Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  Back in the guesthouse, she constructed a few simple bird traps using empty cracker boxes, a spool of thread, and a few wooden skewers. The shrikes were most fond of insects and tiny lizards. Elna didn’t have any of those handy, so she stripped some pieces of Norm’s drying meat, hoping it would suffice. She carried the supplies to the tree line beyond the vineyard fence and constructed the traps on open ground beneath trees where the birds congregated.

  She made numerous small piles of meat and propped the boxes over them, one end balanced on the wooden skewers. Then she ran thread from the skewers to a hiding spot a few yards away. It was a crude trap, and already, she was thinking of ways to improve it.

  A spring-loaded mechanism would work better, she thought. I could modify mousetraps.

  As she huddled behind some bushes, holding the end of the thread, Malin crouched beside her.

  “Will they really…?”

  He started to ask a question, so she tapped a finger against her lips. He nodded and pressed himself against the ground, covering his mouth with his hands.

  It didn’t take long for the little gray birds to notice the piles of meat. First, they flitted down to the lower branches, as if scoping out the area. Then a bold one landed on the ground and hopped close. Others followed, and soon a whole bunch of shrikes had gathered right under the box to peck at the meat.

  Elna held her breath and pulled the string. Birds scattered in a burst of squeaky chirps and feathers, but she heard a few bumping against the inside of the box.

  “And there you go,” she said.

  “Nice reflexes,” Malin said.

  “How do you feel about bird stew?”

  Malin shrugged. “I’m sort of curious how it will taste.”

  “Well, shrikes are birds of prey,” Elna said, “and I’ve never heard of people eating birds of prey.”

  “Which means they probably taste bad,” Malin said.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Not good. Not terrible, but definitely not good. That’s how the boiled loggerhead meat tasted. The birds were so tiny, they’d had to spend time catching quite a few of them, and each bird only produced a tiny bit of meat. Selene had spared a tiny bit of the wild ginger that she’d managed to scavenge, which they added to the soup stock, along with plenty of salt and pepper. The resulting soup was not entirely unpalatable when served with some steamed vegetables and plenty of wine. Still, Elna preferred the dried meat that they’d used as bait.

  We should’ve eaten the bait instead of feeding it to the birds, she thought. Then again, testing the palatability of local wildlife was probably worth it.

  It was a quiet meal eaten in the dining room, a much more subdued affair than their big feast the first afternoon. Elna supposed they were finally getting a sense of what was to come: strange meals of weird-tasting meat. Yes, it would be an adjustment.

  Malin was swooning by then, so sleepy he could barely keep his head up, and he helped himself to quite a bit of wine. At one point he belched and said, “This stuff really does taste nice when it’s not corked, Mr. Pasqualee.”

  Elna’s father grimaced in embarrassment, but Malin didn’t seem to notice. He filled up his glass again. He’d been in a strange mood since the fishing trip. Elna was concerned that he was overcompensating with the wine, but she didn’t know what to say to him.

  In the end, the meal proved unsatisfying. Elna was disappointed, and as she looked around the table, she saw a lot of downcast faces. Their obvious disappointment made her heart sink.

  “Too bad there aren’t any wild turkeys running around here,” Garret said, spooning up the gray soup.

  “I’ve been meaning to go on a diet,” Norman said with a sad little laugh.

  When Malin finally fell forward and bumped his head on the table, Elna saw an excuse to leave.

  “Pop, I’m going to help him to his room,” she said, pushing her chair back. “I think he’s had a bit too much wine.”

  “Good idea,” her father said, still grimacing as he stirred his soup. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Elna came up behind Malin and put a hand against his back. He lurched back in his seat and looked up at her, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

  “Oh, hey, Elna,” he said. “Good to see you. Did you bring more wine? Not the bottle on the bar. It’s no good.” His voice was slurring.

  “Let’s get you to your room,” she said, putting her arm around him. “Can you stand?”

  “Sure, I can stand.” He pushed his chair back and rose, swaying on his feet. “See? Not too shabby.”

  She gently pulled him away from the table, turning him, and guiding him toward the back hallway. He stumbled along, head bowed, moaning.

  “Did I drink a little too much?” he said.

  “Only an entire bottle,” she said, “and almost half of another.”

  As they moved down the hall, Elna heard Garret say to someone else at the table, “I mean, it was supposed to be his wedding night tonight. I guess he’s trying to forget.”

  Malin’s was the last room in the hall, and getting him there proved a challenge. He stumbled twice, and Elna had to hold him up until he could regain his footing. He slammed his shoulder into the wall and cursed loudly another time. Then he heaved like he was going to vomit, but nothing came up.

  “Is the wedding over?” he mumbled, as she helped him navigate the narrow doorway. “I don’t remember. Did we say, ‘I do?’ Did she say it? She didn’t hesitate? I was going to look her right in the eyes and make sure she meant it.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Elna said. The room was dark, with only dim light filtering down the hall from the many candles in the dining room. She felt her way to the bed and helped him sit down. “You just need to sleep off the wine, Malin.”

  He flopped onto the bed, then fell backward with a groan. As he lay there, Elna pulled the blanket up over him, tucking it in.

  His eyes were closed, but he reached up, fumbling in the air for a moment before finding Elna’s forearm. “It didn’t happen,” he said, softly—almost a whisper. “The wedding…it didn’t happen, did it? I was afraid it wouldn’t, but not too surprised really. No, not really.”

  “We can talk about it tomorrow,” Elna said. “You should probably drink less alcohol in the future, Malin. It’s not good to get like this, and I say that as a vintner.”

  He sighed, a long expulsion of breath that seemed to carry every bit of his sadness and regret. Then one eye opened, one glassy eye glinting in the candlelight.

  “You know what they say, Elna.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, lifting his head to put the pillow beneath him.

  “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” He smiled briefly. “Claire doesn’t have to know you’re in my room.”

  Elna gently pried his hand off and set it on his chest. Then she patted him gently, feeling a weird mix of emotion. Surprise, attraction, embarrassment, possibility.

  “No, no, you don’t realize what you’re saying.”

  He seemed concerned. “Oh. Okay. If you say so. Why are you in my room then?”

  “It’ll all make sense in the morning,” she said. “Good night. I have to leave now.”

  “Well…” He took a deep breath, held it a moment, and let it out slowly. “That’s a shame.”

  And his eye slipped shut again. Elna made a hasty retreat before the conversation could really sink in.

  17

  Norman and Garret were raring to go the following day. Malin hadn’t made an appearance by breakfast time, which was okay with Elna, as she was uncomfortable at the thought of seeing him. Would he remember what he’d said? She thought it might be even more awkward if he’d forgotten.

  “We can get the aqueduct finished today,” Elna said. “I really think so.”

  “Let’s do it,” Garret said. “How’s our prisoner doing? Maybe he asphyxiated in the shed. Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

  “I’ll check on him after breakfast,�
� Pop said.

  “Just be careful,” Selene said. “Never trust a word he says, and never turn your back on him, even if he’s tied up.”

  “I know his type,” Pop said. “I’ll be extra careful.”

  After they ate, Elna, Norman, and Garret took their bicycle cart down to the aqueduct while Selene went hunting for more wild herbs in the overgrown places just beyond the vineyard fence. The Dulleses did what they always did, sitting quietly on the veranda. Elna had been tempted to ask them to help. Everyone had to pitch in eventually, regardless of age, ability, or interest.

  A battle for another day, she told herself.

  As they went to work building the aqueduct, the biggest part of their work turned out to be constructing the framework. Malin’s absence made the work harder, and Elna had to fight a feeling of resentment. Moping about his fiancée was becoming a problem.

  Maybe it’ll pass now that the wedding date has come and gone, she thought, but that seemed unlikely.

  They were more than halfway to the guesthouse when they started to run out of raw materials. The framework was cobbled together from scrap lumber and junk. To make the trough that carried the water, they used folded sheet metal, and when that ran out, they used old salvaged pipes and hoses. It wasn’t lovely to look at, and Elna was concerned that they would lose too much water along the way. But she could make improvements over time.

  “We need more lumber or metal or something,” Norman noted.

  They’d reached the edge of the parking lot when they ran out of materials completely.

  “Time to cannibalize the island, folks,” Garret said, pointing to the nearby shed.

  It was a good idea. The aqueduct project had enabled her to appreciate some of the more useful and less abrasive sides of Garret’s personality. He wasn’t just a loud-mouthed jerk. He was also a hard worker and a resourceful thinker. In the end, they used old metal shelves, cabinets, and then parts of the shed’s back wall to continue building the framework.

  By noon, they’d reached the vineyard fence. As Garret and Norman headed back to the guesthouse, Elna took a few minutes to admire their handiwork. The framework, as ugly as it looked, seemed sturdy. As she stood there, hands on hips, she heard Selene call her name.

  Turning, she saw Selene walking up from the trees beyond the vineyard, a leash in one hand, a cloth bag in the other. As she approached, she held up the bag.

  “You know, you’ve got wild vegetables, fruit, and herbs growing all over this island,” she said. “You just have to hunt around for them a little bit. I found chicory, wild cherries, elderberries, mayapples—all kinds of stuff.”

  “That’s great,” Elna said. “I’m glad someone knows how to recognize edible plants on the island. Why don’t we go see if my father is making lunch yet?”

  “I sure hope so,” Selene said. “I’m famished! Sniffy ate a small rabbit, and I was so tempted to take a bite, raw or not…but I didn’t. Of course, I didn’t.”

  She’d been wearing the same flower-print dress since her first day on the island, and it was starting to get quite filthy. Her treks through the wild places didn’t help. In fact, with all the thorns, thistles, and vines clinging to the dress, she was starting to look like some kind of forest creature.

  When they got back to the guesthouse, they found Norman and Garret standing in the lobby, the Dulleses on the couch, and a bleary-eyed Malin sitting on the hearth. There was no sign of lunch, and her father wasn’t in the kitchen.

  “What’s a guest have to do to get a sandwich around here?” Garret grumbled. “We busted our butts all morning. Doesn’t that earn us a few bites of something?”

  Elna checked the tasting room, which still smelled of dust and metal, but her father wasn’t there either. Finally, she went back to the lobby and asked, “Has anyone seen my father lately?”

  “Not since he went to check on that bad man,” Joe Dulles said.

  “Okay. I’ll go get him.”

  Elna felt a twinge of unease as she headed for the back door. Surely her father had busied himself with some other project. He wouldn’t hang out with Dominic all morning. When she reached the back door, she heard the others following her. She stepped outside and started into the vineyard, heading toward the water tank and the small aluminum shed where they’d bound Dominic.

  She was just rounding the water tank when she realized the shed door was wide open. The twinge of anxiety became full-on panic as she raced toward the shed. Thrusting her head inside, she found disarray. Shelves were tipped over, tools scattered. No sign of Dominic or her father, though she did spot a big wad of duct tape in the far corner.

  “Oh no,” she muttered.

  She turned around, scanning the property all around her, looking for some sign of them. Malin, Garret, Selene, and Norman were approaching from the guesthouse, but otherwise she saw no one else. She bent over and studied the ground around the shed door, but she didn’t have any tracking experience. She couldn’t identify any specific footprints or tell where they might have gone.

  “I told you guys,” Selene said, her voice rising up and up. “I told you not to trust him. I told you!”

  Elna almost took off running, but she didn’t know which way to go. How in the world had Dominic broken out? Where would he have gone? Garret walked up to the shed and peered inside, cursing under his breath.

  “Okay, okay,” Elna said, drumming a finger against her forehead. Don’t get too emotional, she told herself. Try to stay calm and think. “Let’s split up in groups of two, make sure we’re armed, and fan out across the area. The island’s not that big.”

  “Wait. Let’s just think it through first,” Garret said, holding up his hands. “There’s no blood. He didn’t leave a corpse behind.”

  “So what?” Elna said, rounding on him, ready to fight. What was he suggesting?

  “So, if he overpowered your father and killed him or severely injured him, there’s be some sign of it, right? Either they went off together voluntarily or he took the old man hostage. Either way, I doubt your dad’s dead.”

  Selene stepped forward, picking up Sniffy and holding him tight. “I told your father not to listen to him. Dominic knows how to get into your head. He probably talked him into loosening the restraints.”

  Elna shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. My father’s not stupid. But…” She looked inside the shed again. Clearly there had been violence of some kind. Things were knocked over, but Garret was right—no obvious sign of blood. She was struggling to think clearly, her heart in her throat. “Okay, we have to find them.”

  “He talked him into going somewhere,” Garret said. “That’s what I think. Like the girl over there said, Dominic did some smooth-talking, maybe convinced your dad he wasn’t dangerous, told him he knew where some good stuff is stashed on the island.”

  Elna looked at Malin, seeking an ally. Malin stood off to one side, gripping his forehead. His face was all scrunched up, as if he were in terrible pain. Hangover.

  That’s what you get, Elna thought bitterly.

  “We should eat first,” Garret said. “We’re all starving. Let’s calm down a little bit, okay? If you’re dad’s not dead yet, Dominic’s not in any hurry to kill him. Maybe he’ll hold him hostage to bargain for his life, or supplies. Either way, we have to get our strength back before we go looking for trouble. We worked all morning. Right, guys?” He turned to Malin but got no response. He looked at Selene, who only shrugged.

  “I think we can take some time to eat and recover first,” Norman said. “Then set out properly, with weapons and gear, and some plan of action. Yes, that makes the most sense.”

  “Good. That’s it, then.”

  Without looking at or acknowledging Elna in the slightest, Garret headed back to the guesthouse.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him,” Norman said to Elna, giving her what she assumed was meant to be an encouraging smile before following Garret.

  “I told you, guys,” Selene said, on the v
erge of tears. “I warned you.” And then she turned and headed back to the guesthouse.

  That left Elna and Malin standing in front of the shed. She felt a seething anger bubbling up inside of her. Her father had been dragged off by a madman, and everyone wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice lunch together? Meanwhile, Malin was just standing there like an idiot, holding his forehead.

  “You could have said something.” She tried to keep the mounting fury out of her voice.

  “I just…needed a moment to think,” he replied, in a pained voice. “How can they already be so damned hungry?”

  “This is what happens when food stores are depleted,” Elna said. “People start making dumb, selfish decisions. My dad is out there, Malin. Out there with that lunatic.”

  “Right, yeah.” He slapped his own cheeks, as if to rouse himself. “Finding your dad is the priority here. Lunch can wait. Let’s go talk to them. Sorry, my brain is mush today.”

  “Well, drink less wine from now on. I need your help, Malin. I can’t afford to have you…” Just say it. “I can’t afford to have you wallowing about situations that can’t be changed, okay? Okay.”

  She waved a hand in his direction and started back to the guesthouse.

  She found the others already at the dining room table. Joe Dulles had set out some salted meat and bowls of vegetables. It wasn’t much of a meal, but they were eating like it was their first meal in months. The sight of them sitting there, everyone except Malin, munching away like they hadn’t a care in the world, was more than she could take. Rita Dulles looked up as she stepped into the room, delicately raising a broccoli stem to her painted lips.