to his defense because you think he’s a nice guy.”

Doug set the bowl on the patio table. “I don’t
think
it, I know it. He
is
a nice guy. What motive could he possibly have for killing that couple?”

Deni had clearly given this a lot of thought. “Maybe he’s an opportunist, Dad. Just took advantage of the darkness to rob them blind. You know, he wasn’t home the night they were killed.”

“Neither were we, until very late!” Doug pointed out. “That was the first night of the outage. Brad was walking home like everybody else.”

“But how do we know he went straight home?” Deni pressed. “How do we know he didn’t take a detour by the Abernathys?”

“Because he didn’t!” Doug brought his livid gaze to Kay. “You believe this?”

Kay swallowed. Had he really followed Deni? Why would he do such a thing? “Deni, are you sure about him watching you?”

“Yes, Mom. I’m almost positive.”

Kay met Doug’s eyes, silently telling him they might need to listen. Yes, Deni could be a drama queen. But she knew when someone was following her.

Doug just shook his head. “ ‘Almost’ and ‘positive’ don’t go together, Deni. If he was watching you, it was because he was worried about you. The color of his skin is the primary reason he’s a suspect, and you know it.”

“Fine, Dad. Think what you want. But if you’re refusing to consider him because of political correctness, and he strikes again, then you’re no better than the racists who’ve accused him.”

“Yeah, Dad.” Jeff’s tone was level, careful. “Guilt is guilt, no matter what color your skin is.”

Kay let her gaze float to the backyard next door. Had they failed to consider the things that were right under their noses? Could it be that Brad
was
the killer?

thirty-seven

Kay struggled with her doubts about Brad over the next few days. Doug was firm in his defense of him, and when she saw Brad or Judith, Jeremy or Drew, she was, too. But then she’d think of the things Deni and Jeff had said, and she’d wonder.

But there were other things weighing on her mind, things that also threatened their survival.

Like what they were going to eat.

Kay sat on the floor in the pantry a week after Hank’s announcement, staring up at the empty shelves. How on earth was she going to feed her family? Though they’d all worked hard to plan their meals and ration their food, they were still running out.

She rubbed her face hard, then let her fingers slide down it as she took a mental inventory. There were a couple packages of dried beans, several bags of rice, and a few jars of canned tomatoes and squash the Keegans had traded for a bicycle. There wasn’t enough to last more than a few days. Then they would be desperate.

She wanted to believe things would be all right. God had provided so far, hadn’t He? They’d had something to eat every day, and no one had gotten sick from the water. But things were getting scarier. The banks still hadn’t opened and no one had access to their cash. People were scrounging for things to trade or barter.

If she were the only one losing weight, she wouldn’t mind it at all. She’d needed to lose ten pounds, anyway. But Beth was getting too thin, and Logan could hardly keep his shorts up. The nine-year-old’s ribs were starting to show through his tanned skin, and the athletic bulk Jeff had worked so hard to build was slowly shrinking. A few more weeks, and Deni, who used to count every calorie that went into her mouth, would begin to look anorexic.

Doug stepped into the doorway. “Honey, are you all right?”

She set her elbows on her knees, and looked up at him. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do, Doug. The shelves are almost empty.”

“We’ll just have to start hunting more, bringing home meat.”

“It’ll spoil. I don’t know how to preserve it.”

He stared at her for a moment, as if he hadn’t thought of that. “We’ll ask Eloise. I’m sure she knows. If not, we’ll find some others who are old enough to remember how it’s done. Or we’ll talk the librarian into opening the library, so we can look it up. And Hank’s right about us starting a garden, plowing up the front and back yards. I think we should start on that this week.”

Her face twisted. “Doug, we spent thousands of dollars on landscaping. Now we’re going to dig it all up?”

“A beautiful lawn is worthless, Kay. We can’t even mow. We need the land, and that’s all we’ve got. Maybe it’s not too late to plant. By fall we’ll have some of our own produce. We can learn how to can and put up enough to get us through the winter. And we’ll figure out some way to get some chickens so we can have eggs.”

She breathed a laugh. “Chickens. They’ll be worth a fortune. The farmers are going to be the richest people on the planet. Whoever would have thought?”

She wished she could be strong, stoic. A good wife and mother would know how to cook from scratch and keep her family healthy. She would even know how to make the drab, repetitive, day-to-day meals taste good.

“I’m tired of this, Doug. I’m tired of feeling inadequate. I keep begging God to help me be a better wife and mother.”

He stooped down beside her. “You’re a perfect wife and mother. Why would you think you’re not?”

“Because I don’t know how to do any of the hard stuff. A month ago the main things on my mind were the wedding, the soccer and baseball schedules, and keeping my manicure appointments.”

“We’ve all done a little growing up. We’re figuring out what’s important.”

Tears burned her eyes. “I feel like one of those families on some stupid reality show. Take everything away from them and see how they react. I keep looking around for the camera!”

Doug laughed. “Me, too. Like some network would have enough money to stage a prank at this scale. No, this is definitely a God thing.”

Kay looked up at him. “What if God doesn’t provide, Doug? What if making us go hungry is part of His plan? I never dreamed the day would come when I couldn’t feed my family. I’m the college-educated mother, who could get a job and do what was necessary if money ever got tight. But none of the rules apply anymore. It’s worse than the Depression. At least then they had places they could shop if they got two coins to rub together.”

Doug slid down to sit opposite her on the floor. “Don’t forget what Psalm 37:25 says. ‘I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.’ ”

“I know what it says.”

“Don’t you believe it?”

She sighed. “I want to.”

“Then do. Just make up your mind to take God at His word.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m just tired, Doug.”

He crossed the floor and slid his arms around her. “So am I.”

She laid her head against his shoulder, and tried to stop crying. It was silly, blubbering on the floor like this, when there was so much work to do.

A door slammed, and they jerked apart.

“Dad! Dad, hurry!” Logan’s panicked cry shook the house. “Dad!”

They launched out of the pantry. “In here!”

Logan skidded into the kitchen, his wide eyes wet with tears. “Dad, they’re dead. Murdered, like the Abernathys!”

Deni? Jeff? Beth?
Kay’s heart felt like lead.
“Who?”

“The Whitsons.”

Relief sighed out of her, and her heart began beating again. It was someone else.

But Logan was losing it. “They have a kid who’s only six years old, and he’s dead, too.”

Kay grabbed her son and held him while he cried. “The Whitsons? The ones who said they’d been stockpiling since Y2K?”

Doug nodded. “That’s them. Who found them?”

Logan almost couldn’t talk. “Their neighbors hadn’t seen them in a couple of days, so they went to check on them. They’ve been dead for a while. Whoever it was took all their food and supplies.”

Doug’s face was white. “They were survivalists, so they were better set than any of us. I heard they had oil lamps in every room, lanterns, a ton of food that they wouldn’t share . . .”

“Mom, what is it?” Deni and Beth came into the house. “Did something happen?”

Logan sniffed. “More murders.”

Kay let Logan go, and grabbed Doug. “Go see what you can find out, Doug. Maybe the killer left clues this time. Maybe someone knows who did it.”

“Dad?”

Doug turned to Deni. “What?”

Her face was white. “Find out where Brad was when it happened,” she said.

Kay looked down at Logan. He hadn’t been privy to the conversations about Brad. She’d insisted that Deni and Jeff keep their suspicions to themselves, because she didn’t want it getting back to Jeremy and Drew.

Logan pulled away from her. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Doug silenced Deni with a look.

Doug went to get his rifle and told everyone to stay in until he got back.

As Kay watched him head out across the back lawn, between the houses on the other street, her own despair choked her. She didn’t want to cry in front of her children, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.