their feet sat the ice chest, which Bascombe had stuffed with bedding. “It’s time,” he said. He saw the apprehension in his daughter’s eyes, and he smiled and said, “Everything’s going to be fine, Jenny.”
She nodded, meaning that she’d heard him and, perhaps, meaning to convey as well that she believed him. But her eyes told a different story.
“Let’s get our little guy settled in,” Rose suggested.
Jenny laid the child in the soft bedding of the ice chest and covered him with a light blanket. He was awake and stared up at her as she leaned over him. Cork was relieved to see that he didn’t seem upset at all with his new carrier. He simply studied Jenny’s face with what seemed to be utter fascination.
Cork took up the rifle Bascombe had left for him, then he hefted a pack filled with clean diapers, a canister of formula, and other items for the baby. “This way,” he said.
He took them through the kitchen to the rear door of the lodge, which opened onto a small grassy apron between the log structure and the woods that backed the old resort. Hidden from the lake by the body of the lodge, they quickly crossed the grass and stepped onto a path that cut into the woods. Cork led the way, with Jenny in the middle and Rose bringing up the rear. Bascombe had given them a map of the island that showed the walking trails. He’d warned them that the trails could be a little difficult, muddy at times. He’d marked the route to a private cabin and dock owned by a couple from St. Cloud who’d left the Angle a week ago to visit their daughter in Orlando.
In the woods, the bugs were fierce, and the trail, as Bascombe had warned, was often a bed of muck. They made their way quickly, the sounds of their passage masked by the rattle of leaves in the wind. They climbed a modest ridge for a while, then dropped again toward the lake. Half an hour after they started, they emerged at the cabin and walked into the blast of the wind out of the southwest.
Kretsch was there, waiting for them at the dock. His boat rocked on the waves. Cork felt Jenny hesitate.
“It’ll be all right,” he said.
“Couldn’t we just take our chances driving out?”
She said. Cork turned to his daughter and, for an important moment, held her eyes with his own. “We could. But that’s not what we’ve planned, and with good reason. We know that Smalldog’s after this kid, and we know the kind of cruelty he’s capable of. I think we have a good chance of confusing him, and anyone who’s helping him. But it depends on taking your boy out across the big water. Tom says he can do that. I believe him. We’ll be fine, Jenny, I give you my word. Okay?”
He believed this or he wouldn’t have said it. But he also knew that the foundation of his belief was a matter less of the facts than of faith.
“We should go,” Kretsch urged. “Before we’re spotted.”
Rose said, “You’ll call us when you’ve reached the other shore?”
“Count on it,” Cork said. “Just make sure Seth keeps his land line open.”
Rose gave them all hugs, even Kretsch, who seemed a little embarrassed at the display of affection. The deputy got aboard and helped Jenny in. Cork handed over the ice chest with the baby inside and then the pack. Kretsch set the ice chest between the two rear seats and put the pack next to a couple of ten-gallon cans of extra fuel he’d secured near the engine. Cork cast off the lines and boarded, too. They donned life jackets, then Kretsch backed away from the dock. The flat stern pushed awkwardly against the roll of the waves until the deputy spun the wheel and put the nose of the bow into the wind. He nudged the throttle ahead, and they started south.
Cork recalled that Bascombe had likened Kretsch’s modest Tyee to a toothpick. The comparison seemed to be more than a little apt as they bounced across the chop of waves toward the big water, which at that moment, appeared to be as broad and perilous as an ocean.
THIRTY-FIVE
Rose, Mal, and Anne sat at the table in Bascombe’s lodge. Rose had made coffee, and the three of them sipped and listened to the wind and watched the clock set in the driftwood on the wall. Rose thought she’d never known time to pass so slowly. She wasn’t sure what the others were thinking, but she was praying.
“I remember once when I was a kid and Dad was sheriff,” Anne said eventually. Despite the heat of the day, she had her hands wrapped around her coffee mug as if she were cold. “He had to go out to a cabin where a man was holding his wife hostage.”
“Vernon Lucasta,” Rose said.
“Right,” Anne said.
The clock on the wall ticked away.
“What happened?” Mal finally asked.
“Dad got there and went inside, unarmed. He found Mrs. Lucasta—”
“Bianca,” Rose said.
Mal glanced at her.
“She sang with me in the St. Agnes choir,” Rose explained.
“Right. Bianca,” Anne said. “Anyway, she was tied to a chair in the bedroom, and Lucasta had a rifle and he told Dad he was going to kill her if someone didn’t get the damn bugs out of the cabin.”
“Insects?” Mal asked.
Anne shook her head. “Listening devices. Lucasta was convinced someone was spying on him, and his wife was somehow involved.”
“Delusional?” Mal asked.
“That’s what Dad thought,” Anne said.
“And with good reason,” Rose added, taking up the story. “Vernon was an odd duck.”
Anne said, “Remember when he joined the kids in the Christmas pageant and he was dressed like an elephant?”
“An elephant in Bethlehem?”
“He wasn’t even supposed to be a part of the pageant, Uncle Mal,” Anne said. “He just showed up. I think he might have been drunk.”
“He wasn’t,” Rose said.
“Okay,” Mal said. “So he’s got his wife tied up and is threatening her. What did your father do?”
“He told Lucasta he’d look for the bugs. He was thinking that, while he did that, he might be able to talk sense into the man or figure a way to surprise and disarm him.”
“Did he?”
“No. He found three bugs.”
“What?”
“One in the telephone. One in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom.”
“Who put them there?”
“Bianca,” Rose said. “She sold Tupperware and was convinced that, whenever she was away, Vernon had women there. She wanted proof.”
“What did Cork do?”
“He talked Lucasta into giving him the rifle, then talked them both into going into therapy that very day.”
“He didn’t arrest the guy?”
“No. In the end they divorced, but it was amicable, more or less.”
Mal said, “And the point of your story?”
Anne said, “I was just thinking that I’m afraid for Jenny, but if there’s any good thing about her situation, it’s that Dad’s with her.”
Rose smiled and put her hand on Anne’s arm in a gesture of understanding and agreement. But she didn’t say what she herself was thinking. Which was that, even though Cork was a good, reliable man, if bad weather blew in across the big water, everyone in that little boat was in trouble.
They heard the launch coming. Mal went to the window. “It’s Seth,” he said.
Bascombe arrived and stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, eyeing them sternly. “Well?”
“They got off,” Mal said.
