“Amanda!” The urgent bellow rose from the trees and echoed across the granite shores. Larry! Holding tight to Kaylee, Amanda ducked out of her hiding spot and hurried toward the sound. She leaped over crevices and scrambled up lichen-encrusted rocks. Soon she spotted Larry in the distance, bent over a prostrate figure sprawled on the rocks. Amanda’s breath caught. Not again. Not again!
Larry had stripped off his shirt and was pressing it to the injured person’s head. The body was too big to be Danielle or her son. Fernando? Had George attacked him and left him for dead? Had he taken off with Danielle and her boy? If so, why? And where?
Only once she was ten feet away, staring at his bloody face, did she recognize the downed man. Larry wiped his bloodstained hands on his pants and looked up.
“He’s alive. Bad, but alive.”
“George!”
Larry nodded. “Looks like he was hit by buckshot. Grazed his temple. They bleed like a bitch, but it might not be as bad as it looks.”
Her gaze shifted to the open channel, where they had seen George’s boat moments ago. “Then …”
“They took his boat.”
Amanda knelt at George’s side and did her own brief check of his vital signs. His pulse was steady but weak. Judging from the blood pooling around him and oozing over the rock, he’d lost a lot of blood. She turned on her phone, grateful to see a signal but dismayed by the fading battery. She had to make every moment count.
Larry was already fishing out his VHF radio. “You call in the emergency,” she said, “911 or the marine OPP. I’ll call Chris.”
As she was punching in his number, George’s eyes fluttered open. “Chris!” she cried the instant she heard his voice. Never had a sound been sweeter!
“Amanda! Where —”
“No time, Chris. No battery. They hurt George and took his boat. Heading southwest into the open channel. Look for his boat!”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes, yes. We’re calling for help —” Her phone beeped and powered off. Damn. She took a deep breath. Surely the message was enough. Chris and the police could take it from there.
George was shaking his head weakly. “Danielle,” he murmured.
Amanda bent over him and checked his pulse again. Still steady. “What about Danielle? Did she do this?”
He kept shaking his head. “Not important. Kaitlyn. You’ve got to help her.”
“Kaitlyn is safe. Don’t worry. She’ll get the help she needs in Toronto. George, we have to get you to hospital.”
Larry reappeared at their side with a grunt. “We’re meeting the coast guard at a marina en route to Parry Sound. It will save time. You keep the pressure on the wound, and I’ll bring my boat around.”
“We shouldn’t move him, Larry. Not without a back board and neck brace.”
He gave his crooked little smile. “Don’t worry, I have a plan. I’ll fix the prop too.”
As she watched him disappear over the ridge, she became aware of George plucking her sleeve weakly. “No. No!” Spittle formed on his lips in his struggle to speak. “Kaitlyn has disappeared!”
“Where?”
“From rehab. Janine called me. Thought I took her away, because I asked Frankie to talk to her …” He paused to catch his breath. “But she ran away.”
“Do you know where?”
He lifted one shoulder. “In the city? Looking for drugs?”
He was straining to explain. She was so concerned about his agitation that she almost missed a crucial part of George’s message. Janine had called.
“Do you have a phone, George?”
“In … in my jacket.”
She rummaged until she retrieved the phone. Fortunately, it had fifty percent battery power. As she started to dial Chris, George clutched her arm again. “Call Janine! Find out about Kaitlyn.”
“George, we need to get you to the hospital. Don’t tire yourself. The Toronto police will find Kaitlyn.”
“No! Janine won’t call them.” He shut his eyes as if to gather his strength. She waved blackflies from his face. “The publicity … Janine doesn’t want to truth to come …”
“What truth?”
“About Benson. About the drugs. Call her!” His eyes fluttered shut, and this time they didn’t open again. Alarmed, Amanda checked his pulse again and felt its steady beat beneath her fingers. She laid her jacket over him before turning on his phone and accessing recent calls. Janine was the last call, received an hour ago. Amanda pressed the number and waited through half a dozen rings before Janine’s voice blasted over the line.
“What, George? There’s no fucking news!”
“Janine, it’s Amanda Doucette.”
Stunned silence, then a steel calm voice, as if Janine had pulled herself back from the brink. “Amanda, I haven’t time for a chat. Where’s George?”
“He’s been attacked, and I don’t have time to chat either. I know Kaitlyn has run away. What does she have to do with any of this?”
“Any of what?”
“Benson’s death. The drug cover-up.”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
“There are killers out there, and if she’s run away —”
“Kaitlyn doesn’t have anything to do with it! She’s fourteen years old!”
Amanda switched tacks. “Don’t you realize she could be in danger? What if the killer figures out she knows something?”
Silence.
Amanda pressed on. “She does know something about the night Benson died, doesn’t she? She knows how he got the drugs. Maybe she supplied them.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Maybe you supplied them.”
“Stay out of it, you meddling bitch! You and George and that freak Frankie! Give us some privacy.”
Amanda felt a spike of anger. The girl was fourteen years old. Whatever had happened, Janine’s first instinct was to protect her own ass. “Is that it? I know you have some pretty wild parties up there, and who knows what’s in drugs these days.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
Amanda’s anger swept her on. She studied the pale, still figure before her. He was breathing evenly, but she knew head injuries could go south in a minute. How many decent, honest people were going to get caught up in Janine’s toxic world? Keep her talking, she thought as she scanned the shore for Larry’s reassuring figure.
“Then why don’t you hang up? Because you want to know what I know. He used your money to buy her a house — your nanny, who you thought was your own perfect slave — and all the while …”
Janine barked a harsh laugh. “Benson was a fool! He got his payback, but not from me.”
Amanda held her breath. Had something broken loose from Janine’s wall of secrecy? “From who?”
“Who do you think? I’ve been saying it all along. She’s no innocent; she’s got a university degree, for fuck’s sake, and all kinds of medical certifications. Drugs would be a piece of cake for her. But nobody wants to see that tiny little girl as anything but a victim of us big, bad, rich people. Well, she’s playing you all.”
With that salvo, she finally did hang up, leaving Amanda wondering who was playing whom. She looked back down at George, who lay so still. She leaned over to check his vitals and shook him gently.
“George, stay with me. George!”
He moaned.
“Talk to me, George. Who did this to you? Danielle? Fernando?”
He opened his eyes but stared into nothingness. At that moment Kaylee growled. In the distance, deep in the woods, leaves crunched. Amanda stood up to stare. She saw nothing but sensed that eyes were watching her. She shivered. Get a grip, Doucette. Where the hell was Larry? How long did it take to fix a propeller?
She took George’s cold hands in hers. Rubbing them, she leaned down to whisper in his ear. “George, I promise I’ll find out about Kaitlyn. Don’t worry.”
The man was ashen and looked worn out. But he licked his lips and found the st
rength to speak. “Save her.”
Still using his phone, Amanda dialled Matthew. He answered with a cautious, clipped “Goderich.” Only when he heard her voice did his warm enthusiasm flood in. Quickly she brought him up to date and asked whether Chris or the police had any news on the search for Danielle and Fernando.
“Not yet. Chris and I are about to take off. But the cops know,” he said. “Stay out of their way, Amanda.”
“Oh, I will. Larry and I are taking George back to the Parry Sound hospital.”
“Why the hell don’t you call the EMS!” he exclaimed. “That’s what they’re there for.”
“We did. We’re just saving time. Larry knows the way out of these treacherous shoals better than anyone, so we’re meeting them en route. Matthew, don’t argue with me! I’m glad you haven’t left yet. I need you to do something else for me.”
“What?” His tone changed from frustrated to focussed.
“Kaitlyn has apparently gone on the lam in Toronto.”
“Kaitlyn? I thought she was in a hospital bed up in Parry Sound.”
“No, Janine had her moved to a private rehab facility in Toronto.”
There was a pause. Over the phone, she could hear a revving engine and distant male voices. “Are you saying you want me to find her?” Matthew asked.
Kaylee growled again. She was standing rigidly now, her gaze fixed on the woods and her hackles raised. Amanda gripped the phone tightly. Where the hell was Larry? “Janine refuses to involve the cops, but you can poke around. Find out where a fourteen-year-old Rosedale kid on the run would go to look for drugs.”
“Amanda, there are dozens of street corners!”
She shuddered. “No, I think she’d try to contact one of her sources. Maybe Julio. And that could be bad news, because Julio may be involved in this. He might even have tried to kill her once.”
She could sense his reluctance over the phone. She was asking a lot of him to chase after drug dealers and killers. If he poked the wrong hornets’ nest … on the other hand, he’d been poking hornets’ nests for decades.
“I still think the cops ought to be called,” he said.
The trees behind her rustled. She whirled around and saw a pine bough shift. Kaylee barked. “I gotta go. Do what you think is right. But I think you can be much more effective using your contacts in Toronto than flying five hundred feet over miles of wilderness.” With that, she hung up just as a figure stepped through the trees. Short, slender, wearing a black hoodie pulled tight to escape the bugs. In his hand was a battered old shotgun.
Fernando.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Their eyes locked. His expression was inscrutable, but the gun twitched at his side. Amanda tamped down all signs of fear as she rose to face him. Kaylee ran forward, barking.
“Fernando” was on the tip of Amanda’s tongue before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to know who he was. Play dumb, she told herself as she called Kaylee back and tried for her friendliest tone.
“Hello. This man is hurt. Can you help me?”
He looked at George, who lay unconscious and motionless on the rock. “He is dead?” he asked in strongly accented English.
“No, but badly hurt.”
His gaze softened, becoming almost pleading. “I am lost. You have a boat?”
Once again her mind raced. What was the safest answer? He could be a killer, and if so, he’d shoot her to steal her boat without a moment’s hesitation.
“You have no boat?” she countered.
“Broken.” He gestured down the shore. As he approached, she saw he was bloody from scratches and insect bites. One eye was nearly swollen shut. Despite the gun in his hand, he didn’t look anything like a killer.
But then again, neither did Danielle.
As he approached, she tried not to stare at the gun. She tried instead to hold his gaze. He laid the gun down and knelt at George’s side. “He is bad. You have a phone?” He mimicked calling for help.
She edged over, trying to get between him and the gun. Once again she sidestepped the question adroitly. “My name is Amanda. What’s yours?”
“Fernando.”
“Are you all by yourself out here?”
He nodded, and to her surprise, tears welled in his eyes. “My wife leave in boat. Take my son.”
“She left you out here?” She allowed incredulity into her voice.
He nodded, a single tear spilling.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “She say get help.” He dropped his gaze as if he couldn’t meet hers. Either he was hiding something, or his English wasn’t up to a complex explanation. Although English was widely spoken in the Philippines, his wife’s mastery of it seemed far greater than his. Janine had said she had a university degree. Another wedge between them?
Amanda nudged the gun aside surreptitiously with her toe. She remembered Danielle had been rescued from the water without a single possession. “Does she have any money?”
Still he didn’t meet her gaze, and his reply was barely audible. “She take … she take man’s wallet.”
Would she be fool enough to try the credit card? Danielle struck her as anything but a fool. Amanda gestured to George. “Did she do this?”
“No! The gun bang, accident.” He seemed to warm to his story. “My wife was afraid. Run away.”
“What was she afraid of?”
He searched for words or perhaps a plausible lie. “A bear? Hurt my son?”
“And she left you all alone with this bear?”
He gestured to the gun. “She left me the gun.”
She knew he couldn’t have brought it into the country, and he’d had little time to go gun shopping. It was a long, heavy shotgun, old enough to be antique, so possibly it had been stolen from one of the empty cottages along the way. She tried for a friendly, nonthreatening tone. “Where are you from, Fernando?”
“Philippines. But stay in Canada now.”
“You’re a long way from home. Where were you going, out here on the lake?”
“To Toronto. My wife have a house in Toronto.”
“But she left you here.”
“No. Get help.”
Amanda bent to check George’s pulse again. He was getting colder, and his pallor had taken on a bluish tinge. She called Kaylee over to lie at his side, and she took off her fleece to place on top of him, leaving her shivering in her T-shirt. Jesus, Larry, where are you? In the silence she heard the low growl of a boat. Thank God! To distract Fernando, she pressed on. “I don’t understand how this man was shot by accident.”
“He is shouting at us. Running. We lift the gun up, try to stop him. It go bang.” He pantomimed the scene of holding the gun against an assault.
It was a stretch. Credible, but only just. She allowed herself a look of skepticism. “It sounds more like he ran toward you and you shot him.”
Fernando’s eyes grew wide and he recoiled from her. “No, no! Accident!”
The low growl had stopped. Amanda uttered a silent plea. Was that Larry? “Was it you or your wife who shot him?”
He still stared in horror, once again seemed to weigh the best answer. “My … my wife.”
It could have happened that way, or he could be changing his story to cast blame on the wife who had run off on him.
It occurred to her that although she knew almost nothing about either of them, Danielle was the stronger of the two. She was the one who had gone overseas to support the family, endured years of mistreatment, and fought so fiercely to get a home and papers for the husband and son. Fernando was crumbling under the first real threat he had faced.
“You have a boat?” he asked again, and this time before she had decided on an answer, she saw Larry striding up over the ridge, leaping from one granite slab to the next. In his arms he carried a coil of rope, an emergency blanket, and two long planks. Floorboards from the boat?
A spasm of panic raced across Fernando’s face before he broke into a broad grin. “Larry!�
�� he cried.
The big man’s face relaxed. Fernando rushed forward, babbling in Tagalog what sounded like a prayer of thanks. “I am lost. Your boat is broken.”
Larry nodded, his gaze flitting from Fernando to Amanda, who had dived to pick up the gun. “Everything okay here?”
With a shiver, Amanda hefted the gun’s cold, alien weight and broke it open. Empty. She breathed a sigh of relief and only then looked over at Larry. “It is now. But we have to get George to hospital right away. Fernando here says his wife and son took George’s boat.”
Larry looked alarmed. “Does she know how to drive it?”
“Somewhat,” Amanda replied, remembering how Danielle had swamped her escape boat earlier. “Where’s our boat?”
“Just over the rise.” Larry frowned. “Why did she take off?”
“It’s not clear,” Amanda said. “It’s also not clear how George got hurt.”
Larry bent at George’s side to check his carotid pulse. His frown of worry deepened. “We’ll leave that to the cops. Let’s stabilize his back and neck and get him to the boat fast.”
Careful to move him as little as possible, the three of them wrapped him, eased him onto the planks, and lashed his head, chest, and legs with rope. Larry lifted his upper body and Fernando his lower. The injured man was lean but solid, and the Filipino staggered under his weight. Setting down the gun, Amanda moved to help Fernando, and together they inched their way over the uneven rock and down into the narrow crevice where Larry had secured the boat. When they laid him out on the padded bench, Kaylee leaped in beside him and nuzzled him like an anxious mother.
The waves bumped the boat against the rocks, and George’s face contorted with pain. At least he’s aware of pain, Amanda thought as she stuffed extra cushions around him. “We’ve got to get moving,” she said.
Fernando hovered. “You take me with you?”
“Sure,” said Larry. “Hop in.”
“No,” Amanda countered, the words out of her mouth before she’d even thought about it. Both Larry and Fernando looked at her in surprise. “I’m sorry, Fernando. George has to come first. I don’t know how he got hurt —”
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