“Maybe to look for the baby. Or, like you said before, to remove all evidence that might tie him to what he did there. Which would include us.”
“He doesn’t know about us, Dad.”
“I’m sure he knows someone was in the cabin.”
“For all he knows, we could have left.”
He nodded faintly, his eyes still tracking the course of the boat from the sound of the engines. “So maybe he’s not back for the baby. Maybe he’s looking for something else that he knew he couldn’t find in the dark. I’m just guessing.”
She looked at the sloping rock her father had just descended. “What if we went to the other side of this rise?”
He shook his head. “Two problems with that. One, there’s no cover on the ridge. Two, when you get to the top, it’s a sheer drop to the water. For better or worse, this is where we make our stand.”
“Our stand?”
“Sorry. Bad choice of words. This is where we hunker down and wait it out.”
“Until he’s gone? Then what?”
“Let’s figure that out when the time comes. This little guy’s the big question mark now. Think you can keep him quiet?”
“I’ll do my best, Dad,” she promised. She smiled at the baby in her arms. “He will, too.”
They listened as the boat continued circling, then the engines cut, and all they could hear was the sound of the wind in the trees.
Her father turned back to the rise. “I’m going to see what he’s up to now.”
He climbed the sloping rock wall and cleared the top of the trees. The moon had long ago passed its zenith, and the island across the channel was a tapestry of silver and black. Off the eastern tip lay a little islet barely more than a round cone of bald rock the size of a two-story house. He tried to reckon where the cigarette boat might be anchored now, and figured that the far side of that islet was a good bet. When morning came and the boat made a run for the island—if, in fact, that was the plan—the launch would be coming directly out of the glare of the rising sun. The man at the wheel would land without incident. And then he would begin his hunt.
But hunting what? Cork wondered. Jenny and him? The baby? Something else entirely? Impossible to know.
Cork tried to put himself inside that man’s brain, to stay ahead of his thinking.
If the mystery man believed someone was still on the island, he would probably work his way carefully from one end to the other, keeping to the cover of the downed trees. It would be hard to move quickly or quietly, so what would his advantage be? Cork figured if it were him, he’d make sure that he had firepower on his side. He’d have brought a good rifle with a powerful scope. He’d have brought field glasses. Maybe he’d even have dressed in camouflage, or at least clothing that would blend easily into the underbrush. If he was as cruel as the torture of the young woman in the cabin indicated, he’d shoot to maim, to disable, and in that way try to ensure an opportunity for interrogation, the kind of sadistic interrogation the young woman must have endured.
But to what end? What was the purpose of what had occurred in that isolated place? Inflicting pain for pain’s sake? There were people capable of such inhumanity, but this felt different to Cork. The woman’s isolated situation felt purposeful, a hiding. If the storm hadn’t destroyed the tree cover, the cabin would be difficult, if not impossible, to spot from the water. It was a rustic structure but had been comfortably accommodated. Until the fallen pine had breached the roof, it was sturdy. The cooking had been done on the Coleman, so no fire in the stove and no smoke to give away the location. All in all, not a bad place to hide. But why and from whom? The man in the cigarette boat, what had he been to the dead girl? Protector or prison guard? Keeper or killer? And what was he now to those he hunted?
The baby was yet another unanswered question. Clearly, he’d been hidden, and the place of his hiding had been prepared long in advance. The dead girl must have known they were in danger. She’d done her best to save the child, maybe even sacrificed herself. But why? What was the importance of the baby to anyone but her? And was the baby the reason she died?
And then he wondered, with a bitter edge that shamed him, would this child be responsible for the death of another woman? Because he knew without a doubt that Jenny was prepared to sacrifice herself, if it came to that.
Cork was exhausted; his brain was going in dizzy circles, and he couldn’t think clearly. It didn’t much matter. In a little while, when the sun rose, all his questions would be answered, one way or another.
EIGHTEEN
Rose couldn’t sleep. She was tired through and through, but her brain kept working, wouldn’t give in to exhaustion, circled and circled, always coming back to the same place: Everything was in God’s hands. It was always a question of submitting to his will. Wasn’t it?
But what did that say about God when his will seemed to be visiting one affliction after another on the people she loved? What could possibly be his purpose?
In his bunk on the other side of the small cabin, Mal slept dead as stone. Rose finally slipped out of her own bunk and went to the window. In the east, she saw a thin vermilion line, the approach of dawn. She also saw Aaron, standing alone on the dock, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, staring where the day would break. Quietly, she dressed in the clothes she’d worn the day before, put on her canvas boat shoes, and eased herself out the door.
The birds were calling to one another. She realized that, after the terrible storm, everything had been stilled, even the sound of the birds. Had they fled to safety somewhere and now returned? The air was cool and moist, the wind steady and fresh against her skin. She smelled the scent of wet earth and evergreen coming from the woods at her back.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked as she approached Aaron. She’d softened her voice in order not to startle him.
He turned his head, showing the strong profile of his face. She didn’t know much about him, but she could clearly see one of the reasons Jenny had been attracted to him. With all that tousled hair and those haunting green eyes and the brooding aspect of a poet, he was beautiful.
“Can’t stop worrying,” he said. “Can’t stop wondering where she is out there, if she’s okay, if she’s hurt, if she’s scared, if she’s—” He stopped himself.
“If she’s even alive,” Rose finished for him. She stepped to his side and stood near enough that she could feel the warmth of his bare arm. “I’ve been praying all night that they’re safe.”
He stared at the bloodred line in the sky. “I don’t believe in prayer. But right now I wish I did.”
“I wish you did, too. I find that, when I have no control over something, it’s a comfort to let go and put my trust in a prayer.”
Aaron said, “Did you pray for Jenny’s mom?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me for reminding you, but it didn’t do much good.”
“Not for my sister, no.”
Somewhere far out on the lake, in water that was still the color of night, a loon called. It seemed an utterly sad sound.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said. “That was unkind of me.”
“Maybe, but it was the truth of how you feel. It helps me know you better.”
“This,” he said, lifting his hands in quiet frustration, “wasn’t how you were supposed to get to know me.”
“Nor you us. It is what it is.” The vermilion line in the east was growing wider and more diffuse, and the surface of the lake had picked up a hint of color, which was the hue of old blood. “She was worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Only one of you, lots of us. And the O’Connors can be clannish.”
