Tipping Point by Rain Stickland Read Free Book Online Page B

you about it later.” With that she pulled away.
    Mac chuckled the whole length of the driveway, pleased at dropping a bombshell on her daughter. It had certainly been an eventful day. Now all she could do was hope that the major events were over with. God , she thought, two hours. Just let me get this over and done with in two hours!
    Then she rolled her eyes. It wasn’t that simple. She was probably going to have to go into Bracebridge to refill whatever gas they used. Hopefully she could just hit a station on the highway, but somehow she doubted it. Those would be the first hit by anyone travelling north.
    It might be better just to head back to Rosseau. It was closer to home, and she knew it had fuel. It also gave her the opportunity to get the other stuff from Neil’s store. She’d take a look at his card again when she got to Gravenhurst, and see what his regular hours were.
    The trip away from the house was uneventful, and she made it to the highway without seeing Gerry’s vehicle, or any other vehicle for that matter. Kirk texted her with the street crossing they were closest to, and by then she was only twenty minutes away. She called Cameron’s VoIP line using the hands-free, and everything was still fine there.
    When she did get in touch with Neil, she intended to ask him if he knew the kid from the hardware store. He might have a line on some leverage she could use against him in the future, though if he was new to the area he might not be in touch with the surrounding families. Gerry gave off the impression he was a local, and possibly from one of the big, white-trash families that populated certain areas. She might even recognize the name, since families tended to sprawl a fair distance in Muskoka and Parry Sound.
    She ought to know. She came from one of those families. She just had no intention of rejoining them. Thankfully the only people who would recognize her now were people she could trust. Once she let them know she was around, she intended to make sure they knew she didn’t want her family members aware of her presence. Most of her friends wouldn’t associate with her family anyway. She came from a long line of scum, and had walked away to create her own family. She’d been gone so long she doubted they’d remember her first name, but why take chances?
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    5
    E XPLANATIONS ARE IN O RDER
     
     
    Mac pulled up to the restaurant closest to the street corner Kirk had mentioned. It was apparent they’d been watching for her, because they popped out less than thirty seconds later.
    “Hey guys. Did you run out completely, or is the car here? I don’t want to be filling a tank in front of a bunch of people hungry for gasoline if I can help it.” Kirk and Leigh got into the car and gave her directions to where they’d had to abandon their vehicle. It wasn’t far away, and it was off the highway.
    “It was actually starting to sputter,” Leigh said, a little breathless. Today had apparently been an adventure for her, too.
    “Yeah. We kind of just let it look as though we were parking it when we went to look for gas. We figured if anyone thought we’d run out, they might break into the car thinking we’d be gone a while. I came back here to check on things a couple of times just to be sure.”
    “Probably for the best. This isn’t exactly a crime-ridden town, but by the same token there are still people who steal, and teenagers are teenagers everywhere.” She opened up her trunk and handed Kirk a full jerrycan.
    “You might need to put in a second one later, but maybe we can stop somewhere else to do that. We can get on the road now, and if you start getting too low shoot me a text. I’ll get us into an area where we can safely add another can. We definitely do not want to be doing this on the main road.
    “We’re going to stop in Rosseau and see about getting fuel there. It’s a town that’s not on the main highway. Not even close. It’s actually the back way