Prisoners of Hope

by Barbara Fradkin

  “And you think we’re not? The bay is crawling with cops! We’ve got helicopters, fixed wing, Zodiacs, plus alerts in every marina and port. Danielle Torres and her husband’s photos are plastered in every marina and gas bar from here down the Trent-Severn to Lake Ontario. Every officer in Ontario is on the lookout —”

  “But Danielle and her family are not in the Trent-Severn, they’re still in the bay, stranded on some island. Can you pull manpower from farther south and step up the search in the bay?”

  “Jesus fuck, Tymko! I’m not running this show, ERT and Trenton Coordination Centre are, and they know what they’re doing.”

  “But can you tell them —”

  “Every available asset in the air and on the water is already out there! It’s a fucking maze of islands and inlets. I warned your girlfriend to back off, so if we have to split our manpower to save her instead of apprehending the killers …”

  Chris clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. It took all his willpower to stop himself from hanging up. Fortunately, before he could fire back something unwise, Standish pulled himself back from the brink. Only the stiff precision of his words betrayed his rage.

  “I’ll pass this information to Incident Command, Tymko. And if you hear from Amanda, tell her to come back in and talk to me. ASAP.”

  Chris hung up, his anger and worry now worse than ever, and pushed away his plate of cold, inedible food. He felt powerless and ineffectual stuck in the big city, miles from Amanda and the drama unfolding farther north. Another call to Amanda went unanswered. Where the fuck was the woman!

  He was tempted to just bail on the whole situation. Give up on Amanda and fly back to Deer Lake, to the peace of his cabin and the job he loved. Amanda had blown into his life like a tornado, carving a swath of chaos and sweeping him helplessly along with her. She had the power to stop, but she didn’t. So maybe she didn’t give a damn.

  He was halfway back to the airport before he calmed down enough to think. He’d done air searches over wilderness and open water before. He knew how difficult it was to spot one tiny boat tucked onto the shore or navigating a narrow inland channel, especially if there were dozens of other small boats zooming about. Even heat-sensing equipment would be of limited use with fishermen and cottagers on the ground. Moreover, if the fugitives didn’t want to be found, they had only to shelter in an abandoned cottage to be hidden from the air. He estimated the search area was at least a thousand square kilometres.

  Damn it to hell! he thought as he turned the truck around. En route, he phoned Matthew to report. “I’m renting a floatplane,” he said. “I can’t just leave her out there all alone. What exactly did Danielle say about her location?” He jotted down the meagre details. “I’m going to track down the maps and nautical charts and find a floatplane I can rent. The hell with Sergeant Knotts in Deer Lake.” He paused as he heard his own words. “But if Amanda phones you, call me ASAP, so I don’t fuck up my whole career needlessly.”

  The four-lane highway unfurled northward toward Parry Sound in sparkling spring sunshine. The ubiquitous road construction slowed her down, and the summer crowds were just beginning to head out onto the roads. She hummed past RVs lumbering up hills, pick-ups towing powerboats, and Subarus with canoes and kayaks on their roofs. Convoys of transport trucks clogged the lanes on their way to Sudbury, Timmins, and parts farther north.

  Two hours later, at barely eight o’clock, she reached the Parry Sound exit and pulled into Richard’s Coffee for breakfast. After giving Kaylee some water and a quick pee break, she bought a breakfast sandwich and coffee and chose a curb outside to enjoy the sunshine with Kaylee. While she ate, she studied the map and considered her next move. She needed help from someone with a sturdy boat and expert knowledge of the islands and waterways. Based on the topography of the bay, she guessed Danielle and her family were lost somewhere in the maze of islands between Frying Pan Island and Honey Harbour, a span of about forty to fifty kilometres as the crow flies.

  A lot of ground to cover. Although the area had a scattering of island cottages and a couple of boat launching sites as well as a First Nations settlement, most of it was a protected provincial park. There were beaches and campsites in the park, but she doubted there would be many souls willing to brave the bitter May winds and blackflies. An inquiry at the park office would be worthwhile, however.

  She had a short list of possible guides in mind. She started with Larry, the fishing guide from the Shawanaga First Nation who had rented a boat to Danielle’s husband. The long, winding trek down to his house proved disappointing, however, for when she arrived, she found Larry packing up his truck. He listened to her request quietly before giving a small, regretful shake of his head.

  “I’d help you if I could, but I’m on a job. Walleye spawning research. Leaving this morning, going to the Magnetawan River to meet the team up there.”

  Her heart sank. A few other neighbours collected around Larry’s truck, trading possibilities without much luck. While they talked, Larry slipped in and out of his cabin with supplies. After his third trip, he rejoined the group.

  “I solved your problem,” he said. “I called George Gifford. He’s your best bet. He knows the lake almost as well as an Indian.”

  She hid her alarm. When she and Chris had left George at the hospital the day before, he’d been in no shape to mount a search-and-rescue operation on the lake. Grief and shock had taken their toll. He’d been drinking too much and not sleeping enough. She doubted he’d been eating enough to keep his strength up. And then there was Kaitlyn. She was the reason he got up these days and the hope he clung to. Even if he was willing to leave his hospital vigil, Amanda suspected his thoughts would be back at her bedside rather than focussed on the task at hand.

  More importantly, quite apart from his mental state, he’d be unlikely to rush to the rescue of the woman he blamed for Ronny’s death.

  “But he’s got a lot on his plate right now,” she said. “He’s got Kaitlyn to worry about.”

  Larry shook his head. “She’s in Toronto. Her mother had her transferred last night. Going to put her in rehab down there.”

  Probably the first wise and caring move Janine had made, Amanda reflected. But not likely to calm George’s mood. “George will be upset. And I don’t think he’ll want to help look for Danielle. After all, she’s —”

  “Oh ya! He said it gives him something to do. Said he’d meet you down at the Parry Sound dock in an hour.”

  Amanda pushed the Kawasaki as fast as she dared, leaning into the curves of the twisty road. Her mind raced over possible scenarios. What kind of shape would George be in? How would she assess his mental state without offending him? And if he was drunk, or recklessly angry, how could she gently persuade him to let someone else do the job? If she had to, she’d tell him she wouldn’t put both their lives in jeopardy by setting foot in the boat with him.

  When she arrived at the dock in Parry Sound, however, there was no sign of him. Thinking perhaps he was still organizing supplies and gear, she waited a while, tossing the ball for Kaylee as they paced the concrete pier. She kept a wary eye on the OPP station next door, hoping she hadn’t attracted the attention of Sergeant Neville Standish.

  Boats of all sizes came and went, carrying families, fishermen, and workers heading out to the islands. Right alongside the pier sat a large white cruise ship named The Island Queen, sparkling clean and ready for the season. Opening day was only a couple of days away, although the office was still shuttered.

  Amanda finally approached a man who’d been working on the engine of his pontoon boat since she arrived. Tools and engine parts were spread over the pier. She asked whether he knew George Gifford, and he eyed her up and down with wordless skepticism. With her lime-green motorcycle and her orange dog, she doubted she looked like a local.

  “I’m supposed to meet him here,” she added to nudge him along.

  “Well, you missed him.”

  She cursed under her breath. �
�Did he say when he’d be back?”

  “Didn’t speak to him. But he didn’t look in a mood to be coming back any time soon.”

  “Which way did he go? Back up toward the highway?”

  “Oh no, he was in his boat. Heading out toward the big sound like a bat outta hell.”

  Amanda drove back up toward Shawanaga, alarmed and frustrated that she had no phone number for Larry. She prayed he hadn’t left yet. Halfway along the road, she spotted his truck coming the other way. She flashed her lights, honked, and pulled her bike to the side. Larry climbed out, his brow creased.

  “Did you tell George where I was planning to search?”

  Larry nodded. “He wanted to know, to plan his gear.”

  A nameless dread shot through her. “He’s taken off, to look for her himself, I assume.”

  “He never said anything about that. Maybe he thought you and the dog would slow him down.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I think … Larry, I don’t like the looks of this. George hasn’t been himself since he lost Ronny. He blames Danielle and her husband. I’m not sure what he’ll do if he finds them.”

  “George is a good man.” Larry shifted from one foot to the other, avoiding her eyes. “He was upset, yeah, but he’ll calm down. The lake will calm him down.”

  “But what if it doesn’t?” She was far less optimistic about his state of mind than Larry was but suspected Larry wanted to believe the best of his friend. She tried another tack. “Or what if he runs into trouble with them? If they’ve killed once already, he could be in danger by himself.”

  “Fernando is not a bad …” Larry shot her an uneasy glance. “Maybe we should call the cops?”

  She sifted through her thoughts. She knew Larry was right. If George was headed out on his own, bent on revenge, it was time to call in the professionals. She dreaded the thought of dealing with Standish, who’d be furious and might not even believe her. She tried to pinpoint her reluctance. She owed Danielle nothing. Even if, as Danielle claimed, she was innocent of the actual deaths and was just a scared, vulnerable woman afraid of an imagined police state, she had still persuaded Ronny to desert Amanda and then buried him en route like a discarded bag of garbage.

  George was the one she ought to be protecting. He was the one true victim in all this, deprived of his only son and cut off from his ailing granddaughter. She needed to stop him before he got himself in trouble.

  “Fine. But maybe we can catch him first if we move fast,” she said. “He doesn’t have much of a head start, and you know where he’s going. Can you spare the day?”

  He shook his head.

  “I know I’m asking a lot, Larry. But George has been through so much. I’d like to stop him before the police do.”

  Larry stared at the ground, tracing patterns in the gravel with his boot.

  “Just today. Once we’re on the water, I’ll call the police, and if we don’t catch up with him by nightfall, we’ll come back.”

  Slowly, wordlessly, he lifted his shoulders.

  An hour later, they were chugging their way through the channel from Shawanaga Landing and heading south past Franklin Island. The sky was a peaceful azure blue, but a stiff westerly wind whipped the water into swells that pitched the boat about. Once they’d set their course, Amanda called the Parry Sound OPP and was relieved to find Sergeant Standish “unavailable.” She left a message with the clerk to have him call her.

  Larry’s boat was not like the sleek, streamlined powerboats that arrowed through the water around them. It was a wide steel tub with an open-topped cockpit and retractable canopy on top and a pair of ancient, rumbling outboard motors on the stern. He had painted the whole thing turquoise, apparently his fav­our­ite colour. The Larry Two was painted in black along its hull. Amanda suspected it consumed gas like a fiend, but you could stage World War III on board without any risk of tipping.

  The boat thumped in rhythm to the waves as it lumbered south. The day was warming up and the sun blazed a swath of silver across the water. Larry sat in the cockpit, steering with one hand and squinting through the scratched windshield. Every now and then, he slowed the boat and stood up to navigate through a narrow trough. The roar of the engines precluded much conversation even if Larry had been so inclined, so Amanda hugged Kaylee close and sat at the bow on the lookout for underwater hazards.

  Once clear of Parry Island, Larry stayed between the red and green markers to give the ragged, shallow shoreline a wide berth. He had handed Amanda a pair of binoculars, but with the vibration of the engine and the pitch of the waves, she couldn’t focus on anything. Instead, she scoured the shore with the naked eye for the slightest flash of movement or colour that would suggest a boat.

  “Go closer to shore,” she shouted. “I can’t make out anything from this far out.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Shoals. Take your propeller out.”

  “But George will be trying to stay out of sight. He might be in behind these islands.”

  “He knows about shoals too.”

  She absorbed this then moved to sit beside him so they wouldn’t have to shout for all the lake to hear. Including George.

  “But he’ll be looking for the nanny and her husband, and they might not know about shoals.”

  “I told Fernando to stay between the channel markers.”

  “But they might try to go between the islands to avoid getting caught.”

  “Then they will be in trouble. Sink my boat.” Larry scowled, as if this loss had just occurred to him. He nodded inland toward the barren, uninhabited islands rising out of the water. “Watch out for a turquoise boat. My first boat. The Larry One.”

  Overhead, a floatplane skimmed low, winking white against the sun, and far out in the open water, large vessels lumbered by on their way to and from the cities to the south. Smaller boats buzzed around, following their own logic. From a distance, some of them were brightly lit and looked like police boats.

  Larry droned steadily southward, passing islands and hidden inlets. Amanda had the nautical chart spread out on her lap and was using her phone GPS to track their position, but the battery was running low. She remembered Ronny’s high-tech aids fondly.

  “Do you have a navigational app?” she asked. “It shows exactly where we are.”

  “I know where we are.”

  “But it also shows the depth of the water and the possible shoals.”

  Larry shrugged. “My nephew bought me an iPad with one.” A small smile sneaked across his face. “It’s still in the box.”

  She glanced around the boat for signs of modern fishing paraphernalia. “You don’t even have a fish finder.”

  “I advertise the traditional ways.”

  “Ronny had a navigational app on his tablet, so I’m guessing George has one too.” She gestured toward the distant shore. “He’ll know exactly where he’s going and where the rocks are. He’ll be able to search much closer to shore.”

  He glanced at her and nodded to the bin under the dashboard. “It’s in there.”

  She rummaged in the bin and pulled out the box containing the iPad. She held up the tablet as if it were an alien thing. “I’m not much of a tech wizard,” she said, “So I won’t promise anything.”

  That small smile again. She was beginning to like this man. “And I won’t promise I’ll trust it anyway.”

  Amanda had just unwrapped the iPad when her phone chimed. She fished it out of her pocket. Another call from Chris. Poor Chris. He’d be in Newfoundland by now and feeling very far away. She hesitated to answer it, knowing that any discussion would end up in an argument, but he deserved better than total silence. Just as she finally answered, however, she heard a single muffled curse and the line went dead. She gazed at the phone in dismay. He wasn’t even bothering to plead with her anymore.

  She knew she risked ruining the relationship that had just turned delicious. He had always seen her as obsessed with trouble and reck
less about her personal safety. He had even accused her of having a saviour complex because she’d been helpless to save the hundreds of children in her care back in Nigeria. He said she’d been challenging death to a rematch ever since.

  In her more reflective moments, she admitted there was some truth to this. She did feel the need to protect people and to take on their fights for them. She did put them above herself. She wasn’t like other people — Boko Haram had seen to that — but it didn’t feel like a choice. Chris wanted her safe, and he’d backed away from the relationship once before when she’d refused to play it safe. He would see this as more evidence of how low he was on her hierarchy of needs.

  She sighed, typed, All is fine, darling. I’m with Larry, but don’t worry, no danger. Battery low, so will call back when I’m back on land, and pressed “Send.” Texting was a great invention; it controlled the conversation and pre-empted arguments.

  She picked up the iPad again and this time managed to read enough of the start-up instructions to realize the device was useless to them. It needed a mobile account, which Larry did not have, as well as a power source to charge. Reluctantly, she returned it to its resting place under the dash and leaned over to resume her search for water hazards. Only to be interrupted by another call. Matthew. She debated ignoring it, but Matthew knew better than to try to change her mind. He would argue, but it would be pro forma. Besides, he might have news.

  “Chris is renting a floatplane,” were the first words out of his mouth. Over the drone of the outboard and the slap of the waves, they sounded faint.

  Heat spread through her. “He’s still in Ontario?”

  “Of course he is. Jesus Christ, Amanda, he’s ballistic!”

  “That’s good. The floatplane, I mean. The more eyes we have on this, the better. I’m with Larry, a Shawanaga outfitter, but we’re just one small boat in this vast sea of islands. And Larry doesn’t even have a GPS!”

  “The place is crawling with cops, Amanda. Chris phoned Neville Standish.”

  Her heart sank. Standish hadn’t called her back, probably dismissing her as a flake, and now he’d see her as interfering once again.