by Penny McCall
“Jackpot,” he said.
“There’s a boat in that tent?” Norah followed down the dock. A square metal structure had been erected beside the dock, white canvas covering the portion of the posts about a foot above the surface of the lake. Inside the tent a boat was suspended from the top of the frame. The boat was maybe fifteen feet from end to end, completely open with a semicircle of seats at the rear and a pair of swivel seats behind the windshield at the front. “It’s pretty small.”
“We don’t have far to go,” Trip said, “it’ll do the job.”
Norah glanced at the white-capped expanse of water, then back at the boat. “It looks like the waves will be higher than the sides of the boat.”
“Have a little faith,” Trip said.
He jumped into ankle-deep water at the shallow end of the tent, and began to turn a crank that lowered the boat slowly toward the water.
“You do that, and I’ll start praying,” Norah said.
Trip continued to crank, and in the end the possibility of what they might find was stronger than Norah’s fear of the waves. Or maybe, she thought as she climbed into the boat without an argument, she was foolishly overconfident in Trip’s abilities, but it just didn’t seem like anything could go wrong . . . Okay, things had gone wrong, but not in a mortal injury way. And she was wearing a life preserver. It smelled like it had been soaking in mildew for a year, but if she went over the side she wasn’t going to care. Once Trip had parked the motorcycle inside the garage with the miraculously broken door lock, they located some gas, the boat was underway, and the wind was blowing, she couldn’t smell anything. She couldn’t feel anything, either, but she’d spent two days on the back of Trip’s Harley in the frigid wind, so being numb was hardly new.
“We’re almost there,” Trip said to her not much later.
Norah lifted her head out of the neck of her jacket and looked over the front of the boat, then stuck her face back into her collar again. One sight of Waugoshance Lighthouse was enough.
The lighthouse sat at the western end of a shoal stretching seven miles from the Michigan shoreline westward into Lake Michigan. The shoal consisted of a series of shallowly submerged gravel beds dotted with low, weed and evergreen-covered islands that appeared and disappeared depending on the water level of the lake. Waugoshance had warned ships off the shoal for the last half of the nineteenth century and the first dozen or so years of the twentieth, at which time it was replaced.
It had sat abandoned and derelict for nearly a hundred years. Its metal skin was peeling away, the stone structure beneath crumbling, the birdcage light at the top nothing but the curved metal framework that gave it its name. It was, however, stationary and it offered shelter from the wind.
Trip nosed the boat in as close as he could, then jumped out on the lowest course of stones in the lighthouse’s base and tied off. He helped Norah out of the boat, then jumped back in, handing her their bags and scavenging beneath the seats. He joined her, his arms full of stuff, including a toolbox and a first aid kit.
“What’s all that?”
“Everything I could find,” Trip said. “You never know what you’re going to need.”
“We need to get our butts up to the top of the lighthouse,” Norah said. “Before the whole place washes away.”
They made their way up the stairs, careful of the crumbling redbrick walls and the debris already covering the risers.
“What exactly did Puff tell you?” Trip asked her when they reached the top.
Norah laughed a little. “He said there’d be a loose brick.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Yeah.” Norah turned a slow circle. “That has to be the understatement of the century.”
Trip started working his way around the room. “What bothers me more is there’s no place big enough to hide fifty million dollars worth of stolen goods. There aren’t even any empty spaces behind these bricks.”
“Damn it.” Norah headed for the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“He conned us.” He conned me. The possibility had always existed, but it still hurt like hell.
“Think, Norah,” Trip said, stopping her before she’d taken the first step down. “Why would he send us here?”
She turned around, already grabbing on to that tiny ember of hope.
“Let me rephrase that,” Trip said. “Why would he send you here? He wouldn’t hesitate to send me on a wild-goose chase, but he wouldn’t do that to you.”
Trip continued to work his way around the room, peeling loose bricks off the walls as he went.
The ember took fire, fanned into a flame that felt like the sun coming up inside her, filling her with warmth and light. Lucius was her father; she’d love him even if he’d conned her. But it felt damn good knowing he hadn’t.
She set to work helping Trip, systematically stripping a section from the floor to as high as she could reach, then moving on.
“Don’t worry about the ones down low and up high,” Trip said when he noticed what she was doing. “He would have put it at eye level.”
“Okay, but eye level for my dad is about halfway between yours and mine.”
“Good point,” Trip said, adjusting his focus down about half a foot.
But Norah was already there. “Eureka,” she said, spying a bit of plastic behind the brick next to the one she’d just pulled out.
Thunder rumbled outside, she glanced toward the window, but stayed where she was, worrying the next brick out of its socket so she could pull free what turned out to be a small plastic bag about four inches by three, with a seal at the top and a folded piece of paper inside.
“There’s something wrapped in the paper, but I can’t see what it is.”
“Put it somewhere safe,” Trip said. “It’s time to get the hell out of here.”
Norah took a better look out the window. “Man,” she breathed, watching the sky off to the west grow darker by the second, except when lightning forked down. She took a step closer to the open window, scared out of her wits but fascinated at the same time.
“Shit,” Trip said, taking her by the hand. “It’s going green.”
She stuffed the note in the pocket of her jeans, trying to keep her feet as he towed her down the stairway.
“Kind of odd weather for this time of year,” he said, slowing a little as they hit a particularly dicey section of the stairs.
“Not for the Great Lakes,” Norah said, breathing a sigh of relief when they’d navigated the last step and started making their way out to where the boat was tied. “Early in the season, maybe, but there are some hellacious storms in this part of Lake Michigan, and Superior is even worse.”
“Let’s just get to the . . . boat . . .” Which was already half sunk, they discovered just then. They’d gotten there in time to watch a six-foot wave pick it up and slam it hull first into the shoal, the boat splintering into pieces while the storm whipped up the air around them and the sky opened up, pelting them with stinging particles of ice.
They ducked back inside the lighthouse, and even if they’d had cell phone service it wouldn’t have done them any good to call for help.
“Nobody’s coming out in this weather,” she said. “Not even the Coast Guard.” She took out her cell, checked it just in case. “The big question is, how are we going to get out of here when the weather clears?”
Trip didn’t offer any suggestions, but he slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I’ve been in worse jams than this.”
“Where?”
“Give me a minute,” he said, “I’ll think of one.”
A bolt of lightning speared down into the lake, followed by a clap of thunder so loud Norah swore she felt the lighthouse quake.
“Jeez,” she said, shrinking back against Trip and not feeling stupid about it because it was nice to have a strong man around at a time like this. “Did you feel that?”
“Like the earth moved? That was nothing.” And he s
pun her around and took her mouth.
Norah sank in, pressed against him, forgetting herself in the heat and the flavor and the scent, a thousand sensations spinning through her. The storm raged wilder outside, wind and waves battered the lighthouse, rain lashed through the open windows, and lightning forked from the sky, lighting Trip’s face, his expression so fierce she almost climaxed just from knowing how much he wanted her.
He put his mouth, that hot, talented mouth, on her neck, and Norah felt as if the electricity surged from the storm through Trip, spearing to her breasts and belly, bursts so strong she threw her head back and moaned. His hands slipped under her sweater to find her breasts, his skin cool on her heated, aching nipples.
She loved the feel of him, his palms rough against her sensitive skin, his muscles firm beneath her roaming hands. She loved the solid bulk of him, the shudder of his stomach muscles and the rasp of his breath catching as she slipped her hands down, one of them fumbling at the snap to the jeans, the other cupping him through the denim, rubbing until he tore his hands off her so he could tear hers off him.
“Stop,” he said, catching her wrists and pulling them away from his body.
“You’re right,” she said struggling against the towering need inside her, so incredibly relieved when Trip said, “I didn’t mean to stop completely,” sounding just a little outraged by the suggestion. Outraged and in pain.
“Um, stone floor, really cold, and we’re about to get soaked.”
He kissed her again, deep and hot and just a little wild, and when she surfaced she was standing between the open door and the open window, crumbling brick at her back, Trip hard against her.
“Still cold,” she murmured, but it didn’t seem as much of an obstacle this time. Until he spun her around. “Trip,” she protested, but before she could feel the cold rough brick against her palms his arms snaked around her, one going under her coat, the other slipping down, and even through her jeans she could feel the heat, that delicious heat.
She let her head fall forward, as he unsnapped her jeans and slipped them down, along with her panties, the air cold and sharp but only for a moment before he was in her and wrapped around her, his hand busy at her breast, his mouth on her neck. The storm was raging in her like it raged outside, building as her breath grew short, building as she rocked against him, building as his hands gripped her hips, as he thrust deeper, again and again, as she tightened impossibly around him. Releasing as every nerve overloaded and she climaxed, her body rolling in long, deep waves filled with impossibly bright pleasure, brighter because she knew Trip was with her.
“Christ, Norah,” he said, holding her tight with his chin on her shoulder, his head next to hers, a kind of vertical cuddle. Or maybe he was holding on so tight because he didn’t want to fall down.
She felt him wobble a bit as he let go, and while the practicality of it stung a bit, there was also the satisfaction of knowing she’d made him go weak.
“I’ll never look at a brick wall the same way again,” she said as she put herself back together, physically and emotionally. Trip left a hell of a damage path, but it was up to her to make sure she didn’t get destroyed.
“If you were looking at the brick at all I did something wrong.” He waited a beat, then said, “nothing to say?”
She turned around, grinning. “I could tell you that was amazing, but you already know that.”
“Just amazing?”
“B-plus. Care to shoot for an A?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to need five minutes. Or so.”
“How about I give you ten?”
chapter 13
NORAH WOKE TO TRIP’S HAND IN HER BRA. But not in a good way.
“Cold,” she protested, getting her hand batted away when she tried to stop him from shoving something into her cleavage. Something cold and plastic. Lucius’s clue, which they’d never gotten to read yesterday before darkness fell.
“We have company,” Trip said, pulling her to her feet.
“I just managed to fall asleep five minutes ago,” Norah said, stooping to gather up the single blanket that had been on their stolen boat, and the life preservers they’d used as pillows. Then she realized there was no place to return them to. Not to mention the rest of the situation finally sank in. “Company?”
The sky was a pretty fall blue when she looked out the window, deeper than the pastel blue of summer, the air on the cold side of crisp. And there were boats all around the lighthouse, big boats, small boats, boats made of wood, aluminum, fiberglass, and combinations of the three, each of them carrying at least two people. “Well, I guess it’s not going to be a problem getting back to the mainland.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Unless hunting season started last night those guns are probably for us.”
Norah looked closer. Sure enough, some of the boaters had weapons she could see. “What are we going to do?”
“The best defense is a good offense,” he said, starting down the stairs.
“Football analogies? That’s all you’ve got?”
“You’re panicking, MacArthur,” Trip said. “Get a grip.”
“I’ll get a grip all right, around your neck.”
“Take a number.”
They came out at the lower level and stopped, taking a slow look around. “I don’t think I can count that high.” Okay, so that was an exaggeration, but there had to be at least twenty boats bobbing at anchor in a loose semicircle around the doorway side of the lighthouse where the shoal made the water shallow.
“Who’s the admiral of this flotilla?” Trip called out.
“Kizi,” was the response, shouted by someone Norah didn’t bother to locate because she was busy staring at a man about seven feet tall who dominated the deck of the nearest boat, an older wooden model with shiny brass railings and a tall mast with a furled sail. Tattoos curled over the backs of his hands and above the collar of his coat, and he had big gold earrings in both ears. All he lacked was a parrot and an eye patch.
“I have a sudden urge to say Arrrgh,” Norah murmured for Trip’s benefit.
“I have a feeling he’d take offense. See those tattoos?”
“It’s the muscles that worry me,” Norah said. “And the gun.”
“He’s an Ottawa Indian,” Trip said.
“Is that good?”
“Probably not, considering I work for the government, and I haven’t run across any Indians of any tribe that have a friendly outlook toward Uncle Sam.”
“Don’t tell him you’re a federal agent.”
“I wasn’t planning to. I just wanted to make sure you understood why it would be a bad idea.”
“All you had to do was tell me not to say anything.”
“You tend to require explanations. I thought I’d save us both some time.”
“You two keep talking to each other, we gonna think you trying to put one over on us.”
They both turned to stare at the giant. Neither of them spoke.
“Saqwasikisi. Kizi for short,” he said in a booming voice that completely went along with his physique. “Nice of you to wait while we took our boats out of winter storage.”
“You can thank Mother Nature.”
“The Earth Mother always protects her children, the Ottawa.”
Not from the Europeans who’d almost wiped them out. But Norah kept that to herself. Messing with someone’s religion was off-limits, even when that someone didn’t come with a private army.
“She’d be the MacArthur woman,” Kizi continued, “the one who knows where fifty million dollars is hiding,” he said to Trip. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“No friend of mine,” Kizi said, accompanied by a low mutter of assent from the peanut gallery.
“He’s a friend of mine,” Norah said.
Kizi crossed forearms the size of hams across his chest, his face stoic and his voice deep. Norah forgot the pirate stereotype and thought of Sitting Bull. Especially when he spoke, not
enough pattern to his speech to make him sound like a cast member for a remake of Last of the Mohicans, but enough so you still knew he was an Ottawa. “He be a friend of mine, if he tell me what you found.”
“We didn’t find anything,” Trip said. He opened his coat and turned out his pockets.
Norah did the same, helping when he dropped their packs on the ground and set about emptying them.
“Maybe she’s hiding the loot in her clothes,” some helpful man called out, everyone else laughing except the lone woman, who added, “I’d rather check the nooks and crannies.” The men’s laughter turned even more raucous. So did their commentary.
Norah took a step back, or at least she tried, until Trip slapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him, making it look like he was being proprietary but muttering “relax” under his breath. She could have told him just being pressed against him was enough to accomplish that, but she didn’t want to seem weak and pathetic. Scared out of her wits was okay, but it would have been good if she’d handled it better.
“Don’t kick yourself, professor,” Trip said, startling her, not because he saw what she was going through, but because he had a lot of other stuff to focus on, and he still took the time to gauge her feelings and reassure her.
She smiled up at him, just a little. “Maybe you should be worried about them.”
“I don’t have to. Kizi is in charge. He won’t let the situation get out of his control, so I just have to worry about him.”
Sure enough, Kizi held up a hand and the laughter died off, all but one brave soul who said, “I bet they hid the loot inside somewhere, thinking we’re just hicks and we won’t find it.”
Trip did a Vanna White gesture to the doorway, nudging Norah to one side but keeping his arm around her. “Be my guest,” he said.
Kizi held Trip’s gaze for a second, then let his hand fall forward, the only permission his motley crew needed to rush the place, swarming over the sides of their boats onto the shoal and splashing through knee-deep water, crawling up the stone base like a tide of ants at a picnic.