Prisoners of Hope

by Barbara Fradkin

  “If you’re going to be involved with Amanda,” he said quiet­ly, “you’ll have to understand that about her. The burden she carries is one she can never cast off. But for all that, she’s worth a thousand ordinary women.”

  The dark cloud hung thick as Chris drove on in silence. You’re so fucking lucky, Matthew wanted to scream at him. Don’t you dare screw this up. But he’d already said more than he should. Instead, he held his tongue and busied himself with the GPS.

  Finally, Chris drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can handle it.”

  Whitecaps danced on the waves, catching the afternoon sunlight. Amanda was draped over the bow, her eyes aching from hours of staring at endless water and rock. They were hugging the edge of the islands as closely as Larry dared. He stood at the wheel, studying the land and water up ahead. The engine’s low growl carried over the lake and would alert anyone within a three-hundred-metre radius. If George were on a mission of private revenge, he’d keep out of sight. But Amanda hoped Danielle would be looking for their turquoise boat and would make her presence known.

  A muffled crack echoed across the water. A snapped branch? A trick of the wind? Kaylee stood up, her ears pricked forward. Amanda signalled for Larry to cut the engine. Together they listened. Waves slapped against the hull and crashed onto the shore. The boat rocked. As they blew toward land, they peered at the shoreline and the inlets nearby.

  Nothing.

  Kaylee’s nose twitched, her ears relaxed, and after a moment she settled back down on the floor.

  “Maybe it was nothing,” Amanda said, trying to maintain a whisper above the rush of the wind and waves. Voices carried for miles over open water.

  Larry shrugged, started the engine up, and revved the boat clear of the approaching rocks. Her phone shrilled, making her jump. She glanced at it. Matthew. Either answer it or decline it, because this racket will alert the entire bay.

  “Matthew,” she whispered.

  “Amanda! For fuck’s sake, finally. Where are you?” He shouted over the roar of background noise.

  “I’m in Larry Judge’s boat,” she said, still whispering. “We’re searching the archipelago south of Parry Sound.”

  “Any luck?”

  “No sign of them yet. We’re about twenty miles south, I think.”

  “Just past Frying Pan Island,” Larry interjected. Amanda repeated this. “Where are you? I can hardly hear you.”

  “Chris and I are just west of Collingwood, on our way to his friend’s place to pick up a floatplane. We’re going to join the search.”

  Relief flooded in. She’d been afraid Chris would be furious. “You guys are the best! There have been a couple of planes and helicopters overhead, and boats farther out, but otherwise it’s pretty quiet.”

  “Chris says they’ll be doing searches by grid, but air searches over water are tricky, even with the proper equipment. With all the islands and whitecaps, visibility will be poor. We’ll fly as low and as slowly as we dare, but Chris says the wind can be wicked out on the open bay.”

  Amanda strained to catch the gist of his words. “Keep an eye out for turquoise boats. Danielle’s and ours are both turquoise.”

  “Danielle called again.”

  “What?”

  “Danielle called me. She spotted George’s boat, but when I told her who it was, she freaked out. So she and her husband have probably gone farther into the islands. She may be even more lost than she was before, but now she’s hiding. She’ll be hard to spot.”

  Amanda thought about the distant crack she’d heard. Could it have been a shout for help? Of pain or fear? It had echoed off the granite rocks and reverberated back and forth over the water, making it impossible to pinpoint its origin.

  “She’s right to be wary of George, because I don’t know what he’s up to. But can you phone her again?” she asked. “Tell her to be on the lookout for us.”

  “Amanda, I’m not sure it’s safe for you. What do we really know about her and her husband?”

  “We’ve been over this,” she snapped. The boat was rocking and pitching in the swell, and she struggled just to hang on, let alone search for shoals and rehash the argument with Matthew.

  “I spoke to …” he said.

  The wind whipped his words away. “What?”

  “Julio! He kind of implied you should be careful.”

  “Careful doesn’t tell me anything helpful.”

  “There seems to be a complicated relationship between them all. He’s worried about Danielle’s safety, and she’s protective of him. He didn’t really come right out and say it, but I think the husband’s the problem. Julio asked if you had a gun.”

  “Well, we don’t.” Not in a million years would she hold a gun ever again.

  “So all I’m saying is … approach with caution.”

  A muffled voice in the background interrupted them. After a brief argument with Chris, Matthew came back on the line. “Chris says if you spot them, don’t approach at all. You have a smartphone. Send us the coordinates and let us deal with it.”

  “How? From the air?”

  “Amanda!” Chris shouted in the background. “Trust me, okay? Let me and Neville Standish handle it!”

  She wavered. With everyone piling on, Danielle and Fernando might be driven farther into a corner. Trapped and confused, only God knew what they’d do.

  Chris’s voice penetrated the silence. “Please trust me.”

  She heard the plea in his voice and imagined the soft crinkle of his blue eyes. She wanted to reassure him, but before she could reply, a loud bang split the air and the boat jolted, throwing her off balance. The phone flew from her hand. Larry cursed and cut the engines.

  “We hit a rock,” he said. “I need to go ashore to check the propellers. Grab that paddle.”

  “Amanda? Amanda!” Chris’s voice bleated frantically from the bottom of the boat. “Are you okay?”

  “We’re fine, gotta go!” she shouted, grabbing the phone and shoving it into her pocket. She seized the paddle just as the boat swung perilously close to a chunk of granite. Larry was already paddling hard on the port side. She pushed away from the rock, and together they struggled to paddle the steel tub toward a small, reedy opening in the rocky shore.

  Within minutes Larry had laid his toolkit on the flat rock and waded out to inspect the propellers. Amanda paced with growing worry, for the afternoon sun was already low on the horizon.

  “Can you repair it?”

  He nodded, pulling out a pair of wrenches. “Just dinged the prop. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Can I help?”

  He raised his head and eyed her as one might a two-year-old offering to help with a chain saw. She held her hands up in mock surrender, prompting a faint smile from him. He nodded toward a small hill farther down the island.

  “Climb that. Maybe you can see something from the top.”

  She suspected it was a make-work project, but she dutifully leashed Kaylee and set off. The wind hurled the waves up the granite shore. They foamed at her feet, and she hugged her jacket tightly against the cold. Scudding white clouds crowded the blue sky now, their shadows playing over the silver surf.

  The hill barely qualified as a mound, yet when she breached the top, a vista spread out for miles on the other side. Little islands and tongues of land, silver crevices of water, and dark, brooding slabs of evergreen forest. And on a farther island, peeking out of a narrow crack in the wooded shore, two boats. She trained her binoculars and moved them back and forth. One boat was small and turquoise, the other bigger and multi-coloured. As she focussed, she could make out the leaping kayak painted on its side.

  Good God. He had found them.

  She drew her binoculars over the shoreline in search of movement or the bright colours of life jackets. Nothing. Neither on the granite shore nor in the grass before the dark trees swallowed up the ground.

  She didn’t dare shout out. Shoving her binoculars back into he
r knapsack, she raced back down the path, one hand clutching Kaylee’s leash and the other arm pinwheeling for balance. Larry looked up in surprise as she leaped across the granite shore. She waved toward the hill behind her.

  “They’re there!” She gasped for breath. “All of them. George has found them!”

  A faint call echoed over the water. Larry chopped the air to silence her and then stood very still, his eyes searching and his nostrils flaring. She suspected every one of his senses was tuned toward the sound.

  Another cry, weaker and more drawn out.

  Larry picked up his wrench and strode toward the sound. In his heavy, steel-toed boots, he was as agile as an antelope. Halfway around the island, a distant engine roared to life, and within seconds a boat came streaking out between the islands. Its prow rose and its bottom slammed the waves as it accelerated south toward the open water. Amanda could make out the leaping kayak motif and a single person at the helm.

  “That’s George’s boat. I’m going to call Chris.” Amanda took out her phone, and as she dialled, she scrambled to keep up with Larry’s effortless stride. The line was dead. Amanda swore as she glanced at her phone. Did she have a signal? One bar. And her battery registered ten percent.

  Goddamn! She had no power to waste on finding a signal.

  Larry had outstripped her, and she leaped recklessly over the rocks to catch up. In order to use her phone, she had let Kaylee go free, and the dog danced along the shoreline, staying close as if she sensed their apprehension.

  Bypassing the hill, Larry had circled the island to the inner shore, and soon they were standing on a reedy point, looking across a channel at a barren slab of rock. No narrow creek, no boats.

  “I think it’s the island on the other side,” he said. “We need the boat.”

  “But —”

  “We still have one engine.” He must have seen the skepticism on her face, for he gestured toward the channel. “Or we can row.”

  “Very funny.” She turned to head back to the boat. “There’s no time to waste.”

  They had heard no more cries for help from the other island, but she tried not to dwell on the implications. Once they were back in the boat, Larry putted it cautiously around the island. Across the choppy channel, he had to fight hard to keep the boat straight against the brisk crosswind, but once they reached the lee of the second island, they made faster progress. Amanda tried Chris again, and once again was met with empty air.

  “There,” Larry whispered, pointing. She followed his finger. They had reached the other side of the intervening island and now could see across a second, narrower channel to the large, forested island beyond. The turquoise boat was aground on the reedy shore. There was no sign of movement nearby, but it would be easy to hide in the shelter of the pines. By contrast, she and Larry were sitting ducks out on the water, visible from anywhere along the shore.

  She could only pray no one had a gun. As if he had the same fears, Larry revved the engine to cover the short distance to the reedy creek and rammed his boat up alongside the other. They both sat still, listening and waiting. Nothing. If anyone had noticed their arrival, no one was responding.

  Larry climbed out to inspect the other boat, which was half swamped from a jagged hole in the bow. His face was grim, but he said nothing as he turned to lead the way along the shore. He had picked up his wrench from his tool box again, small comfort against a bullet but better than nothing. As they jumped from rock to rock, Amanda kept a close eye on Kaylee, who was alert and straining forward on her leash. Her nose was twitching — their early warning system. Amanda gestured to Larry, who nodded and stepped aside to let the dog lead the way. Kaylee’s paws scrabbled on the rock as she pulled them along a granite shelf, and an anxious whine bubbled in her throat. The whine grew louder, and she fairly danced as she dragged Amanda on.

  At the base of a granite rise, the dog stopped to sniff a smear on the pale pink rock. Then another and another. Amanda touched the smear, and her fingertip came away wet and red. Her scalp prickled. Fuck. Fuck!

  Larry put his hand on her arm to hold her back then gestured for her to stay put while he went ahead, wrench in hand. She acquiesced gratefully. He was right; he was far bigger and stronger and had a weapon. Moreover, he moved with a cat-like stealth born of years roaming these rocky shores. She would only slow him down.

  She led Kaylee toward the shelter of scraggly pines while he continued on the trail of the bloodstains. Crouching down under a large bough, she tried to stifle her breathing. Kaylee was panting, and her eyes were wide with excitement as she watched Larry disappear over a ridge. Soon they were alone in the silence broken only by the swish of waves and the rustle of wind through the trees. Too alone, Amanda thought.

  She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, relieved to see two bars. She accessed her phone map, copied her coordinates, and pasted them into a text to Chris, along with a note that they had spotted both boats. Then she turned off her phone to preserve its battery and drew Kaylee deeper into the shadows to wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Chris and Matthew were weaving through the rolling hills west of Collingwood when Amanda’s text came through. According to his GPS, they were still ten minutes from his friend’s remote country home. He glanced at the text, stifling his alarm that Amanda was blundering into danger, before handing the phone to Matthew.

  “Map that location, will you? I’m going to inform Neville Standish.”

  Standish’s phone went to voicemail, and Chris was halfway through listening to his long, official preamble when Standish himself came on the line with a much more succinct “Standish!”

  Chris dispensed with preamble himself. “Amanda has a sighting,” he said. “She sent me the coordinates, and I’ll forward them to you.”

  “Gifford or Danielle?”

  “Both.”

  “Did you tell her to stay clear?”

  “I didn’t talk to her. She sent a text.”

  “Where are you?”

  Chris looked at the map Matthew had pulled up. “We can be in the area in half an hour.” Not quite, but good enough to keep him in the game.

  “Who’s we?”

  Chris paused. Glanced at Matthew. Standish would go apeshit. “I meant me. The plane and me.”

  “Get on the phone and tell her to get the hell out of the way. You too. I want that area cleared so we can move in.”

  “Where are you?”

  “We’re everywhere, Tymko! Now if you get out of our way and let me notify Incident Command —”

  In the background, Chris heard Standish on the radio, reporting the latest intel. He suppressed his impatience. Precious minutes were being lost. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. I can do a flyover and report back what I see.”

  Standish came back on the line. “And spook them while you’re at it? Drive them deeper underground?”

  “My friend’s plane has no official markings. I’ll just be one more rich cottager heading up to their island.”

  A muttered string of curses followed by a pause. “Look, Tymko, things just got a whole lot more serious. The post-mortem on Ronny revealed that he hit his head on a rock in a fall, which could have been accidental, but he died of exposure. Traces of dirt were found in his lungs, meaning he was still alive when he was buried. Probably unconscious, but alive. Forensics is trying to pull DNA from the clothes and the shoes and — if we’re lucky — finger­prints, but as of now, Ronny’s death is officially a homicide. And one of the people your girlfriend is looking for did it.”

  Chris fought the jolt of fear that shot up his spine. “All the more reason to —”

  “To get the hell out. And get off this phone and tell your girlfriend to get the hell out!”

  “Will do,” Chris replied humbly.

  “And update me as soon as you’re both clear.”

  Chris signed off. Matthew had been studying the GPS map, and now he glanced at Chris. “He’s pissed.”

  C
hris shrugged. There was no time to explain. He punched in Amanda’s number and listened with growing frustration as it rang and rang. “Amanda, don’t do this to me!” He tossed the phone at Matthew as he swerved right onto a narrower road. “You keep trying while I turn up the gas.”

  Rocketing through the country roads, he arrived at his friend’s estate in five minutes. He barely registered the expanse of manicured lawn, the ornamental gardens, and the cluster of buildings along the shore as he focussed on the single-engine Beaver bobbing off the main dock. A tall, ramrod-straight man with a white buzz cut and spindly legs strode up as Chris skidded to a stop near the dock. Greetings were kept to a minimum as Chris introduced Vince Sutherland, and within minutes they were all bent over the electronic navigational chart in the man’s luxury boathouse. They punched in Amanda’s coordinates and then studied the red dot buried deep within a dense maze of islands.

  “That’s in the middle of Massassauga Provincial Park,” Vince said. “It’s a maze of bays, islands, and dead-end inlets. Without a detailed map and excellent navigational skills, you could wander around in there for days.”

  Chris stared at the map with dismay. “How do you even get in there?”

  “There’s one land access point, here at Pete’s Place.” Vince pointed to a long, squiggly line through the forest off the highway. “From there, it’s by boat.”

  Chris traced his finger over the maze of straits and inlets leading out from Pete’s Place. “Fuck, the cops will never get in there!” he muttered. “Coming by road from Parry Sound to this access point, dragging their boat trailers and search gear, it’ll take them at least an hour just to get on the water! But coming in from the lake, even if they have the best navigational apps, they’re going to have to crawl through these shoals.”

  Because he’d done numerous searches by plane over forest and water, he also knew how impossible it would be to spot one tiny boat among the acres and acres of rocks, trees, and silver ribbons of water. Yet the air search was his best hope, and Neville Standish be damned.