I squirmed uncomfortably. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. “Look, you seem like a nice guy.” I was surprised to find I almost believed that. “But I’m just not the type to go snooping around a commune full of criminal types with somebody I don’t know. And I have somewhere I have to be tonight, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Was that your boyfriend on the phone earlier?”
My face grew hot. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m married, remember?”
“You should have a boyfriend.”
He could be right. In fact, he was right. I resolved to call Keith tomorrow after he’d cooled off and tell him I wanted to give it a try. So there. My God. I was acting like I was . . . thirteen.
“Where are you going tonight?” He was maddeningly cool.
“None of your business,” I snapped. If I’d had some gum I would have pulled a long string of it out of my mouth and twirled it around my finger.
“No, it isn’t, but I’d like to help, if I could.” Why did he have to be so nice? I thought of Ted Bundy again, so handsome and smooth—and also a serial killer.
I took a big bite of the cheeseburger and felt a glob of ketchup ooze out onto my chin. Jack grabbed a napkin and reached over, dabbing it away. His fingers brushed my jaw as he cleaned me up, and I understood what had driven Patty to want to touch him. It was all I could do not to jump over the table and beg him to put his arms around me. This was nothing like my wanting Keith to kiss me the other day—the attraction was strong and deep on some animal level and my breath caught. He wadded up the napkin and placed it under the rim of his plate, then leaned back and smiled, tucking in to his sandwich. There was that smile again that made me want to slap him, although I was afraid if I did, I’d never take my hand away from his face.
“I could go with you.”
“No!” I gulped.
“Does anybody know where you’re going?”
“Look, it’s my business, okay? I have something I have to do, that’s all. In fact, I should be going.”
“Give me your cell phone.”
“What?”
“Give me your phone. I want to program my number into it so if you need me, you can reach me.”
I considered, then gave it to him. It wasn’t a bad idea. He punched in some numbers and handed the phone back to me. “I put myself as number one on your speed dial,” he said. “All you have to do is press and hold the one key, and it will call me.”
That was presumptuous. Not that I had anybody in my speed dial, since I didn’t know how to program it myself. “Fine,” I said huffily.
I replaced the phone in my purse and pulled out my wallet. “No, no, this is on me,” he said.
“I’d like to pay for my own dinner.”
“I insist. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a woman out to dinner. Next time I’ll take you someplace nicer.”
“I own someplace nicer,” I said, and got up.
He stood up too and took my hand, looking into my eyes. “Call me if you need anything. Anything,” he emphasized. “And if Spiro doesn’t come back tomorrow, please consider going out to the farm with me and having a look around.”
I forced myself to let go of his hand. “I’ll think about it. I hope you can help Brian.”
“Me too. Be careful.”
I was certainly planning to do that. I walked down the aisle and turned my head back as I reached the door. Patty was sliding onto the seat next to Jack. Well, he was a big boy and looked like he could take care of himself.
SEVENTEEN
The sun was low on the horizon as I drove back into town. I parked at the docks at the farthest edge of the lot with my front end facing the water. The Lady Liberty II was loading for its daily sunset booze cruise on the river, and I intended to wait a decent interval after it left to make sure the docks were clear before I loaded the table onto Liza’s boat. My little blue car was as nondescript as they came. I closed my eyes and leaned back. It had been a long, long day, and there was no end in sight. I was dog tired.
Forty-five minutes later I awoke with a start. Damn! I had not intended to fall asleep. The sun had not quite set but was close to, and the big tour boat was gone. I exited the car and popped the trunk with the remote key. I maneuvered the wrapped table out with care, set it down, and closed the trunk lid. A quick scan of the parking lot and docks showed just a person here and there, no one I recognized. Hefting the table, I began the trek to Liza’s boat, which was moored down near the end of the main dock. I set my bundle down on the boards, stepped onto the Heartsong, and reached over the edge of the boat to clumsily lift the table onto the back deck. A deep pain stabbed my side, causing me to suck in a breath. A pulled muscle, no doubt, caused by my unaccustomed feat of strength. I massaged my side and turned toward the cabin doors.
“Hi, Georgie,” a thick voice said from my left.
I’d been spotted. I turned toward the speaker. It was Brenda Jones, her hands resting on a shopping cart I recognized as coming from inside the front door of the Big B Supermarket out on Route 12. It was filled with cans and bottles. She had apparently just emptied the trash can on the land side of the dock and was headed to the receptacle at the water end. Her hair, wild and frizzy, was a peculiar shade of Raggedy Ann red today. Her eyes were bloodshot, the crimson veins making the blue of each iris stand out in almost three-dimensional contrast.
“Uh, hi, Brenda. How’s it going?”
“Not too bad. I’ll have a pretty good weekend, what with all the pirates coming into town,” she said.
“Well, good luck with that.” I had to get rid of her. It was getting late. “I don’t want to keep you. It looks like you need to go empty your cart.”
“Yeah, I probably should.”
“Okay, bye, now.” I started back toward the cabin doors.
“Where you going?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you driving a boat before. Course, you were riding in a boat with Keith Morgan the other night. You know, the night you found Big Dom?” She gave me a watery wink and waited expectantly for some more information, but I didn’t give her any. “What’s that thing you’ve got all wrapped up there?”
“Brenda, did you check out in back of the Bonaparte House? I left you the returnables in the usual spot.”
A lame attempt at distraction, but it seemed to work. Or she allowed it to work. I was pretty sure there was a lot more to Bonaparte Bay’s Dumpster Diva than met the eye.
“I guess I should go before it gets too dark here. See ya, Georgie.” She pushed the cart back to shore, the wheels rattling across the boards of the dock.
I breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed the table. I took it belowdecks and stowed it inside one of the beds—what do you call those things? Berths, that was it. I fumbled around for the latch on the cabinet over the sink in the tiny kitchen and located the coffee can, which contained the set of keys Liza had promised. I fisted the keys and went back up the few stairs to the captain’s chair.
Now what? I sat down and put the key into the ignition. The engine caught on the first try. Success made me cocky. This was going to be easy—just like driving a car. I pushed the throttle forward and bumped the boat in front of me. Panicked, I pushed the throttle back, and bumped the boat in back of me. The front end of the boat (the stern? the bow? Oh, what did it matter anyway?) swung out away from the dock and pointed toward the open water. This was good! I pushed the throttle forward again and the boat refused to go anywhere, despite the engines making a lot of revving noise. Something was holding me back, so I gave it some more gas. The boat ripped free. My body jerked forward but I somehow managed to keep myself upright. Over my shoulder I saw the ropes—which I had neglected to untie—drifting on the water, tethered to a big chunk of floating wood that had been ripped away from the dock. Oops.
The boat was racing right toward a pair of big sailboats moored
out in the harbor. I tried to pull back on the throttle but that didn’t stop the forward momentum and I had to steer like an Indy 500 driver between them. I congratulated myself on making it through unscathed until I realized I was headed right for a big green buoy. My eyes closed involuntarily, then opened to see that my maneuver had been successful. I’d missed it, though I’d steered too hard to the left. The boat listed, then righted itself.
My pulse increased. This was crazy. I should have just told Detective Hawthorne everything and let people who knew what they were doing handle it, even if it meant I was under suspicion for a while. But what choice was there? Spiro and Sophie could be hurt. If all it took to ensure their safety was an old wooden table, I had to try. Of course there was no guarantee the perpetrator would honor the deal, but I had to think this was about money, plain and simple. Once I had Spiro back safely, we’d all lawyer up and present ourselves to the police.
And to add to the Top Ten List of Crazy Things Georgie Has Done, I was not wearing a life vest. I clearly needed one. I was far enough out into the main channel by now that I thought I could safely drift for a while, so I cut the engine. Where had Liza said the life jackets were? In a compartment somewhere up on the deck. I searched around in the fading light and finally lifted up a cushion just in front of the outboard engine to find a vest, which I quickly donned.
Feeling safer, I turned the engines back on and guided the boat downriver. I didn’t know how far it was to my destination, but I knew it was in this direction. There was still some dim light from what had been a spectacular sunset, and I should have just enough time to get to the small island and unload my cargo before it got totally dark. What I would do after that, I did not know, but I would worry about that later. Do boats have headlights? I wondered.
I gave the boat some gas and it accelerated. This was kind of fun. The breeze was cool and I wished I’d brought my light fleece jacket. My hair whipped back and I reached up with one hand to brush the stray strands from my eyes, which turned out to be a mistake because I narrowly missed a chunk of wood floating on the water. I didn’t know what kind of damage I’d already done to Liza’s boat, but I didn’t want to do any more. I decelerated and decided to keep both hands on the wheel.
The island shouldn’t be far downriver and should be coming up any moment now. I scanned the shore for familiar cottages to use as a guide, but the number of times I’d been out for a ride on this stunningly beautiful piece of the earth was shameful, and nothing was recognizable. I’d spent the last twenty-three summers working seven days a week, sometimes sixteen or seventeen hours a day, and I’d never made the time to get out and do anything. See anything. That was going to have to change.
I decelerated more and kept watch to my right. I was pretty sure I would not be able to miss the gaping maw that was the entrance to the cave, and it was only five or so more minutes before I saw it. I was about to cut the throttle but realized that I was coming toward the rocky shore of the island too fast, and so I decided to motor around it and make another attempt. This time I slowed the engine as low as it would go and steered the pointy front end of the boat toward the cave opening. There were some rocks on the shore but they didn’t look too big, so I cut the engine and just let the boat go forward with its own momentum until it hit land with a thud that made me jerk backward, then forward in the captain’s chair, hitting my head on the steering wheel. Damn!
The blow to my head hadn’t been that hard, and I shook it off. All in all, that had gone pretty well and a small feeling of accomplishment washed over me. Until it occurred to me to wonder how much money I was going to owe Liza in repairs.
Well, I knew a pretty good boat restorer. Once this was all over I planned to make up with Keith and see whether our friendship could go any further. He was handsome and kind and funny, and I thought maybe I could love him someday. It would be nice to be in love again. Why should my husband be the only one in love? I realized with a pang that if I didn’t get this package delivered, Spiro might not live to be in love. Panic rose again as I wondered whether whoever had him could reach across the ocean and get to Callista. I willed myself to relax. All I have to do is stick to my plan. I would deliver the table as instructed, and hope that the kidnapper would honor his end of the bargain and deliver Spiro to me.
I looked over the side of the boat. Now what? There was no dock. The bow of the boat was up on the shore, and the back end was in the water. Options included jumping over the side onto dry land, an unappealing eight-foot drop, or I could go over the back wall by the engines and get awfully wet—less appealing, but the safer alternative. I went belowdecks and brought up the wrapped table, depositing it near the engines. The water must be at least three or four feet deep based on how low the engines were riding and the sharp angle at which the boat was pitched. This was a problem, just one of many on this little adventure. How was I going to get a half-million-dollar table onto the island without soaking it? I did not have enough confidence in my wrapping job to think that it would keep out all moisture.
I looked around the boat, hoping for inspiration. A tool or implement of some kind—that was what I needed. If some Neolithic humans could figure out how to make fire, bring down mastodons, and survive the Ice Age, I could figure out how to get a table onto an island.
My first scan yielded nothing. The second time I hit the jackpot. A long pole with a hook on the end was secured to the outer wall of the boat. I undid the Velcro with a satisfying rip and awkwardly removed the pole from its bed. The pole was the telescoping kind, and it extended to about seven feet, more than adequate for my needs. I hooked the end under the ugly belt securing the shower curtain to the table, and gave a test lift. The pole bowed in the middle, but it looked like it would hold. I lifted the pole awkwardly and lowered my bundle, which had started to swing rather wildly, over the side. There didn’t seem to be any way to slow it down, since any movement I made intensified the swinging. I said a quick prayer and decided to go for it, hoping that the blanket and the shower curtain would provide enough padding if my fish decided to drop. I lowered the swinging bundle, leaning over the side of the boat. My weight caused the boat to list and I wondered whether it would tip it over, but it stopped at about a thirty-degree angle. The table now rested safely on the shore. The soft metal of the boat hook had bent into a gentle arc, and it didn’t look fixable. One more thing to replace for Liza.
Now for me. I went to the back of the boat and peered over. The water was black and weedy. I had a sudden vision of the live tank downtown that contained specimens of some of the marine life residing in the river. A sudden onset of the willies caused me to shiver. I steeled myself, opened the short door that led out onto a platform next to the engines, and jumped down into the water.
Cold and wet doesn’t begin to describe the experience. I found myself standing in water almost to my crotch. Something brushed against my leg and I choked back a scream. Snapping turtle? Muskellunge? Giant river sturgeon? The display down at the docks said those prehistoric beasties could grow to twelve feet or more and I felt a deep knot form in the pit of my stomach. You can do this, Georgie. You have to do this. I held on to the boat as much as I could to prevent being dragged down into the depths of the river by some nasty monster and made my way around to the shore, grateful beyond words when my soggy left Teva sandal reached the island. I stood for a moment to calm my breathing, difficult since I was also shivering, and made my way to the mouth of the cave.
I expected some kind of instructions, but either there weren’t any or perhaps in the fading light they just weren’t visible. I leaned around to the inside, trying to keep out of the water, although I was already wet so it didn’t matter. Still, the water might get deeper inside, and I did not want to know what might be living inside that underwater cavern. It would have been smart to bring a flashlight from the boat, but I was not going back through that cold water any more times than I had to.
A quick survey
of the island revealed that it was only about twenty by thirty feet, containing a half dozen trees and no buildings. This kidnapper must be some kind of amateur, I thought, not for the first time. The table could not be left inside the cave where it would certainly be ruined by the watery floor.
A glance at the sky told me there were only a few minutes of daylight left. I unwrapped the belt and repositioned it, lashing the table to a tree. It was pretty conspicuous, and unless the kidnapper was a complete moron, it would be hard to miss it. It was hidden by some other trees, though, so it didn’t seem to be visible from the water. I felt a momentary pang of guilt at leaving this valuable antique out to the elements, despite its being protected as well as it could be on short notice, but there was no help for it. Was rain forecast for the weekend? Sophie and Spiro were inveterate weather watchers, the weather being a pretty good predictor of what kind of business the Bonaparte House would do. The table should be all right as long as the guy showed up soon. I’d e-mail him when I got back home and tell him where to find it.
I surveyed my handiwork and double-checked the plastic to make sure it was as tight and weatherproof as possible. Time to get back home and wait. I headed back toward the boat, stepping over the rocks and fallen branches. A squirrel ran in front of me. These islands were full of wildlife, which made its way across the ice during the winter from the mainland. This island was quite small, though, and wouldn’t support anything much larger than my little friend, so at least I didn’t have to worry about being eaten by a bear or crushed by a moose. I reached the shore where I had disembarked.
No Heartsong.
My eyes strained in the darkness. No boat. I did not have the best sense of direction, but I had not gotten turned around and gone to the wrong side of the island. There was the entrance to the cave, and I was certain that that was where I’d left it. A brilliant white moon had risen and begun to cast its light over the river. There, about twenty yards offshore and drifting peacefully along like a ghost ship in a pirate movie, was my boat. Liza’s boat. Which I had neglected to tie off.
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