‘us’?”
“It’s a long story, Dad, and a horrible one.”
Seeing the great weariness in her face, he laid his maple staff on the blanket and said, “Tell me.”
“First let me take care of this little guy.”
Amazed, he watched her prepare a bottle from the astonishing array of supplies in her little makeshift shelter. Of course, he saw the baby’s upper lip, the wide cleft. But what was there to say about that? He said nothing.
When the bottle was prepared and the baby feeding, she told him the story.
Though he couldn’t see the cabin, he stared east where it stood. “I think I need to take a look.”
“Wait,” she said. “How did you find us?”
“Like I said,” he rasped, “I’ve been swimming from island to island all afternoon, hoping like crazy you and the boat made it somewhere safe.”
“What happened to you? I looked back, and you were gone.”
“The wind knocked me right out of the boat. Felt like a semi plowed into my back. Next thing I know I’m in the water, and the waves are all over me, and I’m thinking I’m a goner. And you, too, kiddo. I finally washed up on one of the islands and hunkered down until it was all over, then I came looking for you.”
“Just luck you found us?”
He shrugged. “I could’ve sworn I smelled something cooking.”
“Spam,” she said and laughed. “I’ll fix you some.”
“Later.” He stood up from where he’d been sitting on the blanket. “First I want to have a look at that cabin.”
“I’d rather you stayed, Dad. I feel safer with you here.”
“Safer?” He looked around him. “Kiddo, you’ve been doing just fine without me. I won’t be gone long, promise. Just keep that boy quiet if you can. He’s got a set of lungs on him, and until we understand what’s going on, I’d just as soon nobody knows we’re here.”
“All right,” she said, but he could hear her reluctance.
He followed her directions and found the cabin without difficulty. The destroyed tree cover made the small structure easy to see once he knew where to look. He could tell that before the storm the cabin would have been invisible from the lake. Probably a good place to hide, if that’s what you were hoping for.
In the blue light of dusk, he entered. The place was just as Jenny had described it. He spent a few moments taking stock of the layout, then went to the tumbled logs from the damaged rear wall and slipped through the gap his daughter had created earlier. The girl lay just as Jenny said she’d left her, on her back with her dead eyes to the twilight sky visible through the rend in the cabin roof.
Though he was absolutely certain he’d find no pulse, he pressed her neck, the carotid artery there. Her skin was cold. He examined the bruises and the burns Jenny had described. The girl had suffered before she died. There were a couple of short lengths of nylon cord on the floor nearby, and Cork checked her wrists and ankles. He found bruising and figured she’d been bound, maybe to the chair that lay tipped over near her body. In the end, she’d been killed with a single bullet to her brain. Entry wound in her forehead, no exit wound. Small caliber. A .22 probably, chosen for the execution because the bullet wouldn’t penetrate the back of the head and would ricochet several times inside the girl’s skull, making Swiss cheese of her brain in the process. It was sometimes the way people who killed for a living operated.
He rolled her onto her stomach, which was how she’d been positioned when Jenny found her. He retreated from the body and tried to return the fallen logs to the way they’d probably been before Jenny had disturbed them. He looked the cabin over and knew there was no way to disguise the fact that someone had been there and had taken things.
But it was what it was.
He left the cabin and scoured the area outside for anything additional that might be important. He found a washtub and a clothesline, and finally an old wooden outhouse destroyed in the storm. At last, he headed through the twilight back toward the shelter, where Jenny and the child were hiding.
* * *
She was changing the baby when her father returned.
“So?” she said.
“Someone wanted something from her.” He sat down against the fallen pine log that ran along one side of the shelter. “I don’t know if they got it before they killed her. Whatever it was, they didn’t think it was in the cabin.”
Jenny was wiping the baby’s bottom. He endured her ministrations without complaint. “Why do you say that?”
“They didn’t toss the place. Except for the damage from the storm, everything was pretty orderly.”
“Were they looking for the baby, maybe?”
“Possible, I suppose.”
“It’s also possible that they weren’t looking for anything. Maybe they just did it to her out of pure psychotic cruelty,” she said bitterly.
“That’s possible, too,” he said. “Except that the killing itself looked professional, like a hit.”
“Who would want to execute a teenage girl? And why?”
“I’ve got no answers, Jenny. But the whole reason she was there was to keep her hidden.”
“How do you know?”
“There was a perfectly good woodstove in the cabin, but it hadn’t been used in forever. Why? My guess is so that there wouldn’t be any smoke rising up to give away the cabin’s location. Only one bunk in the room, and that just large enough for one body, so she lived there alone. But it’s clear that someone’s been keeping her supplied. They could’ve been helping her stay hidden. Or,” he added, “they could have been keeping her prisoner.”
“No bars that I saw,” Jenny said.
“The confusion of this lake itself is probably enough to keep someone trapped here, especially if there’s a baby to consider and no boat available to get you safely away.” Her father shook his head, clearly troubled, then went on. “There’s another thing. It looked like her breasts were full of milk. Out here, breast-feeding would make the most sense. So why all the baby formula?”
“Maybe he was allergic to her milk,” Jenny offered. “It happens sometimes.”
“I thought about that,” he said. “But there’s another possibility. It could be that whoever kept her here needed a way to feed the child after she was dead.”
“They planned on killing her but leaving him alive? Why?”
“Why any of this? Your guess is as good as mine.” He sounded angry. He rubbed his eyes a moment, seemed to gather himself, then spoke more evenly. “I’d say she’s been dead a day, more or less.”
“Which means this little guy didn’t eat for a long time. No wonder he’s been so ravenous.”
She’d finished the changing and took the baby in her arms, where he nestled easily against her breast.
Her father watched her and nodded. “You have a way with kids. Your mother did, too. She could take a crying baby, anybody’s baby, in her arms, and within a minute, that kid was all gurgles and smiles.” He thought a moment and added with a laugh, “She could take opposing counsel apart pretty ruthlessly in about the same amount of time.”
Jenny glanced from the baby to her father. The darkness in the shelter was growing deeper with the approach of night, and he was darkening with it. “How long?” she asked. “Until someone comes?”
“I don’t know. I just hope, when they show up, they’re the good guys.”
“What if they aren’t?”
He turned his face in the direction of the damaged cabin, invisible on the other side of the outcropping. “You’ll need to be able to keep the baby quiet.”
“Babies are unpredictable, Dad.”
“The kinds of men who do the kinds of things done back there in that cabin aren’t. They hear that baby, they’ll come for us all.”
“Maybe they won’t be back.”
“Maybe,” he said.
