Be there. Be there. Be there.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Cam rowed steadily until she reached Mack’s Shore. The cloud cover had brought dark on early and she set to her task, hoping to be able to return Hy’s truck before she found it was missing. She felt, as she often did, that someone was watching her. She felt it more keenly tonight, knowing that the two thugs and their boat were somewhere on these waters. She thought she had heard the low hum of an engine somewhere farther offshore, but sound carries well on the water—it could easily be miles down the coast. She began hauling the traps, liberating the lobsters inside, attaching to each trap a small capsule before she lowered it into the water. It started spitting rain.
Over at MacPherson’s Shore, Jared could hear her traps splashing back in the water, as she could hear his. He didn’t know what she was up to—not poaching like him. Letting them go, he figured. She was pissing him off. She might draw attention to what he was doing. He’d have to stop her…soon.
So intent were both on their work—Cam for her love of the lobster and Jared for his love of filthy lucre—neither of them noticed Parker gazing out from his big window at the top of the cape, the house fully lit up so they could easily have seen him.
Nor did they see Guillaume, in the peak of those tall windows, also looking down for a different reason. He was checking impatiently for his connection, pacing back and forth across the loft, looking out the window each time he passed by, gnawing on his knuckles, rubbing his eyes, trying to erase the flashing lights and colours he was seeing in his mind. He couldn’t rub the images out of his brain, or make time move faster.
Hand in his pocket, he jiggled the assorted treasures he’d purloined to exchange for the drug. There was his own gold necklace, with the heavy reproduction of a Roman coin, his gold chain bracelet, his gold Irish wedding ring. It meant nothing. It never had. He hadn’t liked it when Parker gave it to him. He’d given her one too. For her, it had been real. For him, it was a mockery. He had never worn it. As a result, Parker had never worn his either. It was now in Guillaume’s pocket, too, along with a pair of Parker’s gold cufflinks and Reinholdt’s gold watch. It didn’t work, but that didn’t matter. The gold would translate into a generous stash of cocaine.
“There it is!” Hy’s truck was pulled over on the grass shoulder of the road, just at the turn onto Bloodsucker Lane. She couldn’t quite figure out why it was there, but she understood when they reached Cam’s jeep.
“What a mess.” Ian came to a stop well clear of any possible glass fragments on the ground.
“She must have parked my truck on the road after she saw this.”
“I guess so.” Ian got out of the car, pulled up the hood of his jacket, and walked around the jeep. He tried a door. It opened. He came back and pulled a tarp out of the trunk of his vehicle.
“Let’s put this over it. Keep the rain out.”
They roped the tarp around the jeep—the wind and rain making a mockery of their efforts, billowing the whole thing up as they tried to fix it down, water streaming onto them. The rain was coming down steadily now. When they’d done the best they could, they ran back to Ian’s car.
“What do you want to do about your truck?” He pulled to a stop at the end of the lane.
“Leave it here,” she said. “She’ll bring it back.”
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“I guess no one will harm it. They’ll think it’s a wreck anyway.” He gave her a sly smile, his eyes teasing.
She stuck out her tongue at him. Ian was always making fun of her truck, but he was happy to use it whenever he needed to haul something too big or dirty for his precious hybrid.
The rain was falling in thick sheets on the way back to Hy’s house. The wind was blowing it nearly horizontal and they couldn’t see—except when the lightning slashed the sky, thunder booming down the length of the coast. They hydroplaned a couple of times and Ian eased up on the accelerator. Hy just wanted to get home—to her creaky, swaying old house.
Gus always swore that the best place to be in a lightning storm was a car. Her mother had told her the rubber tires would protect them. If she still had a car, that’s where she and Abel would be. She used to drag the whole family out in a lightning storm—all ten of them would cram into the old Buick and a couple of farm trucks until, as teenagers, the kids had rebelled and refused to leave their beds. Now there was no car, so Gus would sit in the kitchen in her purple chair, waiting, terrified, for the lightning to stop. She counted herself lucky every time it didn’t strike the roof or the chimney or set the house on fire. In spite of her fear, Gus refused to have lightning rods on her house—why would you want to attract it, she always asked, and no amount of explaining how the rods worked would change her mind.
Ian pulled up as close to Hy’s front door as he could.
“Want me to come in?”
Now he offers. Hy thought it was curiosity more than concern.
“No.” When Cam came back, Hy wanted her all to herself.
“Cam’ll be coming back soon if she’s been out on the water. I better speak with her alone. I don’t think I’ll get anything out of her with someone else around. Thanks anyway.”
He looked disappointed. “You be careful.”
“Bit late for that now.”
She hauled her jacket over her head and got out of the car. He waited until she was inside before he pulled out.
The rain was pelting down and Jared was cursing when he came off the water. He stumbled up the beach with two plastic bins of lobsters. It took two trips. He was careless and dropped a couple of the creatures on the way to the cookhouse. When he got inside, he dumped the bins on the concrete floor beside the pond and slipped down onto it himself. He pulled out his mickey and took a swig.
Hy had a fire going in the wood stove when Cam came dripping through the door, looking shamefaced.
“Sorry. I had to go.”
“I saw your jeep. What a mess.”
“You followed me?”
“Well, yes. You went out on the water—after what they did?”
Cam stuck her chin out. “Yes. Especially because of that.”
Hy shook her head. “You must be starving.” She had a pot of hot vegetable soup on the stove. “Go dry yourself. Change your clothes. Use the room you had before.”
Cam came down ten minutes later, wearing a pair of jeans and an olive green T-shirt with a photographic image of a live lobster on it and the slogan Free a Friend.
She was wearing the pearls around her neck.
“You look like a different person in your sweater set and skirt.”
“That’s the whole idea. Disguise. They’re my mother’s clothes. They make me look like someone else.”
“So the real you—?”
“This is the real me.”
The real Cam was slighter and smaller than either of her personas. As Camilla, wearing the pumps and long slim skirt, she had appeared taller, a mature woman. As the Legionnaire, in the boxy camouflage jacket and pants, she’d seemed shorter, stockier, a tomboy.
Hy wondered who the real Cam—Camilla—was, and still wasn’t convinced she was seeing her now. She suspected there would be layers yet to peel away before she got to the truth. Hy put the soup, crackers, bread and cheese on the table. She’d been drinking tea to warm up. She offered some to Cam.
“Or we have this.”
She held up a bottle of red wine.
“Tea first, then wine. I’d love some wine.”
Later, when Cam had downed the better part of a glass of wine, Hy began asking questions. Not about the marriage. She couldn’t ask about that. It was what she wanted to know about most, but then Cam would know she’d looked through her things, and would never trust her.
“What did you mean when you said, outside the Hall, that you hadn’t done any
of those things we thought you did?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t cut Ben’s trap lines?”
Cam looked genuinely shocked.
“I swear I didn’t.”
“Or spell out ‘Kill’ on the Big Bay wharf in herring bait?”
“I’ve never even been there.”
Was she lying? Her eyes were clear, untroubled. Not for a moment did she avert her gaze.
“Did you send out those cancellations to the lobster supper?”
“Not me. None of it was me. Everything I do, you’ve seen me do. That’s how I operate. Not in hiding. Up front.”
“The sign at the Hall? You did the sign?”
“Oh, yeah, I did the sign.”
“What about freeing lobsters from Ben’s traps? Poaching, he’d call it.”
“Poaching?” Cam’s eyes blazed. “It’s not poaching. It’s liberating.”
“That’s not up front.”
“Yes it is. I don’t hide what I do. If I do it, you know it’s me. I can’t waste any effort. I leave a calling card. I attach a small capsule to each trap line with a note in it that says lobsters have been removed from this trap by the LLL—and a paragraph of propaganda.”
Hy looked thoughtful. “Ben didn’t say anything about that, but he did say you’re not very tidy.”
Cam looked offended.
“What do you mean?”
“He told Ian that he lays the lines to the east and now he’s finding them lying in the opposite direction, or all in a lump.”
“That’s not me.”
“Then who?”
Sudden knowledge lit up Cam’s eyes. “The poacher.”
“Poacher?”
Cam gave Hy a description.
“Jared,” she said. “I wonder what he’s doing that for?”
“For Guillaume,” Cam said, without thinking.
“You know Guillaume?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jared woke up stiff and cold, swearing on the cookhouse floor. There was an empty mickey of rum beside him. The lobster bins he had brought in from the dory two hours before were sitting by the pond in the back. Two of the lobsters had escaped and were crawling across the floor. A couple of the others were dead. He groaned and put a hand to his aching head. He struggled to his feet and dragged himself over to the bins. He tossed the lobsters—dead and alive—into the water. The live ones might soon be dead too. Lobsters don’t like to be thrown. It upsets their delicate biology. Jared left the cookhouse and climbed into his Hummer.
He passed out again with his head on the wheel.
“I know Guillaume.” Cam dropped her head. “At least, I met him,” she said. “I saw the kitchen. I threw some of his food—all lobster—into that ridiculous pond.”
“Shock theatre?”
“He was shocked.” Cam grinned.
“But everything else, not you?”
“Nope.”
“Then who?”
“Mutt and Jeff, I guess. Turning up the heat. Trying to make things worse for me. Pushing me out of here so I can’t operate. They’ll be dogging me everywhere I go now. It’s going to get tougher.”
“Who are they? Why do they want to stop you?”
Cam shrugged. She popped the last of the cheese and bread into her mouth.
“It seems like a crazy battle,” said Hy. “How can you possibly keep it up?”
Cam finished chewing before she spoke. “It’s important to me,” she said. “I was given a gift. It’s something I was—” she hesitated—“born with, I guess. Born to. I don’t know.” She fell silent.
“You’re the Lobster Lover, right? The blogger.”
Cam looked down at her empty plate.
“Yeah, I’m the Lobster Lover. Of course I’m the Lobster Lover.”
Parker never heard Guillaume come down from the loft and was unaware of him standing behind him, boring holes in his back with the pure hate in his eyes. Guillaume knew by the set of Parker’s shoulders, the stiff, tight way he held himself that he was looking for her. Parker turned away from the window, disappointed. He had seen nothing—no one—not even Jared. He caught the look of hate in Guillaume’s eyes, but he didn’t care anymore. What about her? He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know whether he wanted her to come closer—or stay away. Why would he welcome her? There would be only blame, anger, recrimination—to which she had every right.
Guillaume didn’t say a word. He grabbed a jacket.
“Where are you going?” In this weather?
“None of your beez-ness.”
“I think it is.”
Guillaume pulled the door open. The sound of the driving rain—and some of its moisture—entered the room.
“You do not own me.”
Trite. Reduced to such trite conversation.
“I very much think that I do.” Pompous. Not helpful.
Guillaume said nothing. He just left, slamming the door behind him.
Parker should have known that Guillaume was up to something—and maybe he did—but he was so numb and distracted he didn’t react.
“Some of it’s true,” said Cam. “Some of it’s not.”
They were into their second bottle of wine and talking about what Hy had found on the Internet.
“I never marched into a G8 dinner in Geneva. I just threatened to do it unless they took lobster off the menu, which they did. That was victory enough. You don’t want to alienate people all the time.”
“But you do. You did here. Yet you seem like a nice person.” Hy refilled both their glasses.
“I am a nice person.”
“Then why such extreme tactics?”
“Like you said—it’s shock theatre. I did a lot of that in a drama group as a teenager.”
Hy thought she still looked not much older than a teenager, but the photo—the photo said differently. She wished she could have another look at it.
“It’s easy for me, because it’s just acting. It’s a role—and it works to get media attention. You have to have that to get your message across.”
“You haven’t had any here.”
“It will come.” Her voice was confident. Hy filled her glass again.
“I’m disappointed you didn’t march in on a G8 dinner. How could the media get it so wrong? Oh well, as long as they spell your name right.” Hy thought about the Samsonite luggage and the initials C.P.
“Is Samson your real name?”
Cam held her glass halfway to her mouth. She put it down.
“It is now.” She pursed her lips in a way that told Hy she would get nowhere going down that road.
“To match your luggage?”
Cam’s face went red—red and stubborn. Hy let it go.
“Why did you come here? It’s such a small place.”
“Small place. Small group. Small start.”
“Just how small a group, Cam?”
No reply.
Hy persisted. “A group of say—one—or two? Just Cam and Camilla?”
Cam looked at her sharply.
“It’s just you, isn’t it? You’re the only one.”
A long silence.
“I work best on my own.”
A sly grin spread across her face.
She straightened up proudly and stretched out her arms.
“Meet the team.”
The headlights woke Jared from his semi-comatose state in the Hummer. He eased himself up and peeked out to see Guillaume and Winterside’s most notorious drug dealer enter the cookhouse. Bernie Cusack made Guillaume look taller and plumper than he was. Bernie had been a tiny, premature baby who never caught up, never formed any convincing masculine traits. He was small and delicate and emaciated from constant drug use. His clothes hung on h
im. His skin was unhealthy and pimply. The whites of his eyes were usually bloodshot and yellow, the irises a sickly light brown.
Jared could see through the window as Bernie pulled out a package wrapped in plastic. He watched, with great interest, as the transaction took place. He ducked back down as Bernie left. He had to wait until Guillaume left too, a long, impatient wait.
Jared was antsy to get his hands on the cocaine he knew Guillaume was snorting right now. He knew he’d leave it somewhere in the kitchen, and that when he left, he, Jared, was going to get himself some. It was going to be a great weekend.
“I am the founding and only member of the LLL.”
“But why? Couldn’t you get other members?”
“Maybe, but I’m a loner.”
“Like the lobster?”
“You catch on fast. I don’t work well with other people. Besides, this is a personal crusade.”
“Personal? Anything to do with Parker?”
Cam’s eyes clouded over. “Parker?”
“Is there a connection?”
“No.”
“Ian thought you knew each other.”
Cam shrugged. Hy kept at it.
“His family’s big in the lobster business in Maine, right? Big. Huge. He could be a target for you. Is he?”
Cam looked down at her empty plate.
Still Hy persisted. “You do know him.”
“I know who he is.”
“Is he why you’re here?”
Cam kept her head down. “Just coincidence.”
“C’mon. What’s he to you?”
Cam lifted her head.
“Nothing.” Her chin jutted out, defiant. “Nothing. He’s nothing to me.”
“If he’s nothing to you, why do you hate him?”
“I never said that.”
“You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, whenever I say his name.”
Cam looked away. Hy appeared to see right into her as if she knew the truth. She couldn’t possibly. No one knew the whole story. Not even me—or Parker.
“I don’t hate him. I don’t know him well enough to hate him,” she said, stubbornly. She crumpled her napkin and thrust it onto her plate.
Revenge of the Lobster Page 19