White Wedding

by Jean Barrett

  When the shoulder of the bluff was well behind them, they paused and looked back. High on the cliff the signal fire still blazed dramatically against the nighttime sky. As they turned away, facing their destination, its brightness was rivaled by the arrival of the bloodred moon sliding over the horizon of the mainland.

  Its appearance concerned Jack. “We need to pick up our speed.”

  She didn’t argue with him as they resumed their trek, but their accelerated pace bothered her. It increased the risk of the danger she feared most—tumbling into open water before they had time to know it was even there. On the other hand, the moonlight aided them to keep a true course.

  The glowing disk, climbing higher in the sky, faded to a pale gold. It cast a shimmering radiance over the white plain of the ice, emphasizing the surreal quality of the scene.

  There was no sign of their enemy. Where was he?

  Nothing moved on the vast surface, but the stillness, Lane thought nervously, did not lead to silence. The ice was a living thing, and it demonstrated its awesome force in a symphony of sound. Creaking, snapping, groaning under immense pressures she didn’t want to imagine.

  “Are you all right?” Jack asked, as if sensing her mounting tension.

  She wasn’t, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Yes.”

  They went on.

  They must have been nearly a mile from the island when the explosion occurred. At least, it seemed like an explosion to Lane, though in reality it was more like the booming of thunder.

  She came to an alarmed standstill.

  “It’s all right,” he tried to assure her. “It’s just the ice shifting against itself.”

  But it wasn’t all right. Not for her. She knew the same panic Stuart had experienced earlier. That overwhelming helplessness she had felt as a child when she had lost her playmate.

  “Jack, I can’t!” she pleaded. “I just can’t do this!”

  “Yes, you can,” he urged. “Look.” He struck off ahead of her, stomping heavily on the surface to convince her of its firmness. When he was several yards in front, he turned to face her. “See. It’s still solid, hard as rock.”

  He stood there waiting for her. Long seconds passed as she willed herself to join him. She started to shuffle forward, and the rumbling came again. This time with drastic results.

  The ice between them parted with the swiftness of lightning. It went on spreading before either of them could move, seeming to carry them away from each other. When it slowed and stopped there was a dark river of water between them, a gap that stretched endlessly in both directions.

  Jack looked behind him. She saw it, too. Another river had opened out there. This one also went on forever. He was trapped on a band of ice between the two streams.

  Appalled by the situation, Lane could do nothing but stare at him. Jack, equally shocked, moved cautiously to the lip of the breach that separated them. She watched hopefully as his lowered gaze measured the distance.

  There was regret in his eyes when they finally sought hers across the black width. “It’s no use,” he said. “It’s too wide for me to jump.”

  No question of his swimming the chasm, either. Both of them knew that immersing himself in those frigid waters would mean certain death.

  “I’m sorry, Lane. I thought we could make it.”

  “There must be something we can try!”

  “There is,” he said calmly. “You have to go back. You have to hide yourself on the island and promise me that you’ll survive until help comes.”

  Abandon him and save herself? Never! She wasn’t going to give up on him or let him give up. That meant she had to defeat her phobia with whatever fierce, massive effort it required. But that wasn’t enough to help him. She also had to be resourceful.

  “Lane,” he insisted, “don’t wait. Go before something on your side splits open.”

  She searched her mind for a solution, and necessity provided one. “I am going,” she informed him, “and I’ll be back with a plank. There must be one of them long enough in that driftwood that was in front of us when we were sitting on the shore.”

  “Lane, no! You’d never manage to carry something that size out here.”

  “Then I’ll drag it. Whatever it takes.”

  Before he could argue with her again, she had turned and was speeding back the way they had come. Sheer determination carried her through the alien night. This time she didn’t permit herself to worry about the precarious ice or that she could be offering herself as a clear target for their enemy. Fear wouldn’t help her with her purpose. Nothing would help but a single-minded concentration on saving the man she loved.

  It was this obstinacy that, minutes later, brought her safely to the shore. And it was the same stubbornness that wouldn’t let her quit until she located in the piles of driftwood a plank that she judged long enough to bridge the gap.

  It would have been a relief at this point to simply seize the timber and race to the rescue with her burden. But the challenge was more difficult than that. The plank was frozen to the beach and had to be pried loose, then its thick, twenty-foot length borne for the distance of nearly a mile across the scarred ice.

  Lane was to wonder afterward how she managed to overcome the impossible. She had heard that in certain crises, particularly involving endangered loved ones, people seemed to find extraordinary physical strength that didn’t exist in normal circumstances. It must be true, she thought, because she could never have repeated that endeavor. But then and there she did achieve it—freeing the plank, grasping its front end in both arms and trotting with it across the rough ice as its tail bumped along behind her.

  All the way back she prayed that in her absence there had been no further fractures to create new barriers or that the gap between her and Jack hadn’t widened. But the ice was mercifully silent this time. She was close to the separation before she observed its only change. The black river had filled with cake ice, the bobbing chunks foaming and grinding against each other ominously.

  Jack, from the other side, watched in awe and admiration as she approached, the cumbersome plank bouncing along behind her.

  “My God, you did it!”

  “So far,” she agreed breathlessly, arriving on the edge. “Now we have to figure out how I’m going to shoot it across to you without losing it, while praying that it’s long enough. Suggestions?”

  “Any chance of your upending it and dropping it over?”

  “Piece of cake.”

  It wasn’t. It required a considerable struggle to raise the top-heavy plank to a vertical position, then lower it to his side. Jack was there to catch his end while she steadied hers. There were only scant inches to spare when the timber was finally in position.

  Lane watched anxiously as he balanced himself on the narrow bridge, then began to creep across its sagging, creaking length. If he fell or the plank snapped... But she wouldn’t permit herself to seriously consider either possibility. Instead, she silently willed him to safely reach her.

  He did seconds later, wrapping his arms around her gratefully. Lane pressed against him in relief, all the strength she had summoned for this emergency draining away from her.

  “Remind me to tell you in detail,” he promised, his voice husky with emotion, “just how amazing you are.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  But not now, she thought. Now it was imperative that they leave the area before they were trapped on another ice floe.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he took her by the hand and drew her in the direction of the island.

  “No chance of our reaching the mainland now,” he said grimly. “All we can do is avoid him. If we can last until daybreak, maybe help will get here.”

  He has to be out there hunting us, Lane thought. But there had been no sign of their enemy since they had left the island.

  “Do we hide in the woods?”

  “Let’s try something else,” he said. “We’ll stick to the ice for now, keep
as far out from shore as it seems safe to do while we work our way around the island to the other side.”

  She realized that he had a destination in mind, but she felt too tired to question him. All her energy seemed to have left her. It was enough to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  The moon, mounting toward its zenith, was now a cold, haunting silver. It revealed just how insecure and unpredictable the ice had become. Far off to the right, out in the depths they had put behind them, they could glimpse black patches that indicated other stretches of open water. Lane shivered, wanting to get off the ice altogether.

  He knew, she thought. The killer knew that two days of that wind would stress the ice, induce a breakup. That was why he had been so certain that Jack and Stuart hadn’t left the island, that none of them could go anywhere. Stuart! Had the teenager drowned in his panicked effort to reach the other side, or was there a chance that he’d made it? It didn’t seem likely.

  Lane’s steps were dragging now. “How much farther?” she wondered.

  “Almost there,” he promised. “Hold on just a little longer.”

  They were rounding the point now below the dock. She could see the offshore breakwater cradling the rotting shipwreck among its enormous boulders.

  “It’s the breakwater we’re going to, isn’t it?”

  “Seems like the best place for us to make a last stand,” he said as they neared the bulwark. “We’ve got the rocks to shelter behind and an open view on all sides. No chance of a surprise from the island. And if before morning the ice should move out between the beach and the breakwater, so much the better. We get a nice stretch of cold water to protect us.”

  It was a solid plan. Except for one fatal flaw. Their enemy had anticipated it.

  He must have been lying low just behind the top of the wall, watching their progress the whole time. Waiting for them to reach him before he struck.

  They were at the foot of the breakwater when the white demon suddenly loomed above them on the rocks. He was a chilling sight with his rifle gleaming in the moonlight, its lethal barrel instantly holding them captive.

  “Welcome back to Thunder Island,” he greeted them softly.

  His voice was pleasant, no longer disguised by harshness. She could recognize it now, though it wasn’t necessary. He had peeled away his ski mask, revealing the smiling face of Judge Dan Whitney.

  Lane, rocked by his appearance, felt Jack crowd against her protectively. They were about to die, and she could think nothing but, regretfully, There won’t be any chance now to tell him how much I love him.

  In the next second she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. There was a shadowy figure slowly, carefully emerging from an open hatch of the nearby ship- wreck. Stuart, she realized with a sudden thrill of hope. It had to be Stuart. Like them, he must have been forced back by the open waters, taken refuge deep inside the abandoned vessel and been huddling there in terror all this time. Was he trying to escape from the scene, or had he decided to help them?

  Lane made every effort not to register surprise or excitement. She felt Jack stiffen beside her and knew that he, too, was aware of the furtive activity just to the right and slightly back from their captor.

  Dan Whitney had to be kept distracted.

  “What happens when we’re all dead?” Jack challenged. “You can’t get away from the island now any more than we could. That leaves you here with all the bodies. No one alive but you and maybe Chris Beaver. How are you going to explain that, Your Honor?”

  Dan’s grin was vile, mocking. “Oh, but I’m not going to be here. I left the island to get help, remember? Lost my way in the whiteout conditions. Ended up sheltering in a fishing shanty. That’s where they’ll find me, suffering from a gun wound in my leg inflicted by a militant Indian who went on a rampage.”

  Lane kept her gaze averted from the figure creeping silently along the deck toward scattered chunks of ice that were the size and hardness of rocks. She helped Jack to maintain the diversion. “That fishing shanty may be waiting for you out in the bay, but you’ll never get to it. There’s too much open water now.”

  “I think I’ll manage. I know too much about the island and the bay here not to. There’s a shoal around the bend there. Runs to a reef about a half mile out. Good safe spot for an ice-fishing shanty. And what do you know. No matter what happens in the deep water, the ice all along there never breaks up until spring. Lucky for me that’s where I’ll end up.”

  Stuart was among the ice chunks now on the deck, only short yards away. When he lifted his head, the moonlight caught the expression on his young face. His features were pale and tense, revealing the monumental effort it was costing him to overcome the fear he hated in himself. Lane willed him to find the necessary determination.

  “It won’t do you any good,” Jack responded, defying Dan Whitney. “If we figured out what you did, others will, too.”

  “Yes, there will be questions, but nothing I can’t handle. Because it will be my word, the word of a respected local judge, against an Indian who’s already been in trouble with the law. Who do you think they’ll believe is capable of a massacre?”

  “You’ll have to find Chris first to use him,” Lane taunted him. “And I don’t think you can.”

  “No more stalling.” The rifle stirred restlessly in his hands. Now, Lane pleaded silently to Stuart, whose hand had closed on a hunk of ice. Now, before it’s too late.

  As if he’d heard and understood her, the teenager rose onto his knees, drew back and hurled the ice at the figure on the ridge. The well-aimed shot struck the target on his shoulder, throwing him off-balance for those few precious seconds Jack needed to deliver his own assault.

  Launching himself from the ice, he grabbed Whitney by the ankles and yanked him off his feet. The rifle swung in a wild arc and fired blindly. Lane felt a searing sensation along the side of her thigh and realized she had been hit.

  The next thing she knew she was sitting weakly on the ice, her leg throbbing. Dan was sprawled on the rocks, dazed from a smashing blow to his head. Stuart, proud of his newfound courage, was guarding him with the rifle. And Jack was crouching beside her.

  “You’re hit,” he said viciously. “The bastard hit you.”

  “Not seriously, but it stings like the devil. Stuart,” she called to the teenager, “you were wonderful.”

  The youth grinned in pleasure while keeping the rifle trained on their captive.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” Jack crooned, his arms going around Lane. “I’ll get you back to the lodge. I’ll take care of you. It’s over. It’s all over now, and we’re safe.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Teddy Brewster?” Lane thought about the question for a moment before she answered the petite journalist leaning toward her earnestly. “No, Dan didn’t know the florist was there that night. He thought the island was deserted after Nils left and that he had the place to himself. But Teddy had to be the first to die because he not only caught Dan with the arsenal of weapons he’d brought, he heard him talking on the phone, stalling the developer.”

  Marsha Goldman bent over her notebook, scribbling key phrases. “The developer was offering a huge sum for the island, wasn’t he?”

  Lane regarded the dark-haired young woman with what she hoped was a patient expression. She wasn’t feeling patient at all. Inwardly, she was seething with frustration. Where was Jack? He was all that she could think about, all that she wanted. But Jack had vanished following the turmoil of their arrival at the county hospital in Sturgeon Bay. She had no idea how or why.

  “Yes, it was Dan’s motive for the murders,” she answered the waiting reporter, knowing this was something she could explain now that everything had been sorted out and Dan Whitney was locked away. “The island originally belonged to Dan’s father, who got himself in debt. His brother, Allison’s father, helped him in exchange for the island. That’s how Dan lost what he regarded as his birthright.”

  �
�And he was bitter about that,” Marsha guessed.

  “Yes, but he kept it to himself because he was Allison’s only family, and she intended to will the island back to him. Then two things happened that created a volatile situation. Sorry, I’m going too fast for you.” She was eager to end this session so she could ask about Jack. Someone in the hospital must know what had happened to him.

  “No, I’m getting it all. Go on,” the reporter urged.

  “Dan was as poor a gambler as his father had been and ended up needing funds. It was about this time that Allison decided to sell Thunder Island. It had gotten to be too much to maintain. Also, she was afraid that if Dan did inherit he wouldn’t preserve the property.”

  “Which she was right about,” Marsha observed.

  “Exactly. But she didn’t want to cheat her cousin out of his inheritance, so she promised him that all the profits of the sale would go to him. She was livid when she heard about this developer who was offering an enormous sum for the island. She insisted the island go to the state, because they would protect it. Dan had no choice but to accept her decision. Allison forgave him and said it was just between the two of them and something that didn’t need to be mentioned again.”

  “Leaving Judge Whitney still desperate to get his hands on the big money.”

  “He was determined to stop Allison from finalizing the sale of the property to the state with its much lower offer. If something happened to her before then, the island went to him without restrictions.”

  “And so,” Marsha prompted, “when she planned to hold her wedding on the island...”

  “He saw his opportunity and began to arrange his scheme.” Lane shifted on her chair to make her bandaged leg more comfortable.

  “Is that hurting?” the reporter asked in concern.

  “No, it’s fine. Just a surface wound, and they tell me it’s already mending nicely.”

  “I don’t want to tire you. Not when you were good enough to volunteer for this session.”

  Lane didn’t bother to correct her. The truth was, she had been drafted when Marsha Goldman had begged for a firsthand account of the terrifying weekend. None of the other survivors had chosen to be available to join the reporter in the small, vacant office the hospital had provided for the interview.