'Sounds good to me.'
Abbey lit a fire in the woodstove and adjusted the dampers. The kindling crackled to life. She went to the door and breathed in the night air, which was heavy and still. There was the smell of damp grass, wood smoke from the stove, and the sea. A faint hiss of gentle waves lapped the strand--and, off in the distance, the persistent throbbing of a boat engine. It seemed to be coming from behind the adjacent island, moving very slowly.
Abbey turned in the door and spoke calmly to Jackie, so as not to alarm her. 'I think I'll go out for a walk.'
'Don't be long, these burgers are almost done.'
Instead of walking along the shore, Abbey slipped into the moonlight-flecked woods and headed toward the western end of the island, toward the sound of the boat. At the tip of the island she paused at the edge of the trees, remaining in shadow, and looking out over the water in the direction of the sound. The air was humid. The tide had turned and was flowing back in, the currents curling and gurgling past the island. A mackerel sky was advancing from the northeast but it hadn't yet reached the Moon, which glowed almost painfully bright in the night sky.
The sound seemed to be coming from behind an adjacent island. It was probably just a yacht looking for an anchorage--recreational cruising of the coast was popular in the summer. She chided herself for being paranoid.
A dark shape of a boat, about four hundred yards distant, passed across a gap between two islands. She felt a sudden chill: the boat had doused its running lights. It vanished behind the next island and after a moment the sound of the engine stopped.
Abbey listened intently, but the wind was starting to come up and the sighing in the trees covered any faint sounds. She crouched in the darkness, waiting. She tried to calm herself down; she was spooked because Ford was gone. The killer could not possibly have followed them to Maine, let alone traced them to Little Green Island. It was probably some yachtsman who had had one martini too many and forgot to turn on his running lights. Or maybe they were drug smugglers. Marijuana smugglers often used this wild stretch of coast to bring boatloads of weed down from Canada.
She waited, and watched.
And then she saw, emerging from shadow into moonlight, the dark shape of a rowboat moving steadily across the narrow channel separating the other island from Little Green. As she stared, it resolved itself into a dinghy being rowed with care by a tall man, and it was heading right for their island, angling toward her end of the island in such a way that it wouldn't be visible from the fishing shack. The boat moved swiftly with the incoming tidal current. It would be landing in minutes on a beach just below the bluff at the island's tip.
Abbey backed into the woods and crept to a point where she could observe the probable landing point. The man pulled steadily, the faint splash of his oars reaching her across the water. He remained a dark silhouette, hunched over as he rowed. In a minute the boat grounded with a crunch. He hopped out, pulled the boat up the strand, and then stood quietly, looking around, his face still in shadow.
Abbey flattened herself on the mossy ground, watching. The man removed something from his waist and seemed to be checking it; she saw the faint gleam of metal and realized it was a handgun. He reholstered it and, with a quick look about, slipped into the darkness of the trees. He would be passing her way in a moment.
Abbey rose and sprinted through the woods, ducking branches and leaping fallen trees, and in a few minutes she arrived at the cabin, bursting through the door.
'Thanks to you, I burned the ham--'
'Jackie. We gotta go. Now.'
'But the hamburgers--'
Abbey grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. '
'Oh my God.'
She pulled her out into the darkness and cast about. He would probably be coming straight to the cabin.
'This way,' she whispered, pulling Jackie across the meadow and into the woods stretching toward the southern end of the island. But the woods were too small and too obvious to be a good hiding place. On the other hand, the boulders and whalebacks at the southern tip of the island offered a better option, especially since it was low tide, exposing a range of giant, seaweed-covered rocks.
She motioned to Jackie to follow and they snuck through the trees to the bluff above the rocks. The Moon was still low in the sky and the tall spruces cast a shadow over the jumbled boulders, burying all in darkness. They slid down the dirt bluff and scrambled over the boulders, Abbey heading below the high-tide line to the long string of rocks jutting into the water.
'Tide's coming in,' whispered Jackie, slipping and sliding over the seaweed. 'We'll be drowned.'
'This is only temporary.'
At the far end, she found a dark hiding place between two steep-sided, seaweed-covered boulders with crawl spaces along their underside. The tide was coming in fast.
'Get in there.'
'We're gonna be wet.'
'That's the point.'
Jackie hunkered down against the black, cold seaweed, wedging herself under the overhang of the rock. Abbey did the same, pulling and arranging the seaweed around and over her as much as possible. The strong smell of it filled her nostrils. She could see back up through the rocks to the spruces and, just barely, to the lighted cabin across the meadow five hundred yards away. Just beyond, the water lapped and gurgled among the rocks as the tide came in.
'Who is it?' Jackie whispered.
'The guy who's after us. Now shut up.'
They waited. After what seemed like an eternity, Abbey saw the man's figure emerge from the forest into the moon-drenched meadow. Gun drawn, he slowly circled the cabin, crept up to a window and, flattening himself against the outside wall, peered inside. He spent some time looking, and then moved around to the door and kicked it in. The noise shattered the calm night air, echoing across the dark water.
He went into the cabin and came out a moment later, looking around. A flashlight appeared in his hand and he slowly circled the meadow, shining it into the trees.
Meanwhile, the tide came in.
The figure disappeared into the woods above their hiding place, the light flashing through the trees, back and forth.
He reappeared at the edge of the woods, on the top of the bluff above the rocks. Picking his way down, he stood on a tall rock, playing the light along the shore, the yellow beam licking about the rocks around them, probing here and there. Abbey put her hand on Jackie's arm and felt a tremor.
The figure began walking toward them, the loose cobbles dislodged by his feet making a rattling sound. The light flashed over the tops of the boulders again, probing briefly on either side of them. Meanwhile, Abbey could feel the tide crawling among the seaweed-covered rocks at their feet. What was the rate? Something like a vertical inch rise of water every two minutes, even more at the full moon.
As he got closer, she pulled her head back and down into the seaweed. She could feel the hiss of water now swirling around her feet, the gentle swell coming in and out. As the man got closer, she heard his hard breathing.
Once again, this time very deliberately, the yellow beam moved over the rocks. It passed by them with excruciating slowness. Once. Twice. Then came a grunt, and he began to move off. The beam flickered over a jumble of rocks to their right and moved on down the shore.
The water swept in around her ankles, stirring the seaweed, hissing back out. Darkness returned. Abbey waited for a minute, then two, and ventured another look. She could see him moving cautiously down the shore, a few hundred yards away, probing as he went, heading toward their dinghy.
'We've got to get off this island,' Abbey whispered.
'How the hell are we going to do that with our dinghy out there in the open?'
'We're gonna take his.'
Jackie was shaking. Abbey put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 'You stay here. Move up a little with the
