The Drifter

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  “Just what did you have in mind?” Andy asked.

  And Nora laughed … a horrible, frightening sound that made Carolyn’s blood run cold.

  “Why, Joss, of course. After all … with him dead, who’ll be there to save her?”

  25

  THEY MOVED BACK INTO THE CAVE.

  As Carolyn slowly unmolded herself from the rock, she could hear Andy and Nora talking again, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  For a long time she just stood there.

  They’re smuggling guns to Canada.

  They’re looking for the captain’s treasure.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and she gave a sob.

  They’re going to kill Joss.

  With a sinking heart, she remembered the horrible sound her club had made as she’d swung it into Joss’s side.

  I’ve got to find him … I’ve got to warn him!

  Carolyn stood helplessly, her eyes straining through the darkness. Which way did I come from? Which way should I go? Preparing to jump down, she took a step backward. Without warning, several of the crates shifted beneath her and turned over, throwing her headlong across the pile. There was a crash as she landed, and then to Carolyn’s horror, the sounds of running from inside the cave.

  Scrambling up, Carolyn bolted.

  She raced through the rain and fog, stumbling across the wet sand, splashing through the waves as they roared and crashed upon the shore. Shadows smothered her, swirling around her like lost phantoms. The wind shrieked and moaned, and the cliffs rose up and up, blocking all hope of escape. She wanted to scream Joss’s name, scream for help, but she didn’t dare, for fear that Andy or Nora would hear her.

  Joss has to still be there—please let him still be there—

  An image of Molly’s face rose into her mind—the bulging eyes, the horror in that glazed stare—and I’m sorry, Joss, I didn’t know—I didn’t know—

  Carolyn stopped, looking around in confusion. Nothing was even remotely familiar—she couldn’t even see the water anymore, though from the sound of it, she knew it was dangerously close.

  She fought down panic. Could she have already passed the spot where she’d seen Joss and Molly? Surely not, it had seemed so far away.…

  Stop it … calm down. All she had to do was find the cliffs; all she had to do was follow the curves and angles around the shoreline. Then she’d find Joss. Then she’d find the cliff path that would take her back to the house where she could call for help.…

  The beach glowed eerily as lightning burst over the water. Thunder rumbled, and the rain began to beat harder.

  Carolyn turned in a slow circle, desperately trying to think. Oh, Joss, where are you?

  Then suddenly he was there.

  Shadowy … formless as fog … he materialized from the darkness and stood blocking her path. With a scream Carolyn jumped back, then stared at him in amazement.

  “Joss! We’ve got to get out of here, we’ve got to call the police! Do you hear me? They’re going to do something to you—Andy and Nora—I heard them say so, only they didn’t know I was listening—”

  And he was closer now, she could see the long sleeves of his sweater, and his hair blowing wild and dark across his face, and suddenly she felt his hands on her arms and they started to tighten … slowly … slowly … until his grip was unbearable, and she struggled but couldn’t get free—

  “Stop it!” she cried. “Joss, stop it! You’re hurting me!”

  But it wasn’t Joss’s voice that laughed as something slammed hard against her skull … that laughed and laughed as the fog rushed thickly, mercifully through her brain—

  “Don’t be silly, Carolyn,” Nora scolded. “Joss would never hurt you.”

  26

  “I DON’T SEE THE POINT OF BRINGING HER HERE,” NORA fumed, knotting rope around Carolyn’s ankles. “We should have just thrown her into the sea and been done with it.” She gave one last tug, watching in satisfaction as Carolyn winced from the pain.

  On the other side of the room Andy barely looked at them.

  “I thought the whole idea was not to attract attention to the beach,” he said tersely.

  He lifted the lantern he was holding, jaundiced light flickering over the musty walls of the attic. From somewhere behind him fine sprays of rain misted in, and as a burst of thunder shook the house, his eyes briefly met Carolyn’s before he turned away.

  “She’ll be safe here,” he added. “At least till we decide what to do with her.”

  “Safe?” Nora gave a hoarse laugh. “Why keep her safe when we’re going to kill her anyway?”

  Carolyn went rigid. Lying there on the attic floor, her mind echoed with a thousand screams that no one would ever hear.

  “That seems a little extreme,” Andy said quietly, and Nora’s glance was coldly amused.

  “But didn’t you just say we have to protect our little enterprise? We can hardly deny we’re smugglers now, can we, when she’s already caught us red-handed.”

  Andy didn’t answer. He set the lantern on the floor and moved away from it.

  “Maybe she and Joss should die together.” Nora laughed again. “Since she’s so fond of romantic legends.”

  Andy threw her an irritated glance. “Shut up, Nora,” he mumbled. “I’m trying to think.”

  In the corner where she’d been thrown, Carolyn slowly drew her knees up to her chest and rolled over onto her side, keeping her back to the wall. Her clothes were soaking wet. Her wrists ached, and her head throbbed horribly. Nora had stuffed a greasy rag in her mouth, and she felt as if she was going to be sick.

  Trying to be inconspicuous, Carolyn twisted her hands, working them inside her bonds. From this new position she had a much better view of the attic, and she could see Andy leaning in the open doorway of the widow’s walk as though searching for something in the storm. Off to his side Nora put one hand to her waist and idly fingered a gun.

  “Your thinking,” Nora said sarcastically, “has cost us precious time. You thought this girl and her mother would be gone by now, and look what’s happened.”

  Carolyn watched as Nora walked toward her. Nora slowly tapped the gun against Carolyn’s forehead.

  “‘You have to be patient, Nora,’” Nora began, mimicking Andy’s voice. ‘“Carolyn’s stronger than we bargained for, Nora.’”

  She glanced at Andy, but got no response. She pulled the gun back from Carolyn’s head and gave a bitter smile.

  “Well, he was right about that, wasn’t he. Most girls wouldn’t have lasted through the ghost, not to mention the widow’s walk. And who would have thought you’d handle Carolyn Glanton’s corpse so well?”

  “That’s enough,” Andy said at last, but she ignored him, leaning in close to Carolyn’s face, studying her with a puzzled frown.

  “And I kept saying, there must be something that scares her … there must be some way to make her go. Like burying her alive with Carolyn Glanton … only Andy buried poor Carolyn again without you … and he wouldn’t tell me where.”

  Nora straightened, towering above her. Carolyn’s insides quivered violently, but she met Nora’s gaze with a steady one of her own.

  “Andy’s allowed his emotions to cloud his judgment,” Nora mused. “I’m not sure his priorities are straight any—”

  “My priorities?” Andy broke in. “You mean your priorities, don’t you? Some stupid treasure you can’t even prove exists—”

  “For something that might not exist, you’ve certainly been more than willing to share it,” Nora said dryly. “Of course it exists. Matthew Glanton said so himself, in the message he left behind—”

  “If he even wrote that message at all.” Andy’s voice tightened. “Don’t talk to me about priorities, Nora—if it weren’t for me, you’d have plenty of interference on your hands. You’re lucky everyone around here’s so superstitious. With the poor dead captain calling out his name … and the occasional ghost light on the beach … the islanders
keep far away from this place.”

  He shifted in the doorway, one arm gesturing toward the night beyond. Carolyn heard him laugh, a dry, humorless sound.

  “Of course, they’d be really disappointed to find out poor Matthew’s just a recording. And the souls of his drowned sailors, just plain ordinary lanterns. It’s always so tragic, isn’t it, Nora, when people find out their legends aren’t real.”

  “The treasure is real,” Nora snapped. “We’ve looked this long for it, we can’t stop looking now just be—”

  She broke off abruptly as a strange tapping sound echoed softly through the room.

  “What’s that?” With one quick motion Andy stepped back into the shadows, his body poised to attack.

  For an endless moment no one moved.

  The tapping came again … more insistent this time. Without warning a low groan vibrated from the floorboards to the rafters, and as everyone watched in amazement, a section of the wall began to slide open. A second later Joss stepped out into the attic, a tall gray phantom covered with dust and cobwebs.

  Nora was speechless. She gaped at him as Andy moved out into the light.

  “You were right, Nora,” Joss said quietly. “The treasure does exist. And I just found it.”

  Reaching behind him, he slowly withdrew something from the dark chasm of the wall. Then he rubbed at it with the sleeve of his sweater and held it into the sputtering light.

  “My God,” Andy breathed, “it’s a hook!”

  From her spot in the corner Carolyn stared in awe. The thing was huge—much larger than a man’s hand—and the base was covered with jewels. At its opposite end the hook section curved gracefully to a fine, thin, razor-sharp point. Even beneath layers of age and grime, a sheen of gold showed through, and as Nora’s hand shot out, Joss pulled the hook away from her.

  “You!” Nora fairly spat at him. “But this is impossible—how could you—”

  “The key,” Joss said calmly. “And Molly.”

  Nora’s face contorted. Her hands clenched into fists, and she stepped away from him, her voice low and shaken. “I don’t believe you!”

  “Solid gold,” Andy murmured. “And those are emeralds … diamonds … rubies—this thing must be priceless!”

  But Joss didn’t seem to hear. His gaze had settled on Carolyn, and as she stared back in disbelief, his eyes flicked immediately to Andy.

  “What’s this?” Joss demanded, nodding in her direction.

  Andy seemed reluctant to answer. His shrug was almost defensive.

  “She saw us down on the beach. We had to bring her.”

  “I … see,” Joss mumbled, and as Carolyn watched the knowing looks on their faces, she felt icy stabs of fear and confusion deep, deep inside her.

  Her hands worked frantically at the ropes. Warm trickles of blood oozed over her wrists, but she kept her face expressionless and tried to concentrate on what Nora was saying.

  “After all this time,” Nora murmured. Her eyes narrowed in on the hook again, as though she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “All my hard work …”

  “You didn’t tell me about the note, Nora,” Joss chided, and his voice was unsettlingly calm. “You didn’t tell me you had half of a message that could make you a very rich woman … and that it wasn’t any use to you without the other half. I might never have known about it at all if it hadn’t been for Carolyn’s mother.”

  He held the hook in front of his face. He squinted at the jeweled handle, then slowly lowered it.

  “That day she fell,” he went on, remembering. “She’d been cleaning and moving furniture, and she must have come across the note hidden somewhere in that bedroom. The paper was in her hand when I found her.”

  Paper—paper! Carolyn’s mind reeled. That day at the hospital, Mom was trying to tell me, but I thought she was talking about an ad for the guest house—

  “So you kept it,” Nora’s voice was carefully controlled. “And all this time I was looking for it … searching for it …”

  Joss said nothing. Again he held the hook up, watching the play of lantern light along its deadly point.

  “Actually you made it easy for me at the end.” Joss’s lips moved in a half smile. “The night Andy planted the skeleton in Carolyn’s room, he lost the note, didn’t he? Carolyn must have found it when she followed him downstairs … and later, when I took the skeleton away, I found the note under her pillow.”

  Carolyn felt stunned … dreamlike. She could hear Joss talking, but he seemed miles away. So you were in on it, you were helping them all the time.…

  “Shall I go through the whole message?” Joss asked.

  He gazed into Nora’s furious stare. Then he began to recite.

  “‘To you who shall unearth my secret treasure … where I lie waiting in the dark … remember only that love builds walls of grief and grave despair … that leave a man hollow of heart and home … and yet one key unlocks this mystery of life and death … and truth eternal.’”

  No one spoke. Thunder rumbled the floor beneath them, and rain beat savagely against the roof.

  “So we had the secret treasure part”—Andy gave a wry smile—”and you had the part about the key.”

  Joss nodded slowly. “And Carolyn had the real key.”

  Carolyn felt three pairs of eyes upon her. She lifted her chin defiantly and stared back at them.

  “She tried to tell you, Andy, that night you brought her home,” Joss continued. “But you didn’t hear her, and Nora didn’t understand what it meant.”

  So you were the one going through my room, Carolyn thought miserably. You were the one all along.…

  “I didn’t know where it was until tonight,” Joss spoke again. “Until Carolyn’s necklace broke.”

  When I fought with you on the beach … when I accused you of killing Molly …

  “So you put the clues together,” Andy picked up. “You already had ‘love builds walls’ and ‘hollow’ and ‘one key unlocks this mystery and truth’—”

  Joss shook his head. “But I still hadn’t figured it out. Molly helped me do that.”

  “Molly?” Nora looked positively gray. “How … how could Molly have helped you?”

  Joss looked her full in the face. “Exactly, Nora,” he said quietly. “How could she?”

  His stare was so hard and so terribly cold that even Nora took a step back from him.

  “She was pointing straight to it when I found her.” Joss gave a grim smile. “That disgusting excuse for a house down there on the beach. On the inside wall of the cave next to where she slept. She must have known all along there was a keyhole there, but she wasn’t about to tell you.” He indicated Nora with a scowl. “It’s a door to a tunnel, and the tunnel leads here.”

  “But there are lots of tunnels attached to this place,” Andy spoke up while Carolyn listened in astonishment. “All to the cellar—they’ve been there for over a hundred years.”

  “But this one leads farther,” Joss explained. “It’s the only one that leads up. Don’t you see? If anyone ever suspected the captain of smuggling, they’d naturally look for tunnels in the cellar. But this tunnel went up! Behind false walls all the way to the attic!”

  Andy looked stunned. “Then … the captain—”

  Joss gestured toward the open wall behind him. “What’s left of him is in there. He must have carried out his revenge … then walled himself up to die.”

  Nora’s hand plucked at the neck of her sweater. Andy gazed at the wall, then abruptly turned back to the widow’s walk.

  “Well, then …” Nora’s voice sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness of the room. “Now that our little treasure hunt is over, I believe there’s some unfinished business we need to take care of.”

  “Which is?” Joss prompted.

  She met his eyes boldly, one hand gesturing at the corner where Carolyn was still trying to free herself.

  “Oh, come now, Joss—you don’t really believe we can let her go
after what she’s heard tonight?”

  Andy ducked his head. He looked nervous, and as Carolyn watched in growing fear, he shifted from one foot to the other and ran both hands back through his hair.

  “About Molly,” he burst out, though he wouldn’t look at Joss. “What exactly do you mean … when you found her?”

  “What does Molly have to do with anything?” Nora objected, but Joss took a step toward Andy, a muscle clenching in his cheek.

  “Molly’s dead,” Joss said quietly.

  This time Andy whirled to face him. Even in the dim lanternlight, he looked abnormally pale.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I found her down on the beach with her throat torn out. Chalk up one more murder to the dear old captain, right, Nora?” Joss’s tone was bitter, but Nora only smiled.

  “It was only a matter of time, you both knew that—”

  “You said no more accidents, Nora,” Andy broke in angrily. “You said we’d be able to scare them away—you said—”

  “She was getting careless.” Nora’s eyes narrowed into an ice-cold stare. “I didn’t want you getting caught, Andy, that’s all. I was only thinking of your safety.”

  “And I was only thinking,” Joss broke in, his eyes locked with Andy’s, “how easy it’s getting to dispose of people.”

  “Inconveniences,” Nora corrected him. “We can’t have people snooping around here, getting in our way!”

  Joss was pacing now, eyes lowered to the hook in his hands. His voice was low and thoughtful.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand about these inconveniences, Nora. Like former employers, maybe?”

  “That was pure genius,” Nora gloated. “Having Andy masquerade as the captain … luring Hazel out to the cliffs …”

  Carolyn caught her breath as another realization suddenly hit her. Andy! That day outside the library, when Molly had insisted she recognized the captain—I’d been talking to Andy then, not Joss—